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Linktivity Presenter
I opened an old PowerPoint presentation and found Linktivity Presenter fairly easy to use. My only problem with it was that when I wanted to take a screenshot, I kept marking up my screenshot utility. I'd guess there's a way to neutralize the toolbar somewhere in the documentation. While Linktivity Presenter is a Windows-only application, Mac users needn't feel left out. OmniDazzle is free Mac utility that you can use to spice up PowerPoints. I wrote about it on Educators' News several years ago.
Most Educators' News readers know I'm an avid gardener. You can imagine my delight when I read that Michelle Obama and a bunch of fifth graders had turned some White House soil for a garden!
A Different Look at Cash Incentives Washington Post staff writer Theresa Vargas has an excellent article about cash incentives for students. In Cash Incentives Create Competition: Payment Program Is Source of Pride, Shame for D.C. Students, Vargas looks at three children in one family who attend the Hart Middle School in Washington, D.C. and examines the reactions of each to their bi-weekly "paycheck." She also explores some problems with the program now being piloted in 15 Washington, D.C., middle schools. It's an interesting read. Duncan Addresses NSTA Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the National Science Teachers Association 2009 Conference on Friday in New Orleans. At one point in the speech, Duncan stated a thought that many of us may have had:
Duncan also spoke to the educational goals of the recent economic stimulus package, "higher standards, data systems, turning around underperforming schools, and teacher quality." The AP's Becky Bohrer tells about the speech in Education chief eyes 'new era' in science teaching, although the full text of the speech is a quick and easy read.
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to replace the dreadful Norton 360 I had been using previously.
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On School Change Stacy Teicher Khadaroo has recently written several good articles about school improvement. Her articles all focus to some extent on what we can learn from successful schools in other countries while being cognizant "that the fact that something works in Singapore doesn't necessarily mean it will work in the United States."
The final link above contains one gem of information that may shed a bit of light on some of what teachers in America face: "In most European and Asian countries, about half of a teacher's workweek, 15 to 20 hours, is spent outside the classroom – preparing lessons, meeting with students and parents, and working with colleagues." Mathews Suggests Giving Up on D.C. Voucher Program Washington Post education columnist Jay Mathews concludes his recent Saying 'When' On D.C. School Voucher Program piece, "This nation of public school backers just won't go for vouchers." Mathews has long been a supporter of school vouchers as one way to improve education. His article goes through a list of reasons for why it's now time to say "enough" on school vouchers. More NASA Images Available - Only for Windows Users NASA and Microsoft announced yesterday "plans to make planetary images and data available via the Internet under a Space Act Agreement. Through this project, NASA and Microsoft jointly will develop the technology and infrastructure necessary to make the most interesting NASA content -- including high-resolution scientific images and data from Mars and the moon -- explorable on WorldWide Telescope, Microsoft's online virtual telescope for exploring the universe." Of course, the big problem with the agreement above is that Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope desktop program is only worldwide if you use their Windows operating system! There is a WorldWide Telescope web client in alpha, but it requires and Intel based Mac. So schools using older Macs or the Linux operating systems are left out in the cold. NASA should know better. Odds 'n' Ends Susan Dominus has a good article in the New York Times about how a gay teacher's commitment ceremony hasn't caused any big waves: Most of the Seventh Grade Will Be at the Commitment Ceremony. Maybe we're growing up as a nation in our acceptance of alternative lifestyles. Winnie Hu's Lost, Now Found, a 1929 Time Capsule Proves Transporting is an enjoyable read about a time capsule recovered from an old school building. Howard Blume tells of another victim of education budget cuts in California in L.A. district to end high-profile dropout-prevention program.
Obama Holds Internet Town Hall Meeting President Barack Obama held a first-of-its-kind Internet town hall meeting at the White House yesterday. Obama wants high-paying, high-skill jobs in future tells of the President fielding "questions on jobs, the auto industry, universal health care, mortgages, education, veterans' care and legalization of marijuana." On education, the President said that there has to be a way to ease bad teachers out of the classroom, and that some people just aren't meant to be teachers. "He also said there needs to be other ways to evaluate teachers besides standardized tests. He said those tests can't measure progress in a struggling school, and that they represent the biggest flaw in the No Child Left Behind program." More on NASA and WWT I received the following email from NASA's Rachel Prucey about my comments about Microsoft's WorldWide Telescope leaving Mac and Linux users out in the cold.
