Meg's Notebook | Digital learning and Education Blog

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - January 8, 2012

2012-01-06T16:29:00.000-05:00

A review of the last few week's of education news in Ontario.

Teachers’ disciplinary decisions now online
For the first time, disciplinary decisions involving hundreds of the province’s rogue teachers are now easily accessible online.

Hamilton Spectator, January 5, 2012

Students in poorer neighbourhoods exposed to more pollution: study
Students attending schools in low-income neighbourhoods are more likely to be exposed to air and noise pollution because of the proximity of major roads, says a Simon Fraser University study published Wednesday.

Ottawa Citizen, January 4, 2012

Want your kids to do better in school? Try exercise
Children who get more exercise also tend to do better in school, whether the exercise comes as recess, physical education classes or getting exercise on the way to school, according to an international study.

Ottawa Citizen, January 4, 2012

For students, a dog day afternoon with a school’s blessing
The name of the game is First Poochie Sniffer. When it is ready to be tested, it will offer the students who try it out the chance to experience life as a dog.“We want to know whether we can show a different kind of sense, like smell, and have someone experience a dog’s perspective that is completely smell-driven,” says York University’s Jennifer Jenson, one of a growing number of researchers who are exploring the instructional power of computer and video games designed specifically for the classroom.

Globe and Mail, January 3, 2012

Wilson after answers for rural schools
Simcoe-Grey MPP Jim Wilson has tabled three questions in the Ontario Legislature for Minister of Education Laurel Broten regarding the closure of Duntroon Central Public School and rural school closures in general.

Simcoe.com, December 21, 2011

Education Minister consults on new act with local students
No student in any of Ontario’s schools should be the victim of discrimination, hatred or bullying, Minister of Education Laurel Broten told a select group of students at John F. Ross CVI Monday.

Guelph Mercury, December 19, 2011

Guelph woman to be on provincial bullying task force
A Guelph mother of a child who has been bullied hopes to serve on a task force with the Minister of Education that’s examining bullying and ways to eliminate it.

Guelph Mercury, December 19, 2011

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - December 10, 2011

2011-12-10T21:54:00.001-05:00

A review of the week's education news in Ontario, including some noteworthy items from other provinces or the US.

Provincial Politicians Standing Up Against Religious Leaders
The province's education minister says she doesn't want a school system that discriminates.

News Talk 1010, December 10, 2011

Identity of rogue teachers to be made public
The identity and actions of many rogue teachers will no longer be kept secret from the public, the Ontario government has decided.

Toronto Star, December 10, 2011

Student audience hears first-hand account of violent school bullying
Mere hours after the second reading of the province's new anti-bullying bill Wednesday, a group of south Etobicoke youth sat riveted by the stories of a young man who could have been saved years of torment had the legislation been around when he was in high school. When Jeremy Dias, now 27, was in Grade 10 his family moved from Edmonton, Alberta to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, where he was the only visible minority in his new high school.

InsideToronto.com, December 10, 2011

Fringes don't speak for majority
Having spent eight years working for what is often called a "mainstream" church, I still tend to cringe whenever I see the media proclaiming "religious" groups have taken a position on something.The most recent incident dates back to Tuesday, when ctv.ca announced, "Religious groups cry foul over Ontario anti-bullying bill."

Belleville Intelligencer, December 10, 2011

H-SCDSB, student welcomes bullying legislation
While some religious groups are criticizing proposed legislation that would require schools to allow gay-straight alliances, Superior Heights Collegiate and Vocational School student Cameron Aitken says it's about time the province paved the way for the clubs.

Sault Star, December 10, 2011

PCVS makes some (really loud) noise at Queen's Park
They wanted the minister of education. She didn't show.They were willing to settle for Premier Dalton McGuinty – no sign of him, either, even after hundreds of teenagers called his name for half an hour.

Peterborough Examiner, December 8, 2011

Risky move pays off
Chelsea Felker stopped worrying about what other’s thought long ago.The Grimsby Secondary School senior is carefree. She doesn’t fit the mould of most teenagers portrayed in magazines or in movies. She lives life by her own rules and dresses by her own rules. And so, when she heard that other students were being teased and bullies for doing the same, she knew she needed to help.

NiagaraThisWeek.com, December 7, 2011

Broten says trustees should listen to critics
Education Minister Laurel Broten is encouraging Hamilton school board trustees to heed concerns about holding private pre-meetings before they hold open sessions on public business.

Hamilton Spectator, December 6, 2011

22 years later, women are still a target
Twenty-two years after Marc Lepine walked into l’Ecole Polytechnique with a rifle and murdered 14 young female engineering students, Canada still has a long way to go to stop gender-based violence...MPP Laurel Broten, minister of education and women’s issues, hopes the new anti-bullying legislation will help do just that.

Toronto Star, December 6, 2011

Ontario minister of education vows GSAs will be mandated in all schools
Ontario Catholic schools will not allow student groups to be called gay-straight alliances, the president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees Association (OCSTA) pledges.

Xtra, December 1, 2011

Expelling bullies a last resort, McGuinty says
Students in Ontario who engage in homophobic smears or beat up their classmates would be given every opportunity to rehabilitate themselves under proposed legislation that also contains tougher consequences for schoolyard bullies.

Globe and Mail, December 1, 2011

Tailoring schools for students
For all the controversy surrounding the Toronto District School Board’s decision to add a high school to its existing Africentric program, it’s easy to forget Toronto has a history of ethnocentric schooling dating 30 years.

Toronto Sun, November 27, 2011

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - November 26, 2011

2011-11-25T16:43:00.001-05:00

A review of the week's education news in Ontario, including some noteworthy items from other provinces or the US.

Education Quality and Accountability Office to Release Ontario Student Results on National Reading, Math and Science Test
At 10:00 a.m. on Monday, November 28, 2011, the Education Quality and Accountability Office (EQAO) will release Ontario student results from the 2010 Pan-Canadian Assessment Program (PCAP) test.

Canada Newswire, November 25, 2011

York Region parents pull students from school in classroom Wi-Fi protest
A group of parents in a school district north of Toronto kept their children out of school Wednesday to protest the use of Wi-Fi in classrooms.

Globe and Mail, November 23, 2011

No recess from French as Montreal schools move to scan playground chatter
The playgrounds, hallways and cafeterias of Quebec's largest school board will soon be French-only zones as authorities move to silence other languages — even during recess.

Ottawa Citizen, November 26, 2011

Start school at 2, study urges
Every Canadian child should have access to publicly funded early childhood education starting at age 2 in their local school, says a new report based on an “avalanche of evidence” that shows how such programming can transform kids' lives.

Toronto Star, November 22, 2011

Get kids into school at age 2; study says children and the economy would benefit
An early childhood education study is recommending publicly funded preschool education for all Canadian kids beginning at age two.

Winnipeg Free Press, November 22, 2011

Quebec, PEI, Manitoba surge ahead on early childhood education
Over the course of his career, Fraser Mustard became known for big ideas that linked diverse fields, from medicine to psychology, and later, to education. He devoted his final major report, released less than a week after his death, to early childhood learning, leaving the provinces with a way to measure and compare their preschool systems.

Globe and Mail, November 22, 2011

Report suggests Canadian kids enter school earlier
Canadian toddlers — not five-year-olds — may be the ones posing for "first-day-of-school" snapshots taken by proud parents, if provincial governments adopt recommendations from the latest report on early-childhood education.

Ottawa Citizen, November 22, 2011

First Nations sue Ottawa over right to education
More than two dozen aboriginal communities have filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit accusing the federal government of violating a promise made more than 130 years ago.

CBC, November 23, 2011

School boards want to make mental health a priority
Schools need to make children’s mental health a priority, says the president of the Ontario Public School Boards’ Association.

The Record, November 22, 2011

McGuinty vows to improve First Nations schools
Premier Dalton McGuinty made a surprise commitment in Tuesday’s throne speech to improve standards in First Nations schools.

Toronto Star, November 22, 2011

The face of education: is it too white?
Malton math teacher Krishna Nankissoor says he was twice denied a promotion to be head of his department and blames it on the fact he was South Asian.

Toronto Star, November 18, 2011

Africentric school against everything city stands for
The Toronto District School Board made a terrible mistake when it approved an Africentric high school this week. Public schools based on racial background are an affront to everything Toronto stands for.

Globe and Mail, November 18, 2011

Investing in Early Childhood Education - Early Years Report Released

2011-11-22T17:52:00.001-05:00

To truly transform kids' lives and give them the best possible start publicly funded education should start at the age of 2 -

We need to think of building education downward, but at the same time not ‘schoolifying' kids but stimulating kids” through optional, play-based programs...

This is the main message delivered by the newly released Early Years Study 3: Making Decisions Taking Action, the last report by the late J. Fraser Mustard and funded by the Margaret & Wallace McCain Family Foundation. It's all over the Canadian news, and rightfully so, it took the bold step of introducing an Early Childhood Education Index: based on five categories (governance, funding, access, learning environment, and accountability) it provides a snapshot of provincial early childhood education services.

To access the previous two reports:

Early years study 2: Putting science into action (2007) focused on the policy framework necessary to improve conditions in early childhood, with a view of improving the health of the population.
The seminal Early years study: Reversing the real brain drain (1999) describes the critical importance of children's early interactions in shaping their development.

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - November 11, 2011

2011-11-11T21:45:00.001-05:00

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - November 4, 2011 has 22 articles from the past week. Here are some of the news items covered:

Racist graffiti shocks U of W
Mutant worms and banana DNA – program gets kids into weird science
Teens think they'll earn $90,000 a year by age 30
Dropout rates rise with immigrant child’s age of arrival
Publishers Turn to Cloud Computing to Offer Digital Content

and more, see http://bitly.com/tvOGa2

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - November 4, 2011

2011-11-04T21:24:00.001-04:00

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - November 4, 2011 has 22 articles from the past week. Here are some of the news items covered:

Racist graffiti shocks U of W
Mutant worms and banana DNA – program gets kids into weird science
Teens think they'll earn $90,000 a year by age 30
Dropout rates rise with immigrant child’s age of arrival
Publishers Turn to Cloud Computing to Offer Digital Content

and more, see http://bitly.com/vZPXPf

Financial Literacy in Canada Report Released

2011-11-02T22:03:00.007-04:00

November is Financial Literacy Month - who knew, and the BC Securities Commission has just released The National Report Card on Youth Financial Literacy - a survey of over 3,000 recent Canadian high school graduates, most of whom went on to a post-secondary program, found they are highly optimistic about their financial futures, e.g.:

The average survey respondent expects to earn $90,735 in 10 years; roughly three times the average income of 25 to 29 year-olds with post-secondary degrees ($31,648) according to Statistics Canada’s 2006 Census data
Nearly 3-in-4 (73%) expect to own a home within the next 10 years; according to estimates by Statistics Canada, only 42% of 25 to 29 year-olds are homeowners
A large majority of respondents (81%) believe they will be financially better off in life than their parents
Among those with a student loan, almost half (49%) say they will definitely or very likely pay it off in 5 years. However the real numbers tell us a different story. Student debt has nearly reached a record high at $15 billion according to the 2010-11 actuarial report released by the Federal Government.

Amazing.

This is the first comprehensive Canadian benchmark study on youth financial life skills, and what it's really telling us is

a) classroom-based Financial Literacy curriculum is not working...a position shared by the National Report Card, and

b) we suspect many of these kids have been coddled and sheltered from experiencing the crappy summer / school year jobs many of us had when we grew up. (Many of the recent graduates or university students we get seem to be walking into their first, second job, and from discussions many appear to have gone their teen summers without getting a job?!?!)

Below are links to the Ontario Minsitry of Education's guides to integrating Financial Literacy into the curriculum...also a mystery to many teachers:

Financial Literacy in the Ontario Curriculum
A Sound Investment: Financial Literacy Education in Ontario Schools. Report of the Working Group on Financial Literacy, 2010.

Today's Toronto Star (Moneyville, a Star finance blog) also had an article on the report, and also worth reading is a previous article on Moneyville, Debt-free by 44? Many young Canadians think so...what a hilarious bunch.

Ensuring the Value of University Degrees in Ontario - A COU Report

2011-11-01T21:27:00.008-04:00

The Council of Ontario Universities has just release a report, Ensuring the Value of University Degrees in Ontario, explores "how universities define degree level expectations – the intellectual and creative development that students will acquire from a particular degree, and how these expectations are integrated into curriculum and the learning outcomes of specific courses".

The whole concept of defining degree level expectations and learning outcomes in a quality assurance context is a rather brave one. It's all very high-level, and is packaged more like a communications piece than an actual report. But this is surely meant as a piece to initiate thinking and dialogue about the university experience as process and investment. For example, the identified categories of knowledge and skills that students must demonstrate in order to be awarded a degree are:

Depth and breadth of knowledge
Knowledge of methodologies
Research and scholarship
Application of knowledge
Communications skills
Awareness of the limits of knowledge
Autonomy and professional capacity

And for each category they associate specific expectations per degree level, e.g. for Autonomy and professional capacity at the Master's dgree level, students must demonstrate:

The qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment
requiring the exercise of initiative, personal responsibility and
accountability; decision-making in complex situations; the
intellectual independence required for continuing professional
development; the ethical behavior consistent with academic
integrity and the use of appropriate guidelines and procedures for
responsible conduct of research; and the ability to appreciate the
broader implications of applying knowledge to particular contexts.

Yup, very broad and almost a generic résumé fee; to it.

UN's Global Education Digest 2011

2011-10-30T21:28:00.010-04:00

Global Education Digest 2011: Comparing Education Statistics Across the World

The UN has just released its annual education digest. This document contains a wealth of international statistical data on the state of education across the various continents and socio-political landscapes.

Here are some of the highlights:

The number of students attending secondary school around the world is increasing dramatically and governments are struggling to meet the rising demand, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where there are enough school places for just 36% of children of age to enrol
Globally, secondary schools have been accommodating almost one hundred million more students each decade, with the total number growing by 60% between 1990 and 2009. But the supply is dwarfed by demand as more countries approach universal primary education
Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in which the gender gap is getting worse at the upper secondary level, with 8 million boys enrolled compared to 6 million girls; and girls also face significant barriers in South and West Asia

And for data geeks, the report contains a wealth of data on enrolment and teaching staff, measures of progression and completion, youth literacy, international flow of mobile students, etc.

Ontario School Board Cutbacks and School Libraries

2011-10-29T22:36:00.003-04:00

Image via WikipediaOntario school libraries appear to be an easy target for school board cutbacks; unfortunate in many ways, but especially in lower-income areas where access to computers and the Internet at home is not a given. And the decision to target school libraries becomes even more bizarre in light of the provinces EQAO testing...so how are these grade 3 and 6 students to get the supplementary readings, books, etc to help with their classroom work?!

Things are getting drastic in some boards. Last spring the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board laid off all but four of its library technicians and dismantled all its libraries. It's goal was to divvy up the library books in its elementary schools and distribute them to individual classrooms instead. Of course, teachers have plenty of time on their hands to pursue collection development and management to ensure their collections remain fresh and relevant...

A recent study by the parent-led non-profit group People for Education found that 56 per cent of elementary schools in the province have a teacher-librarian, down from about 80 per cent 10 years ago. And to make matters worse for students, hundreds of municipal libraries across the province are also facing some major cutbacks.

The above study seems to contradict the government's position on school libraries. A 2008 news release, More Library Staff For Ontario Students, stated that "Ontario will provide school boards across the province with an additional $40 million over the next four years to hire about 160 more library staff." 4 years, eh, that means the 160 extra library staff hiring proposal will be complete come 2012...so, what happened in Windsor-Essex? Is the People for Education report working with very incorrect data?

It's all a little confusing, but one thing is sure, school libraries are not doing well.

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - October 28, 2011

2011-10-29T21:37:00.005-04:00

I've decided to post news items again because I find myself bundling weekly collections for my own interest...so why not share them.

Focus on Education: A Weekly Ontario News Update - October 28, 2011 has 20 articles from the past week. Here are some of the news items covered:

Cheaters prosper because of school boards' zero intolerance
Time to bring controversy, politics into classroom, experts say
iPad helps Toronto special needs kids learn
Kindergartners Blend E-Learning, Face-to-Face Instruction

and more, see http://bitly.com/v8fROc

Information and Communications Accessibility Standards - What this new regulation means to schools and school libraries

2011-10-21T23:10:00.022-04:00

This past summer the Ontario Government filed regulation 119/11, the Integrated Accessibility Standards. O. Reg. 191/11 establishes the accessibility standards for each of the three following areas:

Information and Communications
Employment
Transportation

The following post is a review of the Information and Communications Standards (Part II of the regulation), and how they apply to libraries.

The new Information and Communications Standards sets out the regulatory framework for the provision of accessible formats and communications supports, and accessible web sites and web content: the Ontario Government must ensure the standards encompass both Internets and Intranets / Extranets, while the Broader Public Sector (e.g. schools) will will need to ensure that their Internet sites are standards compliant. The standards which web sites and web content must comply with now are the WCAG 2.0 Level AA standards, and compliance dates vary by institution and site.

Section 14(2) of the regulation states:
Designated public sector organizations and large organizations shall make their internet websites and web content conform with the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, initially at Level A and increasing to Level AA, and shall do so in accordance with the schedule set out in this section. O. Reg. 191/11, s. 14 (2).

However, sections 15 through 18 deal specifically with educational and training resources and materials, educators, and libraries of educational and training institutions, and introduce some provisions which may be of interest.

Section 15(1) states the following:

Every obligated organization that is an educational or training institution shall do the following, if notification of need is given:
1. Provide educational or training resources or materials in an accessible format that takes into account the accessibility needs due to a disability of the person with a disability to whom the material is to be provided by,
i. procuring through purchase or obtaining by other means an accessible or conversion ready electronic format of educational or training resources or materials, where available, or
ii. arranging for the provision of a comparable resource in an accessible or conversion ready electronic format, if educational or training resources or materials cannot be procured, obtained by other means or converted into an accessible format.
2. Provide student records and information on program requirements, availability and descriptions in an accessible format to persons with disabilities.

School boards must provide educators with accessibility awareness training.

Section 18(1) focuses on the libraries if educational and training institutions, and compliance is also outlined:

...the libraries of educational or training institutions that are obligated organizations shall provide, procure or acquire by other means an accessible or conversion ready format of print, digital or multimedia resources or materials for a person with a disability, upon request...

Official copies of the full text of O. Reg. 191/11 can be viewed and downloaded at the following locations:

e-Learning Updates

2011-09-15T22:52:00.005-04:00

Image via CrunchBaseTextbook publisher Pearson announced today that it has acquired Connections Education, which operates virtual schools or academies in 21 US states, serves about 40,000 students, and has developed a broad array of educational technology tools. This marks the first time that one of the "big three" textbook publishers (Houghton Mifflin, Pearson Education, and McGraw-Hill) has stepped so deeply into the virtual education world.

McGraw-Hill Cos. will split up into two public companies with one focused on education and the other centered on markets. McGraw-Hill Education will be the new company focused on education services and digital learning. The education segment of McGraw-Hill is forecasting revenue of about $2.4 billion for the year, and an increasing percentage of this coming from digital textbook initiatives: sure to be a big money maker for publishers, and not surprising that the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan Board increased their collective stake in McGraw-Hill to 5.2 percent.

