Mayatan’s New Website Debuts and TeacherJay Moves On

TeacherJay will be giving up his position as Technology Coordinator at a NYC-area university in the next few weeks. He has accepted a position as Director of Development for Mayatan Foundation in Copán Ruinas, Honduras.

Although this is a change for him and he will miss the actual direct teaching involvement in education, he is excited about the move. Mayatan currently runs a bilingual school and soon hopes to open a medical clinic and a library. Over the last few weeks he has been working furiously on improving the technology situation for the organization and also designing new websites.

Please check out our sites and check back here to stay informed on our progress.

The “Magic” School Bus

The other night on NBC Nightly News was a story of a man with a plan - a plan to use that wasted time on the schoolbus in the morning and put some technology to better use. As it ran on TV.

But, online they have a somewhat extended video that talks a bit more with the kids about their experiences.
Sorry for the links and no embedded video, but apparently wordpress.com things MSNBC videos are dangerous and keeps stripping them from this post.

Billy Hudson, from Vanderbilt University deserves a gold star for his efforts in putting that time on the schoolbus to use through eLearning sites and podcasts. Hopefully school districts will take note of what is being done and decide to make some similar modifications on their own. This should serve as evidence of how feasible it is to get some sort of mLearning into use. Look closely and you can see some of OLPC’s XO machines.

By the way - TeacherJay was going to post on this earlier, but he was too casual in his conversations and he got beat to the punch. Thanks, Allan, really, thanks =P

Closing the Digital Divide…

… using our own computers and internet access to help give access to others…

TeacherJay has long been an advocate for bridging the digital divide - that unfortunate set of circumstances, such as poverty, and access to equipment, that has keeps computers and telecommunications out of the hands of so many of the world’s citizens. He joined the Digital Divide Network, a project of TakingITGlobal, some time ago to read articles and participate in discussions. Just this morning, he learned they have now formed a Causes group on Facebook. With donation amounts as low as $10 US, it’s very easy to show your support for this important cause. Thanks to some special ‘challenges’ on the site, special gifts may be awarded to the organization for having the most new donors.

Give One Get One Extended

TeacherJay is a big fan of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project that has the goal of creating affordable and rugged wireless laptop computers to be used as educational tools for children in developing third-world nations. He has posted on them previously. Their Give One Get One campaign in which a donor is able to purchase 1 machine for a child in a developing nation and, in recognition, receive a second for that special child in their life. They recently announced that the program will be extended until December 31.

To learn more about the program, click here.

To learn more about the One Laptop Per Child project, click here.

Thought and Language

Lev Vygotsky was a genius developmental psychologist. Perhaps his best known theories relate to the construct of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). TeacherJay is also fascinated with Vygotsky’s work reagarding the connections between thought and language and wanted to post a few words about Vygotsky’s 1934 book with the same title.

RSS in Plain English

TeacherJay is a big fan of Really Simple Syndication and the eXtensible Markup Language. He has tried to explain these technologies using plain English, but he is surely no expert in that. However, the guys over at The Common Craft Show, with their wonderfully low-tech productions, have done a very nice job and TeacherJay wanted to share it.

Kindle

Jeff Bezos, Founder & CEO of Amazon.com, is debuting their newest product, the Kindle, a small paperback-sized electronic book reader. Could this device be the improvement to the book? Even Bezos comments that the book is elegant and ponders if it is even possible to improve upon it. In today’s post, TeacherJay takes a look at the development of eBook readers and has a few words for the practical use of the devices.

Exploratree

Thanks to Thane over at Technology on a Shoestring, TeacherJay learned about this neat little tool. Having been a big fan of graphic organizers and mind maps for years, TeacherJay had long been interested in finding an application that was easy to use, multi-platform and free. Today’s post takes a quick review of this new site and suggests some potential uses for it in education.

WikiProject Classroom Coordination

TeacherJay has long been fascinated with the experiment that is Wikipedia (see previous post). It is still surprising to him that users all over the world have come together to create a body of knowledge that is responsible when it comes to copyrighted information and accurate, insofar as references and citations are included to verify information. In his daily wandering of Wikipedia (he loves that Random Article link), TeacherJay came across the WikiProject Classroom Coordination page and also information on School and University Projects. These two projects are aimed at encouraging teachers to use Wikipedia not as a research tool, but as an authoring tool by creating lesson plans for students to learn how to contribute to the Wikipedia community. Students can research topics and help to revise articles - this could provide them with much-needed support that their work is actually meaningful and will be used by others, as well as instill in them a responsibility in their work.