I did try out the web client for the WorldWide Telescope on my aging PC. I wasn't impressed. I also found that Silverlight 2.0 only works on Intel based Macs. Silverlight 1.0, which does work on PPC Macs like my G5, won't work with the WorldWide Telescope. It requires Silverlight 2.0. So...I do feel like I have a little egg on my face for jumping to a possibly inaccurate conclusion. But (You knew it was coming!) an alpha release web client really isn't parity for Mac and Linux users, as the desktop version of the WorldWide Telescope is likely to be far more responsive than any web based option. Microsoft has shown for years with their Office for Mac suite that they can consistently make outstanding software for the Macintosh. (We'll conveniently forget Word 6 for Mac here.) If they can do that and really want to support education, rather than just pushing folks to their platform, why not release a desktop WWT for Macs and Linux based machines? But as Rachel pointed out, NASA imagery remains available directly from NASA through their various sites. I grabbed the incredible photo below of the International Space Station taken from the shuttle Discovery this week from the STS-119 Image Gallery. It's also available from the NASA Image of the Day Gallery.
Long Term Benefit of ADHD Medications Questioned Washington Post staff writer Shankar Vedantam tells in Debate Over Drugs For ADHD Reignites that new data from a large federal study indicates that medications may do little good beyond 24 months. William Pelham, one principal scientist in the study, "said that the most obvious interpretation of the data is that the medications are useful in the short term but ineffective over longer periods." Steve Lopez Rant on Teacher Tenure I've linked a number of times in the last year to excellent columns by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. I generally agree with his views, but I think he's missing something in Seniority, not quality, counts most at United Teachers Los Angeles. He writes:
It would appear that Mr. Lopez has fallen under the spell of the rhetoric of the Michelle Rhee's of education, assuming that younger, newer teachers are good and more experienced teachers are universally "burned-out." Of course, it could be that he's up close to a situation in his daughter's school where a favorite, younger teacher is being laid off while older teachers he views as less effective are protected by seniority. Lopez later adds in his column, "In defense of teachers, grading them can be difficult and subjective. And there's no question that at times, good teachers need union protection from inept principals." Here in Indiana, it is possible to fire a "permanent" teacher. The term permanent replaced tenure in Indiana teacher law some years ago. The problem with dismissing a permanent teacher here lies more in school politics and administrative neglect than in the law protecting poor teachers. To fire a permanent teacher for incompetence, Indiana administrators must first place the teacher on notice of possible removal and inform them of their alleged deficiencies. The administrator is then required to make a sincere effort to help the teacher improve their identified weaknesses over the next school year. It's a slow but reasonable process the is probably not used enough. Throwing out teacher tenure sounds like a great idea on the surface. But when you get inside a school and see how things work, you see that simply being good at your job and not making terrible mistakes isn't good enough sometimes to retain your job. I don't know the answer for weeding out the worst teachers from our profession. I readily admit that it needs to be done, but must also caution that one person's horrible teacher may be another's best teacher. I think we're still looking for something better than teacher tenure, but haven't found it yet. I think we need to find it before we throw tenure out. Advertising on Ditto Paper Having any kind of advertising on your classroom walls or any of your teaching materials was a no-no when I began teaching. Teaching Economics and Pizza Equations tells of how much things have changed. Jeb Harrison, an inventive teacher at Pocatello High School in Idaho, made a deal with a local pizza parlor for more than a year’s supply of copier paper that had "an advertisement across the bottom of every sheet handed out in class." Pocatello voters had rejected a school levy earlier in the year that was intended to help address a depleted budget and rising costs of items such as copy paper. Have a great weekend!
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©2009 Steven L. Wood