Then there's Apple's connection to education. Apple officials say they know of more than 600 districts that have launched what are called "one-to-one" programs, in which at least one classroom of students is getting iPads for each student to use throughout the school day. For example, Kentucky's education commissioner and the superintendent of schools in Woodford County, Ky., stated that Woodford County High will become the state's first public high school to give each of its 1,250 students an iPad: perhaps Kentucky isn't the "hick" state we all think it is. There are a number of schools and school boards across the states which appear to be taking the dive an investing heavily in iPads.

E-Learning and Gifted Students

2011-09-08T22:00:00.015-04:00

Image via WikipediaA recent article, E-Learning Opens Doors for Gifted Students, in Education Week looks at e-learning programs for the gifted in the US, with a focus on the increase and growing demand for these programs.

As funding cuts loom and the present climate of fiscal constraint around government services threaten to drain monies from programs for the gifted (in both Canada and the US), more schools, and parents / students may be looking to online education as a way to fill the gap in offerings.

Here's a list of some of the e-learning programs for the gifted offered in the US:

The Center for Talent Development at Northwestern University operates an independent supplementary online program for gifted K-12 students called Gifted LearningLinks

The Virtual Learning Academy Charter School in Exeter, N.H., launched in January 2008 and is the state's first statewide online public high school. Since 2008 it has grown to 11,500 course enrollments. Many of the students served by the school are high-achieving learners.

The Virtual High School Global Consortium, a nonprofit organization based in Maynard, Mass., that provides online high school courses to more than 15,000 students around the globe. The organization's enrollment has more than doubled since the 2005-06 school year.

The Education Program for Gifted Youth at Stanford University has grown from 30 to 360 students in the past six years, employs a synchronous learning model, so all the students have the opportunity to communicate with their peers, as well as their teacher, in real time.
The North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Online program. This tuition-free program builds off NCSSM's residential program for gifted North Carolina juniors and seniors with a high aptitude in science and math.

Browsing and Content Discovery...

2011-09-07T21:30:00.005-04:00

Image via WikipediaTo my surprise there was decent article about web content and information seeking behaviour and resource discovery in this week's run of Mashable articles: Why Browsing Is So Important to Content Discovery. Highlighting the failings of the search-based or social methods of information discovery that dominate the web today, the author - a librarian...oh how we've grown, provides a nice overview of what we librarians all know, most users are really not quite sure what they're looking for when they sit down to do a web search.

the real problem for undirected and overwhelmed information seekers (and I argue we are in the majority) is that the structure of a social network is shaped by social rules, and not by the beautiful subject hierarchies or systems of classification that, while painstakingly and artificially constructed, can allow for effortless and organic navigation.

Worth a read.

The Toll of Rising Tuition Fees in Ontario

2011-08-31T21:36:00.004-04:00

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has just released a report on the increasing difficulty of meeting the skyrocketing costs of a university education for lower-to-middle class income families in Ontario - Under Pressure: The Impact of Rising Tuition Fees on Ontario Families.

Here's an excerpt from the articles abstract

"Over the past two decades, Ontario's system of financing higher education has become more regressive, exploiting already over-stretched families who want to help their children pursue their educational aspirations. In 1990, a middle-income family in Ontario could earn the equivalent of four years of tuition fees in 87 days; it will take 195 days in 2011. The situation is even more dire for low-income families who are looking at the equivalent of two years of income for four years of tuition fees in 2011.

By forcing all but the wealthiest families to play priority roulette, assume still more debt, or make the difficult decision that higher education is too great a financial burden to bear, Ontario is hampering its economic and educational potential, and we are all paying the price." (CCPA)

New "Bullying" Reports, School Uniforms, and More...

2011-08-30T21:23:00.004-04:00

Some new research and reports released this week.

Bullying can affect a student's academic performance, but as an American Psychological Association conference paper finds, a school's bullying climate may be linked with lower overall test scores.

While bullying is known to leave physical and emotional scars, a new study presented at the American Sociological Association's annual conference finds that victims may suffer long-lasting academic effects, and high-achieving black and Latino students are especially vulnerable.

A report - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Among Children Aged 5–17 Years in the United States, 1998–2009 - from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that the percentage of U.S. children diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, increased from about 7 percent in 1998 to 9 percent by 2009.

A report released this month by the National Bureau of Economic Research, finds that school uniforms are correlated with improved attendance rates for middle and high school students and lower teacher-attrition rates at the elementary school level, but appear to have little effect otherwise on student behavior and achievement.

For those of us who live in Ontario, Canada (like us), the 2011 EQAO results have just been released

Finally, in 2004, Boston public schools banned the on-campus sale of sugar-sweetened beverages, such as soda, sports drinks and fruit drinks, and a new study funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that these kids are now drinking less of these beverages even when they're not at school.

Google Plus and Schools

2011-07-05T22:37:00.004-04:00

Last week Audrey Waters of ReadWriteWeb released an article on Google Plus and it's possible success in the education realm - Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For?. Worthwhile read, and it nicely captures the forces at play when it comes to social media in education:

There seem to be three forces at play when it comes to education and social media. The first is a lack of force, quite frankly - the inertia that makes many educators unwilling and uninterested in integrating the technology into their classrooms. The second is the force of fear - the pressures on the part of administrators, district officials, and politicians to curtail and ban teacher and students' interactions online. (See Rhode Island's recently passed legislation that outlaws all social media on school grounds as a case in point.) And finally, the third force is that of more and more educators who are embracing social media and advocating its use on- and off-campus - for student learning and for teacher professional development alike.

Impacts of a Violence Prevention Program for Middle Schools - A US Gov Study

2011-06-09T22:20:00.004-04:00

The U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences just released a study on school violence programs in middle schools.

The report, Impacts of a Violence Prevention Program for Middle Schools: Findings After 3 Years of Implementation, presents findings from an IES-sponsored study of a violence prevention strategy - implemented at middle schools over the course of three years, and found there wasn't a significantly different effect on the rates of violence or victimization reported by students.

The strategy focuses on a violence-prevention effort combining two programs:

Classroom curriculum-based approach (Responding in Peaceful and Positive Ways, RiPP) and
Whole-school approach (BEST Behavior).

Here are some of the highlighted findings taken from the IES abstract:

There were no statistically significant differences between intervention and control schools on self-reported student violence or victimization measures. On average, 8th-graders in the intervention and control schools reported engaging in 2.8 and 2.7 violent acts at school in the past 30 days, respectively; and, on average, 8th-graders in both the intervention and control schools reported being victimized 4 times in the past 30 days.

There were no statistically significant impacts on violence or victimization for students who were at risk for engaging in violence but who either had or had not previously engaged in violence. For example, 8th-graders in both the intervention and control schools who were categorized as being at a high risk for violence but who had not self-reported any of eight serious acts of violence ever at baseline (nonperpetrators) reported that, on average, they had engaged in just over 3 violent acts at school in the past 30 days. For the victimization measure, high-risk, nonperpetrator 8th-graders in the intervention and control schools reported being victimized an average of 4 times at school in the past 30 days.

In a majority of intervention schools, students were exposed to the full set of 16 RiPP lessons in each of the 3 years of implementation although the curriculum was not fully delivered with fidelity. Between 61 percent and 72 percent of schools delivered all 16 lessons to all classrooms in each year of program implementation. However, 88 percent of teachers interviewed in year three mentioned difficulties with implementing at least one of five RiPP techniques or approaches.

By the end of the third year, 83 percent of intervention schools instituted behavioral rules and 78 percent instituted a reward system. In addition, 87 percent of teachers agreed that the rules were well defined and 64 percent agreed that the consequences of breaking school rules were clear.

National survey on homophobia in Canadian schools

2011-05-13T22:23:00.003-04:00

Egale Canada Human Rights Trust, a national [Canada] organization that conducts research and delivers educational programming on LGBT human rights in Canada, has just released the first ever survey exploring homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in Canadian schools: Every Class in Every School: The first national climate survey on homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia in Canadian schools. Final Report - May 2011.

The survey found (taken from a Toronto Star article on the survey):

64 per cent of queer students and 61 per cent with queer parents feel unsafe at school;

21 per cent of queer students report physical harassment/assault;

27 per cent of queer students report physical harassment about their parents’ sexual orientation and 37 per cent report verbal harassment;

Transgender youth “are highly visible targets of harassment” who “may report experiencing particularly high levels of harassment on the basis of perceived sexual orientation” the report says;

About 10 per cent of heterosexual teens report being physically harassed or assaulted for their “perceived” sexual orientation;

58 per cent of heterosexual teens “find homophobic comments upsetting.” Researchers said that suggests there is a lot of common ground to help push for an improved school climate.

School safety report...some surprising findings

2011-05-10T16:41:00.009-04:00

A report released by the Consortium on Chicago School Research at the University of Chicago on the safety of their public schools, Student and Teacher Safety in Chicago Public Schools: The Roles of Community Context and School Social Organization, finds that the best predictor of whether students and teachers feel safe is the quality of relationships inside the school building.

The report "finds that while schools in high-poverty, high-crime neighborhoods tend to be less safe than other schools, students’ level of academic achievement actually plays a bigger role in school safety than a school’s neighborhood. Furthermore, even in high-poverty, high-crime neighborhoods, the quality of relationships among adults and students at a school can turn one school into a safe haven while another languishes as a center of violence." (Education Week)

Fraser Institute's School Report Cards

2011-04-19T22:25:00.004-04:00

Image via WikipediaThe Fraser Institute released its 2011 school report cards in March, and the Ontario Elementary Schools report card contains the usual detailed metrics that every parent loves but which can be so very misleading.

However, the Fraser Institute's report card site does have a really nice tool which allows users to compare schools by a slew of indicators (e.g. Grade level reading, writing, math), export the results into a pdf or excel file, and/or generate a chart immediately on the site. We know of many young parents of toddlers or elementary aged children who, when shopping around for a new home, always use the school as a benchmark for the areas they're willing to explore...this Compare Schools tool will definitely come in handy as a bit of a road map.

Anti-Bullying programs can only do so much...

2011-04-18T22:02:00.005-04:00

Image via WikipediaA new study published in this months edition of Pediatrics, The Social Environment and Suicide Attempts in Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth, explores the relationship between social environment and suicide attempts among lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth. And, no surprise, teen suicide attempts in socially/politically conservative environments is higher and more common. The study, based on the results of a total of 31 852 11th grade students (1413 [4.4%] lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals) in Oregon who completed the Oregon Healthy Teens survey in 2006–2008, found the following:

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were significantly more likely to attempt suicide in the previous 12 months, compared with heterosexuals (21.5% vs 4.2%). Among lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth, the risk of attempting suicide was 20% greater in unsupportive environments compared to supportive environments. A more supportive social environment was significantly associated with fewer suicide attempts, controlling for sociodemographic variables and multiple risk factors for suicide attempts, including depressive symptoms, binge drinking, peer victimization, and physical abuse by an adult (odds ratio: 0.97 [95% confidence interval: 0.96–0.99]) (Article Abstract)

In these cases the school system, and the programs it offers, can be a reflection of its community, regardless of the mandate from above and afar, and many programs come up against a wall of ignorance and obstruction.

iPads for kindergartners...

2011-04-13T22:04:00.004-04:00

Image via WikipediaMaine school district to spend $200,000 on Apple iPads for kindergartners. Yes, that's right. Not sure how we feel about this, most kindergarten teachers we know are struggling to simply manage their classrooms while laying the needed groundwork for the grades to come: not to mention the fine motor skills needed to actually operate a tool like that, something which isn't exactly a first grader's strength.

Cheaters, bad behaviour, and 1st grader stress...some of the few studies reviewed this week

2011-04-13T21:24:00.012-04:00

New research finds that cheaters overinflate their academic ability. In four experiments outlined in the March Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Temporal view of the costs and benefits of self-deception, researchers from the Harvard Business School and Duke University found that students who cheat on a test are more likely to deceive themselves into thinking they earned a high grade on their own merits, laying the foundation for future academic failure. The full pdf of the study is available along with the abstract.

Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century - Digital and Media Literacy: A Plan of Action

This 63 page paper outlines specific steps that policymakers and educators can take to strengthen a communities digital and media literacy skills.

Reexamining the Relationship Between Academic Achievement and Social Behavior is a recent study out of the University of North Carolina which finds that students who behave poorly in school don’t always get poor grades. Published in the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, the study followed 350 children in seven elementary schools with high concentrations of disadvantaged students for five years. They found that teachers tend to think well-behaved students are succeeding academically, even when they are struggling, and that students who act out in class are having academic difficulties, even when they’re not (Education Week).

Classroom Learning Environments and the Mental Health of First Grade Children is a study in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior which links first grader stress to school environments.

A study released in March by the National Center for Special Education Research (US) looks at the Secondary School Experiences and Academic Performance of Students With Hearing Impairments.

Using Smartphones to Learn Math...

2011-04-11T21:00:00.003-04:00

A fascinating project in the US, Project K-Nect, is making use of smartphones as a supplemental resource / teaching-tool to help at-risk students increase their math skills and interest in the subject.

Project K-Nect began as a pilot effort in North Carolina in 2007, with a million-dollar grant from Qualcomm, part of Wireless Reach Initiative created by this mobile technology company. The plan is to use smartphones to boost students’ skills in the so-called STEM areas (science, technology, engineering, and math). The program is now operating in four districts in North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia, with about 3,000 students participating.

For more information see Making Math Connections in Education Week.

A Couple of Articles Comparing Education in Ontario and the US

2011-04-04T21:33:00.004-04:00

Ben Levin, Canada Research Chair in Education Policy and Leadership at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, recently authored (and co-authored) a couple of articles published in Education Week (US education periodical). The articles provide an outsider's view of education in the US, and a good "discussion" piece on education systems and reform abroad (i.e. non-US, specifically, Ontario, Japan, Finland, and Singapore) and how the US can learn from them.

Thought I'd post them, since Ontario's education system rarely gets any mention in the US, and for those of us who work in it, it's interesting to see how it's portrayed.

An Outsider's View of U.S. Education

Learning from Abroad is the other article, unfortunately it's membership access only. But I suspect it will soon be released as part of a package prepared by a working group on the “Futures of School Reform,” organized by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Education Week is running a seven-part series of Commentary essays expressing visions of members of the “Futures” group. The series, which concludes in the May 25 issue, is accompanied by a blog, written by the group.

Android app to help librarians with shelving and collection inventory

2011-03-27T22:01:00.006-04:00

Posted today on ReadWriteWeb, an article about an new Android app which "reads a bookshelf, and with an AR [augmented reality] overlay, quickly flags those books that are misplaced. It will also point to the correct place on the bookshelf so the book can easily be re-shelved correctly".

Nice. Developed at Miami University's Augmented Reality Research Group (MU ARRG). Still some stuff to work out before this app can be taken seriously by university libraries, but that may not be far off....here's the video

And the app will be demoed next month at the Association of College and Research Libraries 2011 conference.

Status Struggles - disputing the "social status" myth of school bullies

2011-02-14T20:43:00.009-05:00

Image via WikipediaA new study published in this month's American Sociological Review, Status Struggles: Network Centrality and Gender Segregation in Same- and Cross-Gender Aggression, suggests that students in the middle of the social hierarchies at their schools, rather than the most popular or the most socially outcast, are more likely to be bullies.

Prof. Robert W. Faris, University of California, outlined the motivation to bully - aggression, as simply one route to gaining and / or maintaining social status. And he paralleled this to the more acceptable ways for those in the "middle" to climb the social ladder, e.g.

"This is not the only way that kids climb socially. There are a lot of other ways—much more effective ways: being good in sports, being pretty, being rich, if you’re funny, if you’re nice." [Education Week]

Here's an excerpt from the study's abstract:

We find that aggression is generally not a maladjusted reaction typical of the socially marginal; instead, aggression is intrinsic to status and escalates with increases in peer status until the pinnacle of the social hierarchy is attained. Over time, individuals at the very bottom and those at the very top of a hierarchy become the least aggressive youth.

The study surveyed students at middle and high schools in rural and suburban North Carolina over a number of years (3,722 students from 2002 through 2005), and found that found that regardless of their social backgrounds, race / ethnicity, or grade levels, the patterns of aggressors’ places in the social spectrum were the same.

Elementary math and Google Earth... a few starting points

2011-01-31T22:08:00.018-05:00

Image via WikipediaDecided to take a look at how teachers have been using Google Earth for elementary-level math lessons and came across some really useful instructional videos.

Here are two of them which we found easy to follow and useful.

Teaching Perimeter & Area with Google Earth
This first video was created by a grade 4 teacher in North Carolina:

Google Earth: A Classroom Tool
An introduction to using Google Earth to design and develop math lessons. This video was created by Quentin DSouza, an Ontario-based teacher. Of note, Quentin DSouza has a site where he's posted a number of Google Earth-based math lessons geared at the Grade 6 curriculum expectations in Ontario; the downside, most of this material is from 2006 and the site itself looks like it has not been updated in a few years.

As for some online resources and support, Google Earth for Educators, an official Google site, is obviously the best place to start: contains classroom resources, tutorials and tips, examples of students work, and a teacher support forum where you can connect with colleagues.

Real World Math: Using Google Earth in the Math Curriculum is an online resource for math teachers. Intended for grades 5 and up, it provides lessons, activities, and new ideas to help teachers with math instruction planning. Google Earth in Science and Math Classrooms is a University of British Columbia wiki page built on a media and education design knowledge base.

And for teachers who want to start using technology in their math lessons, we highly recommend you joing one of the many math groups on Classroom 2.0, such as Elementary Math.

Texting, special education mentoring, and student mobility are some of the issues in this month's review of research and reports

2011-01-30T21:06:00.016-05:00

A review of education reports, studies, and related research released in January 2011.

To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test
According to a recent research published online in the journal Science, taking a test is not just a passive mechanism for assessing how much people know, it can actually help people learn and works better than a number of other traditional studying techniques.

Science, January 20, 2011.

Text messaging 'improves children's spelling skills'
Mobile phone text messaging can boost children’s spelling skills, according to new research.

UK Telegraph, January 20, 2011.

Rethinking Mentoring: Comparing Policy and Practice in Special and Genera Education
While teacher mentoring has become nearly ubiquitous as an education reform, new research suggests state and district mentoring policies may leave gaps in support for special education teachers.

National Council on Teacher Quality, January 2011.

K-12 Education: Many Challenges Arise in Educating Students Who Change Schools Frequently
About 13 percent of children in the United States change schools four or more times before enrolling in high school, and job loss, home foreclosures, and homelessness may be driving up student mobility, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. [US]

U.S. Government Accountability Office, January 2011.

State Profiles for State Test Score Trends Through 2008-09
If states continue their current pace in narrowing achievement gaps between students of different races, ethnic groups, and income levels, it could take decades for lagging student groups to catch up to their peers in some states, a study of more than 40 states has found. [US]

Center on Education Policy, January 6, 2011.

MIT OpenCourseWare Initiative Aims to Improve Independent Online Learning
MIT OpenCourseWare has published five OCW Scholar courses, the first of twenty such courses that will be published over the next three years. These courses have been designed to support independent study without the need for additional resources, and include multimedia such as video and simulations. [US]

MIT OpenCourseWare, January, 2011.

Removing barriers to literacy
This report, by the UK government's Office for Standards in Education, takes the position that many schools, and their unambitious teachers, provide limited support for pupils from deprived backgrounds because they do not believe they can perform as well as other children. The survey focused mainly on the following groups: pupils eligible for free school meals; looked after children (children in public care); and White British boys from low-income households. [UK]

Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted), January 21, 2011.

