Online learning for attention deficit suggested by new studies

A front page article in the New York Times today includes these new findings from “landmark studies”:

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Avian Flu Fool

At my age, 14 years older that the farmer quoted below, I can call that farmer a fool both for keeping dirty chicken coops and not being willing to change. Included in a Washington Post story today is this report of the foolish farmer who is a threat to us all:
He acknowledged that his sons had been encouraging him to adopt modern safeguards. His older son, the student of veterinary science, had been particularly outspoken. “I may not be able to learn about these as fast as young people,” Prathum said. “I’ll retire after a while and pass the farm on to my son. Then he can do what he wants.”

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MPS board slashes busing

MPS board slashes busing $20 million in yearly savings to be used to improve schoolsBy ALAN J. BORSUK
aborsuk@journalsentinel.comPosted: April 24, 2008

A unanimous Milwaukee School Board agreed Thursday night "to reduce massive busing" in Milwaukee Public Schools, but to soften a proposed timetable for achieving ambitious cuts.

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Student Portfolios using Weblogs

I made it a point to get to Julie Lindsay’s poster session. Grade 9 students at the International School Dhaka have created digital portfolios using a weblog as a publishing medium and as a process journal for their project development. I wrote about Julie before but seeing all of her work on display was wonderful. Her weblog portal is here. This gives you a jumping point into the curriculum weblog and to other interesting parts of the project, including resources and access to student blogs and portfolio showcase.

On Wikipedia Discussions

A nice column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday by Lee Gomes that rightly points out that the best part of Wikipedia are the discussions that occur behind the entries themselves. This is my experience too, these days:

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Thinking about the teaching of writing

A while back I posted about comment starters…….

This made me think about…….

I wonder why…….

Your writing made me form an opinion about…….

This post is relevant because…….

Your writing made me think that we should…….

I wish I understood why…….

This is important because…….

Another thing to consider is…….

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Let?s hear it for the bouncing baby bloggers!

If you haven’t seen Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach’s bouncing baby blogger announcement you’re missing out! I had the distinct pleasure of talking to this emerging group this past Monday. I have a strong feeling that some really good things are going to come out of this group. I talked about my experiences blogging with elementary students.  If you are interested, there’s an archive of the session here. Let them hear from you! Head on over to these pre-service teacher blogs and give them a “warm blogging” welcome!

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FRP 2005 - More Reviews and Audio

Those of you who have been keeping an eye on the site (or the RSS feed) will have noticed that reviews and reporter profiles have been coming in thick and fast over the past few weeks.

The rest of the audio clips should be ready for download very, very soon.

The Festival is now coming to a close, and, sadly, so must the Festival Radio Project, for another year. It's been a blast, so see you again next year. Don't forget to watch out Read the rest of this entry »

To be a teacher is to be a constant student

Craig Barrett, Intel’s CEO, in the closing part of his slideshow, stated that “To be a teacher is to be a constant student.” How true. I think the learning is even more fun through connections made via weblogging. Craig Barrett talked about transforming education and opened with the comment that he was sort of a Benedict Arnold CEO. If that’s so, I want more Benedict Arnolds! I really liked all he said. He talked about innovation, collaboration and replication being the cornerstone of transforming education. He pointed out the similarities between his business with products and ours with students. We both have a total turnover each year.He discussed our beingin a world of change and having unprecedented competition. He addressed teacher preparation, professional development, tools & resources, leadership support and recognition of excellence.

Meet Dillon. 16. Leader. Teacher.

A couple of months ago, I had a great conversation with one of the students in Scott LeDuc’s Generation TECH class (students doing tech support) in Olympia, Washington. He had some ideas about teaching a course at his local community center and wanted to use the online class and project management tools that come with the Generation TECH program to do it. He asked how much it would cost to subscribe since he was putting together a budget.

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