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News, Techniques and Theories of Effective Use of Technology in Education Times and Dates Coordinated Universal Time
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Saturday, September 04, 2004
Monitoring Technology Misuse & Abuse - Mike S. Ribble and Gerald D. Bailey, THE Journal
A Five-Step Plan for Creating a Digital Citizenship Program in Your School. Over the last two years, it has become evident that a behavior pattern of misuse and abuse with respect to technology is beginning to emerge in our society. This outbreak of technology misuse and abuse is documented in continual news coverage on TV, in newspapers and on the Internet — both inside and outside of schools. The endless list of misuse and abuse includes hacking into school servers, using e-mail to intimidate or threaten students, illegally downloading music, plagiarizing information from the Internet, using cellular phones during class time, accessing pornographic Web sites, and playing video games during class. Therefore, if you are using technology in your district, you must begin to deal with digital citizenship in a significant way. (0) comments
Minimizing Security Vulnerabilities in High-Tech Classrooms - Betül C. Özkan and Vedat Günay, THE Journal
Emerging technologies are quickly becoming part of our daily learning and teaching endeavors in academia. Since we have ubiquitous access to certain high-tech tools and must learn how to integrate these tools in educational settings, it has become almost unreasonable to go back and do things as they were 10 years ago. However, we also encounter problems and weaknesses in the same high-tech environment that uses and delivers information through computer networks. Issues range from maintaining secure networks in classrooms to having a better quality learning environment for students and faculty to use and share information systems. (0) comments Friday, September 03, 2004
Biometric time clock ticks off educators - eSchool News
The Monroe City School System in Louisiana is tossing out its teacher sign-in sheets and hourly wage employees' punch cards in favor of biometric hand scanners. Administrators hope the technology ultimately will save on overhead and alleviate spotty record-keeping, but some educators consider the system an affront to their professionalism and say the money could have been spent better elsewhere. (1) comments
Bravely Go Where Few Have Gone Before with Digital Portfolios - Elizabeth Beagle, TechLearning
It seems fitting that the writing portfolio should step into the twenty-first century. The students are inundated with technology on a daily basis — cell phones, pagers, computers, video games, etc. — why not use their world to enhance and evaluate their writing? Writing does not have to be dull. It can be fun with the use of technology. For some reason, the students I teach believe that writing on the computer is fun; according to some of my students it is not writing at all. It seems that a student's perception of writing changes when a computer is involved. I have found success in using that which they know best — technology — and using it to teach and access that which they know least — writing. I have succeeded by using digital portfolios to meet my goals and the objectives of the curriculum and the Standards of Learning. (0) comments Thursday, September 02, 2004
Enhancing children's searches on the Web - Joyce Kasman Valenza, The Inquirer
Searching is a developmental skill. Younger children need more guidance, more selection and fewer choices than adults do. They need search tools that will lead them to documents that match their interests, curricula and reading abilities. Because Google does not cut it in this arena, parents and teachers can make a dramatic difference by creating simple search tool pages, files of bookmarks, or Word documents available on the desktop with handy links and passwords. Student search tools fit roughly into three categories. You will find subject directories, search engines and subscription services. In this column, we will examine children's subject directories. We'll examine the others in my next column. Subject directories do not crawl the Web using electronic robots or spiders. Instead, human editors review and select sites, organizing the selected documents into logical subject structures. (0) comments
District eyeing career program - Lynn Flatekval, Messenger-Press
The school district is looking into joining a national program that offers high school students the chance to broaden their academic skills and gain practical work experience at the same time. The National Academy Foundation (NAF) is a network of career academies — schools within schools — that prepare high school students for careers in finance, travel and tourism, and information technology through a theme-based curriculum approach.... No new teachers would need to be hired because teachers would be trained accordingly and would most likely be teaching courses they are familiar with, Ms. Fadde said. "This program takes the resources the school already has and utilizes them," Mr. Betheil said. "We provide the curriculum, detailed lessons plans and an online learning environment for the teachers who are already at Robbinsville High School." (0) comments Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Schools cash in on ATM trend - Corey Murray, eSchool News
