Monday, January 12, 2009

About D.C. Area Schools

Marc Fisher of the Washington Post appears to be working the education beat again. He's penned a couple of good articles recently that compare how different systems are turning around challenged schools. In Working Together, he looks at how the Montgomery County Schools have transformed Broad Acres Elementary School through a cooperative effort with the local teachers' association. In D.C. School a Test Of Teachers' Grit -- And Rhee's Tactics, Fisher looks at the Truesdell Educational Center in D.C. that appears to be flourishing due to, or in spite of Chancellor Michelle Rhee's "confrontational approach."

21^st Century Skills

There's been a lot of talk about schools needing to teach 21^st century skills in the news lately. eSchool News and the Christian Science Monitor have representative columns in Educators to Obama: Focus on 21C skills and Schools tap '21st-century skills'. Jay Mathews has a couple of less enthusiastic, but more realistic columns on the subject in The Latest Doomed Pedagogical Fad: 21st-Century Skills and The Rush for '21st-Century Skills'.

STS-119 Preparations

The space shuttle Discovery is shown above left as it exits the Orbiter Processing Facility and above right as it "is lowered alongside the external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters already stacked on the mobile launcher platform in Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building." Discovery will begin its trip "to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, Jan. 14, as preparations for the STS-119 mission move forward. Discovery is targeted to lift off Feb. 12 to the International Space Station."

If your 21^st century classroom is equipped with cable TV, you can watch Discovery's less than 1 MPH, 3.4-mile journey to the launch pad on NASA Television.

NCLB Stuff

The Associated Press's Libby Quaid writes in Bush urges law on education be maintained that the outgoing President has "urged President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic-led Congress not to abandon the No Child Left Behind law, arguing that do so would 'weaken a chance for a child to succeed in America.'" I guess underfunding NCLB, the high stakes testing mentality created by the law, and the resultant de-emphasis to the point of near extermination of subjects such as social studies, science, music, and art doesn't count to the President as "weakening education."

A couple of other items that surfaced at the end of last week are a DOE Press Release: U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings Announces Approval of Three Additional States to Use Differentiated Accountability Under NCLB, and an Ed.gov posting of Letters to Chief State School Officers Regarding an Update on Several NCLB Cornerstones.

Supreme Court to Hear Case on ENL Funding

The AP's Arthur H. Rotstein tells the story in his first line in High court to rule in Arizona case, "The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide whether Arizona is providing enough money for programs for students who are learning the English language." The case has been in the court system since 1992, "when a group of parents in the Nogales Unified School District challenged the adequacy of the state's programs to teach their children English in a class-action suit."

Alternate link: US Supreme Court enters Arizona fray over English learning

School Funding

Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District should find out tomorrow evening if the Board of Education is going to approve mid-year layoffs. In L.A. Unified may lay off almost 2,300 teachers, Jason Song and Howard Blume write that a $250 million shortfall in the system's budget caused by the state's budget crisis has prompted LAUSD officials to propose sending "layoff notices to 1,690 elementary school teachers and 600 math and English teachers in middle and high schools. Because the potential layoffs would take place in the middle of the school year, students would face rearranged, more crowded classes with new teachers."

A related article by Seema Mehta, Schwarzenegger proposes 5 fewer school days, tells that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed cutting the school year funding by five days. The move "is creating panic among educators across California, who say they barely have enough time to fit the state's academic standards into the existing 180-day calendar. The idea to cut funding equivalent to five school days would save $1.1 billion at a time when California faces a massive budget deficit. But state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell called the proposal 'devastating.'"

Here in Indiana, where property tax relief legislation shifted most school funding to the state, "Governor Mitch Daniels has proposed a new state budget that would cut spending for higher education and state agencies while keeping schools and public safety programs near previous funding levels." Indiana governor releases details of budget proposal relates that "Education advocates say keeping K-12 spending near current levels would essentially be a cut to schools. Schools have to deal with built-in pay raises for teachers and increases in utility and insurance costs, so advocates say a flat budget could mean teacher layoffs or larger class sizes." The incoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, has already begun a reorganization of the Indiana Department of Education to trim $1 million from the department's budget. That move cut loose 25 IDOE employees as of today.

Odds 'n' Ends

University of Missouri researchers have released a study that suggests that Recognizing children's successes in all areas may prevent teenage depression. Jan Hoffman tells of the success of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series of children's books in Hapless Boy Wins Eager Friends.