Education & Digital Learning Current Awareness for January 23/11

2011-01-22T23:43:00.026-05:00

A review of news and blog articles, commentaries, reports, and technology issues as they relate to education, digital learning, children and youth. Covering the last three weeks of 2011.

News & Blogs

The good, the bad and the ugly education facts
What makes a school successful? In Canada, the provinces have poured money into schools to reduce class sizes. The PISA results – like those of other studies – suggest governments should save their money. Paying teachers better (Canadian teachers are already well-paid, comparatively speaking) surpasses class size as a spur to better results. “Smaller classes are not necessarily associated with better reading performance,” the PISA report said. [CAN]

Globe and Mail, January 13, 2011

Microsoft Expands Its Cloud-Based Educational Tools with Office 365
In the ongoing battle between Google and Microsoft for the cloud-based education market, it's Microsoft's turn today to tout itself as "the premier cloud suite for education worldwide," announcing that Live@edu is now used by more than 15 million students worldwide. In October, Google announced that its Apps for Education had crossed the 10 million user mark.

ReadWriteWeb, January 11, 2011

Google to Dip Into Ed. App. Market
An article on Bloomberg Businessweek reports that Google execs are currently in talks with education software companies about creating educational apps to be featured in Google Apps Marketplace, an online store that opened in March. Education software sales in K-12 and higher ed raked in about $4.6 billion in 2009, according to the article, and Google, which typically makes its profit from search advertising, is hoping to cash in on some of that revenue stream.

Education Week, January 4, 2011

Google Announces the World's First Online Global Science Fair
The Google Science Fair takes the traditional science fair and moves it to the Web. Participating students both build and submit their projects online - using Google Docs, Sites, and YouTube, for example - for all aspects of their research projects - from the data collection to the final presentation. Students from all over the world are encouraged to participate - from Paris, Texas to Paris, France, from Venice, Italy to Venice Beach.

ReadWriteWeb, January 11, 2011

Lessons learned. At last, America may change the way it trains, recruits and rewards teachers
Budget, curriculum, class size—none has a greater effect on a student than his or her teacher. Given this, politicians might be expected to do all in their power to ensure that America’s teachers are good ones. For decades, they have done the opposite. [US]

Economist, January 6, 2011

Math That Moves: Schools Embrace the iPad
A growing number of schools across the nation are embracing the iPad as the latest tool to teach Kafka in multimedia, history through “Jeopardy”-like games and math with step-by-step animation of complex problems. [US]

New York Times, January 4, 2011

E-Readers Kindle Student Learning
When it comes to reading or researching, most kids today turn to a Google search box, not an encyclopedia. Schools like Hopkins North Junior High have taken note. Teachers there are trading paperback books for 30 Nook e-readers this month with hopes that they will kindle kids' excitement about reading. [US]

Education Week, January 12, 2011

Amid E-Book Growth, Students Still Prefer Paper Textbooks
...a study called "Student Attitudes Toward Content in Higher Education," another round in the debate has been settled on the side of paper. 75% of student preferred old-fashioned, paper-and-board textbooks over electronic versions. (A Book Industry study...a last gasp)

ReadWriteWeb, January 7, 2011

More Autism Schools Proposed in New Jersey
Gov. Chris Christie has proposed creating additional specialized public schools for educating children with autism in New Jersey, a departure from the current practice in many communities of integrating those children into neighborhood schools...Parents and advocates are split over the idea of creating specialized schools for children with autism [US]

New York Times, January 16, 2011

The Real Cost of Technology Integration
... technology's potential to enhance a student's abilities can be constructive or destructive. And that is magnified for students who have special needs...

Education Week, January 13, 2011

Learning With Disabilities
FOCUS At Landmark, for students with A.D.H.D. and learning disabilities, strategies are developed to deal with attention and productivity issues. For many, the odds are against them. [US]

New York Times, January 7, 2011

Journal Showcases Dying Art of the Research Paper
William H. Fitzhugh, the cantankerous publisher of a journal that showcases high school research papers, sits at his computer in a cluttered office above a secondhand shop here, deploring the nation’s declining academic standards. [US]

New York Times, January 7, 2011

Virginia Poised to Ban Teacher-Student Texting, Facebooking
Should teachers friend their students on Facebook? Should teachers text their students? [US]

ReadWriteWeb, January 9, 2011

A supernova for every child
The best science education teaches problem-solving skills and can help us build a more innovative society. And that begins with getting kids excited about science. [CAN]

Globe and Mail, January 11, 2011

A Chinese school’s secret success
Principal Qingming Li, of Nanshan Experimental School in Shenzen, China, believes an emphasis on reading, rather than test scores, makes for a more successful and well-rounded student. [China]

Toronto Star, January 19, 2011

Toronto school starts hour later and grades improve
The experiment, which began in the fall of 2009, is an acknowledgement by educators that the biological clocks of teenager leave them sluggish in the morning. The Canadian Pediatric Society reported in 2008 that high school students need nine to 10 hours of sleep a night and may struggle in school if they don’t get it. [CAN]

Toronto Star, January 18, 2011

Texas Districts Adopting Online Curriculum
School districts throughout Texas are adopting a new curriculum tool aimed at improving student test scores. [US]

Education Week, January 3, 2011

Halton Catholic board drops ban on gay group
The Halton Catholic District School Board voted Tuesday night to overturn a ban on gay-straight alliances until a new policy can be crafted. The board’s controversial decision earlier this month to exclude the groups from an inclusion policy drafted by the Ontario Ministry of Education earned them international notoriety. [CAN]

Globe and Mail, January 18, 2011

Teachers must be free to touch pupils
Music teachers must be free to touch children to help them learn to play instruments such as the violin, the Education Secretary has said. [UK]

UK Telegraph, January 8, 2011

Parents clash over Halton school board’s plan to expand gifted classes
A new gifted program that separates Grade 1 students into special classes has polarized parents and trustees in Halton region. [CAN]

Toronto Star, January 5, 2011

Handled carefully, merit pay for teachers might work
Should great teachers be paid more than merely good ones? Would merit pay transform good teachers into great ones? And if governments are going to reward our top teachers, how will they evaluate their performance? [CAN]

Globe and Mail, January 6, 2011

Teacher pay plan merits debate
Have you ever heard anything crazier than this? A guy called Kevin Falcon, who is running for the B.C. Liberal leadership, has suggested that people who are really good at their jobs should get paid more than those who are just average... [CAN]

Ottawa Citizen, January 6, 2011

Rewarding teachers
If improving the quality of education was as easy as paying teachers based on how well their students perform, everyone would be doing it. [CAN]

Ottawa Citizen, January 5, 2011

On teacher merit pay, show us the money
Merit pay for teachers is an appealing idea that could wind up costing billions of dollars for little or no result. Its proponents – such as the Liberal leadership candidate Kevin Falcon in British Columbia, who promises to push for it if he becomes premier – need to explain, at least in broad outline, what the costs would be, and how the many practical barriers to its success would be overcome. [CAN]

Globe and Mail, January 5, 2011

Merit pay for teachers a ‘trick shot’ argues BC Liberal contender
Kevin Falcon says public school teachers should be paid according to their teaching skills, not their length of service or level of professional training. He promised to push for such a merit-pay system if he becomes premier on Feb. 26th. [CAN]

Globe and Mail, January 4, 2011

Report Finds Parental Monitoring Software May Carry Privacy and Liability Risks
arents who use anti-bullying and anti-sexting software to monitor their children's online activities may be giving up family privacy and increasing their personal liability, according to the group School Safety Partners. The group, which aims to help support best practices for online safety, says that parents may be unaware of the ways in which the Terms of Service of child monitoring software companies dictate how personal information that's monitored is used.

ReadWriteWeb, January 12, 2011

The Study of Man (or Males)
Male studies, largely the brainchild of Dr. Edward M. Stephens, a New York City psychiatrist, doesn’t actually exist anywhere yet. Last spring, there was a scholarly symposium at Wagner College on Staten Island, intended to raise the movement’s profile and attract funds for a department with a tenured chair on some campus.

New York Times, January 7, 2011

Youth & Technology

Wolfram Alpha Takes on Education With Algebra, Calculus & Music Theory Apps
Wolfram Alpha is on a mission to develop an “app for every course.” The company launched its first three subject-specific iPhone apps on Tuesday, and all three — Algebra, Calculus, and Music Theory — look to be promising educational tools.

Mashable, January 13, 2011

100+ Online Resources That Are Transforming Education
Education technology has become a busy space in recent years. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates continue to push the envelope with enormous philanthropic gifts toward education reform; Blackboard.com was traded at a $1 billion plus valuation; and Google is putting millions into education tech sites like KhanAcademy...

Mashable, January 7, 2011

Finally, A Use for Internet TV Other Than "Cable Cutting": Education
Internet TV has finally found a perfect home - the classroom. We're sure the last thing most parents want to hear about is their children watching more TV, but if they're going to be staring at a screen, it may as well be educational. Google agrees and has announced Google TV for EDU, "a seeding program to support university research."

ReadWriteWeb, January 18, 2011

Technology: Instant Translation Through A Video Camera

Education Week, January 6, 2011

Curriculum, online resources, and freedom of speech...when the three meet in court

2011-01-21T21:57:00.007-05:00

Image via WikipediaThis past Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal of a Massachusetts ruling on a school board's exclusion of web resources from a school curriculum guide regarding a long disputed genocide issue.

This case involves a curriculum guide released in 1999 as a response to a recently passed Massachusetts law which required the state board of education to develop recommendations on curricular material about genocide and human rights issues. The draft curriculum guide included a reference to the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish empire in 1915 and following years, and this immediately generated a request from a Turkish cultural group to add references to the "contra-genocide perspective."

The rejected appeal upholds the August decision that Massachusetts education officials did not violate public school students’ free speech rights in 1999 when they excluded sources that questioned the Armenian genocide. The original decision basically uses a "library metaphor" to argue its position:

...the removal of "contra-genocide" perspectives because of pressure from the Armenian community did not violate the First Ammendment because the websites constituted an element of the state curriculum, and not a "virtual school library." In other words, striking the information from the class was ruled to be the equivalent of taking one book off the course's suggested reading list, rather than removing the book from that school's library all together. (Education Week)

For more reading on this case see:

High court declines case on genocide lessons

Justices Decline to Hear Challenge to Curriculum Guide

Education & Digital Learning Current Awareness for January 2/11

2011-01-02T22:36:00.013-05:00

A review of news and blog articles, commentaries, research, reports, and technology issues as they relate to education, digital learning, children and youth. Covering the last two weeks of 2010.

News & Blogs

Cautiously skeptimistic: Can we revamp Canadian education?
Many people say we’re in the Information Age, but it’s really the shaping of information into knowledge and applications that’s driving this new era. Being able to work and learn in this new environment requires people to possess skills and attributes that would allow them to shape, build, acquire, share and develop knowledge. They must also develop the ability to “unlearn” and “relearn,” as well as adopt new ways to collaborate, co-operate and innovate. [Canada]

Globe and Mail, December 28, 2010

Ten Reasons Why Education In Ontario Was Better In 2010
Top ten list according to the Ontario Ministry of Education...a PR piece [Canada]

Ontario Government News Releases, December 23, 2010

Record on education is Ontario premier’s best case for re-election
If Dalton McGuinty’s campaign team is smart, a veteran Liberal offered recently, the Ontario Premier will be doing photo-ops in schools as often as humanly possible between now and next fall’s provincial election. [Canada]

Globe and Mail, December 22, 2010

Latin lovers fight to keep the language in Ontario’s schools
Studies have shown that learning Latin significantly boosts grades and standardized test scores, even more so than learning languages that are still spoken today.

Toronto Star, December 28, 2010

Cheaters Find an Adversary in Technology
Mississippi had a problem born of the age of soaring student testing and digital technology. High school students taking the state’s end-of-year exams were using cellphones to text one another the answers...the company, Caveon Test Security, began working for Mississippi in 2006, cheating has declined about 70 percent [US]

New York Times, December 27, 2010

S. Korean City Pilots Robot English Teachers
Controlled remotely by English teachers in the Philippines, the 29 robots wheeled around the classroom while speaking to the students, reading books to them and dancing to music by moving their head and arms.

Education Week, December 29, 2010

Five Ed-Tech Themes for 2010
Education Week's Digital Education Blog's top five for 2011.

Education Week, December 29, 2010

Hundreds join push for single school system
Nearly a month after a former education minister launched a petition to eliminate Alberta's separate school system, 646 people have signed on to his call for a referendum into government-funded Catholic schools. [Canada]

Calgary Herald, December 30, 2010

Publishers seek young readers as book critics of teen literature
More than 70 young readers at the Montgomery County library in downtown Bethesda are a little-known sounding board for publishers of teen fiction.

Washington Post, December 26, 2010

Schools cope with shelterless students
Homelessness had come as a swift, unforgiving series of blows. First, his parents, whose marriage had imploded, disappeared. A few days later, Brewer came home from school to an eviction notice posted on the front door...Suddenly, he was one of a growing number of teens without parents, guardians or reliable shelter in one of America's richest communities. [US]

Washington Post, December 27, 2010

Hurdles Emerge in Rising Effort to Rate Teachers
It is becoming common practice nationally to rank teachers for their effectiveness, or value added, a measure that is defined as how much a teacher contributes to student progress on standardized tests. The practice was strongly supported by President Obama’s education grant competition, Race to the Top, and large school districts, including those in Houston, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis and Washington, have begun to use a form of it...But the experience in New York City shows just how difficult it can be to come up with a system that gains acceptance as being fair and accurate. [US]

New York Times, December 26, 2010

Shanghai Schools’ Approach Pushes Students to Top of Tests
Discipline issues are rare at the middle school linked to the Jing’An Teachers’ College in Shanghai. The city is thought to have China’s best schools.

New York Times, December 29, 2010

Saudi Arabia girls' schools investigated over 'illegal' sports day
Private Saudi girls' high schools are being investigated by the education ministry for holding an "illegal" sports tournament...truly unbelievable.

UK Telegraph, December 21, 2010

Research & Reports

Shortage of Science Games Research Noted
While games and simulations have great potential to address challenges in K-12 science education, the research needed to achieve that potential is limited, says a new report by the National Research Council.

Education Week, December 22, 2010

Study: Muslim Students Set Their Eyes On Catholic Campuses
Catholic campuses had a higher population of Muslim students than the average four-year institution in 2009, according to a recent report by The Washington Post. Students cite the appeal of shared values. However, tensions can rise when Muslim students want to carve out their own space through Muslim prayer rooms, Muslim chaplains and student organizations. Host Michel Martin speaks with John Garvey, president of The Catholic University of America about the influx of Muslim students enrolling in Catholic colleges. [US]

NPR, December 23, 2010

Youth & Technology

290+ Social Media Resources From 2010
See the "Education" section.

Mashable, December 26, 2010

10 Free Online Resources for Science Teachers
One of the greatest ways technology can empower teachers is by helping them demonstrate concepts and by making it easier for students to learn through their own exploration and experimentation...

Mashable, December 20, 2010

8 Educational Gadgets That Make Learning Fun

ReadWriteWeb, December 27, 2010

Education & Digital Learning Current Awareness for December 19/10

2010-12-16T20:52:00.023-05:00

A review of news and blog articles, commentaries, research, reports, and technology issues as they relate to education, digital learning, children and youth. Covering the week ending December 19, 2010.

News & Blogs

Full-day learning not ‘watered down,’ Premier says
Premier Dalton McGuinty said he is not “watering down” the full-day learning program that is the cornerstone achievement of his second-term in office. Read our article on these changes [Canada]

Toronto Star, December 15, 2010

Suspended Toronto student wants apology
The Toronto student who was punished for criticizing his school's physical education department says he wants a public apology and to have his suspension wiped from his school record. [Canada]

CBC, December 12, 2010

PM to make native education a priority
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has taken a personal stake in improving the way children are taught on reserves by agreeing to meet collectively for the first time with first-nations leaders – a gathering where education would top the agenda. [Canada]

Globe and Mail, December 16, 2010

Ex-PM Martin slams Ottawa over funding of aboriginal schools
Former prime minister Paul Martin says it is "unforgivable" that Ottawa is shortchanging the funding of aboriginal education. [Canada]

Ottawa Citizen, December 16, 2010

Quebec ends religious teaching in publicly-funded daycares
Quebec will no longer allow religious education in the province's subsidized daycare programs. [Canada]

Ottawa Citizen, December 17, 2010

Deck the Halls with diversity
Across Canada, December means a sensitive balancing of different cultural and religious traditions for many schools and teachers — while for others, the run-up to Christmas looks much as it always has, filled with letters to Santa, Christmas ornament crafts and carolling sessions. [Canada]

Ottawa Citizen, December 15, 2010

Immigration Vote Leaves Obama’s Policy in Disarray
The vote by the Senate on Saturday to block a bill to grant legal status to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant students was a painful setback to an emerging movement of immigrants and also appeared to leave the immigration policy of the Obama administration, which has supported the bill and the movement, in disarray. [US]

New York Times, December 18, 2010

US government sues school for refusing teacher Mecca pilgrimage leave
The US government is suing an education authority in Illinois because it refused to give a Muslim teacher unpaid leave to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. [US]

Telegraph, December 14, 2010

Los Angeles Schools to Seek Sponsors
Facing another potential round of huge budget cuts, the Los Angeles school board unanimously approved a plan on Tuesday night to allow the district to seek corporate sponsorships as a way to get money to the schools. [US]

New York Times, December 15, 2010

Don't touch pupils' fingers, music teachers are told
Music teachers are being told not to touch the fingers of pupils learning to play instruments. [UK]

Telegraph, December 12, 2010

Harvard Planning a National Digital Public Library
Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society announced this week it will research and plan an initiative to construct a "Digital Public Library of America" with funding from the Sloan Foundation. [US]

Digital Education - Education Week, December 16, 2010

Great reads for younger eyes
You're never too young for good literature. Here are a few suggestions for the young readers on your gift list, from babies to teens.

Toronto Star, December 15, 2010

Research & Reports

Labour Market Experiences of Youth After Leaving School: Exploring the Effect of Educational Pathways Over Tim
This report examines the link between educational pathways and labour market outcomes of youth from all 5 cycles of the Youth in Transition Survey. The educational pathways are organized according to three major criteria: (1) No postsecondary education, (2) Direct route to postsecondary education, and (3) Indirect route to postsecondary education. [Canada]

Statistics Canada, December 17, 2010

Laws fail to keep sex offenders from working in schools, federal report finds
People with a record of sexual misconduct are often able to land positions in public and private schools as teachers, support staff, volunteers or contractors, slipping through a system of background checks meant to thwart them, federal investigators reported Thursday. [US]

United States Government Accountability Office, December 2010

U.S. Education Secretary Highlights Best Practices of Bullying Policies
Key examples in state laws are highlighted as legislation that works to help protect students. [US]

US Dept. of Education, December 16, 2010

Survey Analyzes Educators' E-Book Use
School librarians are much more likely to purchase e-books than teachers, partly because it falls within their school budgets, says new research on digital books in K-12 schools. Access the survey.

Education Week, December 14, 2010

Youth & Technology

5 Predictions for Game Mechanics in 2011
Almost everyone agrees that education needs reform. But most efforts to use games to educate children have been failures, largely as a result of designers having to please parents and teachers before kids’ needs are served...

Mashable, December 17, 2010

As the Social Web Grows, Access Becomes a Right
As the social web becomes more common, universities start to make use of it. As they do, their reliance on it grows until often the only place to access essential information is online. But what of those who cannot utilize that information in the same way as the majority of their fellows?