It’s Free… Or At Least Free to Me, So What’s Wrong With P2P?, Part 1 (Legality)

Millions of people are using file sharing programs for all sorts of reasons… most of them illegal, such as the downloading of music files in the form of MP3’s or even entire software applications. Today’s post introduces the topic of what peer-to-peer programs are all about, and some of the legal issues surrounding them, for software publishers, users and school networks.

Mayatan School

TeacherJay has not posted for about 10 days and he must apologize to his diligent readers. He was on an annual working vacation in the small town of Copán Ruinas, Honduras. Although there was internet access, he was just too busy to sit down and write. On a hillside just outside of town there are some wonderful things happening at the Mayatan School. There will be much more about this school in the future… along with a new website ;-).

Safety Text Message

This afternoon a student entered the Queens campus of St. John’s University in New York City with a rifle in his bag. In order to alert staff, faculty and students of the dangerous situation campus officials used text messages. Inspired by the events at Virginia Tech this past Spring, the school implemented the program just this month. TeacherJay wanted to recognize the efforts of the institution for their progressive thinking and putting a common technology to a good use… and for that they receive a gold star.

Zamzar

Zamzar is able to convert documents for you quickly and easily.

Google Presentations

The wait is over… Google has finally released its online presentation software. TeacherJay has been using the online productivity suite for a while and wanted to take a few minutes to share his first thoughts on the newest addition to the Google family and what some of the implications may be for the world of education.

Whatever Happened to Carmen Sandiego?…

…did she die from dysentery on the Oregon Trail? Ever since the Apple II began making its way into homes and classrooms the software market has been making games and other applications designed to be educational. How have they evolved?, Are they any good?, and Where can I find my old favorites? are just a few of the questions that today’s post looks at, as well as handing out some gold stars to some of the early developers of this now multi-million dollar industry.

Strong American Schools

Observant visitors to TeacherJay’s blog may have noticed a new button (down towards the bottom of the left-side column). It is to the ED in ‘08 site and their campaign sponsored by the group, Strong American Schools. Today’s post gives an overview of the organization and their primary goals.

Miss-Spellings

As an update to a previous post, TeacherJay wanted to take a moment to point out Thursday’s NY Times article in which Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings seems less than enthusiastic about the drafts of the re-authorization of the No Child Left Behind Act being passed around in the House of Representatives. Ms. Spellings is quite a fan of “increased accountability”. TeacherJay still thinks it is a bad idea to punish, or penalize, schools for not making “sufficient progress” when that progress is ill-defined in the first place. Today’s post looks briefly at how the head of all education systems in the country might spell disaster for immigrant students.

The First Days of School

As a child, was the first day of school a time of nervous excitement?, or maybe a day that was dreaded all summer long?… well, many teachers tend to feel the same way. Not because they hate being there, but because they want everything to be perfect and know the importance of making that all-important first impression. With the school year already begun, perhaps this post is a little bit late, but it should still be helpful for many. Today’s post reviews The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher by Harry K. and Rosemary T. Wong - a book that TeacherJay likes to read every summer as a reminder of how to be the most effective teacher possible; and he gives out a gold star.

Microsoft’s Unlimited Potential

Bill Gates has appeared in a YouTube video praising Microsoft’s supposed goal to:

“bring the benefits of technology to people in a meaningful and relevant way to help address the diverse social and economic issues they face and to foster an environment where people make the most of their skills and abilities.”

These may seem some altruistic goals on the surface and something that TeacherJay agrees with, but today’s post takes a look at the video and some of the reasons to be cautious of Billy Boy’s address.

The Disappearance of Childhood

Neil Postman, a former NYU professor perhaps most noted for his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, originally published in 1985, on the pervasive manner of television into our lives and our ways of communicating had previously written a book exploring the concept of childhood. The Disappearance of Childhood was originally published in 1982, but was revised and republished in 1994. Today’s post reviews that edition of the book and discusses the ways that the notion of childhood has been conceived in our minds may be eroding.