And speaking of good books, I got hooked on Last Flag Down: The Epic Journey of the Last Confederate Warship, by John Baldwin and Ron Powers, after hearing a couple of chapters on NPR's Radio Reader. Even though Amazon has a bit better price (with Super Saver Shipping), the book was so good that I couldn't wait and picked up a copy locally. I'm glad I did, as it is an excellent read.

Educators' News should be getting back to something approaching a normal publication schedule once again.

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Layoffs in L.A.

The Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education voted to authorize "its human resources staff Tuesday to send dismissal notices to as many as 2,290 nonpermanent teachers." New LAUSD Superintendent Ramon Cortines told the board, "Before anyone gets a notice from this district, I will come back to the board and make a final recommendation because I am still trying to find alternatives other than doing this."

• KABC-TV: LAUSD board authorizes layoff notices
• Los Angeles Times: LAUSD board votes to possibly lay off 2,300 teachers

The San Francisco Chronicle has a good editorial, Schwarzenegger skips school, and a column, Governor makes a grab for state school funds, that shed a bit more light on the California school funding crisis.

Interesting Science@NASA Posting

Dr. Tony Phillips has an interesting posting on Science@NASA, Giant Rockets Could Revolutionize Astronomy. He discusses the possibilities opened up by NASA's new Ares V rocket. The Ares V is capable of carrying much heavier payloads into orbit than previous rockets. Phillips quotes Harley Thronson, who leads advanced concept studies in astronomy at the Goddard Space Flight Center, as saying, "Imagine the kind of telescope a rocket like that could launch, It could revolutionize astronomy." 

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Apple's Jobs Taking Medical Leave

Brad Stone writes in the New York Times that Apple Computer's Steve Jobs is "taking a leave of absence because of health concerns." In Apple Chief Temporarily Steps Aside, Stone relates that Jobs sent a letter to Apple employees yesterday saying that "he had learned over the last week that his health problems were 'more complex' than he originally thought. He said he planned to return to Apple at the end of June." Jobs suffered from pancreatic cancer in 2004. While he has appeared unusually thin in recent appearances, the leave is said to be related to an inability of his body to absorb food properly, a result of the 2004 cancer treatment, but not a reoccurrence of the cancer.

In a good ZDNet blog posting that had the unfortunate timing to appear on the same day as the Jobs announcement, Christopher Dawson, tech director for the Athol-Royalston School District in Massachusetts, writes of his efforts to keep his schools equipped with affordable computers in The end of my love affair with Apple? Dawson writes:

Apple makes some great products, but they are not exactly key to getting the most bang for your buck. As more teachers and students have a chance to play with the Acer Aspire One netbook that I’ve been floating around, most find, even if they don’t care for the form factor, that it does everything they need it to do.

Odds 'n' Ends

Sam Dillon had a review this week of Arne Duncan's confirmation hearings in Few Specifics From Education Pick. The title pretty well tells the story. Mare Hare's blog posting, Vouchers may stop parents from stealing an education, talks about parents crossing school corporation lines in search of a better education for their children. And on ScienceDaily, Education Professor Dispels Myths About Gifted Children talks about the needs of gifted children.

It's very cold here in southwest, central Indiana this morning. Of course, our -4^o F pales in comparison to what some folks are experiencing. My sister lives in Merrifield, Minnesota, where it was -27^o F this morning!

Stay warm!

Friday, January 16, 2009

Inexpensive Time-Lapse Camera

I've been playing around for a couple of weeks with a product that may have some real potential for classroom teachers. The Brinno GardenWatchCam is a low-cost, weather resistant time lapse camera. With a street price of around $110, the GardenWatchCam could allow students to do all sorts of science and other time-lapse projects with minimal supervision. Seed germination, plant blooms opening, sun path in the sky, or even a time-lapse movie of a classroom come to mind as possible projects.

While messing around doing a time-lapse of a sunset, I noticed that the GardenWatchCam appears to have pretty good low-light capabilities, so I may even point it at the night sky and try a planet and star path time lapse some night.

The sunset sequence at right was filmed in zero degree conditions, so the camera doesn't appear to be affected by cold, other than reduced battery life. Do note that while the promotional image at left shows the camera mounted on a plastic pole, it does have a standard tripod mounting socket at its base. I keep mine mounted on an old tripod that is quite sturdy, but only with its legs not extended.

I got my GardenWatchCam from Stokes Seeds with one of my garden orders. Stokes includes a 256 MB USB flash drive, which has proved sufficient so far. Since I have great plans for this little camera, I also ordered an 8 gig flash drive (Big mistake). Amazon has also started carrying the camera, but doesn't include the USB flash drive (but does offer free, Super Saver Shipping).