ReadWriteWeb, December 15, 2010

Changes to Full-Day Kindergarten Program in Ontario

2010-12-16T20:21:00.007-05:00

Image via WikipediaDepending on where you first read of the Full-Day Kindergarten Program changes, the pros and cons can be, unsurprisingly, polarized.

The Ontario Ministry of Education Press Release talks about providing families with "more options for before- and after-school programs". The Ontario government "plans to introduce legislation that would, if passed, give school boards the option to deliver before- and after-school programs directly, or to make agreements with third-party providers to offer these programs on an ongoing basis."

They refer to these changes as a means of ensuring families continue to have access to "seamless" programs.

But if you read the Toronto Star article, Province to scrap key piece of full-day kindergarten plan, it sounds like parents don't share the same "seamless" vision:

“It’s difficult for children this age to be moving from program to program,” she said.

“We have heard that third parties will be providing this, but I’m not sure it makes sense. The issue is who is going to provide the care? How will they ensure the quality? And what about the cost?"

The original recommendation - put forth by the province's early learning adviser, Charles Pascal, treated the extended-day feature (where the respective Board was responsible for running before- and after-school care for full-day kindergarten students) as a key part of the plan. For many researchers, this feature is the difference between running a program with an early learning vision or simply providing full-day kindergarten.

There has been massive lobbying from both daycares and boards, both believing they stood to lose a lot if the extended-day feature went ahead as recommended.

For some background on the program see our Overview of the Full Day Kindergarten Initiative in Ontario.

Rate Your Teacher....a Gates Foundation study sheds a little light on a thorny web practice

2010-12-12T20:59:00.005-05:00

Image via WikipediaA Gates Foundation research initiative has found that students who rated their teachers highly also scored better on standardized tests than their peers.

Teachers whose students described them as skillful at maintaining classroom order, at focusing their instruction and at helping their charges learn from their mistakes are often the same teachers whose students learn the most in the course of a year, as measured by gains on standardized test scores, according to a progress report on the research. [NY Times, What Works in the Classroom? Ask the Students, published December 10, 2010]

These findings are part of the Gates foundation’s $45 million Measure of Effective Teaching study project. A joint partnership / project involving a massive team of social scientists and circa 3000 teachers from various districts across the US. The project is basically hoping to build a 'metrics' for identifying effective teaching: i.e. lay the foundation for managing future teachers and "overhaul" the current system. (Yup, the entire premise is quite scary, and definitely not "teacher-friendly" study if you're a good teacher but, for whatever reason, not necessarily liked by students.)

A Gates Foundation report on this topic was released earlier this year in June, Working with Teachers to Develop Fair and Reliable Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) .

Education & Digital Learning Current Awareness for December 12/10

2010-12-11T22:05:00.031-05:00

News & Blogs

Gay and lesbian teens are punished more at school, by police, study says
Gay and lesbian teens in the United States are about 40 percent more likely than their straight peers to be punished by schools, police and the courts, according to a study published Monday, which finds that girls are especially at risk for unequal treatment.

Washington Post, December 6, 2010

More gay and bisexual teens expelled and jailed
Researchers found that when all teens committed the same amount of bad behaviour, those with a history of homosexual feelings or relationships were between 30 and 50 per cent more likely to be stopped by the police, 40 per cent more likely to be convicted of a crime as adults and more likely to be expelled from school.

Ottawa Citizen, December 6, 2010

Full-day kindergarten popularity outstrips plans to pay for it
Teachers have been generally supportive of the program but are already raising concerns about space, with the tightest classroom squeezes yet to come. Enthusiastic parents have driven up enrolment figures, creating new financial pressures. And Ontario residents aren’t the only ones watching – other provinces are moving in the same direction. [Canada]

Globe and Mail, December 8, 2010

Teachers’ union tones down criticism of Avison report
A day after blasting a report that found an individual convicted of sexual assaults on students had his teaching licence restored, the head of the B.C. teachers union says that instructor should be turfed. [Canada]

Globe and Mail, December 9, 2010

American Teens Trail Global Peers in Math Scores
American teenagers made modest progress on an international exam, but still performed below average in mathematics compared with their peers in other industrialized countries, according to results released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Education. [US]

Wall Stree Journal, December 6, 2010

Canadian students enjoy equal education regardless of background: report
Canadian students earned among the best scores in the world in a literacy and skills test that measured, for the first time, their ability to manage digital information. [Canada]

Hamilton Spectator, December 7, 2010

Western Nations React to Poor Education Results
A respected international survey that found teenagers in Shanghai to be the best-educated in the world has prompted officials elsewhere across the globe to question their own educational systems, and even led the British education minister to promise an overhaul in student testing.

New York Times, December 8, 2010

Teachers, Chief Call for Aboriginal Education Initiative in Southern Ontario
An Aboriginal educational initiative that would kick-start professional development and build understanding among non-aboriginal and aboriginal school communities across southern Ontario is being proposed by the Presidents of Ontario's two largest teacher federations and Regional Grand Chief for Lake Huron Region Isadore Day, who also represents the Union of Ontario Indians (UOI). [Canada]

CNW, December 10, 2010

Ottawa, chiefs agree to pursue wholesale reform of native education
The Conservative government and the Assembly of First Nations have agreed to pursue root-and-branch reform of the way on-reserve children are educated, hoping to reverse decades of failure. [Canada]

CNW, December 9, 2010

Cheating pupils smuggling mobile phones into exam halls
More teenagers are being caught cheating in tests by smuggling BlackBerrys, iPhones and MP3 players into exam halls, figures show. [UK]

The Telegraph, December 8, 2010

Tackling bad behaviour 'is not our job', teachers claim
Teachers are reluctant to tackle badly behaved children because it is “beyond their remit”, according to Government research. [UK]

The Telegraph, December 10, 2010

Evolution Survives Assault on Louisiana Textbooks
Louisiana’s high school biology textbooks have survived the latest creationist-flavored attempt at distorting education about evolution. [US]

Wired, December 8, 2010

Free tuition money going unclaimed
Only one in five low-income families in Canada has taken up the federal government’s offer of free money for their children’s post-secondary education.

Toronto Star, December 5, 2010

Clickers and Technology Integration
So many techno-centrists believe in their heart-of-hearts that the road to student- (or learner-centered) instruction is paved with high-tech devices. New technologies can transform traditional teaching. That is what they want to happen.

Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice, December 4, 2010

Research & Reports

Going Virtual! 2010. The Status of Professional Development and Unique Needs of K-12 Online Teachers
Going Virtual! 2010 is a follow-up report to the Going Virtual! Research series started in 2007. The purpose of the series is to describe current trends on the status of professional development for K-12 online teachers, as well as identify the unique needs and challenges faced by these instructors.

EdTech, Boise University, November 2010

Leadership and Collaboration for Better Broadband:
CoSN CTO Forum Report on How School Districts are Overcoming Broadband Connectivity Challenges
Report details how school districts across the country [US] are overcoming broadband connectivity challenges through collaboration

Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), December 2010

Is the link between large high schools and student victimization an illusion?
Contrary to teachers’ and students’ perceptions, bullying may not be any more commonplace in larger high schools than it is in smaller ones...study

Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 102(4), Nov 2010, 933-946.

Youth & Technology

4 (More) Tools for Teaching Kids to Code

ReadWriteWeb, December 8, 2010

4 Effective Tools for Monitoring Your Child’s Online Safety
If you’re concerned about your child’s online safety, you aren’t unusual. Seventy-eight percent of respondents to a survey conducted by Yahoo had similar worries, and more than 70% of them took some action to manage their children’s online and mobile activities.

Mashable, December 6, 2010

I Know What You Read Last Summer - E-Readers and Privacy
EFF's E-Book Buyer's Guide to E-Book Privacy provides a review of the privacy policies of various e-book providers - both hardware and software makers - from the Amazon Kindle, to Google Books, to the Internet Archive. The report is based on what the policies say themselves, not on how they're enforced in practice.

ReadWriteWeb, December 7, 2010

K-12 Online Learning in Canada - The 2010 Report

2010-12-08T21:14:00.015-05:00

The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) has recently (November 2010) released its State of the Nation: K-12 Online Learning in Canada report, 2010 edition.

Some key points:

In most jurisdictions, K-12
distance education is not viewed as an educational option of choice, only one of necessity
K-12 distance education enrolment in Canada is somewhere between 2.8% and 3.4% of the total K-12 student population

In many instances, the method of distance education delivery is still using print-based materials

In many instances, the method of distance education delivery is still using print-based materials

Not exactly the picture we had of online learning in Canada, but it should be emphasized that much of the K-12 distance education in Canada is still treated as substitute "option" for when face-to-face learning is not feasible or economic.

There are some shifts happening, particularly in Alberta where it has started looking at creating an "online and blended learning" educational environment: no longer taking the view of online learning as a "distance education tool" but a foundation which can become the textbook and whiteboard of the near future.

The report provides a national overview, with the Ottawa Carleton e-School being the focus for Ontario.

OECD's PISA 2009 Literacy and Reading Results

2010-12-07T21:09:00.005-05:00

Image via WikipediaThe OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) just released it's annual report and survey, and Canada is in the top 10 (6th). PISA is a reading and literacy survey of 15 year olds in industrialized countries / economies - approximately 65 countries. The programme's conception of reading literacy "encompasses the range of situations in which people read, the different ways written texts are presented, and the variety of ways that readers approach and use texts, from the functional and finite, such as finding a particular piece of practical information, to the deep and far-reaching, such as understanding other ways of doing, thinking and being"...well, nice to know we're doing okay.

Here's a link to the Executive Summary of the PISA Results 2009.

The Ontario Ministry of Education released a news release on this achievement. But what really stands out for us in the PISA results is that girls outperform boys in reading skills in every participating country...that's truly an amazing stat.

Google Cloud Picker...I'm sure they'll change the name

2010-12-04T21:09:00.006-05:00

A whack of media over the last couple of days on Google's new, upcoming, feature...Cloud Picker. An unfortunate name, and one I'm willing to bet they'll change as this feature matures.

What is it? It's an online storage product that connects several of Google's services under one storage space, e.g. YouTube, Docs, Maps and Picasa photos. Basically, a sort of online drive (G Drive anyone) which allows for easy insertion of docs and objects into many of Google services like Blogger and Google Sites.

Here's a list of articles on the cloud picker:

Google's Cloud Picker: Still Not GDrive?

Meet Cloud Picker, Google’s Stealthy New Storage Product

Google Cloud Picker Online Storage On The Way?

Some Other Google News

Google Editions is the supposed name of the e-book store it will soon be launching. The "store is said to have more than a half million titles that will be readable on nearly any device that can access the Web... and it will be up and running before the end of the month", see ReadWriteWeb's Google's New E-Book Store: One Store, Any Device.

Google Earth 6, just released and wow. This version adds two new features, an integrated Street View experience and 3D trees (lots of them). It also makes it easier to browse archived / historical imagery associated with a specific location.

Google starts tackling copyright infringement, and "company has laid out a number of steps it says it will take to ensure that it does its part to 'better address the underlying problem'", see Google Vs. the "Bad Apples": Four Steps Against Copyright Infringement.

Education & Digital Learning Current Awareness for December 4/10

2010-12-04T14:00:00.015-05:00

Research & Reports

International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNOCL) - Two New Reports

A National Primer on K-12 Online Learning - Report identifies and reviews some of the biggest emerging trends in online learning: e.g. district-led programs for online learning, blended and mobile learning. This report does provide a good overview of online learning. and teaching and curriculum building for online learning environments.
Going Virtual! 2010: The Status of Professional Development and Unique Needs of K-12 Online Teachers describes current trends on the status of professional development for K-12 online teachers, as well as identify the unique needs and challenges faced by these instructors.

The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNOCL), November 2010

The Social Costs of Academic Success Across Ethnic Groups
“Acting white” is not just urban slang, according to this study in the November/December issue of Child Development, "acting white" among their peers carries a major social cost to high-achieving black students, and this social phenomenon may extend to other student groups when they are in the racial minority. US focus, of course.

Child Development, November-December 2010

Digital Learning Now - Report
The recently commissioned Digital Learning Council has recommended major changes to state education policy that include abolishing seat-time requirements, linking teacher pay to student success, and overhauling public school funding models. [Education Week]

Education Week, December 1, 2010

Youth & Technology

College Students Admit To "Shocking" Text Messaging Habits in Class
A recent study by two psychology professors at Wilkes University finds that college students really go-to-town with text message during class, in fact an amazing "91% admitted they have used their phones to text during class".

ReadWriteWeb, December 2, 2010

Growing up with sex and tech
Today’s hypersexualized world is a confusing place to come of age, says Toronto documentary filmmaker Lynn Glazier. And it’s leading to an epidemic of sexual harassment among teens and kids with warped views — of themselves and the opposite sex, she says.

Toronto Star, December 4, 2010

News

Power to dismiss P.E.I. school board in new bill
Legislation introduced in the P.E.I. legislature Wednesday gives the education minister the power to fire a democratically-elected school board....wow, talk about parliamentary privilege!?

CBC, December 2, 2010

Educators Explore How to Use GPS for Teaching
Educators are exploring how students can use GPS technologies to tackle real-world problems in science and other areas

Education Week, October 20, 2010

Big Victory for Website Accessibility in Canada

2010-12-01T21:02:00.003-05:00

Image via WikipediaA massive win for those with vision disabilities in Canada, as Donna Jodhan, a special needs consultant who is blind, took the Canadian Federal government, and their "inaccessible" web sites and services, to court and won: see our previous article on this.

It was a constitutional challenge which has now put the Federal government in the position of having 15 months to make its websites accessible to visually impaired users: an unenviable and expensive task given the size of their web presence, but they only have themselves to blame, they should have started this years ago.

Here's a link to the 83 page decision now available on CanLII, Jodhan v. Canada (Attorney General), 2010 FC 1197.

I can't help but think that this will filter down to other jurisdictions in Canada, quickly, and that Ontario's Information and Communications Standard, when finally packaged and ready to file as a regulation in 2011, will have a more progressive compliance date.

Personality tests for teachers, cyberbullying white paper, and other education news

2010-11-27T22:48:00.010-05:00

Teachers "to be given personality tests" - UK
The UK Department of Education has just released an Education White Paper - The Importance of Teaching, which recommends that would-be teachers take aptitude tests and undergo personality screening before being accepted.

UK Department of Education, November 24, 2010

Cyberbullying Materials by Common Sense Media
US media watchdog group for kids, Common Sense Media has some useful looking resources on cyberbullying:

Cyberbullying Tips for Parents
For Educators, they've created an entire Digital Citizenship Curriculum, you need to register to access
For School Administrators and Policy makers Common Sense has published a White Paper, Cyberbullying — Damage in a Digital Age

Common Sense Media, November 24, 2010

Africentric school principal to return
The nation's only Africentric school is in Toronto, and it also appears to be dealing with the politics of being the only one of its kind...

Toronto Star, November 26, 2010

Use of the internet in higher-income households - PEW Internet and Income Study
A rather "obvious" study in the big picture context, but does provide some nice bits of data on the varying levels of usage, access (e.g. Broadband, mobile), and intensity of use.

PEW Internet, November 24, 2010

Facebook Blamed and Advocated by Educators, Ontario and the Poor Student Dilemma, Cellphones in the Classroom - Some of this week's news & articles

2010-11-19T21:56:00.013-05:00

Traditional university education to be supplemented by options
You might be surprised to hear that according to the United Nations, the percentage of adults who have attained a tertiary education is 46 per cent in Canada. This compares to 55 per cent for Russia, 39 per cent for the United States, 30 per cent for the United Kingdom, 21 per cent for Greece, and 10 per cent for Italy. Canadians rank among the most educated individuals in the world.

Hamilton Spectator, November 19, 2010

Paying poor students to get good grades? No thanks, minister now says
Ontario’s governing Liberals will do whatever it takes to stop Canada’s largest school board from paying poor students to do well in class, Education Minister Leona Dombrowsky said Thursday.

Hamilton Spectator, November 18, 2010

Social networking: teachers blame Facebook and Twitter for pupils' poor grades
Teachers believe social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are to blame for pupils' poor grades, a study has concluded.

UK Telegraph, November 18, 2010

Facebook fraught with peril for teachers and students
High school student Nicole Daniels doesn’t like the idea of teachers looking at her Facebook page to find out who she hangs out with Friday nights.

“There are some things that a teacher just shouldn’t see,” she told a workshop on social networking at a recent conference held by the advocacy group People for Education York University.

Toronto Star, November 18, 2010

Facebook Messaging, Teens and School Work: Can Facebook Be a Social Learning Network?
A Pew Internet study found that only 11% of teens say they use email to communicate with friends, and even that figure seems a little high. Teens see little need for a method of communication that is, in some ways, associated with professional and not personal worlds. In the words of Iowa State University education professor Scott McLeod, "Adolescents don't use e-mail - except when they're forced to in order to interact with us older folks."

ReadWriteWeb, November 16, 2010

Cellphones in the Classroom: Distraction or Tool?
The push for "24/7 access to the Internet" falls under another the auspices of yet another endeavor, the National Broadband Plan. But the call for better access to Internet-ready devices, particularly utilizing tools the students already possess is an interesting one. Because the device that is ubiquitous for American students isn't the desktop computer or the notebook or the netbook or the iPad. It's the cellphone.

ReadWriteWeb, November 16, 2010

Ontario Launches Bullying Awareness And Prevention Week

2010-11-15T18:39:00.004-05:00

Ontario Ministry of Education Launches Bullying Awareness And Prevention Week. Today's press release designates the third week of every November as Bullying Awareness and Prevention Week.

Packaged as an "opportunity to raise awareness of bullying-related issues and make a difference in school communities", it appears to be part of the Safe Schools Strategy; which includes initiatives like linking up with the Help Kids Phone, a national program which provides some useful services.
Also of note is the The Keeping Our Kids Safe at School Act, which came into force this past February, 2010. The Act itself gives quite a bit of leeway and power to Boards and principals, a necessary measure and, hopefully, backed-up by sound policies and guidelines.

Bullying is a major issue for educators right across North America, espcially cyber-bullying. A recent national survey (US) on bullying, The Ethics of American Youth: 2010, found that half of US high school students say they've bullied someone in the past year, and nearly half say they've been the victim of bullying. The study was prepared by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, surveyed an astonishing 43,000 high school students, and asked them whether they'd been physically / emotionally abused in a way which really upset them.

Here are some recent articles on bullying legislation in the States, to give us an idea of how our neighbours to the south are handling this thorny issue:

Financial Literacy in Ontario Schools

2010-11-14T21:42:00.006-05:00

Financial literacy will be integrated into the curriculum in September of 2011. The initiative was a key recommendation of the Curriculum Council and the report of the Working Group on Financial Literacy, will teach students about about saving, spending, investing and managing money, and will be taught from grades 4 to 12.

Some Key Links and Reports on Financial Literacy:

Financial Literacy Part Of Student Success And Strong Economy [Ontario MoE Press Release]
A Sound Investment: Financial Literacy Education in Ontario Schools
Task Force on Financial Literacy in Canada
Lessons from SEED, a National Demonstration of Child Development Accounts [US Study which examined the effects of opening savings accounts for 1,100 newborns]
Financial Literacy & Education Summit 2011

Ontario Progress "Report" Card Pamphlet for Parents, California Dept of Ed. Resources on iTunes, and more news

2010-11-13T14:51:00.018-05:00

Changes to Report Cards and the Reporting of Student Progress
The Durham District School Board has created a clear-language pamphlet for parents explaining the changes this fall.