As head of the Associated Student Body at Grossmont High School in California, Jeff Meredith has cashed bad checks intended to pay for everything from students' registration fees to yearbooks and gym lockers. Now, whenever parents or students walk into the building with their checkbooks drawn, he refers them to the school's automated teller machine (ATM). (0) comments
Computers carrots for high attendance - eSchool News
Laptop computers from Dell Inc., and even a few automobiles, are among the many incentives the Fort Worth, Texas, school system will give away this year to encourage students to come to class. In an effort to boost attendance across the district, students who never or very rarely miss class will be eligible for prizes donated by local businesses--including cars, computers, and kids' bedroom furniture. (0) comments Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Have e-books turned a page? - David Becker, CNET News.com
After more than a decade of false starts and empty promises, publishers may finally be starting to understand what consumers want from electronic books. Although revenues remain tiny, industry surveys show encouraging signs of growth in e-book sales over the past year. Publishing executives and analysts say the industry is finally coming to grips with the most significant issues that have stalled e-book adoption to date. The Open eBook Forum trade group tallied e-book sales of $3.23 million for the first calendar quarter of 2004--a mere rounding error compared to the multibillion-dollar market for paper books. But that figure marks a 28 percent jump from a year ago, suggesting that e-books are on track to meet optimistic forecasts for the year. (0) comments
Pencils still needed at tech-savvy schools - Associated Press
Back-to-school shopping lists are constantly evolving to keep up with technological advancements, many even including cell phones, laptops, Blackberrys and iPods. But one clear staple remains -- the pencil. As 5-year-old children opt to play computer learning games instead of using traditional learning toys, and middle schoolers would not even think to research a school project with a physical encyclopedia, the staying power of the little wooden pencil -- like the ones George Washington used -- seems remarkable. (0) comments Monday, August 30, 2004
ED gives preview of new ed-tech plan - Cara Branigan, eSchool News
Student data management, online assessment, and eLearning will be key issues in the next national educational technology plan presented to Congress by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), according to Susan Patrick, director of the department's Office of Educational Technology. The new plan, expected to be released at the end of September, will continue the shift from counting the number of computers in each classroom to improving student achievement with technology, Patrick said. (0) comments
How To: Maximize Google - Jeffrey Branzburg, techLearning
Google is shaking out to be the leading Web search engine, with recent research from Nielsen NetRatings reporting about 40 percent of all U.S. households using the tool at least once in January 2004. (For more information on the report, go to http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/article.php/2156451 .) How can teachers and students maximize their use of Google? (0) comments Sunday, August 29, 2004
The Internet offers teachers online help with lesson plans - Joanne Jacobs, The Christian Science Monitor
Most educators agree that well-planned lessons are a classroom essential. But some teachers don't know how to shape lessons. Others may not understand the subject they teach well enough to dream up creative ways of presenting it. That's why, in recent years, more teachers have turned to the Internet to pool expertise and to sample lesson plans tried and tested by other teachers. There are today about 10,000 websites that offer access to as many as 300,000 lesson plans. Many of these are free-to-all collaborative efforts that allow teachers to share their work with any who may be interested. (0) comments
Majority of School Districts Have a COW (Computers on Wheels, That Is) - Yahoo News
Wireless technology continues to be a major investment for school districts in the United States, enabling them to deliver resources such as instructional software and the Internet to more students in a cost effective and convenient manner. This is a key finding of the 2004-2005 Technology Purchasing Forecast, 10th edition by Quality Education Data, Inc., a leading education market research and database firm, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Scholastic. According to the report, about half of the school districts in the United States have portable wireless labs on carts (or COWs), and more than 30 percent of districts surveyed plan to purchase such technology during the 2004-2005 school year. In addition, nearly 14 percent of schools currently own wireless desktop or laptop instructional computers and 23 percent plan to invest in this technology in 2004-2005. (0) comments Educational Technology News Blog Archives OTEL - Ray's Home Page - Notebook - UIS Online - U of I Online - UIS Home Fair Use |
