Archive for September 17-22, 2001

Monday, September 17, 2001

Bill Soucy has posted a page of patriotic web banners for any and all to use.

America's tragedy is felt by all the world... is a page of photos that depict reactions around the world to the tragedy in New York and Washington, D.C.. It's a very slow loading page, due to the volume of photos, but well worth the wait.

MacDoddle Andy Pritchard has released version 2.3 of Etchelon Macdoodle as freeware. Designed for children between 3 and 12 years of age, Macdoodle (1.0 MB) contains 78 pictures to be colored and 260 picture suggestions to be completed and colored.

Saturday evening, I decided to put together all the freewares I've posted to this site in the last few months. Casting about for some way to categorize and post it, I decided to put it in with the Features and called it Freewares on Educators' News. My apologies to the Windows using readers, as almost all of the postings are Mac specific.

A column in the Rocky Mountain News states that Colorado Governor Bill Owens has released a report naming the "30 worst" schools in Colorado. Staff writer Nancy Mitchell writes:

A Rocky Mountain News analysis of the report card data found strong ties between the school ratings and student poverty and race. The state's lowest-rated schools are overwhelmingly poor and minority, the News found...Other factors, such as teacher experience, appeared to have little impact.

The Sunday Washington Post this week has a couple of good columns concerning computers and education. In Learning to be Wired, Bob Thompson takes an objective look at the use of computers in the school his children have attended. What makes this column a particularly good read is the fact that Mr. Thompson spent some serious time in the school finding out what worked and what didn't in the use of technology. It would also appear that the Lowell School has not given over to technology for technology's sake, but has carefully designed a curriculum that uses technology to improve learning where it can and retained traditional methods where they prove superior.

In Not Your Father's Shop Class, Christina Pino-Marina tells of high school students at Chantilly Academy in Fairfax County who are refurbishing used PCs in a work-study program that also leads to various computer tech certifications.

The SchwabLearning.org's new offerings for for parents and educators this week include:

While reading Dilbert today, I said to myself, "I didn't know the pointy-haired boss was a school superintendent!"

The Font Party has several new fonts reflecting patriotic themes. They also link to Match Fonts Michel Bujardet's new charityware font, Ange Gardien. Michel asks that users make a donation "to one the charities helping...the victims of terrorism and their families." One of my favorite novelty fonts came from Match Fonts. I still occasionally use DinosoType on a few math pages from their Discovery pack 1.

If you're a regular reader of Educators' News, you've read (and read and read and read) of the continuing saga of litigation over the state of Ohio's funding of public education. The ten year legal struggle for parity in funding between "have" and "have not" school districts seemed to be over with a decision, however unusual, from the Ohio Supreme Court on September 6. That was the case until the parties involved all agreed on a "$1.24 billion a year estimate to fix the existing school-funding system."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer yesterday reported that the state of Ohio, despite Governor Bob Taft's previous statement of, "Our goal is to comply with the order," has asked the Ohio Supreme Court "to reconsider its ruling in the school funding lawsuit - an attempt to shave about $800 million from the $1.24 billion a year price tag."

Hmm...now we're beginning to understand why all those school districts sued the state over and over for ten years!

Here in Indiana we have our own minor controversy concerning the continued administration of competency tests in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.. The Indianapolis Star reports that ISTEP-Plus testing during tragedy draws mixed views.

ComputerWorld and Symantec both report a major new 32-bit worm is spreading across the internet via multiple methods of propagation. The Nimda ("admin" spelled backwards for those of you lacking the blessing of dyslexia) worm can spread by email attachment (usually named "ReadMe.exe"), web sites that have been corrupted by the worm by a prompt "to download an .eml (Outlook Express) email file, which contains the worm as an attachment," or via shared hard disks. From what I've read so far, there appears to be no danger to Macs, but as most of us work on both PCs and Macs, it's good to be informed.