Durham District School Board

Asian students suffering for success
Long admired for raising academic superstars, parents of Asian background are coming under fire from their own community for pushing their children into university programs for which many have no real interest or talent and often quit in distress.

Toronto Star, November 10, 2010

Computers Link Homes and Schools in California
A school district in California's Silicon Valley is installing what could be the nation's first computer link between home and school, and the officials who have started the program say they expect it to spread quickly across the state.
I know of a number of workplaces who would love this type of technology...the haves and have-nots in America's school districts is mind-blowing.

Education Week, November 10, 2010

Sex, Drugs More Common in Hyper-Texting Teens
Teens who text 120 times a day or more — and there seems to be a lot of them — are more likely to have had sex or used alcohol and drugs than kids who don't send as many messages, according to provocative new research.
Yup, peer pressure is now also a "wireless" activity...a not-so-astonishing study.

Education Week, November 9, 2010

Lastly, Two Examples of Smart Ed. Resource Sharing Networks:

Learning with Mobile Technology, Ed-Tech Action Plans, and Educational Media for Babies and Toddlers - A Review of Some Recent Research

2010-11-12T16:15:00.029-05:00

The U.S. releases the final version of its National Ed-Tech Action Plan. It's a 124 page report, outlining a lot of very ambitious plans, including online professional-collaboration communities for teachers and other educators, finance development of open-source educational resources, launch an initiative dedicated to defining and increasing educational productivity, and lists goals for 2020...for more information see Education Week's article on the report.

To strengthen digital citizenship and make digital and media literacy part of mainstream education in the United States, a series of key steps, both large and small, will be necessary. In this report, a plan of action includes 10 recommendations for local, regional, state and national initiatives aligned with the themes of community action, teacher education, research and assessment, parent outreach, national visibility and stakeholder engagement. These action steps do more than bring digital and media literacy into the public eye. Each step provides specific concrete programs and services to meet the diverse needs of our nation’s citizens, young and old, and build the capacity for digital and media literacy to thrive as a community education movement. - Digital and Media Literacy:
A Plan of Action

This 63 page paper outlines specific steps that policymakers and educators can take to strengthen a communities digital and media literacy skills.

Learning: Is there an app for that? is a recent study by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center (disclosure - I really like their work) which focuses on how "new forms of digital media are influencing very young children and their families in the United States [and Canada] and how we can deploy smart mobile devices and applications-apps...to help advance their education". The report finds prekindergarten and early-elementary students capable of learning from applications on their parents' smartphones, and opens discussion to whether this is a more effective or desirable method of learning in a society where these tools will be, or are, second nature the digital native.

Do Babies Learn From Baby Media? No...all those educational DVDs, etc. really don't give babies and toddlers any real advantage according to a study of 96 families with children between the ages of 12 and 18 months - nice to know, we have 17 month old twins and haven't invested much in multimedia, we decided to talk to them instead ;-)).

From the abstract:

The most important result was that children who viewed the DVD did not learn any more words from their monthlong exposure to it than did a control group. The highest level of learning occurred in a no-video condition in which parents tried to teach their children the same target words during everyday activities. Another important result was that parents who liked the DVD tended to overestimate how much their children had learned from it.

The study was published in the September issue of Psychological Science.

Ontario University Sector Concerns, Bullying, Minorities, Character Development Programs, and more - A Review of Some Recent Reports & Research

2010-11-01T14:55:00.024-04:00

A recent report looking at higher education in Ontario, The Benefits of Greater Differentiation of Ontario’s University Sector (published by the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario - HEQCO), states that "universities should set measureable goals based on their strengths, and the provincial government should base new funding on
whether those goals are met." Basically, when you're looking at the various programs of the many Ontario universities, you end of feeling like you're looking at more-or-less the same blueprint, cheating the student of real choice and the university of opportunities to focus on, and develop, their strengths..."Ontario universities should play to their strengths instead of trying to be everything to everyone" (Globe and Mail article).

Bullying is a major issue for educators, espcially cyber-bullying, and a recent national survey (US) on bullying, The Ethics of American Youth: 2010 found that half of high school students say they've bullied someone in the past year, and nearly half say they've been the victim of bullying. The study was prepared by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, surveyed an astonishing 43,000 high school students, and asked them whether they'd been physically / emotionally abused in a way which really upset them.

And if you're looking for examples of policies to use in your school to deal with cyberbullying and ECD (Electronic Communication Devices) usage within school boundaries / time, take a look at what the University of San Diego is working on, they've developed short and long version of student discipline rules.

Washington based Thomas B. Fordham Institute just released a report Now What? Imperatives and Options for Common Core Implementation and Governance
which outlines strategies for overseeing and implementing the common-core academic standards. "Most states have adopted the “Common Core” English language arts and math standards, and most are also working on common assessments. But…now what? The standards won’t implement themselves, but unless they are adopted in the classroom, nothing much will change." (Thomas B. Fordham Institute)

Minorities in Higher Education 2010. This 2010 edition analyzes the latest racial/ethnic and gender trends in high school completion, college enrollment, persistence, degree completion, faculty, administrators, and presidents. A key finding is that while postsecondary educational attainment continues to flat-line in the United States, attainment rates have dipped for the youngest group (aged 25 to 34).

Efficacy of Schoolwide Programs to Promote Social and Character Development and Reduce Problem Behavior in Elementary School Children is the largest US government (Institute of Education Sciences) study to date of character-building or social-development programs (656 pages long...), and it concludes that these programs, well, don't really produce any improvements in student behaviour or academic performance. A lot of pros and cons to this study, especially given the nature of the study; for anyone considering such a program may be worthwhile taking a look at this report.

Repeated testing produces superior transfer of learning relative to repeated studying, this Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition article suggests students might learn more / better if taught with a test instead of to it. Not sure about the value of this. Yes, students may learn better that way but it's essential they learn to "be tested", to think on their feet for real-life fail or pass scenarios (think job interviews).

Schools going Mobile, Students Embrace Kindle, and Male Teachers - This Past Week's News

2010-10-25T21:17:00.007-04:00

Schools Open Doors to Students' Mobile Devices
...students returned from summer break to learn they were free not only to bring their mobile devices to school, but also to use them at their teachers discretion to connect to the school’s wireless network to do their work.

Education Week, Oct. 20, 2010

Kindles at High School Bring Praise, Surprises
Social studies teacher Kathy Biddle was giving a lecture recently when she noticed a handful of students fiddling with their Kindles...Biddle stopped her lesson. She scolded her charges, telling them to focus on what she was saying. She thought they were texting their friends or looking at Facebook. They weren't. The students were taking notes on Biddle's lecture, using a feature on the electronic book-reader called 'My Clippings.' They then instructed the rest of the class how to do it.

Education Week, Oct. 19, 2010

We need tool-savvy teachers
Quebec is fast becoming ground zero in the battle against high dropout rates among high-school students. The situation is particularly acute among boys, what with one in three male Quebeckers leaving high school without a diploma.

While opinions vary as to the cause, several critics point to the “feminization” of the classroom as the main culprit. The solution, they say, is to simply recruit more male teachers, even if it means creating quotas. But this is simplistic. What we need is a complete rethink.

Globe and Mail, Oct. 20, 2010

Mother's outrage makes school trips latest front in the nut-free fight
Following a parent’s complaint about teacher conduct on a school field trip, trustees at the Halton Catholic District School Board considered Tuesday whether to review the rules regarding parent and teacher chaperones.

Globe and Mail, Oct. 20, 2010

The endangered male teacher
A new study says male elementary teachers live in a steady state of anxiety, with 13 per cent reporting they had been wrongly accused of inappropriate contact with students. Part 2 of a six-part series.

Globe and Mail, Oct. 22, 2010

Online Privacy Poll - Parents Say Social Networks Aren't Protecting Kids' Online Privacy

2010-10-22T16:39:00.003-04:00

Interesting national poll (US) released a few weeks ago on parents' perception of social networks and the protection of their kids' online privacy. The poll, commissioned and released by Common Sense Media (CSM), found that "92 percent of parents are concerned that kids share too much information online, and 85 percent of parents say they're more concerned about online privacy than they were five years ago".

The poll also found that the sharing of kids' geo-location is a source of real worry for parents, and many would prefer that this process be somehow authorized or accessible by parents. The biggest fear for parents who expressed concern about information sharing is, as expected, sexual predators: despite the many recent high-profile tragedies linked to cyberbullying over the past year, 72 percent of parents indicated sexual predators as their primary concern, with only 2 percent listing cyberbullying as their main concern, surprisingly behind "difficulty securing job or college placement (10 percent).

But here's the surprsing stat for schools, most "parents (70%) say they think schools should play a role in educating students about protecting their privacy online." Would be great to know what Canadian parents' think about this topic...

The poll was actually conducted by Zogby International, and you can access the full list of results on Education Week's site.

For more information on CMS's privacy initiative, visit their Protect Our Privacy—Protect Our Kids site.

Next Generation Learning - A NASBE Report

2010-10-20T22:08:00.012-04:00

The National Association of State Boards of Education released a report this month which recommends using technology and other modern tools to move away from class "seat-time" models and toward models that promote both in-class and out-of-class innovation, a blended learning model - No Time to Wait: Creating Contemporary School Structures for All Students Today and Tomorrow.

This report highlights the urgency to restructure the education system to meet the needs of today’s students who are learning and socializing in the “Knowledge Age”. The main concern is the teaching model that was created for students of a different time, where teachers dispersed information and students were to memorized facts and solve a set of fundamental problems. The call for change presented in this report really challenges the traditional model of teacher-centre learning to a more student-centered learning model. This is something many of today’s educators do appreciate, understand, and value, but the significant change presented here advocates technology as an integral learning tool for students and teachers, and creating a virtual classroom that can be literally open 24/7, and available to a global community.

This style of learning would allow students and teachers to individualize learning, and for students to set their own pace for learning and acquiring credits. As for the role of the teacher, the report addresses the need to develop critical thinking skills in relation to accessing information as well as to address the emotional and psycho-social needs of students. Of course, good teaching has always included this.

The following link: Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom By Alan November, provides an insightful look at changing learning styles, and gives clear examples of how it might be executed within the classroom rather than providing a list of changes.

New Google "Research Tool"... in the development stage

2010-10-15T16:15:00.007-04:00

Automatic Generation of Research Trails in Web History - Just released a few days ago, this paper outlines what appears to be a new research tool being developed for Google: a " research trail" generator. This browser end tool would deliver a method to organize web content(s), which a user spent some time researching (think brower history), into distinct research sessions. "Research trails are automatically constructed by filtering and organizing users’ activity history, using a combination of semantic and temporal criteria for grouping similar web activity" (beSpecific).

Here's an explanation of Research Trails taken from the paper's abstract:

We propose the concept of research trails to help web users create and reestablish context across fragmented research processes without requiring them to explicitly structure and organize the material. A research trail is an ordered sequence of web pages that were accessed as part of a larger investigation; they are automatically constructed by filtering and organizing users’ activity history, using a combination of semantic and activity based criteria for grouping similar visited web pages. The design was informed by an ethnographic study of ordinary people doing research on the web, emphasizing a need to support research processes that are fragmented and where the research question is still in formation. This paper motivates and describes our algorithms for generating research trails.

Sounds like this will be a great addition to Google's suite of tools.

Training Teachers, Child Development Accounts, e-Readers, and more - A Review of Some Recent Reports and Studies

2010-10-07T21:51:00.039-04:00

National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education just released a report advocating the need to better train teachers in the rudiments of developmental science, The Road Less Traveled: How the Developmental Sciences Can Prepare Educators to Improve Student Achievement. The report included a multidisciplinary panel of experts, such as experts in teacher education, developmental science and early childhood. It asserts that while there has been an explosion of research demonstrating that teacher understanding of and ability to apply developmental sciences knowledge leads to increased student achievement results, this research and body of knowledge is rarely being used to train teachers.

Lessons from SEED, a National Demonstration of Child Development Accounts is a collaborative (Washington-based nonprofits) study which examines the effects of opening savings accounts for 1,100 newborns. The study, which looked at a number of different communities and also ensured that all income levels were represented, found that these accounts not only led to savings for children, but that they can also "raise college expectations and affordability, and serve as a basis for more stable and productive financial lives for...families"

A New Majority: Low-Income Students in the South’s Public Schools, is a research report on the growth of low income children in the South’s public schools. It found that more than half of public schoolchildren in the U.S. South now come from low-income families, and predicts that the nation as a whole could reach the same demographic reality within a decade if current socio-economic trends persist.

Image via Harris InteractiveA recent Harris Interactive poll looked at e-Readers and e-Reader user habits. The poll found that users of e-readers read more and are more likely to buy or download books. The report contains some interesting stats which should give publishers a little more incentive to push more content to digital.

The Law and Making Websites Accessible to Users with Disabilities

2010-09-20T14:17:00.037-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

About 3 million Canadians have disabilities that make it difficult to access sites and information on the Internet, be it from government sites or private sector sites. And this week one such Canadian, Donna Jodhan - a blind Toronto accessibility consultant, is taking the federal government to court because their websites are not accessible to blind and partially-sighted Internet users.

Donna Jodham's constitutional challenge claims that her "inability to apply for a position on the federal jobs website or complete the online version of the 2006 Census" breached her equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And the appelant will further argue that this is a breach against all visually impaired Canadians.

As many of us know, making websites accessible to users with low vision or blindness is not simply a case of having the proper technology installed, e.g. screen readers, screen magnifiers, etc., sites have to be designed / coded in a way to allow many of these assistive technologies to work. US and European governments have adopted, or are making a concerted effort to adopt, the latest web accessibility standards as developed and published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), a branch of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). And the painful reality of the matter is that implementing the accessibility standards to make websites accessible is quite cheap and easy.

Donna Jodhan simply wants the court to order the federal government to "upgrade its websites to the latest accessibility standards within 12 months and monitor compliance". But what is quite interesting here is the federal government's position, which is actually a tad bullish:

Internet access to government services and information is not a right guaranteed in law, the government says in its written submission to the court.

“Alternative channels available did allow (Jodhan) to access services and information independently, in a manner that respected her privacy and dignity,” it says.

With more than 120 government departments and agencies and more than 23 million web pages, “it is unlikely that the government’s web presence will ever be perfectly accessible to all,” it adds.

A spokesperson for the federal government said Ottawa is working to make its online information as accessible as possible.

The Ontario government is already moving in that direction, and has given itself until 2025 to make Ontario fully accessible via the staged implementation of accessibility regulations / standards: any business, private or public sector, with 1 or more employees must be compliant with all the standards ( customer, information and communications, built environment, employment, and transportation), for more information our article on Accessibility Standards and Education - The Ontario Context.

Of coure, the costs and economic impact of enforcing an accessible society continues to be questioned, but study after study has shown that creating an environment where persons with disabilities can equally and actively participate will always lead to a greater economic gain for all. The most recent report to discuss this is Releasing Constraints: Projecting the Economic Impacts of Increased Accessibility in Ontario, a study released by the Martin Prosperity Institute, and prepared by the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, Institute for Competitivenes and Prosperity, and Adaptive Technology Resource Centre.

The proposed Information and Communications Standard, which will setup a regulatory compliance structure for activities like website design, will now be integrated with the employment and transportation standards and released a single regulation. The new three-in-one regulation has been posted on Ontario's Regulatory Registry for public review and comment until October 16, 2010.

The goal in combining all three standards is to make them more flexible for businesses. For more information on these proposals see Charles Beer's review of the Act: Charles Beer was appointed by the government of Ontario to conduct the first independent review of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005.

Obviously, this is something all schools, school libraries, classrooms have to take into account if / when they create a web site for resource sharing and collaboration.

If you have any questions about the "how to" end of setting up a web site which meets accessibility standards, just send us a message.

Ontario Premier says "Allow Cell Phones in Class"

2010-09-15T20:08:00.015-04:00

Image via WikipediaPremier Dalton McGuinty has come out saying school boards should be open to the idea of allowing students to use cellphones in the classroom...and I suspect most Ontarians will immediately consider this a bad idea.

This is the same reaction many US school districts and educators had when contemplating the notion, but you now have a surprising number of teachers advocating the use of cell phones. And some of it may be a result of the inevitabel, if you can't beat them join them, but nonetheless there are a number of articles, sites, and networks regularly exchanging ideas on how to integrate cellphones into classroom planing and learning activities.

Education Week, a leading education publication in the US, has regular articles and webinars on cell phones as classroom learning tools, quite often accompanied with real classroom / teacher examples of their use.

There are now text books on cell phone use in education, e.g. Toys to Tools: Connecting Student Cell Phones to Education, Teaching With the Tools Kids Really Use: Learning With Web and Mobile...just do an Amazon search and you'll be surprised.

Many progressive universities now have centres for the study of interactive technology in education, which include research into mobile technology and learning. And Classroom 2.0, the largest professional social network for teachers with over 30, 000 members, has a group called Cell Phones in Education.

It's definitely worthwhile at least exploring the option...

Overview of the Full Day Kindergarten Initiative in Ontario

2010-09-15T14:46:00.013-04:00

Image via WikipediaThe Ontario Ministry of Education just released another news item today regarding the Full Day Kindergarten initiative, More Early Childhood Educators Ready For The Classroom. Today's news focuses on the push to integrate more early childhood educators (ECEs) into classrooms to meet the "growing demand for ECEs" as Ontario phases in full-day kindergarten over the next five years.

There's a lot of talk about this initiative in the teaching community and some questions about the next few years, and today's news will undoubtedly pose a few more questions:

Children benefit from a full day of play-based learning, supported by two qualified educators. ECEs are also responsible for the integrated before- and after-school programs that are offered as part of full-day kindergarten at some schools.

When the program is fully implemented there will be up to 20,000 ECE positions supporting full-day kindergarten. Full-day kindergarten is being offered in almost 600 schools this year, and at the start of next year's school year it will be available in more than 800 schools.

All-in-all, a positive initiative...and yes, we have 15 month old twins, so we're biased.

We've provided some news items, press releases, etc. regarding the ongoing implementation of full-day kindergarten in Ontario:

A Full Day Of Learning For Young Students, Ontario Ministry of Education News Release, September 15, 2010
Full Day Kindergarten resource site, Ontario Ministry of Education, Early Learning
Battle lines drawn on full-day kindergarten, Toronto Star, September 7, 2010
Full-day kindergarten starts, but parents have questions, Toronto Star, September 7, 2010
Play-based learning will be part of successful full-day Kindergarten, The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), September 3, 2010
Teachers Applaud Launch of Canada’s First Full-Day Kindergarten Program, The Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO), January 12, 2010
Full-day kindergarten in Ontario gets failing grade, Globe and Mail, September 7, 2010
All-Day Kindergarten or All-day Learning Recommendations, TVO

Using Technology for Classroom Assessments

2010-09-11T23:11:00.009-04:00

Some schools in the States are using a computer program called mClass Reading 3D to record student responses to reading exercises, determine their strengths and weaknesses, and use these assessments to helo target their instruction.

This is actually being used by primary grade teachers, kindergarten through second grade, with the hope of providing the teacher with more informed instruction time and less time labouring through the assessment and planning process. Along with providing quicker student-centred data for classroom activity development, it can also be a tool for parents to use at home.

