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Digital Math Books Several years ago, I attended one of those Apple Computer sponsored 1:1 Laptop workshops in Indianapolis. One of the things schools implementing the 1:1 computer concept were doing was making extensive use of digital textbooks. Education Week's Why the Best Math Curriculum Won’t Be a Textbook talks about the trend toward using more, but not exclusively, digital textbooks in light of the recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study that recommended narrowing math curriculum and going deeper into the areas covered. One suggestion in the article I really liked was school systems adopting only "core-learning" textbooks while relying on digital content for extension. Computer Science Workshop Opportunity The University of Virginia, with support from the National Science Foundation, is hosting the tuition-free Tapestry 2008 Workshop on "the attraction and engagement of middle and high school students to computer science." The workshop to share strategies, practices, and good ideas for teaching computer science runs July 8-10, 2008."Honorariums of $1,000 will assist attendees with time and travel costs, and show our appreciation for their participation in the assessment of the workshop program and activities." Richard Rothstein on... Yesterday, I noticed a blog posting by Richard Rothstein on “A Nation at Risk” Twenty-Five Years Later. That got me started hunting for other postings by the former education columnist of The New York Times (1999-2002). During those years, I frequently linked on Educators" News to his insightful columns. Rothstein is now a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) where a rather thorough listing of his writings exists. If you're looking for a rational, pragmatic look at the education scene in America, you'll appreciate Rothstein's views, such as:
Most of the links from EPI are downloadable PDFs, but they're all free. Here's two to get you started.
Speaking of The New York Times, current Times columnist Bob Herbert has an excellent article in Doing the Troops Wrong (alternate link Look who's willing to block education benefits for veterans). Poor Man's Interactive Whiteboard Tom Rademaker of Oak Hill High School (IN) wrote today telling me of an incredible way to create an interactive whiteboard using a Wii remote and an LCD projector. I've previously shared some of Tom's handiwork on Educators" News with his code for an Astronomy Picture of the Day block on teacher web pages. Tom wrote:
Johnny Lee's Wii Projects page has lots of information about this and other projects and links to the code needed. It also carries YouTube videos that describe the projects well. I've embedded the video about the interactive whiteboard at right. Thanks, Tom! New Science@NASA Dr. Tony Phillips has another great posting on Science@NASA. Today's story, Planets by the Dozen, tells in layman's terms of astronomers' massive new search for planets "by observing about 11,000 nearby stars over 6 years. This number dwarfs the roughly 3,000 stars that astronomers have searched to date for the presence of planets. Scientists estimate that the NASA-funded project, called MARVELS (Multi-object Apache Point Observatory Radial Velocity Exoplanet Large-area Survey), will find at least 150 new planets—perhaps many more." CEC Resources to Prevent Bullying and Harassment I received a mailing today from the Council for Exceptional Children listing a number of resources they share on dealing with bullying. The links below are all to PDF documents.
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The Educators' News Bleary Eyed Edition With the birth of another grandson last weekend (and watching his younger sister for four days), and then the late Indiana primary election results last night, this has to be the bleary eyed edition of Educators' News! Both Annie and I are terrible political junkies. She's much worse than I am, but reminded me last night as we watched the results on CNN that I helped make her that way. Now that Indiana's moment in the sun is over, we'll both appreciate not receiving all the really nasty political mailings that went on during the primary runup. Of course, the general election is yet to come. Solar Flares Dr. Tony Phillips has another great posting on Science@NASA. He adds some excellent historical perspective about the study of solar flares in A Super Solar Flare. The short science stories on Science@NASA are just the right length for use with middle and high school students (the content level varies), and sound tracks and podcasts are also included, which can be a big help with your reading challenged kids.
