While this may not be an entirely new idea, I think that this article by Kaye lays out a solid framework for file sharing social networks.

I think he may be missing the larger possibilities with this approach though. First, why build something like this from scratch? Incorporation into existing social networking applications/site/etc… would supplement the activities of the community and add a level of shared community artifacts unparalleled in any existing community.

For the last month, I’ve exercised a lot of procrastination time thinking about what’s next. The problem is that I’ve spent the last 6 years fulfilling requirements imposed by various graduate programs, leaving me little time to do projects that I would like to do. Not that I still don’t have quite a few requirements and projects going on that I am responsible for, but they part of the status quo. What I’m looking to do are some small publications and development projects that can help define my skills set not evident in my ongoing research and job projects.

Many of these ideas are still in the brainstorming stage, including: social networking in teacher education, template-based multimedia instructional environments, and an ESL syllabi exchange. While these are much larger issues, they could also be combined into a killer teacher resource. That may be more than I can do in the short term, but surely, smaller projects within these areas would be doable.

Any suggestions for me? What is out there already that would fit the bill? (either instructional or other)

Original Story (until 3/10/2005)

It’s something you hear about every so often. I wonder if it will finally come to fruition on a large scale.

This article discusses performance pay for public school teachers in a Minnesota district. It doesn’t get into the specifics of how teachers will be assessed fairly (hopefully not another norm referenced test 🙂

Joking aside, I think this is a great idea. The problem of worthless teachers showing up for work for 30+ years really taints the profession in general. The rest of the world receives performance pay (including tenured professors), why not K-12 teachers?

Now, I know that this could be used for evil as well as good. The benefit is all in the implementation. A performance judged by a god-like administrator would be a big mistake and performance as a popularity contest with peer-reviewers would be just as bad. I’m not going to pretend to know the right combination, but I have to imagine that fairness can be achieved using a combination of the two.

See original story

I suppose this issue never really disappears. As the world gets smaller the pressure gets greater to standardize everything, including the way we speak.

There was actually a great documentary done a while ago (can’t remember who did it) that addressed these issues. I saw it in a socio-linguistics class at UIUC. It discussed how many people who made the move to larger cities or different regions, altered or even lost theiry regional dialects to fit in. Of course, then it’s more than an issue of dialect, but more importantly an issue of indentity. Language is Culture is Identity.

I started a new blog today (http://spellingswatch.blogspot.com/) after hearing about the Spellings fiasco with PBS. She’s up in arms over the fact that publically supported PBS was going to air a children’s program that showed a lesbian couple raising children.

Not matter what your opinion is on homosexuality, this is reality. The argument is that (1) some tax payers think that it is not right to imply that homosexuality is acceptable and that (2)we often restrict what we show children to save them from reality.

As for the first argument, as a tax payer some people don’t think that a white mouse (the cartoon character involved) and a brown mouse shouldn’t play together or even a jewish mouse and a christian mouse. (note that one is designated by birth and the other by choice-both are social constructs as well-thus taking into account the two most popular beliefs on the “cause” of homosexuality).

As for the second argument, we mostly restrict what children on tv see if it is too violent, or sexually explicit. Is seeing two mommies together sexually explicit or in some strange way too violent? I don’t think so. There is more sexual content in those randy telatubbies! Unfortunately, if you accept the first argument, then my counter-argument will likely fall on deaf ears.

As I’ve heard said before, wiping gay images from TV should be rather low on the priority list for the Department of Education. There are a lot more pressing issues in education.

Now, I don’t want this new blog to be a Spellings bashing site, though it will likely turn into that. She’s been in the news a lot lately and the only sites with a good spin are on the government sites 🙂

This is a great site (www.kids.gov). I don’t know why it took me so long to find it. Now, it’s not as bad as my title suggests. There is a whole lot of great educational content here for kids of all ages. It seems like a bulk of the content, though, is for K-6.

I was pointed in the direction of this site by an article in the December, 2004 issue of Wired (p. 46). They point out the more insiduous sites that the government has for kids: National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), FBI Kids, National Security Agency and the Central Security Service (NSA/CSS), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

These are a combination of interesting historical content and scary propaganda (see the NRO song list), but are definately a must see for techie educators.

The Article

There was an interesting article in the September 27, 2004 Newsweek (p. 87), “The Connected Classroom,” about a growning trend of providing parents with easy online access to student assignments, assessments, grades, and live video of classrooms.

Parents’ Little Helper

The perspective author of the piece is that of a caring parent. I have to admit, that as a parent I would love what these services offer. This is a way for busy parents to get/keep involved in their child’s education. In the good old days, we needed to wait for a parent/teacher conference or a report card. It would be nice to have this information at our finger tips.

The Evil on the Other Side

Viewing your child’s assignments and grades is one thing. Who could complain about giving parents access to those items, but Video? How would you like to have a video camera in your office, cubicle, or so forth? I have to imagine that you would NOT want that. Of course, this is standard in many industries, banks, restaurants, hotels to name a few. I’m sure that these workers were no more thrilled than you would be, yet they were assured that they were just for security and wouldn’t influence them in their jobs. That probably reassured folks until viewing of those tapes became a standard managment practice.

In an ever more complicated classroom, I want to not only see how my child is doing, but also how the teacher is teaching. I’m sure that this will become standard practice in teachers’ performance reviews, I can’t imagine that such a powerful look into the classroom will not be utilized by school administrators.

A Company

WatchMeGrow is a company cited in the article that specializes in the installation, support, and hosting of these solutions. Check it out. It doesn’t seem like these solutions are anything more than a gimmick right now. The “streaming video” may stream, but it’s a capture rate of about 1 frame per second. The only thing that you can do is see that your child is in the room and even that is difficult if they’re on the other side of the room.

This isn’t to say that they technologies won’t get better in coming years. Higher bandwidth, better compression, and competition in the market will assure better products in coming years. I can’t imagine that higher capture rates and surely audio will creep into these products very shortly. Once parents (and admins) taste this power, they’ll want more.

Hi folks,

Well, I’m buried in Quals here (Quals are kind of comprehensive exams for doc students). The good news is that I’ll be finished with these on Feb. 14 (barring the necessity of re-writes or, heaven forbid, failure). The bad news is that I’m stuck researching and writing for the next 3 weeks and I’m already burnt out on day 5!

I’ve undercovered some cool, one-stop resources in my research on teacher mentoring (not that they helped me on the current paper).

1. Educational Technology & Society special issue on Integrating Technology into Learning and Working
2. NCREL’s Professional Development Annotated Bibliography of Resources 2003
3. edutopia’s section on Mentoring
4. A group at Iowa State University put together A literature review of teacher technology mentoring

I thought that all of these helped me on my way somewhat. I still wish that I could find something that details, “What is technology integration?” OR even more importantly, “What is good technology integration?”.

I know that this is a tough question to answer and it doesn’t seem to have been answered (adequately) as far as I can tell. The question is tough to answer because it relies heavily on context. It’s kind of like the “best practices” holy grail. It may not exist. The best that I’ve gotten so far is that it is the use of technology to help students learn. Insightful, huh?