Spellings Test

While searching for some funny clips of politicians, TeacherJay found something a bit unexpected… to date, the only (active) member of the Bush administration to appear on Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart was Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, on May 22, 2007 (^Wikipedia). Although she is one of the evil architects authors of the No Child Left Behind Act, TeacherJay was interested in the interview and in today’s post gives his reactions to the clip.

TeacherJay has been tagged…

TeacherJay has been tagged by Neil Hokanson at HIT to participate in the “Eight Things You Didn’t Know About Me” meme that’s been going around. Here are the rules:

1) Post these rules before you give your facts.
2) List 8 random facts about yourself.
3) At the end of your post, choose (tag) 8 people and list their names, linking to them.
4) Leave a comment on their blog, letting them know they’ve been tagged.

School Breakfast

Coming to school and sitting in class with an empty stomach makes learning difficult. Many school districts around the country serve breakfast, and often it is free or at a reduced price for students who already receive free or reduced lunch. So why are many students not partaking of this offer and still going hungry in class? Notoriously bad cafeteria food may have something to do with it, but some recent reports and this recent NY Times article may also shed some light on the issue. Today’s post looks at some of the reasons this may be happening and also introduces the beginnings of a plan to correct the problem.

Paying for An Education

Don’t be confused, this post is not about the differences between private and public schooling… TeacherJay has already put forth his opinions on that over at Karl Frank Jr.’s blog. This post is however about pilot programs that are paying students for good grades and test scores, as well as the high test scores on economics that are showing up nationwide. In a school near you, students may soon be paid actual cash just for coming to school and doing what they are supposed to be doing… learning. Is this an innovative method of getting kids interested in going to school or just a ploy to turn them into capitalist drones?

One Laptop Per Child

Wouldn’t it be great if every child, everywhere, had her or his own laptop computer to use? Not just any laptop, but one specifically designed for children that was rugged enough to withstand harsh environments, did not need constant software upgrades and had an operating system that was easy to learn and came packed with educational software. Well, that is the goal of the One Laptop Per Child project and they already have a few prototypes out there. Today’s post looks not just at the organization, but also at the new possibilities their success may bring and the consequences it could have for some of the world’s poorest people.

Failing Schools Pass Students

A recent NY Times article, shows the conflict that exists in the NYC public school system between what a good education should be and the desire to raise graduation rates. The unfortunate consequence is that although many students are receiving diplomas, they are not prepared for college or any world outside of high school. What was, perhaps, designed to be a benefit to students is actually a great disservice. Today’s post looks at some of the effects of such policies and makes some recommendations about what should be done in the future.

Jing Project

Screencasting, the practice of capturing what is on a user’s screen, is a growing trend. The technology can be used to create training videos when teaching software, or other computer-related tasks. Several software publishers have come out with some large and expensive software for this task, such as RoboDemo, Captivate and Camtasia, but TeacherJay wanted to take a moment to tell his readers about the Jing Project, and some its many uses.

Center on Education Policy

In a recent New York Times article, a recent study by the Center on Education Policy would appear to show that a fewer number of schools have increased time in Reading and Math, the two subjects that the No Child Left Behind Act focuses on, than previously thought. Today’s post contains some of TeacherJay’s opinions on the CEP and NCLB.

You Can Bring a Student to the School…

…but can you give him equal access to education? Instead of fixing schools in poor neighborhoods former North Carolina Senator and 2008 Presidential Candidate John Edwards’ idea to increase the level of economic diversity in schools is to help families move elsewhere, along with busing inner-city students to the suburbs and creating inner-city magnet schools to attract suburban students into the city. The Supreme Court has repeatedly shot down districts who try to use race as the only factor in integrating schools. Due to the economic climate of the nation, they are now able to use economic status in its place and accomplish the same goal - but what does that mean for education system? Today’s post looks at some “solutions” to the lack of diversity in America’s schools and whether or not they are being fair to give all students equal access to education.

History Lessons

History is written by the victors. Ten people could witness the same event, and if you asked them all afterwards what happened, you would probably get eleven different versions. Much of what we read in history books is from the American perspective, and over the years the text has been trimmed to include only the most favorable parts. Today’s post looks first at the book, History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History, and then points out some of the problems plaguing the teaching of history and current events in the American school system and introduces the non-profit, Americans for Informed Democracy, that is aimed at reversing the trend of American isolationism.

