...dedicated to...hmmm, we're still figuring that one out...
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Civics Classes Proposed The Washington Post's Dana Milbank tells of Bush Administration plans to revive civics classes in Revival in Civics Education Is Explored. The author notes, "The advisers do not seek to encourage flag-waving and sports-arena chants of 'U.S.A.' Rather, they favor an effort to restore civics education in American classrooms as part of a broad initiative to teach the obligations of citizenship." Commencement Speakers The New York Times Abby Goodnough tells that Graduation Speakers With 9/11 Ties Are in Vogue (free registration required) in a recent column. Former New York city officials are in demand for commencement day activities. Goodnough mentions former mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former police and fire commissioners Bernard B. Kerik and Thomas Von Essen in the column. Other "big names" not associated with 9/11 mentioned in the column as possible graduation speakers were Senator Tom Daschle, Bob Costas, Conan O'Brien, Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy, Bill Cosby, and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Obesity in Children San Francisco Chronicle staff writers Kim Severson and Meredith May have an interesting column in Growing up too fat: Kids suffer adult ailments as more become dangerously obese. They describe some of the bizarre effects of early obesity on children, a growing problem in this country. Devotion For May 12-18, 2002 Zach Wood's weekly devotional for this week is The BEST Tour Guide. I hope it adds a bit of brightness to your week. Zach also maintains an archive of previous devotionals. If you have suggestions, news ideas, etc., please . |
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Repetitive Stress Syndrome in Children Jeannie Kever has a good column about the potential for repetitive stress syndrome in children in the Houston Chronicle. Ms. Kever notes in Awareness of children's injuries from computer use grows that the jury is still out on the potential for injury to the younger set. Common sense would seem to suggest that the same injuries that afflict adults from bad ergonomics must surely be in store for younger computer users whose still growing bodies are often in front of the screen many more hours than adults. Alliance Schools in Los Angeles Jose Cardenas tells of a grass roots alliance growing in the Los Angeles county schools in Building a Power Base for Better Education. The Los Angeles Times column describes the coalition of parents, teachers, principals and support staff to improve schools that originated in Texas. "The aim is to give all parties, especially parents, a say in how to improve a school, from controlling dangerous traffic on nearby streets to deciding how to spend the budget." New Items on SchwabLearning.org New items on the Schwablearning.org site this week include: As always, links to all of the new and updated SchwabLearning.org articles are available in the Schwab Learning Online Newsletter (link expires 5-19-02). Past newsletters are now archived in the new SchwabLearning.org Email Newsletter Archive. Microsoft Antitrust Case Update Amy Harmon provides a status report on the Microsoft antitrust trial in the New York Times column After Crash Course, Judge Must Solve Microsoft Case (free registration required). Software Update GraphicConverter 4.4 is available for download from LemkeSoft. Version Tracker lists the usual, long list of refinements in this version of the excellent Macintosh-only graphics tool. The new version is available for Classic PPC (4.4 MB) and Carbon (4.1 MB). While at this writing, I only found the update available from the Lemke site, later in the day it should be available from the various mirror sites, including the Ausmac archive. Sorry, I'm buried under a pile of end of the year responsibilities, a cart of twenty-four new iBooks to configure, Annie and my 8th wedding anniversary, and a bunch of other stuff, so updates have been and will continue to be irregular. I expect things to return to normal sometime... Software Release Marc Moini, author of Smart Scroll, Startup Doubler, and Custom Menus, has released A-N-I-M-A-L-S: From Letters & Sounds to Reading! 1.1.
