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Marzano con’t & Corporate Sponsorship in Education

heather — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:00:53 +0000

There’s a really interesting discussion thread going on at the Interactive Whiteboard Revolution ning. It all began with my post recapping Robert Marzano’s position on the influence of IWB technology when he presented at the CUE conference this year. You can read the thread here.

One of the most interesting arguments going on is in the importance of whether or not Marzano is sponsored by Promethean (he is) and whether or not this somehow corrupts his findings (it shouldn’t). As Peter Kent points out, “Corporate sponsorship is common practice. The MIT Media Lab (created by Papet and highly reputable) and currently including Mitch Resnik of Scratch fame has over 60 corporate sponsors including the possibility to having an employee of a sponsor work in the Media Lab. There is also the opportunity for a sponsor to work closely with a principal investigator and a graduate student in a specific area. My point is that corporate sponsorship of educational research is both common and necessary.”

I’ve written on this topic before when I’ve said that I think there is a future in education as a privately sponsored entity. In my earlier post, “Walmart Presents: (insert some president’s name) Middle School,” I previously wrote, (...)
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Post tags: assessments, collaboration, Ed Tech, education, fundraising, interactive whiteboards, ning, TED, Title I, TLN, VLC

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Teaching Secrets: Finding a Job That You Love

heather — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:33:00 +0000

Know a teacher who got a pink slip? Maybe my newest post at Teacher Magazine can help. Click here for the article.

It’s Step 1 of my Top Secret New Teacher Handbook. Hope it creates some shortcuts, a machete even, through the education jungle.

-Tweenteacher

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Post tags: achievement gap, blog, classroom library, classroom management, collaboration, common language, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, ELA, employment, free, fundraising, internet literacy, jobs, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, life long learners, merit pay, metacognition, middle school, NCLB, new teachers, peer teaching, performance pay, professional development, technology, test prep, Think Aloud, Title I, TLN, top 10, tween, UCI, Writers Project

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Extreme Makeover: Classroom Edition

heather — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:45:58 +0000

There’s been so much talk lately of deep-needed reforms for education, but we neglect just how powerful a simple makeover can be. I’m lucky to currently work at a school that has a patch of green, which fixes the broken windows and washes off the graffiti when it happens. But I’ve worked at the schools that smell of urine, at the sites that lay forgotten by funding, yet are still expected to succeed.

According to What Not to Wear, a makeover does wonders for your confidence, your pride. According to Extreme Makeover, it can renew your hope in life.(...)
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Post tags: Ed Tech, ELA, ELD, extreme makeover, fundraising, k-12, k12, middle school, TLN, tween, UCI, Writers Project, writing

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How to be an Ed Tech Advocate

heather — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:26:24 +0000

OK, guys. So I got it from the horse’s mouth at CUE. According to the ISTE Director of Governmental Affairs, No Child Left Behind is not going away.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the Obama administration talked the talk, proving that Educational Technology was on their radar, but if you’ve been listening, the silence on Ed Tech has since become deafening. (...)
Read the rest of How to be an Ed Tech Advocate (515 words)

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Post tags: achievement gap, blog, budget, CUE, Ed Tech, education policy, EETT, equity, ETAN, fundraising, internet literacy, k-12, k12, learning, lobbyist, middle school, NCLB, obama, online, school accountability, school funding, technology, Title I, tween, UCI, writing

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The Death of Teacher Conferences or I Can’t Believe I Miss My Canvas Bag

heather — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:43:59 +0000

So, CATE (the California Association of Teachers of English) just came to an end. The hotel was lovely. All ran smoothly. We were greeted with smiles aplenty, and everything ran on time. Sheridan Blau, Kelly Gallagher, Carol Booth Olson, Taylor Mali, Jim Burke. They all presented there.

But despite it all, CATE is clearly a conference (along with others) that is struggling for breath amidst budget cuts.(...)
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Post tags: achievement gap, blog, cate, collaboration, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, fundraising, podcasting, professional development, technology, test, test prep, TLN, Writers Project

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Am I So Past My Prime?

heather — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:02:28 +0000

Somehow, and maybe I’m reading into it here, I feel a little written off already. Education Week is reporting that some districts are pondering the possibility of “front-loading” new teacher salaries, increasing their compensation earlier in their career to aid in recruiting “higher-calibur talent.” But, um, what about me?

I’m a little frustrated at the message this sends to those of use who have invested in this career. I mean, I know that we need to recruit new teachers, but a talented person with great ability in their field does not necessarily a good teacher make. Remember, teaching is about two skills that must be mastered: that of content and that of communication.(...)
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Post tags: alternative credetials, credential, Ed Tech, ELA, employment, free, fundraising, Language Arts, learning, life long learners, merit pay, middle school, performance pay, teaching, TLN, Writers Project, writing

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Fundraising Mafia

heather — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:14:30 +0000

I’m being stalked by two of the tiniest, cutest 7th graders I’ve ever seen. Big eyes. High voices. You know the type. They are apparently the heavies for Yearbook, sent out into the wilds of 8th period to swing open classroom doors and announce, “You owe Yearbook $12.50.” Yes, the Yearbook Mafia Family is after me.(...)
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Post tags: blog, carnival of education, Character Education, competition, fundraising, k-12, k12, middle school, writing