Wikipedia in Education

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that anyone can edit has become a source of information for millions. The site has close to 2 million articles in English and, while less is offered, is also available in dozens of other languages. Many students at all levels, but especially in high school and college, may use the site for research. Is this a good idea? What do they need to know when evaluating the veracity of Wikipedia articles? How should the site be used responsibly? Should it be ignored altogether? Today’s post gives some suggestions on using the site, but also asks more questions.

Educational Technology Sample Issue

TeacherJay has just been informed of a free issue of Educational Technology: The Magazine for Managers of Change in Education - you can find it here <http://bookstoread.com/etp>. This is a special issue that has a lot articles on the use of mobile devices in education.

On Becoming a Leader (in Education)

Warren Bennis‘ 1989 book, On Becoming a Leader, was revised and expanded for a 2003 edition. In this classic, Bennis outlines some of the key characteristics that are common to leaders in all fields. He draws these conclusions from many interviews and biographies of past and present leaders, such as former presidents, business CEOs and college presidents. In explaining these concepts, Bennis often turns to the U.S. school system to point out how it is not conducive to producing future leaders as it has a tendency to train rather than to educate. His overall message is that it is vital for a leader to have a vision that can be clearly articulated to followers. That vision may need to evolve over time as it needs to fit in the context of the lives of the followers.

Nabuur

Have you ever wanted to put your skills to use to help people in a developing nation? Most of us probably have at some point in our lives, but something stopped us… maybe it was distance, time, money, or just not knowing where or how to help. Well, Siegfried Woldhek, former CEO of the World Wildlife Foundation, and Nabuur.com may just have a solution for you. Here is Woldhek, explaining why he started Nabuur:

How Hard Can It Be?

David Herszenhorn has been covering the Education beat for the New York Times for over four years. He has spoken to many veteran teachers, and many administrators that can all attest to the fact that teaching is difficult work. In an article appearing on July 11, Herszenhorn recounts an event in which mayor Bloomberg gave a group of 7-year-olds a set of four directions all at once, and out of sequence. TeacherJay chuckled at the way a man who built himself a multi-billionaire dollar empire and speaks about how important education is to our children did not recognize how to give age-appropriate directions. The reason for the story was not to embarrass the mayor, but rather to point out that a teacher’s job is more than just going through the motions of a lesson and keeping a classroom orderly.

Online Productivity Suites to Bridge the Digital Divide?

TeacherJay is working on a large post compiling links and descriptions of places to get free software, but he was so excited about a new (to him) site that he didn’t want to wait to post it. Thanks to Ionut Alex Chitu over at Google Operating System, TeacherJay has learned about Zoho.com. This site is mostly free and has online services that can be used in place of many office/productivity applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation builder, chat, planner and even a project manager (a few of the apps are limited before a subscription fee is required). This goes a little above what is offered on ThinkFree.com and even Google Docs & Spreadsheets. Although all three services definitely need some work, it is exciting to see that someday we may be able to run all of our software over the ‘net.

Why is this important to a blog concerned with education you ask?

Is NCLB Helping or Hijacking?

Following TeacherJay’s comments that while the No Child Left Behind Act is certainly not the magic cure for America’s ailing schools, from a previous post, some of his comments appeared on fellow blogger Rick Branscomb’s site. Branscomb is the author of Deducation and seems to believe that a major goal of NCLB legislation is to prove that the public schools in this country are failing in order to turn school funding over to private enterprise. An excerpt from an earlier entry includes, “Our educational system is being killed: it’s almost dead. Deducation, I call it. Mind-numbing, teaching to invalid tests, memorization of facts that won’t be facts tomorrow, stifling all ability to think critically, taking all teaching decisions out of the hands of teachers” in his plea to have NCLB repealed.

What is RSS?

TeacherJay was going to write a post on this, but Iain Magee has already on a very nice job of explaining this concept for the casual reader. Long gone are the days when checking for new content meant typing in that URL again and trying to figure out if you had read the latest post or not. Today we can “subscribe” to a lot of sites, especially news sites and blogs, to get the latest content. TeacherJay is an avid reader of many different RSS Feeds. Some browsers have integrated feed readers, or you can use an aggregator such as Google Reader, or Bloglines. So happy reading, and don’t forget to subscribe to this blog, too!