Marc has been hard at work on this app for some time and has been good in sharing various betas with me during the process. He's open to comments and suggestions and continues to refine the product. A-N-I-M-A-L-S can be downloaded from www.marcmoini.com. Apple Education Andrew Trotter has an interesting column about the fortunes of Apple Computer in the education market in Apple Struggles to Regain Share Of School Market. While Apple has spun numbers to put the best face on a bad situation, Trotter tells it like it is:
Of course, most of us who are in the trenches of education could easily tell Apple how to sell more computers: Cut the cost! Ah, but that 30% profit margin looks so good to Apple shareholders as Apple's education marketshare slowly dwindles. It makes for a pertinent question: Thirty percent of nothing equals what? Virus Alerts I generally just run a reminder about updating virus definitions somewhere around the end or first of each month. The quantity and virulence of new viruses this month makes a mid-month reminder a good idea. If you're running a PC online and just update monthly, it might be a good idea this time to do an extra mid-month download of new virus definitions. General links to the major antivirus providers are:
Annie brought home her anniversary flowers yesterday that came through 1-800-Flowers.com. I'd used that service before with good results, but this time was especially interested, as I've added them as an affiliate advertiser. Wow! What a bouquet of flowers she got! Whether it was
1-800-Flowers.com or the local florist who made and
delivered the arrangement, I came out looking like a champ.
So, if you're in the doghouse for too many hours on your
Mac, or just need to light those romantic fires for the
weekend, let me recommend the Spring
Inspiration
Another Hit On Edison Schools The Boston Globe's Anand Vaishnav reports Edison School's, Inc. is being dropped by the Boston Renaissance Charter School due to low test scores and curriculum issues in Boston charter school dropping links to Edison.
Principals in Philadelphia Given Power to Totally Select Staff In Philadelphia, where Edison Schools will manage 20 schools next year, the School Reform Commission revealed that it will give principals at 70 schools the power to select their entire teaching staff. In Board plans to give principals more power at 70 city schools, Philadelphia Inquirer reporters Susan Snyder and Dale Mezzacappa quote commission spokeswoman Carey Dearnley as saying, "We think one of the most important elements of reform is that the principal is able to establish a community of educators, strong teachers that they feel will most ideally fit with that school's learning program." Why I Don't Chaperone Proms (any more) High school principals in the Washington, D.C., area are having to be vigilant in setting rules and policing them at this year's high school proms. The Washington Post's Nurith C. Aizenman tells of how one D.C. area principal is dealing with "freak dancing" in Sexy Dancing Has Schools on Prom Patrol. Morality Police at Work in Sacramento The Capital Christian School in Sacramento, California, has made the national news again by expelling a 5 year-old kindergartner just three weeks before the end of the school year because her mother works at a strip club. Christina Silvas said she took the job in part to help pay her daughter's tuition after the father "stopped paying his half of the school's tuition." The Capital Christian School made the national news in 1995 when they prohibited a 13-year-old from giving the valedictory speech at its eighth-grade graduation. due to a short haircut that violated the school dress code.
I was amazed as I looked over the links for the story above, finding postings from Anchorage to Fort Lauderdale the Twin Cities. Software Updates and Releases Fast Rabbit Software has updated their $10 shareware, US Constitution and Government Quizzer, to version 4.0.1 with the addition of text to speech and speech recognition. Macility has released PopChar X 1.0 for Mac OS X. PopChar X is the successor to PopCharPro and the freeware PopChar Lite that allows one to easily select unusual characters without using exotic keyboard combinations. I've not popped for PopCharPro registration before because the old freeware PopChar (82K) did everything I needed it to do. I guess that's a case of the original developer, Günther Blaschek, making the original too good! This time, though, I think I may just have to spring for the $30 registration fee. I use a lot of unusual characters, especially in passwords. Another great OS X app has undergone a name change. PiDock is now PiPop and the 2.0 version is in beta. PiPop allows deep level (beyond 5 levels) file and folder navigation under Mac OS X. New Additions I noted in yesterday's posting that I was swamped with end-of-the-year responsibilities at school. While many of the tasks are rather boring paperwork chores, I'm also in the pleasant position of having more new technology dumped on me that I can quickly absorb! From left to right are: 800 MHz G4 tower; 1.4 GHz JDR box with a touchscreen monitor; 24 iBooks on custom cart; and my kids, faces smudged for anonymity, getting their first shot at using the new iBooks on Friday.
Those of you who are regular readers of this site and my columns know these improvements and others haven't come without considerable controversy. Some very solid parent support helped make these improvements possible. I made sure that the kids got their hands on the iBooks for a considerable period of time the first day we had them. There's no better PR than students going home excited about what they've done at school that day.
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