school cams

In a high school in Philadelphia, all the students received laptops to use to improve their education. Students are even able to take these computers home to work on homework. So what's wrong with that? Nothing. Except school officals could/did remotely activate the web camera in the laptop to see what students are doing. This feature was put in place as a security feature to help locate missing or stolen laptops.
In November, the vice principal activated the webcame and took a photo of the kid doing something that she thought was illegal. Major flaw in her plan - parents and students had not been told about the schools' ability to do this. FBI and the Philly police are looking into this....

What do you guys think?

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/pennsylvania-school-webcam-students-spying/story?id=9905488

customized textbooks

Macmillan (textbook company) is coming out with something called DynamicBooks. This is an online program where college professors can edit textbook information without consulting the textbook writer.
My understanding is that professors require their students' to purchase the book online for a much cheaper price. The professor goes in, and adds/deleates/rewrite paragrpahs, chapters or questions. So the book becomes personalized to their class. So it's not really a professional collaborative wiki. It's just individualized for each class (ex: Dr. Merril and Dr. Zhang each teach EDU 290. They could both get a book with DynamicBooks and personalize it to their teaching personalities.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/business/media/22textbook.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

SNOW DAY anyone???

Did anyone get a snow day yesterday? I think that my school was literally the only school open. By recess, we had 7 inches of snow!!! The kids loved it though. We spent a lot of time making snowmen. It's so easy to impress 6 year olds :)

IPods for 3 year olds

In Weston County, they have placed Ipods into preschool classrooms. These IPods were preloaded with learning applications before they were placed into the classroom. The applications were suppose to help with numbers, colors, animals....etc. The students were given no information on how to use them.
I have mixed feelings. I think this is pretty cool. However, I don't know that students need "tethered" to technology at that early age. What do you guys think?

Technology Advances for Toddlers
(Not sure why the article is titled toddlers when a 3 year old is not a toddler....but whatever)

Johnny's Budget

Johnny wants to go the Olympics in Vancouver. He has a firm (can NOT go over) budget of $1200. He does some research online and finds out that it would cost him $300.75 for a round trip (there and back) airline ticket. He does a little more research and finds that he can get a nice hotel room for $125.25 a night. He also budgeted $50 a day for food. Since his family won’t be able to go, he budgeted $80 for souvenirs for them. He is planning on staying for 5 days. Can Johnny afford to go to the Olympics on his budget?

community college at the end of 10th grade

So now that I've posted, I've found another article on the whole get kids out of high school in 10th grade debacle. This one offers more information and I guess I can see their logic. The idea is to get kids who are ready out of high school and into college level courses. The high schoolers who don't pass the test at the end of 10th, 11th, or 12th graders will know ahead of time that they might have a hard time in college. This gives them a fair warning rather then having them be "surprised" when they are placed in a remedial class.
It would also allow high school teachers to focus more on the students who need some extra help.
Apparently, countries such as France, Denmark, England, Finland and Singapore use systems like this (or they use this?). They are all considered "high performance nations."
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are providing a $1.5 million grant to get this going. And schools are hoping to apply for some of the $350 million of fed stimulus money.

Sounds interesting. I still like the idea of keeping high school the way it is though. If you graduate after 10th grade how are you suspose to pay for community college? Not many 10th graders don't have a "real" job. (Babysitting is not a stable form of income) But maybe this would essentially "force" them to get a job. I'm not sure how I feel about this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/education/18educ.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Get rid of 12th grade?

Utah senator Chris Buttars has proposed getting rid of senior year of high school. He believes that this would save $60 million which would help to make a dent in the $700 million that they are in the red for.
According to the article, several other states are considering having students take a proficient test at the end of 10th grade which would then allow them to enter community college. (I think this would be similar to an AP exam in that it says the student is proficient at/for a college level.) This option is not suspose to be a money saver, but it is suspose to reduce the number of remedical classes at the college level.

Anyone who teaches high school care to comment?
Personally, I think that the senator should leave the 12th grade alone. MATURITY is a huge issue - high school students need that extra year or two to mature a little before they leave the nest. While this might not be true for some students, I think that as a whole, it is.

http://education.change.org/blog/view/no_more_pencils_no_more_books_eliminating_senior_year