PowerPoint Blackbelts

Although they are a little bit over-enthusiastic about the wonders of PowerPoint, this video pod from CurrentTV does show some good information on how PowerPoint can be used and definitely some good tips and what to do, and what NOT to do with a presentation. TeacherJay has been using for PowerPoint for about 12 years (sigh - he can’t believe it’s been that long) and could probably be termed a PowerPoint Blackbelt himself (though he would prefer NOT to be known that way). The program’s primary function is to present information in an outlined fashion with audiovisuals. Because the Microsoft empire charges some exorbitant rates for one of their flagship products, TeacherJay also wants his readers to know about a free alternative. OpenOffice.org’s Impress is similar to PowerPoint and can do all of the functions that teachers are most likely to use. It can also save your presentation as a SWF Flash animation to make embedding into webpages a little bit easier.

Meebo Room

TeacherJay has added a Meebo room called, The Lounge, as in the Teachers’ Lounge (but that was too wide to fit properly) on the right sidebar of the site. With the Meebo room readers of this blog can chat with TeacherJay, or even with each other.  The best part is you don’t even need a Meebo account to use it.  Try it out.

The Shame of the Nation

Jonathan Kozol’s 2005 book, The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America, looks at the issue of racial integration in the nation’s schools. Over 50 years after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and forcing the immediate integration of America’s schools, we have not yet achieved that goal. Kozol uses the passionate voices of teachers and students, mostly from urban New York City schools and the suburban areas of Long Island, to tell how the nation has been failing a large portion of its children and, in fact, creating a system of apartheid by withholding a proper education from so many children.

NCLB Not So Horrific…?

Andrew Rotherham’s Eduwonk brought up an interesting point yesterday… is No Child Left Behind really as “horrific as it is made out to be”? When you get right down to it though isn’t NCLB’s goal to help children and reform schools? Okay, the rhetoric that went into may have been flawed and it’s implementation certainly needs some work, but should we, as educators who see a need to improve America’s schools, be so negative against a piece of legislation designed to do that just because it is not perfect… NCLB needs to be reauthorized every few years and that provides an opportunity to update it and refine it. TeacherJay was tempted to jump on the bandwagon here and become an NCLB-basher, too, but he does feel that the effort, at least, is a step in the right direction.

PHP/MySQL for Your School’s Website

In this article posted on Techlearning’s eZine, the author provides a nice list of ways that using the popular server-side scripting and database combination can do some great things on your school’s website, such as create a podcast library, an alumni database, allow student publishing of work, or an easy method for teachers to update their class pages. While the school’s technology administrator will likely have a learning curve to get familiarized with the new technology in the end it will create an environment that is much friendlier for students, teachers, and staff. Although some administration will be added, time to update the site will be greatly reduced. W3Schools provides a PHP Tutorial, and a MySQL Tutorial to get you started.

TeacherJay has seen a number of school of websites that looks like they were put up in the late-90s and have barely received a touch-up since. No school technology coordinator has the time to update all the individual pages that a school may have and in a time when teachers are becoming more and more web-savvy themselves there is no need to. Utilizing PHP/MySQL in a school’s website could boost its functionality and allow teachers to do a lot of the updating themselves freeing up the IT staff to do other things.

Democrats Bash NCLB

Is Bush’s No Child Left Behind legislation going to serve as the same political fodder that the Iraq War has for Democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election? Teacher Magazine, a publication of Education Week, reported that Democrats “came out swinging” on Monday’s annual convention of the National Education Association.

Just as they have done with the Iraq War it would seem that the Democrats already vying for a 2008 are doing whatever they can to distance themselves from the current Bush administration. In fact, in a strikingly similar parallel, the Democratic Party, which broadly supported the law 6 years ago, now disagrees with the way it is being carried out. Major changes are being sought in Congress in order to revise the law before it can be reauthorized later this year. TeacherJay’s question is: are these politicians sincere in their claims that they want to reform education in this country by reducing the pressure on teachers to have their students score well on a standardized test?, in order to achieve that goal many teachers find themselves having to take valuable teaching time away from other subjects, or are the candidates merely trying to curry favor with Bush-haters?

Of the top three Democratic candidates, Clinton is the only to even make mention of NCLB on her official website, Obama does not list as one of his top issues, and neither does Edwards although he has stated before that because he has school-aged children he is personally attached to the issue. Making the statement is nice, but let’s see some action from these candidates.