The excellent open source space simulation, Celestia, has been updated to version 1.5.1 with various bug fixes. Celestia allows one to move through the universe in three dimensions. I managed to download the new version despite some serious rain fade on our satellite wireless connection, but was frustrated when I tried to go to a nebula. Oops, nebula and many other objects require a download from the Celestia Add-Ons page! Got Lost Again in HTML I was supposed to be getting ready to take our granddaughter back home yesterday afternoon when I got lost in updating a popular feature story on Educators' News, Out of this World Desktop Pictures. It's another one of my old columns that still draws hundreds of views each month, but many of the links had changed or expired. Before getting this bleary eyed edition of Educators' News out, I took the time to finish updating the links in the column. While still in the classroom, I heavily relied on space and astronomy photos for desktops for our classroom computers. I also used various photo collections available on CD and online. I also posted some of them previously on Educators' News, and of course, now have a download page of my own of Desktop Photos.
How Parents Use Teacher Web Pages Jan Hoffman has a great article about how parents use teacher web pages in I Know What You Did Last Math Class. With the proliferation of services such as Edline, ParentConnect, Pinnacle Internet Viewer, and PowerSchool and course management systems such as Blackboard, Joomla, and Moodle, parents can easily stay up to date with their child's progress in class. Hoffman looks at both the good and bad of this new phenomena. It's a great read! Smack "Teachers too often rely on 'folk wisdom' instead of proven methods to help students learn reading and math." How's that for a professional smack in the face? While poking around a bit for information on President Bush's "scientifically based research" Reading First program, I ran into that quote from Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, Bush's director of the Institute of Education Sciences. You can read it in context in the Washington Post, Searching for Science to Guide Good Teaching, or in the Boston Globe, Education chief pushes scientific path to learning. I'm obviously in a bit of a political mood this morning, but the pounding good teachers have taken over the last seven years from the failed Bush administration just gets to me sometimes. Here in Indiana, we get to go to the polls tomorrow and possibly make a difference in the next leader for our nation. If you're a registered Hoosier voter and don't know your polling place, click here. Some Very Cool Pictures I guess I can't end a posting without some pictures, so let me add my favorites for today.
Reading First Report A large-scale study released yesterday by the Department of Education found that the Reading First Program was no more effective in teaching reading than schools using other programs. The $1 billion per year, federally funded Reading First program was included in the No Child Left Behind act at the insistence of President Bush. I've included a bunch of links to the story, as each has a little different slant on it.
4D Ionosphere
And in case you were wondering, no, adding the 4D Ionosphere to your Google Earth installation doesn't change any of your other settings in the application. I moved from the ionosphere view at the top right to our house in the country at the left without resetting anything. You can almost see me out there in the garden! Years ago, I had my special ed kids start in the shareware, anAtlas, first finding their hometown. They then used AnAtlas to link to a USGS aerial photograph of their area via the Microsoft Terra Server. From there, most were able to figure out enough landmarks to navigate to their to their house. We printed up the aerial photographic close-up of each child's house. It turned out to be a really cool activity. Several of my students regularly returned to anAtlas, both on and off-line, to find places. Sometimes we'd print and cut up their map to make puzzles for the kids to reassemble. When I first ran into anAtlas and the Terra Server, I got so engrossed in them that I actually flooded our kitchen, as I "was filling the kitchen sink with soapy water to do dishes" when I ran into the cool stuff. It's fantastic that Google Earth does it all with so much more clarity today. Challenge to NCLB Dismissed Sam Dillon relates in The New York Times today that "a federal judge has dismissed a closely watched challenge to President Bush’s signature education law" in Judge Dismisses Connecticut’s Challenge to Education Law. Judge Mark R. Kravitz ruled that "the State of Connecticut failed to prove that federal officials had forced it to spend its own money to comply with the law’s requirements," but also stated "The court wishes to be clear that it has not ruled on the merits of the state’s unfunded mandates provision claim because the argument was never made." Dillon adds, "A parallel challenge to the law by a teachers’ union and school districts in several states, also filed in 2005 