But the infrastructure necessary to successfully push and maintain this type of classroom-level technology is something which most boards / districts are far from having. The following is a description of a program which introduced this technology:

Each teacher will get a netbook, which displays reading exercises for students to complete. As they give their answers, the teacher takes notes on how the child responds, and the computer records which answers were correct and incorrect.

It then determines what tasks the student does proficiently and which tasks need to be reviewed with the teacher.
- Education Week

Definitely not a fiscal reality for our board.

Student Engagement, Achievement, and Effective Teaching - A CEA Report

2010-08-05T23:01:00.017-04:00

I rarely look at the Canadian context because, quite frankly, there is very little to look at. But a recent report by the Canadian Education Association (CEA) is definitely worth a read. What did you do in school today? is a CEA report which explores the relationships "among student engagement, achievement, and effective teaching". The report, a national initiative, is an attempt to look at one of the major challenges in education and provide some "Canadian" data on how best to take the next steps. The challenge?! -

...how to engage students whose passions do not fit within the traditional curriculum, students who could do better at their studies, students who put in the time but make little effort, students who are invested only in passing the test, students who tune out, and those who drop out.

This challenge is not just contained to the classroom, it transcends education, philosophies and methods, expectations, and the future of education as a system, process, and function of society.

The initiative which lead to this report started back in 2007 and obtained its data from an online survey which measures "four aspects of social, academic and intellectual engagement, as well as student wellness and five indicators of classroom and school climate." And the data has some serious numbers behind it, the first-year findings are based on data collected from 32,322 students in 93 schools from 10 school districts, and pretty well evenly distributed between the two sexes.

The findings are quite interesting, and in some cases unfortunately predictable. The following graph shows the percentage of students with a positive sense of belonging in Grades 6 through 12:

The ninety-three schools which participated in the survey have already began analyzing data to better understand the findings from the students’ perspective and within their local contexts.

Building a Fully Mobile Web Site - A Library's Experience

2010-07-21T22:37:00.006-04:00

Image via CrunchBase

A recent article in Reference Services Review (38.2, 2010) lays out a case in support of a fully mobile library web site. In fact, the article starts off with the position that “now” is definitely the time to develop a fully mobile web site.

Mobile / smart phone use has increased at an unbelievable pace, and the unique statistic about mobile phone usage is that it cuts across demographic and income barriers - the availability of a wide range of products to choose from has given the industry a definite advantage over other “gadget” industries. The paper actually quotes some fascinating International Telecommunication Union (ITU) statistics:

mobile phones have gone from a 5 percent worldwide penetration rate ten years ago to an estimated 61 percent penetration rate in 2008 (International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 2009a). Currently there are more mobile phone subscriptions, which are estimated at 4 billion, than landlines, which are estimated at 1.3 billion...

The mobile phone has, in less developed countries, provided a service without needing to spend and build an immense landline infrastructure (think of China)...hence the immense numbers of people using them. And in the “power” nations of the world, the only obstacle to the growth of mobile / smart phone use in certain workplaces is demographics and workflow culture, both of which have their days numbered.

Of course, the big mobile players which will bring about imminent changes in work culture, activities, and expectations, are the web-enabled phones: the BlackBerry, the iPhone, the Android. An EDUCAUSE Center study in the fall of 2009 found that “51 percent of undergraduate respondents owned a web-enabled phone and another 12 percent planned to purchase one in the next 12 months; 74 percent of the students who had web-enabled phones expected their use of the Internet from their phone to increase within the next three years”; this is the future of our workplace.

Here’s the abstract for the paper, and it provides the information in the context of the Oregon State University Libraries process and approach to developing a mobile library web site:

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the current state of worldwide mobile usage; mobile technologies; libraries' use of mobile technologies including a review of library mobile catalog options, both vendor-supplied and in-house created; perspectives from current library leaders and innovators on the importance of incorporating the libraries' resources into the mobile environment; and future directions for mobile library services.

A worthwhile read for any library. To access the article visit the page for it at the Scholars Archive@OSU, or simply access it directly.

Teachers' Personal E-Mails Not Public Records - US Case

2010-07-19T22:42:00.005-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

A very recent privacy case in Wisconsin will definitely have repercussions across the States, and worthwhile for us to take note in Canada; especially with the number of provinces which now have Freedom of Information and Protection of Privact Acts with teeth.

The case - Schill v. Wisconsin Rapids School District, decision released July 16th - went to Wisconsin's highest [Supreme] court and ruled that teachers' personal e-mails on school district computers are not public records under Wisconsin law and need not be disclosed to records requesters.

Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson of the Wisconsin Supreme Court wrote the following in the lead opinion:

There is a distinction between allowing public oversight of employees' use of public resources and invoking the Public Records Law to invade the private affairs of public employees by categorically revealing the contents of employees' personal emails...

A little background on the case: the Wisconsin Rapids School District permits teachers to use school computers for personal e-mail, and a local citizen put in a request for all e-mails sent and received on school computers by five teachers over a specific time period. Many other states' courts that have considered this particular information and privacy issue have also ruled that personal e-mail messages of government employees should be exempt from public-records laws.

Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson wrote "Disclosure of the contents of the teachers' personal emails does not keep the electorate informed about the government and sheds no light on official acts or the affairs of government,". We've yet to come across a similar information and privacy scenario for educators in Canada - a search of CanLii produced nothing but if there is something out there pleas let us know, and boards need to be prepared for this with some real policy and procedures for teachers to follow.

The "Millennial" Generation - New Pew Research Center Report

2010-07-15T22:56:00.024-04:00

The Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next, are defined by Pew as "the American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium", and further described by Pew as "confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change". Well, sounds like a there's positive outlook for the socio-political health of the US?!?

Okay, sarcasm aside (and I hope this is just a case of cheap sarcasm on my part and the Millennials do live up to their personality and promise), this [Millennials] is also the first "always connected" generation. In fact, when asked what makes their generation unique to previous generations, 24 percent of Millennials referred to "technology use." Demographically, they also stand apart from previous generations by being more ethnically and racially diverse than older adults, less religious, less likely to have served in the military, and on track to become the most educated generation in American history.

And of course, with the parallel emergence of social networking, Millennials have also become the most self-expressive generation:

Three-quarters have created a profile on a social networking site. One-in-five have posted a video of themselves online. Nearly four-in-ten have a tattoo (and for most who do, one is not enough: about half of those with tattoos have two to five and 18% have six or more). Nearly one-in-four have a piercing in some place other than an earlobe -- about six times the share of older adults who've done this.

In relation to their views of technology, Millennials have, unsurprisingly, the most positive attitude, with more than 74% of them agreeing that new technology makes life easier:

- PEW Research Center, Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next

The PEW Research Center data is largely taken from a recent survey of a national cross-section of 2,020 adults (including an oversample of Millennials), conducted by landline and cellular telephone from Jan. 14 to 27, 2010.

Teaching, Technology, and New Teachers - A Few Myths. Report

2010-07-14T21:57:00.014-04:00

Educators, Technology and 21st Century Skills: Dispelling Five Myths, a new study commissioned by The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership, explores some of the common assumptions about recent teachers' college graduates, their greater technology-literate backgrounds, and how this translates into classroom teaching and activities.

The study found that despite being younger and more having a higher degree of computer literacy, these recent teaching school graduates are no more likely to use technology in the classroom than their more experienced, and perhaps less "digitally" literate, colleagues. This, in fact, is one of the five myths the study outlines - growing up technology-literate does not necessarily translate into being comfortable using technology as a teaching and learning tool.

Here's a list of the other 4 myths the report looks at and refutes:

Only high-achieving students benefit from using technology;

Given that students today are comfortable with technology, teachers’ use of technology is less important to student learning;

Teachers and administrators have shared understandings about classroom technology use and 21st century skills;

Teachers feel well prepared by their initial teacher preparation programs to effectively incorporate technology into classroom instruction and to foster 21st century skills.

The study is based on a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. K–12 teachers, principals and assistant principals, and well worth the read. How I wish we had reports like this about the Canadian experience.

Digital Citizenship Curriculum - Navigating Digital Literacy Education

2010-07-04T16:28:00.011-04:00

Common Sense Media is a non-profit online education advocacy group based out of San Francisco. They have recently developed a digital literacy curriculum to help teachers and educators navigate through, and make sense of, the new challenges they face in dealing with the first generation of "digital natives". And when it comes to hot topic issues like cyberbullying, the curriculum is intended to provide a platform for educators and students to tackle this as an ethical concern and a learning teachable:

"Our role has really been to say these issues of children's behavior [online] really belong in the center of education as opposed to justice and law enforcement...Because this is about empowering young people to navigate this world responsibly and ethically. And it's about doing that in the context of school and home."
- Education Week

Based on the research of Harvard University education professor Howard Gardner, the Digital Citizenship curriculum bridges the link between the need to educate kids early about the basics of digital citizenship, how the new technology can lead to certain behaviours and scenarios, and how to manage these: empowering students with the tools to understand how their digital conduct can impact their relationships, identity, and psycho-social growth.

The curriculum conforms to content standards set by the International Society of Technology in Education, is geared toward grades 6-8 , and combines print, online, and video lessons within five lesson units: Digital Life, Privacy and Digital Footprints, Self-Expression and Identity, Connected Culture, and Respecting Creative Work.

For further reading on the issue of digital citizenship, students, and the role of education, see the report "Youth Safety on a Living Internet," written by the Online Safety and Technology Working Group. And not surprisingly, with the increase in cyberbullying incidents, parents have also become involved with a Ning network called Digi Parent - Digital Citizenship for Understanding, where they discuss many of the issues at hand and also provide valuable resources.

"Content" Resource Discovery Platforms

2010-07-02T23:40:00.042-04:00

Semantic or "intelligent" search tools, with controlled and connected data, are becoming more recognized and more desired for the specific or more sophisticated search request: for the user who wants to locate structured, meaningful, connected content, instead of having to cobble it together themselves from an endless mess of online searches. Here are a few tools you can use to help you move in the "smart search" direction.

Primal

A couple of weeks ago Primal launched it's new publishing platform, a kind of semantic mashup of web content aggregated from other sources.

Described by its founder as a form of "automated content manufacturing", the premises and goal of Primal is surprisingly easy and rather straight-forward: to build a web site of automated content based on a users thoughts and ideas. For example, in Primal Pages you can simply type in a word, such a Trees, and a webpage builder will guide the user through the process of developing and generating a web resource on their topic of interest, using content from sources like Wikipedia, Yahoo!, and Flickr.

Primal offers a few content and resource exploration tabs along with Pages. Storm provides you with the ability to generate semantic maps, or columns, of your ideas:

One obvious use for Primal in teaching is to use it to build a website of course resources / materials, and in this case you can it built collaboratively by both teacher and students.

Google Squared

Google Squared is Google's semantic search tool - Google's way of taking web content and adding a layer of structure so that it carries meaning beyond its content container, much like a database. In this case it extracts data from Web pages and presents them in search results as squares in an online spreadsheet. A search for "oak trees" will give you a list of results in columns by item name, image, description, family, genus, class, etc.

It's an amazing tool for comparative data searching, and its application in the classroom becomes quite apparent when you start thinking about the structure of the data you work with: try a search on something like "Canadian Provinces", or "Canadian Landscape Artists".

And Google has made this tool even smarter over the last year. You can add columns, create your own columns, store more data in a square, and save it to Google Spreadsheet (meaning you can also save it to Excel, if you so wish). If you have a classroom site on Google Sites you'll be able to integrate the results of this spreadsheet directly into your site, with sorting features, etc.: now that's a game changer when it comes to building resources for digital learning.

Wolfram Alpha

Wolfram Alpha, the "computational knowledge" engine turned one in mid-May, it was released back in 2009 with much hoopla and anticipation but has had mixed reviews during its first year. In truth, the mixed reviews stem from two realities:

Data- they simply did not get access to all the data needed to build its knowledge domains: unlike semantic search tools like Primal and Google Squared, Wolfram Alpha is an actual database (or distributed database) running in the background
Users - users were expecting it to behave like a search engine, but unlike regular web search engines, Wolfram computes data based on the structure of your question. The "stringing together of terms" search we've all become used to simply does not work with a controlled database search environment.

However, over the last year Wolfram Alpha has been adding more knowledge domains and building / programming with natural language queries. Wolfram Alpha also hopes to soon allow users to upload their own data, perform computations on this data, and use Wolfram Alpha to find correlations within Alpha's vast database. The teaching and classroom usage and application scenarios for this are immense.

Wolfram Alpha also provides some really nice user-end features to help us integrate the data we find into our own work. For example, if you do a search "Canada Geography" you get the following results table:

If you click on any of the data it will produce a pop-up which will let you copy the data as text or save it as an image:

And in its attempt to reach more users Wolfram Alpha has created community groups and targeted these groups with announcements, discussion boards, idea sharing, etc., and yes, there is a Wolfram Alpha Education Community.

McAfee Report on Teen Online Behaviour...Interesting

2010-06-26T23:56:00.010-04:00

McAfee, the Internet security company, has just released a report called The Secret Online Lives of Teens and, if you're a parent of a teen, it's confirmed some underlying suspicions and fears you may have about all the time they spend online.

The report found that today's teen, the first generation of digital natives, spends a lot of time using the Internet to play games, communicate / socialize with others, and navigate content. But it also found that these digital natives are so comfortable with the Internet that engage in behavior which most of us would consider risky or problematic, such as sharing personal information in chat rooms and downloading programs or content from unreliable sources:

Although teens are heavy Internet users, it’s still surprising that 27% say that they have accidentally infected their home computer with a virus or other malware, and 14% say that they shared their passwords with friends.

McAfee commissioned this study conducted online by Harris Interactive from May 4 to May 17, 2010. The study surveyed 1,357 ten to seventeen year-olds in the U.S. on:

how they use the Internet
what kind of content and media they view and download, and
their level of engagement in risky online behaviors

Here are some of the key findings:

Half of kids surveyed say that they have been using the Internet for five years or more, and 58% consider themselves heavy users who access the Internet six or seven days a week
Communicating and downloading content are two primary uses of the Internet by young people, but education also plays an important role. Nearly 80% say they use the Web to do research for school assignments
Gaming is also a popular activity, with 61% of kids saying they play games online
81% of 16- to 17-year-olds report having at least one social networking account
53% view and download media online

The report also emphasizes the need to address cyberbullying, and while we do believe this is a very real problem which, in the short term, is only going to get worse, it's quite obvious (and somewhat self-serving, to say the least) why an Internet security company would want to emphasize cyberbullying as a discussion point.

Accessibility Standards and Education - The Ontario Context

2010-06-24T23:19:00.005-04:00

Read an article recently about the Internet Archive, an increasingly popular Internet library of web resources developed and maintained by a non-profit, and how they have made about one million books easily accessible for people with disabilities, such as blindness or dyslexia, by converting the books to a new format called DAISY: a format which can be downloaded to devices that can read the books aloud.

The books are available to anyone, and while this brings about some implications for educators, and in my opinion mostly positive, it did remind me of the work that's happening here at home in Ontario to increase accessibility standards and services to persons with disabilities: a major initiative which, unfortunately, does not appear to have generated much attention in education circles.

Developing Accessibility Standards for Ontarians
Building or providing information resources for persons with disabilities will soon be a regulated standard in Ontario. In fact, this past January1, 2010, all public sector services which provide goods or services to the public or other organizations in Ontario had to be in compliance with the Accessibility Standards for Customer Service Regulation (O. Reg 429/7), as enforced by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), 2005: and yes, this also applies to every district school board as defined in section 1 of the Education Act. The enforcement of this standard has started to have an impact on the library world at both the operational and policy levels and will increase with consumer awareness. And over the next few years a number of other regulated AODA, 2005 accessibility standards will be released and in-force which address the following key areas:

Built Environment
Employment
Information and Communications
Transportation

The Information and Communications standard will be the one which will have the greatest impact on our work and the services we deliver. Ensuring that alternate formats are available for materials we publish or produce (e.g. library guides, pathfinders, instruction sheets, presentations, etc.) to serve users with low vision, intellectual or other cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities, etc.. For many of us this is a major overhaul of our systems, processes, and policies and will inevitably take time to do. Everything from how we prepare our documents, to providing screen readers, audio formats, accessible websites / services, and a slew of appropriate or required assistive technologies to ensure that your services can be delivered to persons with disabilities.

For those of you who live in Ontario, Canada, and are involved in preparing web and information resources for your students or school library, I highly recommend that you check out AccessON, the Ministry of Community and Social Services' site specifically developed to communicate the principles and progress of AODA, 2005 and it's accompanying standards. And of course, it's always smart to keep on top of everything that's going on at the Ontario Library Association (OLA), more specifically the Ontario School Library Association branch of the OLA.

Some Background on the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), 2005
A few facts about disabilities in Ontario: there are about 1.85 million people in Ontario have disabilities, which accounts for about 15.5% of Ontario's population; and with the aging population, the number of Ontarians with a disability will increase...in fact, projections show that in 2025 majority of persons with disabilities will be 65+ years of age.

Ontario is the only jurisdiction in Canada to have legislation that establishes a comprehensive goal for regulated accessibility standards, and the first jurisdiction in the world to move from complaints-based legislation to a regulatory model in the area of mandated accessibility.

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), 2005 uses the same definition of "disability" as the Ontario Human Rights Code, including both visible and non-visible disabilities. In the Act, "disability" means:

any degree of physical disability, infirmity, malformation or disfigurement that is caused by bodily injury, birth defect or illness and, without limiting the generality of the foregoing, includes diabetes mellitus, epilepsy, a brain injury, any degree of paralysis, amputation, lack of physical coordination, blindness or visual impediment, deafness or hearing impediment, muteness or speech impediment, or physical reliance on a guide dog or other animal or on a wheelchair or other remedial appliance or device
a condition of mental impairment or a developmental disability,
a learning disability, or a dysfunction in one or more of the processes involved in understanding or using symbols or spoken language,
a mental disorder

Both the public sector and private sector are required to comply with all accessibility standards to be introduced by the AODA, 2005: not necessarily at the same time, for example the private sector is expected to be in compliance with the Customer Service standard regulation by 2012, a full two years after the public sector. But this fact touches upon the very lofty and challenging goal of the Act and its standards - to have a fully accessible Ontario by 2025. This means your corner variety store in Ontario will have to be fully compliant to all AODA, 2005 accessibility standards by 2025...now that's a tall order.

Teachers’ Use of Educational Technology - A U.S. Dept. of Education Report

2010-05-31T16:31:00.017-04:00

A new report released by the US Department of Education, Teachers’ Use of Educational Technology in U.S. Public Schools: 2009. First Look, highlights an issue which any teacher working in a low-income area is aware of - teachers working in low-income / high poverty areas are less likely to use technology for classroom related activities than teachers working in mid to high income areas.

