“Give 1 Get 1? One Laptop Per Child Promotion

Widely blogged about, I know, but I just wanted to include my voice in the chorus. The OLPC program is offering a special during the weeks of November 12-26 where if you buy one laptop for $399 you’ll automatically be getting a second laptop into the hands of a child in a developing nation somewhere. This is just such a great opportunity to support a whole bunch of good causes, not the least of which is providing access to kids that don’t have it and putting a learning tool into the hands of your own children. (Lots of open source goodness, too.) And if you do the math, a classroom of laptops for $12,000 with another set being donated out would make a great service project for schools to get involved in. (Thanks to Magda for that idea.)

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Arts education described as vital

Arts education described as vital State work force needs creativity, lieutenant governor saysBy DANI McCLAIN
dmcclain@journalsentinel.comPosted: March 29, 2008

Wisconsin needs to cultivate an innovative, entrepreneurial work force, and arts education is the key, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton said Friday.

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IELTS Skills

Most students will be studying English with a teacher. Here are some of the skills your teacher will be working on with you, all important in the IELTS test:

Week in Reflection: March 10-14, 2008

This week, one of my ninth grade classes finished The Catcher and the Rye, and we began discussing it in class.  We also studied adjective and adverb phrases.  The students really enjoyed the discussion of the novel, and I think they liked the book a great deal.  That novel always seems to be popular, especially with boys.  It brings up a good point.  A lot of what we read in school isn’t necessarily appealing to boys.  I think my male students enjoyed Romeo and Juliet and The Odyssey.  I really do try to think about how to draw boys in when we study literature.  The discussions this week went very well.

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Designing with failure in mind

Failure is a valuable experience. We learn more when things don't go right than we learn when everything goes as planned. Unfortunately, the concept of failure has negative connotations. We find it less than desirable and strive to avoid it, sometimes to the point of paralysis. And thereby miss the opportunities to learn. What has been your most valuable recent failure?
Jim McGee has an interesting post on the designing with failure in mind: "Human systems are interesting and effective because they are resilient. Good designers allow for the reality of human strengths and weaknesses and factor both into their designs. Too many poor or lazy designers ignore or gloss over failure modes. How many project plans have you seen, for example, that assume no one on the project team will ever be out sick?"

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Special school or segregation?

Special school or segregation? Some with disabilities favor Walworth's site; others objectBy AMY HETZNER
ahetzner@journalsentinel.comPosted: Oct. 7, 2007

Elkhorn - The law may have one definition for what constitutes the "least restrictive environment" for educating students with disabilities, but parent Julie Witt says she has another after enrolling two of her children in Walworth County's school specializing in such pupils.

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Supplementing My Kids? Education

On many levels, I’m lucky. My children go to a good school where by and large the educators care about their well-being and want the best for them. There are computers in every classroom, the student body doesn’t get itself into too much trouble, and there’s talk of starting a compost bin in the courtyard for lunch scraps. It’s a safe place, situated right in the middle of corn fields and barns. The air is clean and crisp on these fall mornings, and I know as I watch Tess and Tucker get on the bus each day that they will be getting much more than the vast majority of kids in this world are getting in terms of an education.

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