and also based on the law’s unfunded mandates provision, has been more successful." Progress in New Orleans Adam Nossiter has a really interesting article about of the comeback of some New Orleans schools in Against Odds, New Orleans Schools Fight Back. He writes, "No road leads to George Washington Carver Senior High School here. It sits on no street and has no address. No sign announces it...And it is beginning to meet that challenge." More on Student Incentives Schools use cash as an incentive to boost attendance and scores is an interesting article by Sean J. Miller that tells of students in Baltimore earning "up to $80 a year, which they can invest in blue chip stocks and cash out when they graduate" via the Stocks in the Future program. He also tells of other cash incentive initiatives being tried and writes, "The district has earmarked almost $1 million for the program over the next 18 months. The goal is to boost the city's graduation rate, which hovers around 60 percent." Similar efforts in other cities are also described. Column Updates
In doing the Co:Writer update, I realized that while I'd posted information about the new Co:Writer Solo on the site at my previous employer, that I hadn't done so here. If you're a special educator or a classroom teacher with inclusionary students, Co:Writer may really ease your load a bit in helping your special needs students in getting their thoughts composed. It relieves a lot of spelling problems and assists with word choice. I recently received an evaluation copy of Co:Writer Solo from Don Johnston's Public Relations Manager, Valerie Chernek. Let me quickly point out that Don Johnston is very good about allowing teachers to evaluate full versions of their software under their Leader Guarantee program. My original purpose in getting the new version was to try it with the chat and forum features of the Moodle course management system. The new version of Co:Writer was able to everything I asked of it in conjunction with a CMS. I also really enjoyed using Co:Writer for the first time under Mac OS X, as the version my school system purchased was a Mac Classic application.
Google Earth and Celestron Partner A press release today informed me of a new beta of Google Earth that includes audio clips from Celestron's SkyScout Audio Tours. I downloaded the new beta and found they're just getting started adding the content. I can, however, heartily recommend the Celestron SkyScout Personal Planetarium Apple Blossoms
They don't last all that long, but when the apple blossoms come out, they're really beautiful. I think I've tried every spring for ten years to get a shot of them that I was happy with. This year I think I got it. The photo above and others are available for use as desktop photos (wallpapers) from our Desktop Photos page. Fear and Depression Among South L.A. Students Los Angeles Times staff writer Mitchell Landsberg tells of a survey of students in the South Los Angeles area that revealed that many are "frightened by violence in school, deeply dissatisfied with their choices of college preparatory classes, and -- perhaps most striking -- exhibit symptoms of clinical depression." In Many South L.A. students frightened and depressed, survey finds, he tells of the survey conducted by the South Central Youth Empowered Thru Action organization with guidance from the psychology department at Loyola Marymount University that challenged a recent school district report that said "90% of students questioned at selected schools districtwide said they were being pushed to do their best and 80% said their classes 'give me useful preparation for what I plan to do in life.'" Teachers on the Web The Washington Post's Ian Shapira writes today about teachers' "borderline" web pages on MySpace and Facebook in When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web. The article notes that teachers in several states "have been removed or suspended for MySpace postings." The issues of propriety and free speech appear to be in conflict on this one. The Candidates on Education As we move through the primaries and into the general election, I thought it might be a good idea to post links to the candidates' web pages on the issue of education. One More National Day... I just received an email from my good buddy, Paula Borders, who teaches at South Adams Jr.-Sr. High School. She's a great science teacher and friend and also an avid biker. She sent along: Bike To Work Day -- Friday, May 16th
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Science@NASA
NASA has an excellent 
I got totally sidetracked over the weekend when I found that one of the files from the 
In the meantime, I also booted up my ancient G3 minitower under System 8.1 to test the file. The file in question downloaded and decompressed perfectly, but since I'd already updated the templates in the file to AppleWorks 6, Pages, and Word formats, I went ahead and went with the new file. But all of these fun and games got me started updating some files on the Freebies page and updating links and graphics on some old, but still frequently accessed columns.
©2008 Steven L. Wood