The report is actually based on a subset of national data collected from surveys conducted at the district, school, and teacher levels. The data presents results from the teacher level survey, including:

information on the use of computers and Internet access in the classroom;
availability and use of computing devices and software, teachers’ use of school or district networks (including remote access);
students’ use of educational technology;
teachers’ preparation to use educational technology for instruction; and
technology-related professional development activities

Here are some of the key findings on teachers’ current use of educational technology in public schools:

Ninety-seven percent of teachers had one or more computers located in the classroom every day, while 54 percent could bring computers into the classroom. Internet access was available for 93 percent of the computers located in the classroom every day and for 96 percent of the computers that could be brought into the classroom
Teachers reported that they or their students used computers in the classroom during instructional time often (40 percent) or sometimes (29 percent)
Ninety-seven percent of teachers reported having remote access to school email, and of these teachers, 85 percent used this remote access sometimes or often. Eighty-one percent of teachers had remote access to student data, and of these teachers, 61 percent used this type of access sometimes or often
Differences were found among low and high poverty schools for the percentage of teachers who sometimes or often did the following: used email or list-serve to send out group updates or information to parents (69 percent compared to 39 percent) or to students (30 percent compared to 17 percent), used email to address individual concerns with parents (92 percent compared to 48 percent) or with students (38 percent compared to 19 percent), used a course or teacher web page to communicate with parents (47 percent compared to 30 percent) or with students (36 percent compared to 18 percent)

Some high percentages in terms of technology being present in the classroom or school environments, but this can be misleading and the many tables in the report do help clarify with a proper breakdown of what this exactly means: e.g. all classrooms in a school may have access to a computer or more, but exactly how many and the ratio of computers to students is what really drives the integration of new technologies into classroom learning and activities.

As indicated by the final bullet point regarding differences "found among low and high poverty schools", the 'access to computers' concern becomes emphasized in low-income areas where a higher percentage of students simply don't have access at home. And while the availability of computers at the local public library may help allay the lack of access at home, it remains a tall order for both students and teachers in these schools to properly compete and develop learning programs which use these technologies.

Young more lonely than the old - UK Study

2010-05-25T21:40:00.009-04:00

A UK report by the Mental Health Foundation, suggests that loneliness is more prevalent among the young than those past retirement age.

The findings of The Lonely Society report find that the younger respondents to their survey were the group most likely to experience and acknowledge loneliness:

"Generational differences are striking. In general, the younger you are, the more likely you are to feel lonely often (12%) and the more likely to have felt depressed because you felt alone (53%). More people in the 18-34 age bracket also worry about feeling lonely (36%). These results may indicate that loneliness is especially a problem for younger generations, and that changes in the way we live and work that affect our relationships are having more of an impact on this age group. More young people (31%) say they spend too much time communicating with family and friends online when they should see them in person, for example. Of the three age groups, people in the younger age group (18-34) were most likely to have been proactive about dealing with isolation, with 14% saying that they had sought help for feeling lonely, compared to 12% of those aged 35-54 and 8% of people over 55."

While the connectivity of the new social networking sites and technology in general were seen as potentially 'isolating' experiences and poor replacements for genuine human interaction, the report also acknowledged that it can allow people to make connections they may otherwise never have made. And this inherent dichotomy is captured as a generational experience, with the younger generations falling into the former.

Food for thought as many of us deal with, and push for, a more digital environment at work and home.

The 2010 Horizon Report - emerging technologies in K - 12

2010-05-21T14:12:00.016-04:00

The Horizon Report 2010 K - 12 Edition, a publication of the New Media Consortium and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), examines emerging technologies and their potential impact on, and use in, K - 12 teaching and learning. This years Horizon Report captures an international perspective and explores k - 12 issues that transcend boards, regional practices and policies, with a focus on how six emerging technologies or practices which are likely to help education and educators in the years to come.

The report's format outlines key trends, the critical challenges, and the technologies to watch, all within chapters which capture a "Time-to-Adoption Horizon" period of:

One Year or less

Two to Three Years

Four to Five Years

These adoption horizons are a means of attempting to indicate the likely time frame for the entrance of the emerging technology into "mainstream use for teaching, learning, or creative applications in the K -12 environment." And the chapters include detail descriptions of the technology, trends and challenges; links to active work going on among elementary, middle, and high schools around the world; and a wide range of resources related to the six profiled technologies.

The technologies to watch according to the Horizon Report are...

Cloud Computing and Collaborative Environments (One Year or Less):
On the near-term horizon are cloud computing and collaborative environments. And while the report fully acknowledges the presence and current use of these two technologies in education today, it also shows how the full potential of these two current technologies are well underutilized in education: basically, these technologies have by-in-large remained peripheral, allbeit heavily used, practices which need to be fully integrated before their extensive resources and power can be fully realized.

Game-Based Learning and Mobiles (Two to Three Years):
Game-based learning and mobiles are well-established technologies identified on the second adoption horizon which we will begin to see the widespread adoption of in institutional activities. While both technologies are an integral part of popular culture, and have been used as learning tools in a number of the more progressive schools, they have also been marginalized in many schools by outdated and restrictive policies which continue to treat any interactive or Web 2.0 technology as a possible distraction to learning.

Augmented Reality and Flexible Displays (Four to Five Years):
Augmented reality and flexible displays are technologies on the far-term horizon which have generated an large amount of interest, and users, and have also been the subject of a ton of research. Augmented reality (AR) has become something anyone can use, thanks to the convergence of three technologies — GPS, video, and pattern recognition, and flexible displays are seen as an important enabling technology, with the very real possibility of integrated interactive displays (flexible displays and touch-based interfaces) becoming part of many common educational objects and tools in the near future.

Each of these six key emerging technologies is discussed and described in detail in the report, with a specific section dedicated to each and outlining what the technology is and why it is relevant to teaching, learning, and creative inquiry. The report also makes an effort to ground / contextualize the discussions as much as possible through highlighting "innovative work going on among, elementary, middle, and high schools around the world".

The key trends which are seen as driving these emerging technologies are as follows:

"Technology is increasingly a means for empowering students, a method for communication and socializing, and a ubiquitous, transparent part of their lives" - i.e. social networking, Web 2.0, mobile culture and everything connected to the wired life of students are as second-nature to them as TV and the land-line phone are to us. Students cannot think of socializing, working, interacting, learning, and living without these tools.

"Technology continues to profoundly affect the way we work, collaborate, communicate, and succeed" - almost an understatement, instead of affect, I would almost be tempted to say in many instances "drive" how we now work, learn, and play. And given the access to mobiles and use of computer technologies at public libraries by low-income America, this can now also be treated as an education issue as well as an "access" issue.

"The perceived value of innovation and creativity is increasing" - the working and living world which exists outside of schools is expecting a nimbleness and flexibility of mind and adaptation which current educational models are simply not addressing. And this is not just a question of how we need to redesign learning activities, it's a question of shifting paradigms and methodologies; designing new learning activities within the same old models will take us where we need to go.

"There is increasing interest in just-in-time, alternate, or non-formal avenues of education, such as online learning, mentoring, and independent study" - This is very tied into the previous point / trend of innovation and creativity, and while I do see this as a trend I don't think it's a positive one on its own, this needs to be connected and couched within the greater issue of changing models.

"The way we think of learning environments is changing" - Yup, the virtual space is a learning environment, has been for a while; this has been a key trend for quite a while now, in fact, I would argue that there's now a mainstream element to this.

Along with these current "key" trends, the Advisory Board also notes critical challenges which schools and educators now face. Not surprisingly they touch upon issues of professional development and digital literacy; need to change educational practice, policy, models, and the structure of our systems; and the need for educators and education to recognize the value of what is happening beyond the physical walls of the classroom and school.

Who is behind this report...the above six key emerging technologies or practices in this years report were identified by:

Knowledgeable stakeholders in the fields of business, industry, and education;

Published resources, current research, and practice; and

Advisory Board, made up of an international body of experts in education, technology, and other fields.

Along with the report it would be also worthwhile checking out the Horizon Project central site.

Video Games, Boys, and Learning - Not A Good Mix According to Study

2010-04-01T23:25:00.011-04:00

Image via WikipediaPsychologists Robert Weis and Brittany C. Cerankosky of Denison University conducted a study, Effects of Video-Game Ownership on Young Boys' Academic and Behavioral Functioning: A Randomized, Controlled Study, examining the short-term effects of video-game ownership on learning and academic development in young boys. The findings, well, after young boys receive their first video game system they don’t do as well in school as boys who don’t own such devices...wow, didn't see that coming.

The researchers recruited families with boys between the ages of 6 to 9 who did not own video-game systems. The children completed the standard intelligence, reading, and writing tests, and the boys’ parents and teachers filled out questionnaires relating to their behavior at home and at school. The study then provided a video-game system (along with three, age-appropriate video games) to half the families immediately, while the remaining families were promised a video-game system four months later, at the end of the experiment.

Over the course of the four months, both parents (with and without video game systems) recorded their children’s post-school activities until bedtime. At the four-month time point, the children repeated the reading and writing assessments and parents and teachers again completed the behavioral questionnaires.

Well, the obvious happened, the boys who received the video game systems right away spent more time playing video games (39.3 minutes vs. 9.3 minutes) and less time (18.2 minutes vs. 31.6 minutes) in after-school academic activities. But in my non-scientific and humble opinion, the data-collection period of four months simply does not represent a real discovery and learning cycle; give it a year and see what happens. In fact, what would be really interesting is to continue this for a few years and see how the two data groups evolve in terms of learning, socializing, creativity, etc.; we really know very little about the long-term effects of gaming on boys. But I think it may be a question of the two meeting halfway: the study findings suggest that video games may be displacing after-school academic activities and impeding reading and writing development in young boys...so do we get rid of video games or, hmmm, maybe look at a way of combining the two.

The study was recently released in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Privacy Commissioner of Canada Enters the "Cloud" Debate

2010-03-31T10:09:00.014-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

As part of the 2010 Consumer Privacy Consultations the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (OPC) has put out a notice of consultation and call for submissions on privacy issues related to cloud computing practices and their implications for individuals, organizations, and businesses.

The Privacy Commissioner is looking to the consumer to "learn more about cloud computing technology, explore its privacy implications, and find out what privacy protections Canadians expect with respect to cloud computing". It's the second OPC privacy consultation in 2010, the first being the Online Tracking, Profiling and Targeting consultation.

Worth noting that the OPC is also hoping genereate public and consumer debate regarding technological developments on privacy with the aim to inform the next review process for the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA).

As part of the consultation process the OPC also released its first report on cloud computing, Reaching for the Cloud(s): Privacy Issues related to Cloud Computing, where they identify the privacy-specific issues of concern and "overarching problems" with cloud computing, e.g.:

jurisdictional neutrality;
consumer lack of control;
compromising meaningful choice and consent (the alternatives which exist with service providers);
data ownership;
security and many others

It would be great to have some education representatives / partners involved in this consultation process. Many of the collaborative school district projects being pursued south of the border involve cloud technology - in fact Obama's New Education Technology Plan advocates this type of innovation, and Canada's education community is definitely interested in exploring what this type of infrastructure would mean to the development of online learning.

Using Open Source in Education - A Report

2010-03-27T23:26:00.017-04:00

In a recent post of ours we discussed the strong desire to go open source in the world of education versus the reality: the increasingly out-of-sync relationship between user expectations and corporate IT services response, where users are expecting way more than most traditional IT services can deliver.

Well, a just released report by technology research firm Grunwald Associates (and sponsored by Educational Testing Service) explores the nuances of developing an open source platform for Internet-based assessment, and touches upon some of the common concerns and misperceptions about open source development and implementation.

The report focuses on the attitute, perceptions, and experiences of education leaders’ regarding the potential for pursuing online testing in an open source environment. It collected and synthesized data from 80 interviews with state assessment and technology leaders (representing 27 states) and national education opinion leaders (representing both public and private organizations).

The majority of education leaders / participants in the study knew enough about open source to point out identifiable benefits associated with the platform, but they also readily admitted to knowing that, for now, they don't know enough to lead their respective districts in this direction.

The study participants viewed the benefits of open source in the context of cost-savings (no annual licenses, no renewals), the development of common standards, and adaptability. However, they also identified hidden costs and security as two areas they are very concerned about; and surprisingly, one of their biggest concerns is the feasibility of a peer-based collaboration, one of the key selling features of an open-source platform.

Here are a few of the key observations highlighted in the report's conclusions:

Education leaders do not yet have a strong enough knowledge base about open source for them to make a truly informed decision about an open source platform;

Everyone has interest in moving forward but it’s not easy to be the head of the pack;

The cost savings that can accompany any open source platform will not, in and of themselves, sell educators on this approach; and

Perhaps the clearest inference that can be made from this study is that educators will look for leadership, structure, and organization if they are to take part in an open source initiative.

Worth a look.

U.S. Public Library Study - A Third of Americans Use Public Library Computer Services

2010-03-26T22:26:00.028-04:00

Since the mid to late 90's free access to computers and the Internet in public libraries has evolved from a marginal service and activity to an essential service. In 1996 only 28 percent of U.S. public libraries offered visitors access to the Internet. Today, almost all public library branches offer visitors free access to computers and the Internet, in fact, for many public libraries it has become their core service.

The recently released study of the U.S. public library services, Opportunity for All: How the American Public Benefits from Internet Access at U.S. Libraries, found that over the past year, 45 percent of the 169 million visitors to public libraries used the library's Internet services during their visit...an amazing figure and a real argument for more money to be put into these services.

The study also found that computer and Internet services at public libraries are extremely valuable to a big chunk of the U.S. population:

...44 percent of people in households living below the federal poverty line ($22,000 a year for a family of four) used public library computers and Internet access. Among young adults (14–24 years of age) in households below the federal poverty line, 61 percent used public librarycomputers and Internet for educational purposes. Among seniors (65 and older) living in poverty, 54 percent used public library computers for health or wellness needs...

It would be great to see the results of a similar study in Canada, I would expect the data to be quite similar. But while public library Internet access provides an important service to millions of Americans living below the poverty line, this study also shows that these services are accessed by people from all walks of life.

This is the first large-scale study in North America exploring how library patrons use this service and was paid for by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted by the University of Washington Information School. The study was conducted in three concurrent phases covering a national telephone survey, nearly 45,000 online surveys at public libraries, and hundred of interviews / case studies.

Here's some more data gathered by this study:

Young adults were among the most active, with nearly half of the nation‘s 14 to 18 year olds (an estimated 11.8 million users) reporting they used a library computer during the last year;

Nearly two-thirds of library computer users (63 percent) logged on to help others. Fifty-six percent reported helping friends or family with health matters, 46 percent helped find information on education and learning opportunities, and 37 percent helping friends or family find employment or career information;

More than 26 million people used public library computers to get government or legal information or to access government services; and

More than 32 million visitors reported using library computers for a variety of educational activities: doing their homework, searching for and applying to GED and graduate programs, completing online courses and tests, and even applying for financial aid.

Some incredible data.

In Toronto, the city we call home, it's obvious to us that the Toronto Public Libraries' computer services has become a lifeline for the many who still don't have access at home and rely on public library web access to look for a job, do homework, e-government services, and any number of other activities.

Make sure your public library system continues to get the funding it needs.

Why Choose Wikis over Google...?!

2010-03-13T18:46:00.054-05:00

The Marketplace
For the last number of years educator's have been turning to wiki platforms to create collaborative spaces. The ease of use, access, and availability of wikis have made them a favourite option for teacher's hoping to create an online space to share with their students. But Google has quickly become an increasingly popular choice for use among educators, especially for district-wide implementation - a corporate, strategic, server-side solution instead of a one-off classroom solution for those lucky enough to have a board with a sense of innovation.

And over the last little while the growth of Google Apps and the development of cross-platform applications has made Google even more attractive. Recently Google launched its Google Apps Marketplace and what really caught my attention was the quality of competitor applications which are available. Zoho, an Indian application and services suite that competes with Google apps and which I really like, has integrated its CRM and Projects apps with Google apps.

The logic behind this is both good for business and the user:

It gives application developers access to a massive pool / market of users;
Google will be able to provide an even richer user experience in the cloud; and
Google users will be able to make use of fantastic apps without having to create an account elsewhere: prior to the Google Marketplace if we wanted to make use of a Project Management web app we would have to login elsewhere, but not now.

In fact, Zoho has offered Google sign-in on it's own platform for quite a while, and these two services (Zoho and Google Apps) about cover it all when it comes to personal and business cloud computing...would love to see more integration between these two.

Public Data Visualization
A few weeks ago Google launched a new labs tool, Google Public Data Explorer. As the name indicates, this new Google Labs tool offers a visual way to look at and analyze large public data sets on a variety of topical search categories. The public data sets cover about 80+ categories of data and are taken from the following sources:

World Bank
OECD Factbook 2009
Eurostat
US Census
National Center for Health Statistics (US)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(US)...and a few others

As you can see, Statistics Canada data is not included...and as a Canadian who is familiar with Stats Can's obsession with releasing, or should I say withholding, data from the public something tells me this is more of a Stats Can issue than a Google one.

There's a lot of useful and valuable "lesson-friendly" data to play with. And users can play with the data and reshape the visualizations into line graphs, bar graphs, maps and bubble charts, which can be shared by direct URL or embedded...checkout our Consumer Price Index data visualization comparing Canada and Australia from 1955 to 2007:

Classroom / Project Sites
No new news here, Google Sites has been around for quite a while. But I remain really surprised when colleagues choose to work with a wiki instead of exploring the possibility of developing a Google site.

With Google sites you have the ability to create data tables which you can sort, add drop down menus to, date, checkboxes, urls...in short a database entry and display form. There's the endless world of Google apps and gadgets you can integrate: spreadsheets, presentations, videos, calendar, map, web sideshow, and so forth. And if you're willing to take an extra few minutes, with no knowledge of coding or web languages you can create some really interactive services, like a public web form which will capture data in a spreadsheet...think surveys, questionnaires, etc. for free. Hey, why not take our quick four question survey.

Google sites is an incredibly flexible, rich, and collaborative environment, with the foundation of Google apps as its support, Sites is Google's answer to SharePoint.

Google's Blogger was a massive hit during the early years of blogging but has been recently overshadowed by some very impressive competition: Wordpress, Typepad.

However, Blogger has recently introduced some features which make it a very inviting product. Blogger users can now create "pages", allowing bloggers to easily publish static information on stand-alone pages. And last week Blogger template designer was released to help bloggers design and customize the look of their blog, no web design knowledge required.

I've posted before on the usefulness of blogger for classroom projects, and these two tools (Google Sites and Blogger) can be used to compliment each other and, along with all the other Google apps, create an amazing collaborative environment for teaching, learning, and socializing.

Integration with Microsoft Office
Lastly, many corporate IT outfits won't even consider Google apps or docs because they're a Microsoft environment. OffiSync, a new plugin for Microsoft Office, has changed that. OffiSync allows users to sync files between the two systems.

Last word...
I know there will be many who will say Moodle, or a true open source solution, is the way to go for developing learning and education-based environments. You own and control your data, and it's not locked in some datastore-type product.

I agree, and so do all the big players like Google and Microsoft, which is why they're actively involved in exploring and developing with open source. The reality is the increasingly out-of-sync relationship between user expectations and corporate IT services response: users are expecting way more than most traditional IT services can deliver. And enter the cloud...Google is such a dominant beast in the web services world, to not take advantage of its services to help us prepare and deliver our classroom activities is silly. With 16,000+ employees working to make Google the web service platform of choice, it becomes a practical and fiscal decision: plus, customized open source development is expensive and waiting for the community of volunteer developers to build what you need is, well, slow moving.

Fotobabble - You can now do something "instructive" with class trip photos...and much more

2010-03-06T22:08:00.014-05:00

Fotobabble is a new web application which allows users to add audio to photos quickly and painlessly. Sign-up is free and all you need is a microphone on your computer, the rest is basic - you simply upload a photo, record a narrative, and Fotobabble attaches an audio caption.

Fotobabble does not appear to allow users to string photos together to create a storyboard from a string of related photos, but there are other applications which you can use to connect these photos.