From the Amazon product page:

• Low cost, easy to use, weather resistant, 1.3 megapixel time lapse camera
• Photos are stored as JPEG images on any USB flash drive (not included) for easy playback as an AVI (movie) file on computer using the included Windows program for playback, or any AVI video player
• Lens adjusts from 20 inches for close ups (like a flower blooming) to infinity
• Seven different time interval setting options (1 minute, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 24 hours, or user-defined)
• Includes custom designed flexible mounting stake for insertion into the ground (tripod can also be used)

I was able to easily import the movies on either a PC or a Mac from the USB drive without any additional software. I've also noticed the timing on my camera is a little weird. The one minute setting actually takes photos at around a 40 second interval, with the custom 20 second setting actually taking photos at about 14 second intervals.

On the negative side, the GardenWatchCam's documentation is really skimpy. I found my new 8 gig flash drive unusable. I finally discovered that the drive that came with the camera was formatted to FAT 16. Checking how big a partition I could create in FAT 16, I found the maximum was 2 or 4-gig, depending on your operating system. I finally just used the 8-gig as my general flash drive and took my old Lexar 1-gig and reformatted it to FAT 16 to get it to work.

The GardenWatchCam has a sister product, the motion activated Brinno BirdWatchCam. I'm already drooling over the ad info, but it's a bit more expensive at around $180. You can't imagine (well, maybe you can) the hoops I jumped through to get the photo at right of a hummingbird a couple of summers ago. The BirdWatchCam sounds like a product that could ease such efforts. Of course, the image at right was taken with a 4.1 megapixel camera, while Brinno's offerings use a rather puny by today's standards 1.3 megapixel camera.

Anyway, here's the product description (excuse the drool marks) of the BirdWatchCam:

The Brinno BirdWatchCam is a low cost, easy to use, motion activated 1.3 megapixel birding camera. BirdWatchCam is easy to mount and target at your bird feeder, birdbath, or anywhere that birds go. It's designed to sense the heat and motion of birds entering the camera's field of view. Once the sensor is activated, BirdWatchCam wakes up for 10 seconds to take an average of 15 high quality, time stamped still photos that store on the included 2GB SD Card. After taking the photos the BirdWatchCam goes back to sleep until another bird activates the camera again. This ensures that BirdWatchCam's included 4 AA batteries will last a long time. BirdWatchCam's senor shuts off when the sun goes down and won't take photos until the sun activates the sensor again at sunrise. BirdWatchCam has one-touch operation with an easy-to-use laser targeting system which makes for perfect placement. Simply push the button on the top of the camera and the laser shows exactly where the pictures will be taken. BirdWatchCam has a zoom lens designed so that the camera can be pre-focused at 1.5, 2 or 3 meters away from the targeted area. This feature gives you close-up, big, beautiful photos of birds. BirdWatchCam's universal mounting system is designed to allow quick and easy mounting to trees, walls, posts or windows, making it perfect for your backyard or any remote locations. Requires 4 AA batteries (included).

Twitter Primer

Bless David Pogue for posting Twittering Tips for Beginners on his New York Times blog. He writes, "As a tech columnist, I’m supposed to be on top of what’s new in tech, but there’s just too much, too fast; it’s like drinking from a fire hose. I can only imagine how hopeless a task it must be for everyone else." And he then proceeds to tell how to use Twitter and also adds some positive uses for it.

Methane Found in Mars Atmosphere

Dr. Tony Phillips has another good posting on Science@NASA, The Red Planet is Not a Dead Planet. It tells about the discovery of methane gas in the atmosphere of Mars, a sign of possible geologic or bacterial activity on the planet.

While talking space, the space shuttle Discovery successfully completed its trip from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. The gorgeous shot at right shows the shuttle starting its journey in the early morning light.

Inauguration Coverage in the Classroom

I know I'm showing my age with this information, but I can remember sitting in my eighth grade classroom listening to the news of Alan Shephard's first space flight...by radio over the intercom speaker.

On Tuesday, many students will be able to watch the inauguration of Barack Obama on television in their classroom(s). Sam Dillon writes in the New York Times about the impact of students watching the inauguration in Inauguration Is Inspiring Classrooms Nationwide. I also ran across a good, 2001 inauguration lesson plan on the PBS site, The Inauguration and the Media. While I'm not terribly big on online lesson plans, this one talks about using newspapers to explore how the media reports something like the inauguration. If you're scheduled into a computer lab, or are fortunate to have a 21^st century classroom with sufficient computers, the lesson plan could be adapted for a pretty good lesson on the inauguration.

Have a great weekend!

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