8th Annual Technology Leadership Conference

I just arrived at this conference which is hosted by the Georgia Department of Education. A quick look over the agenda showed no weblog sessions! I just KNOW this is going to change SOMETIME soon. This session is entitled “I’m Tiny, But I Can Be Techie Too!” This session focuses on making the connectin between the primary curriculum (Prek-2) and technology. Session’s beginning…. Here’s the link to the presentation. More later…

Military school plan considers Yorkville

Military school plan considers Yorkville Village officials have to approve zoning changeBy KRIS KOCHMAN
Special to the Journal SentinelPosted: April 5, 2008

Yorkville - Jeff Starke is convinced that western Racine County is a good area for his proposed military school for youths in sixth through 12th grade.

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“I?ll Take Poor Assumptions for $800, Alex”

So I’m looking at pretty bleak odds right now in terms of getting home from beautiful Monterey (where I got the experience of presenting on the TED stage even though it wan’t the TED conference) because there is this big blob of icy snow blue over New Jersey on the weather maps today. But this article about a Boston College professor who is using wikis to have students create the text for his course lifted my spirits a bit. Lots of shifts:
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Choosing Books for Students

How do you decide what your students read?

For many of us, which books we have available in the book room or which books are approved by the school system’s list may limit our choices.

I had a conversation the other day with an English student teacher I know, and she was telling me of her frustrations that her college is pushing her to integrate YA lit into her lesson plans, while the school where she is student teaching is advising her to limit her selections to the book room.  I remember taking a course in YA lit in college, and while I loved my professor, the venerable Dr. Agee, who has since retired from UGA, I was never able to use much of what I learned in the class in my high school teaching experience.  NCTE also pushes YA lit, to the point of recommending (or they did when I was in college, anyway) books like From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges Between Young Adult Literature and the Classics by Sarah K. Herz and Donald R. Gallo — a book whose purpose is to help teachers learn which YA books might be paired with classics already in the classroom.

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