Monday, October 21, 2002

While I noted on Saturday that updates this week might be limited due to school obligations, I hadn't counted on Verizon Communications messing up our calling service. So, due to a Verizon error on Sunday that can't be corrected until sometime today, my internet access is suddenly long distance.

Devotion for October 20-26, 2002

Zach Wood's weekly devotional for this week is Rendered Powerless. Zach also maintains an archive of previous devotionals.

If you have suggestions, news ideas, etc., please .

Wednesday, October 23, 2002

My biggest worries today at school were completing paperwork from a flurry of case conferences and keeping a couple of wired youngsters from walking on the ceiling. In the Washington, D.C., area, parents debated whether to send their children to school or not in light of the sniper's threat of "Your children are not safe anywhere at any time." The Washington Post and CNN tell of the sniper's written threat and the response of area schools"

• Angry Missive Complains of "Ignored" Calls
• Schools Shaken by Threat but Won't Shut Down
• School attendance near normal in D.C. schools

Laptop Stories

MacCentral's Jim Dalrymple has an interesting column about Maine's laptop initiative in Governor Angus King talks about Maine's laptop program.

Foster's Daily Democrat staff writer Jennifer L. Saunders also writes of the Maine iBook for seventh graders program in Kittery school shows off laptop program.

School Supper Program?

The Chicago Tribune's Bonnie Miller Rubin writes about a school supper initiative in Schools set dinner table for needy students. She writes, "Participating students enroll in after-school athletic or educational programs and then stay for supper."

Less Pay for Charter School Teachers

The title Teacher pay, experience lag from the Indianapolis Star pretty much tells the story of Kim L. Hooper's column about charter schools in Indiana. Hooper writes of the large gap in both pay and teacher experience between charter and private schools in the area.

New from SchwabLearning.org

This SchwabLearning.org question and answer series with Dr. Kevin Feldman continues this week answering questions on "how to help older kids who struggle with reading."

• Question 7: When writing becomes the major problem for older kids, how can they improve their skills?

Also new this week is It's Never Too Late: A Graduate Student with LD and AD/HD Shares Her Insights and Advice. As always, links to all of the new and updated SchwabLearning.org articles are available in the Schwab Learning Online Newsletter (link expires 10-27-02).

A Good Twist on Free Jaguar Promotion

Joe Taylor wrote to say that instead of applying for a free copy of Mac OS X (10.2) through Apple's X for Teachers program, he was able to get a refund for a recent purchase of OS X! Joe wrote:

After several phone numbers & a few false starts, a nice woman by the name of Janice at Apple credited my card for my previous Jaguar purchase...She did say something about me having several previous purchases and that it was being done on a case by case basis.

I think that's an exceptionally good move on Apple's part to keep a good education customer happy.

Bad News, Good News

One of the many emails I received in response to my recent column, Straight Talk About the Education Market, stunned me. It came from John Martellaro. John has been one of the most esteemed Mac columnists on the web for years, writing for MacOS Daily, the MacTimes News Network, Applelinks, and MacOpinion. John went to work for Apple Higher Education a couple of years ago and dropped his online columns. I was disappointed to read that John had been "laid off for no reason" from Apple Education. Several other emails I received in response to the column decried the lack of high end scientific applications for Mac OS X. It's too bad that Apple let go one of its best and brightest at a time when they would seem to need him most.

Of course, every cloud has a silver lining. John's departure from Apple means he's free to resume his scholarly writing efforts. This time around, John is the Senior Editor for Science & Technology at Scott Shepherd's Mac OSXFAQ. This week's column from John, Apple, Science, and Computing Myths, discusses the realities of megahertz in high end scientific applications. Despite the bitter pill Apple delivered to John, his writing remains erudite and informative with no rancor towards the company that apparently jilted him. It's good to have John back in the Macintosh writing community.

Oh yeah, about those emails...

I'm still composing answers to all the mail from Straight Talk About the Education Market. Other than the most outrageous flames, I attempt to answer every one. This time around, I've made the process a bit more involved, as the comments from teachers have been so informative that I'm asking for permission to use folks' names and material in a follow-up column. If you wrote and haven't heard back as it, it's either because your email merited a request to publish...or, that you were one of those evil, nasty folks who don't see things exactly the way I see them:-).

Friday, October 25, 2002

Our school is on a two-day break called "fall recess." It's a holdover from the days when the Indiana State Teachers Association used to hold its convention in the fall and everybody went to the meetings. Rather than spend most of the vacation at the keyboard, I pulled on a sweatshirt yesterday and mowed the grass one more time for this year, so today's posting will be brief.

Switched Parody

For those of us having a wee bit of trouble loving Mac OS X, a link I found on Accelerate Your Mac! may bring a smile to your face. The switched movie parody (3.3 MB) does contain a certain all purpose word, but it's a riot. Annie and I sat and roared at it at 5:30 this morning as I wrote this update...and there's very little we find funny at that time of day before our second cup of coffee.

After watching the parody, you may want to read the latest from MacCentral's Jim Dalrymple, Teachers utilize Mac OS X in the classroom. There's very little in the column about teachers actually using OS X in teaching. It rather sounds like the kind of things said by IT directors in forced changeovers to the Windows platform..."more reliable than previous versions,"...."fewer support calls to fix operating system errors and it fits nicely with our migration to Unix based platforms and industry standards," and "It permits easier collaboration between teachers and students."

MacUser UK has a great column, Understanding Fonts In Mac Os X, for those of us trying to tread water in OS X.

Paige Blasts "Enemies of Equal Justice and Equal Opportunity"

The New York Times Diana Jean Schemo tells of a letter that went out from the Department of Education to state education heads this week. States Get Federal Warning on School Standards begins:

The Education Department sent a blistering warning to school commissioners across the country today, calling educators who try to sidestep the intent of President Bush's signature education act, No Child Left Behind, "enemies of equal justice and equal opportunity," and vowing, "they will not succeed.

The letter from Secretary of Education Rod Paige may have been spurred by a column by Schemo last week, Law Overhauling School Standards Seen as Skirted, that spoke to the realities of trying to fulfill No Child Left Behind.

I find it interesting that whether we're talking education or Iraq, the Bush Administration so frequently falls back on the phrase "enemies of...".

Snipers Captured

While not solely an education story, I should include that authorities believe they've arrested the two individuals responsible for the recent string of sniper shootings in the Washington, D.C., area. The Washington Post has a bunch of related columns, but Pair Seized in Sniper Attacks; Gun in Car Tied to 11 Shootings tells the basic story.

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