Bryan Chaffin over at MacObserver has been doing a pretty good impression of a lightning rod lately, with couple of columns (1, 2) about the "free" Mac OS X (10.1) upgrade. Bryan's received a hail of nasty email, a few columns of rebuttal from the "Apple can do no wrong crowd," and has been the main course on the forums of a few news sites. Bryan's great sin was in suggesting that an upgrade that costs $19.95 (for "shipping & handling") really isn't free. Having occasionally corresponded with Bryan off and on over the last few years and also having been drawn and quartered on forums myself, I wrote Bryan a note of support last week for what I think is some good judgment and journalistic integrity. I'd already expressed similar views to Bryan's here on Educators' News.

Last Friday, Bryan reported on a column by Walt Mossberg that suggested one might obtain the update free at an Apple dealer. Undoubtedly still singed from his previous posts, Bryan simply reported in the MacObserver Spin, "Apple will hopefully be making this clear for us shortly, but we will hope that Apple is in fact in the process of offering alternative ways of getting the update."

A link Monday on Bill Fox's MacsOnly led me to a column on Gene Steinberg's Mac Night Owl that states:

Some sources have suggested one may be able to take blank media to an Apple Store or dealer to have a free update CD burnt. The suggestions of some free CDs being distributed by Apple Dealers sounds more likely. Unfortunately, if one doesn't live close to an Apple Store or dealer, the only option remaining is paying $19.95 for the free update! (Well, you could just do without.) I've got to stick with what I said in July. If you missed those comments, I'll repost them here and risk a lightning strike or two.

If Apple isn't getting the update out to users who have already paid for OS X, either by mailing each a truly free update or making the update available for download, it isn't free.

It's been a difficult beginning of a new school year. My kids came back ready to learn. I was ready, too, but my school corporation wasn't. Telling the whole story would probably just end my career a couple of years early, but Getting Ready for... tells about some of the mickey mouse that goes on in public education today.

The Schwablearning.org links posted here on Tuesday should now be working. I received an email from Schwablearning.org today that said their site had been down the entire day on Tuesday. Since I check the links and make the Tuesday posting on Monday evening, I was unaware of the bad links until today.

Jeff Adkins series of reviews of astronomy programs on Mac Lab Report continues this week with a favorable review of Software Bisque's The Sky.

Scienceman Joe Martha has links to some interesting sites and pages dealing with crayfish.

One of my favorite web columnists, Adam Robert Guha, offers some insight on saving some bucks in school situations in Thinking Different About School Computers on Low End Mac. Adam is a precocious high school student who often helps out the school staff in maintaining their computers. He takes a look in this column at how his school could have saved a bunch of money by inexpensive upgrades of older computers and matching them to the appropriate tasks. At one point Adam asks, "Do you need an 800 MHz Pentium III processor for the Internet, let alone DVD drives?"

Arbor Scientific has posted a set of transparency masters for use when explaining the concept of color subtraction as related to color printers or photography. Brief instructions are posted and the download (195K) is free.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Nanette Asimov continues her coverage of the Williams vs. California case in Schoolkids' suit likely to expand: Inequality in education is claim. "Students and teachers from 47 schools in 19 districts statewide accused California in May 2000 of fostering unequal educational conditions." I'd previously linked to columns (1, 2) by Ms. Asimov concerning the poor treatment of student witnesses by attorneys representing the state of California. Ms. Asimov reports:

The plaintiffs are suing for standards that would require "up-to- date textbooks to take home, enough chairs, access to credentialed teachers, and vermin-free classrooms."

With the current national emphasis on performance testing and accountability, cases such as the ones in California and Arizona, along with the recent long-running legal battle in Ohio over inequalities between wealthy and poor school districts, might be a sign of things to come in other states around the country. While such cases may focus attention and possible additional funding on some school districts, they still do not address what I believe to be the root causes of many of our nation's troubled schools, poverty and poor home and environmental conditions. Until our nation steps up to address these issues, however elusive a solution might seem, current state and national educational reforms are destined to failure.