But that's a minor hiccup, especially when you consider all the possible educational applications of this tool. While our post title playfully refers to breathing some life into all those photos of classroom activities and trips, there are some real classroom teaching applications, for example:

describing using parts of speech
descriptive language - using metaphors, similes
creative writing, e.g. a short story about the photo, poetry
point of view
inferring; e.g. hidden meaning behind the photo, the story
media literacy, such as developing slogans, determining how a photo can sell a product or concept
music; select the appropriate jingle / song for the photo

It would be really cool if Fotobabble allowed users to manipulate the photo, such as adding text, to create an advertisement or book cover.

This fotobabble user describes some more useful educational applications.

Dulcinea Media - Search and Browse Tools for Students and Educators

2010-03-06T10:59:00.021-05:00

When elementary students sit down at the school computer to do a general resource discovery search or research a particular topic, there are always concerns about the tools they're using. Schools can set up restrictions and filters but nothing beats setting up a local Virtual Reference Desk with recommended tools and resources, especially at the elementary level, and Dulcinea Media has designed a suite of products to help teachers and librarians build a safe, authoritative reference space.

Sweet Search is a search engine for students created and maintained by Dulcinea Media. Sweet Search has a staff of what they call Internet Researcher Experts (not sure of the qualifications for that position), including librarian and teacher consultants, who've basically created a database of reliable, safe, authoritative sites presumably based on a set of criteria; I can't seem to locate the "criteria" used to select and index sites. To date they claim to have indexed (will only search) approximately 35,000 web sites.

A really nice feature built into Sweet Search is its directory, Sweet Sites, which breaks its list of links into two main categories (Teachers and Students), and three sub-categories (High School, Middle School, and Elementary School). If anything, the setup of this directory alone will make his a useful product.

And we recommend exploring some of Dulcinea Media's other products for educators and students, and we especially recommend a visit to their virtual reference desk, Finding Dulcinea: Librarian of the Internet, and its guide to web searching...great for kids.

For teachers, Dulcinea Media has setup Finding Education, a tool to help educators locate online resources, share them, and create web assignments with students.

Now, all Dulcinea Media has to do is find a way of integrating its services into Google...and iGoogle app?!

Only downside to this suite of products, strong US focus on content but still meaningful to Canadian users.

Students' Input on Tech Use in Schools

2010-02-28T12:13:00.009-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

A recent article in Education Week looks at student views regarding the use of technology in schools, and also introduces a Ning group which explores the role of students in decisions about the use of technology in schools - an excellent idea, we're all concerned with how best to integrate technology and web 2.0 into the classroom, but there's very little literature or real discussion about what students think of the present state of things.

The 2008 national findings of Project Tomorrow's Speak Up survey, show that only one-third of high school students think their school is "doing a good job preparing them for the jobs of the future", and in the use of technology, most students view their time at school as means “powering down” for a few hours. Many students believe their k-12 school environment is letting them down in the area of technology, and from the few surveys and discussions on this topic it's quite obvious that students want a "more technology-rich learning environments and would like the opportunity to use more Web 2.0 tools and mobile devices in school".

A worthwhile read and the Digital Directions Ning group is a great way to generate some great discussions and possibly lay the foundation for some tech-collaboration among the participants.

Media Multitasking and Children's Learning and Development

2010-02-14T23:11:00.027-05:00

Media multitasking is commonplace among the increasing number of children using technology, and as the results of a recent report we covered clearly demonstrated, this activity needs a lot more attention than it is presently being given:

"the study identified the media-usage average time of 7 hours and 38 minutes. But here's the amazing part of the 'media usage' stat, because many of these respondents often multi-task by using more than one type of technology at a time (e.g. texting while watching TV), the study found they actually manage to pack 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into the 7 and a half hours - Generation M^2"

What we really need to get a better understanding of is how media multitasking affects their learning and development, and their ability to think and to relate to other people.

Last summer at Stanford University - July 15, 2009 - scholars from the neurosciences, child development, cognitive science, communication, and education fields, all with an interest in the emerging field of multitasking, assembled for a one-day seminar on media multitasking and its impact on children’s learning and development. The recently released report on the findings of this seminar, The Impacts Media Multitasking on Children's Learning and Development: Report from a Research Seminar published by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, outlines the main issues and ideas which emerged from this seminar.

There were five themes which emerged form this one-day seminar:

Clearer definitions and a common vocabulary in the emerging, multidisciplinary field of multitasking...

Don't allow moral panic regarding the social issues of multitasking to cloud the positives of this technology and activity...

Media multitasking is changing childhood and changing the workplace...

New tools and research methodologies must be developed to study this emerging field...

A long-term research agenda must be pursued...

This timely discussion will hopefully add to the growing interest in this emerging field and help generate some long-term research in the field of multitasking. And this research will be especially pertinent to teachers, administrators, and those in the education world - in light of the increasing role of technology and Web 2.0 in teaching and students' lives, understanding the impact of media multitasking is essential.

For further reading, here are a few more items on media multitasking:

Media-Multitasking: Implications for Learning and Cognitive Development in Youth [Background Paper]
Seminar on the Impacts of Media Multitasking [Web Site]

The Growth of Online Tutoring Services

2010-02-12T22:56:00.006-05:00

Virtual Nerd is a tutoring subscription service which uses hundreds of online videos to guide students visually through traditionally, and typically, thorny math and physics concepts like polynomials and factoring a trinomial.

Virtual Nerd is part of a growing industry which is tapping into an attentive audience and a market demand - basically, students are spending massive chunks of their non-school time online, so why not deliver the tutoring service to them online.

What makes these online tutoring services even more attractive is the comparatively low cost when you at the expenses of traditional tutoring services.

There are many online tutoring services, like Tutor.com, which want to cover the entire gamut of disciplines, but services like Virtual Nerd will become more common as they aim to address specific tutoring needs.

The School Library - the need to build both the physical and virtual space

2010-02-10T21:19:00.020-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

In this week's Education Week Katie Ash's article on school libraries, School Libraries Seek Relevance Through Virtual Access, touches upon a number of topical issues now facing school librarians. Dwindling monies, delivering more digital instruction and resources to remain relevant to students, and becoming a more collaborative and interactive space for working and learning: an odd affirmation of the importance of one's services by asking them to "please do more with less"...

But librarians have become quite accustomed to shrinking budgets and in the face of constant fiscal constraints have become leaders in embracing technology and innovation in schools. In fact, web 2.0, technology, and the increasingly "digitally" wired student have given school librarians opportunities to work the library into school roles and activities which they may not have had in the past.

This more central role has created a fascinating dilemma for school libraries - how to build the virtual space which students (and many teachers) are clamoring for, and turn the old, stale physical library into a space which can sustain and grow with the changing work, learning, and socializing world of the digital student. Some educators ask whether "schools even need a physical library", but it can be argued that the need for the "right" physical space to compliment the virtual space has become even more pressing and relevant. A "learning commons" would offer students a collaborative, interactive, media rich, project-based space to share their work and learn. But more importantly, a physical space offers the presence of an expert librarian to navigate them through the good and the bad of the web, teach them critical thinking and refined searching skills, and offer the adult guidance and support of a teacher - something students will always need, no matter how "wired" they are.

YayTrail - New Web Annotation Tool

2010-02-07T10:21:00.011-05:00

YayTrail is still in development and probably a number months away from any sort of beta release, but its main premise holds quite a bit of promise and points to what may be an exciting product.

YayTrail is a web annotation tool which let's the user add a note right in the content / text itself. Presently, the web annotation tools most of us work with provide users with bloated menus and sidebars, making references to specific sections of articles or pages an ordeal which inevitably involves many steps.

This simple feature can really make a world of difference for group / project work, in fact, its simplicity is what makes this tool attractive. Somewhere along the way, web annotation tools lost touch with the reality that most users of these tools are already members of social networks, and most don't expect, or don't want to, use this type of tool in that context: web annotation tools are used to discover, share, research, and, if ultimately successful, do some actual work.

YayTrail still has a way to go to connect the discover and share with the research and work - and its intention may be to never move in that direction. But with a few added features - tagging, groups - this would be a great tool for classroom projects, from elementary onwards.

Digital Textbooks - Initiatives and Directions

2010-02-02T22:16:00.009-05:00

A number of US States and school districts have begun the move toward digital textbooks - in Toronto, Canada, this is still a pretty foreign concept but it would be great to explore.

California, West Virginia, and Georgia are some of the States which have initiated the process of moving toward a digital textbook reality for classrooms.

In Georgia a new Bill was approved by State senators (voted 45-5) which expands expand the definition of a textbook to include digital devices like e-readers for elementary and high schools. The Bill must still be approved by the governor, House of Representatives, as well as the state Board of Education...but its overwhelming support in senate bodes well for the remainder of its journey.

California's initiative is entering its second phase. Digital Textbook Initiative Phase 2, is described as "a project to provide a list of standards aligned free or open source digital textbooks for high schools that cover course content in history-social science, mathematics, and science"...how I would love to see something like that in Ontario.

But this is not just a one-sided pursuit, many of the major textbook companies, e.g. McGraw-Hill Cos., Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Pearson Education - have signed deals with software developer ScrollMotion Inc. to create applications for electronic readers, including the new Apple iPad. A definite sign that textbook publishers are laying the foundations for a major shift to the delivery of products via digital platforms.

"Great Teachers" - A Very Public, Ongoing Dialogue

2010-01-26T22:26:00.009-05:00

Recently there was an interesting article in the UK Guardian, What makes a great teacher, that highlights some of the key factors that make up a great teacher. This ongoing analysis of our profession will always be a more "public" debate than most other professions will ever experience: most of us have attended school and experienced an array of teachers and teaching styles, very few professions have or will touch people the way ours does. After going over these key points in this article it made me think of how this translates to my teaching environment at the elementary level and whether there is more to his explanation of great teacher.

So what makes a great teacher. Francis Gilbert thinks it's the following:

Experience
Ongoing Assessment
Collaborative learning
Going beyond content

Gilbert stresses that excellent qualifications doesn't amount to an excellent teacher - this can only come from experience, but experience alone can't get you there. He also values personality in the classroom, "If you don't have the right personality, you'll suffer in the bearpit of today's classrooms". But having the right personality to collaborate, share, and learn with colleagues and the community also goes a long way - and this is especially relevant in today's increasingly digital world. Teachers need to stay current, and online social and educational networks can provide professional development, encouragement and direction from their professional colleagues world wide. In addition, there has always been a need to collaborate with the greater community, especially when working in an urban setting with people from a wide variety of social-economic and ethnic backgrounds. These collaborative relationships require a certain tact and sensitivity, and take time to foster. Great teachers pull from other talents outside the classroom and school.

Collaborating can also promote a more positive work environment when it comes to curriculum planning and assessment. There needs to be a common understanding of the curriculum expectations, achievement levels, and the strategies and tools used to teach throughout the grades - teaching should be viewed as a continuum rather than isolated grades. If teachers know what students have achieved prior to entering their class, and where they will go beyond their class, they can teach more effectively. This type of understanding creates an equitable platform for collaborative work such as moderated marking and team planning: and The Ontario Ministry of Education's Capacity Learning Series discusses the benefits of teacher collaboration. Great teachers have a broad understanding of the curriculum and can adapt their skills readily to any new teaching situation.

Gilbert elaborates on the needs to genuinely learn what students' interests are and the crucial role of assessment. Ongoing assessment is key: without assessing students frequently you can't offer feedback which is essential for individual growth. Students need to be aware of their shortcomings and strengths just as teachers do in order to improve. In Ontario it is not just standardized tests that determine the approach we need to take in our classrooms, it's the individual and accumulative teacher assessments and feedback that help to target the individual levels within the classroom which helps move students forward. Tapping into students prior knowledge is also a type of assessment which allows teachers to personalize their lessons to fit their specific group of kids. That's why it should never be the same from year to year - even if you are fortunate enough to get the same grade. Great teachers know their students and provide differential teaching to the best of their ability.

As for content knowledge Gilbert states: "There is now a great deal of research to suggest it is not your subject knowledge that's the determining factor of how well your pupils achieve, but how you use your assessment of their achievements to plan and shape succeeding lessons." Another point to this would be that in today's digital and information-ladened world students can use a number of internet tools and networks, and within days or a week obtain specialized knowledge which would, in a traditional classroom setting, take much longer. To help students discern information teacher's need to place critical thinking skills at the forefront. This is the real challenge. Great teachers engage their students - they get their students to think.

But what else? A great teacher and friend has often said that "teaching is a privilege"...what do you think?

Teen Use of Mobile and Media Technology - Study

2010-01-23T16:16:00.007-05:00

A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that media dominates the lives of 8 to 18 year-olds...literally, the study estimates "8-18 year-olds devote an average of 7 hours and 38 minutes (7:38) to using entertainment media across a typical day (more than 53 hours a week)". Basically, when they're awake and not in school, kids are using a mobile / smart phone, computer, television or other electronic device practically all of the time...and some members of the teaching community still question the long-term impact of social and digital media / technology on teaching?!

The study consists of a survey of 2,002 students (third to twelfth graders), covering the ages eight to eighteen. The study also had seven hundred of the survey respondents fill-out a "media-use diary" for seven days. And that's where the study identified the media-usage average time of 7 hours and 38 minutes. But here's the amazing part of the "media usage" stat, because many of these respondents often multi-task by using more than one type of technology at a time (e.g. texting while watching TV), the study found they actually manage to pack 10 hours and 45 minutes worth of media content into the 7 and a half hours - stunning.

This study is a follow-up to a 2005 study, and the researchers found that the average teen has increased their media use by nearly two-and-a-quarter hours since the previous study.

The study does connect the data back to their activities and performance as students, with some surprising and not-so-surprising finds - e.g. "Youth who spend more time with media report lower grades and lower levels of personal contentment".

Packed with worthwhile data on the kids we're all teaching, it's definitely worth a look.

New Ontario Minister of Education

2010-01-18T18:06:00.012-05:00

Hon. Leona Dombrowsky, MPP for Prince Edward--Hastings, is the new Ontario Government Minister of Education.

First elected in the Ontario provincial election of 1999, Minister Dombrowsky has had quite a few roles in both Parliament and McGuinty's Government, see her Parliamentary Career Details for the full record.

Minister Dombrowsky has also had quite a bit of experience in the world and politics of education prior to becoming an MPP. Born in Belleville, Ontario, she has been elected and involved with the following boards and associations:

Elected Catholic School trustee on the Hastings-Prince Edward Separate School Board in 1985;

Chair of the Hastings-Prince Edward Separate School Board from 1991 to 1996;

In 1998, Minister Dombrowsky was elected to the amalgamated Algonquin-Lakeshore Catholic District School Board; and

The Minister was also a Director of the Ontario Catholic Trustees Association during this period.

For more information on Minister Leona Dombrowksy visit Wikipedia, or to get an idea of what the Minister has said in parliament regarding education visit the Legislative Assembly of Ontario's Hansard Search engine.

Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom - A PBS Survey

2010-01-13T22:09:00.006-05:00

PBS and Grunwald Associates just released their annual teachers survey (conducted online, includes responses from 1,418 full-time teachers) and found that three-quarters of teachers reported using technology and digital media in their classrooms - a stat which is steadily increasing over the years, and up from 69 percent in 2008. And what makes this year's survey even more fascinating is that pre-K teachers — surveyed this year for the first time — have expressed the same interests in digital media and social networking as the K–12 teachers.

Some really interesting findings and stats:

Teachers continue to use video, but they increasingly access video online, rather than from broadcast, cable or videotape;
44 percent of teachers use digital media 3 to 4 times a week; the number for Pre-K being a high 42 percent;
93 percent report that their schools have computers with Internet access, while eight in 10 (81 percent) say they have computer Internet access in their classrooms, up from 77 percent in 2008;
Student-produced digital projects - including multimedia projects, Web sites and blogs, has become increasingly supported by teachers; and
59 percent of teachers use digital media to create interactive lesson plans

This last point is emphasized across the survey by teachers with 78 percent of K–12 teachers responding that digital media is more effective when it is integrated into instruction.

A lot of data in this survey and well worth the read.

A Decade of Change in Education

2010-01-06T20:48:00.015-05:00

In today's Globe and Mail there was a commentary reviewing the top ten events in Canadian education over the last decade - by Paul Bennett, Director of Schoolhouse Consulting. Mr. Bennett's choices for the top ten "tipping point" events are:

Advent of Google and Wikipedia
9/11 and School Security
Public Acceptance of School Rankings
Harry Potter Phenomenon
Smart Board (IWB) Craze
Social Networking
Opening of Toronto's Africentric School
Revival of All-Boys Schools
Homework Backlash
Spectre of School Closings

While I like Mr. Bennett's choices, I find the focus to miss a few of the really key events.

Despite touching upon technology in a number of choices, no mention was made to what is now one of the most pressing issues among education researchers - how teaching, the administration of schools, curriculum, policies, and foundational methodologies will need to undergo big changes if we are to successfully integrate technology into the classroom (inevitable, whether we like it or not) and remain an integral and meaningful part of students' increasingly "digital" world.

Digital learning has always been so much more than simply technology, and placing all sorts of technologies into today's classroom context without considering the foundational changes which need to be made will turn into a prolonged, painful, and expensive learning ordeal.

A slew of major research studies (e.g. The Digital Youth Project) have shown that today's digital generation not only spend an obscene amount of time online, but that their wired world has created a new way of learning, thinking, playing, and socializing - these kids are different, and by the time they reach university or the workforce their world will be mobile and the skill-sets required to succeed will be completely different from those we teach and value.

Entire networks have been setup to solely discuss this very topic: Classroom 2.0 is a social network for teachers with well over 25, 000 members from across the world (mostly North American, but with a surprising increase in participation from non-North American teachers), all of whom are exchanging ideas on how to tackle this moving target...see Education and Web 2.0 White Paper or our research section for more information.

Digital learning and educating our "digital youth" deserves to be on any list of top ten "tipping points" for education over the last decade.

Another event which, to our surprise, was left off the list was the whole "health" bubble - alarming increase in childhood obesity, eliminating fast foods from our schools, exercising, etc. Just today the Ministry of Education issued a news release Challenging Students To Make Their Schools Healthier.

Are there any "tipping point" events over the last decade which you believe have really changed the world of education?

Emotion-Sensitive Tutoring Software

2010-01-05T12:12:00.011-05:00

Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Arizona State University in Tempe are developing emotion-sensitive tutoring software which can translate and respond to students emotional cues.

The Project is built around an intelligent-tutoring system known as Wayang Outpost. The system is based on hundreds of sensors embedded in the computer, students’ chairs, and other aspects of the students’ learning environment, e.g.:

bracelets worn around the wrist detect changes in students’ pulse and in moisture levels on the surface of the skin;
sensors embedded in the chair cushions identify the nine different postures a learner might take;
the computer mouse has pressure-sensitive sensors signal whether a student is squeezing harder in possible frustration.

Further project data is collected through a video camera embedded on the computer, with a focus on the student’s "eyebrows, mouth, and nose, discerning whether the learner is smiling, frowning, or yawning".

The researchers find that the umbrella of data collected through the sensors allows the system to correctly identify variation in students’ emotions more than half the time. And when the program responds to students' emotions it does so via a "pedagogical agent" - bhasicall, characters or avatars who will register the emotion being experienced and provide an appropriate array of responses.

Major investors in emotion-sensitive tutoring software research include the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences. While classroom use of this type of software is still a ways off, researchers see practical application happening within the next five to ten years.

The availability of studies on whether students learn more with emotion-enhanced computer tutors than they do with the other kinds of computer tutors is still somewhat thin, but "some early results from small experiments around the country [United States] show promise".