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The Excitement Graph: Plot and Word Choice

heather — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 01:04:08 +0000

Every year, I do this activity when teaching Narrative Plot. I’ve used it from 3rd grade to 12th grade. I learned a version of it first in 1993 at a UCLA Extension class on “Teaching Reading to Secondary Students” and I’ve adapted it from there. It’s called:

THE EXCITEMENT GRAPH(...)
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Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, assessments, blog, book review, classroom library, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, description, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, ELA, essay, fundraising, integration, k-12, k12, Language Arts, middle school, new teachers, peer teaching, professional development, tween, Writers Project

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Should a free education be unconditional?

heather — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:25:19 +0000

So you know when you get your group of kids on the first day, there are those who immediately set off your alarms? Well, that definitely happened to me on my first day.

I have a student who clearly needs help. His peers are weary of him already and his confrontational style seems not as intentional as inherent. The startling comments and “seething anger”, as his last year’s teacher put it only three weeks into the school year, seem uncontrollable. This same teacher recorded that he asked if her windows were bullet proof. I wasn’t, of course, given this information up front. I had to seek it out.

His first quickwrite of this year centered on cussing out his last teachers and cranking them nightly on the phone. His pride in his violent video games is apparent.

Like children with Asperger’s (of which he has not been tested to date), he seems unaware of cues or the goings on around him: calling out with inappropriate comments, walking in front of me while I talk to the class, handing me items while I’m in the middle of instruction. Annoying, yes, but harmless.

He also will not make eye contact (could be cultural, but this seems different than others of his ethnicity and nationality) and walks robotically, stiffly, without movement in his shoulders. Strangely enough, and I’m clearly not a diagnostician (though I play one on TV), the few students in my career who have had symptoms like this seem to also come with apparent sinus problems. His eyes are puffy with nasal issues, he is sniffy, and I can’t help but wonder if there is a connection.

So I approached the counselors who know me as a real student advocate and as a teacher with a somewhat effective antenna. I don’t send kids to the office. I handle my own discipline issues, which are few. So when I come in, they listen. The afternoon after the first day of school I walked in and said, “So, what’s up with X?” They pretty much flopped the file onto the desk, a file the size of our Language of Literature book.(...)
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Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, achievement gap, aspergers, blog, collaboration, Curriculum, differentiation, Ed Tech, education, education policy, ELA, employment, free, fundraising, Joanne Jacobs, k-12, k12, learning, metacognition, performance pay, special ed, teaching, technology, test, Title I

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NCLB? How ’bout B-studentsLB

heather — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 13:14:36 +0000

I’ve been reading a lot of headlines lately about NCLB leaving out the over-achievers and potential leaders in our schools. Joanne Jacobs mentions it in her article, “What About the Smart Kids?” and the NYTimes and the Common Core blog both have touched on this latest Fordham report that claims that the achievement gap is closing, but from the bottom up.

Nobody can deny that this is happening, but there is also another symptom of NCLB that has slowly passed like a plague of yore over our schools, the disappearance of electives from the schedules of the middle-ground students. (...)
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Computer Literacy Support should not be Conditional: Joanne Jacobs comment

heather — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 12:00:24 +0000

In today’s Joanne Jacobs article, Computers Don’t Boots Poor Kids’ Grades,” I commented that they may not boost them now, but as we all know, our mission as educators is not just to increase test scores, but also to create life long learners. Look, I think that if we as educators are charged with preparing students with the strategies that are their future, we must make them computer literate. That means doing everything we can to promote safe and easy computer usage in the home.

Just as we as educators strive to make books accessible to those who are struggling readers, so too must we add computers to that list, for technology is not just for the elite anymore. The Home Ec and Shop classes of yesteryear are dwindling away and in their place needs to be classes and encouragement in those skills that will be our students’ future blue-collar skills…those in technology.

The statistics of what the kids do with a computer once it’s in the homes can’t derail us from our mission, to educate and prepare. Get those computers in the homes and in the schools. Then we’ll tackle responsible usage. But if we allowed the irresponsible to dictate every generation’s movement towards their future success, TV would have been banned long ago and books would still be in pyres. (...)
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Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, assessments, charity, computers, Ed Tech, education policy, free, fundraising, k-12, k12, school funding, teaching, Title I

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It’s the End of The Internet as we Know It (and I feel…)

heather — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:36:20 +0000

Check out this kinda frightening prediction from early Time Magazine sources. It seems that there is an attempt to create blocks of media packages starting as early as 2012 or earlier. That is, very much like TV cable packaging, the Internet would only be sold in blocks to purchase access much as you would your HBO Basic or Plus packages for cable.

Just imagine the even wider achievement gap that would occur if schools had to pay for their Internet packages.

If it’s true, we need to get more media attention on this attempt to stomp out the global communication that we have all come to know, love, and support.

I can’t say I know a lot about this subject, but it’s definitely worth looking into. Of course, there’s no way Google’s gonna let this happen, of course. After all, they’re a juggernaut in the business of universal information access.

Have you heard any updates on this topic that our Ed Tech community should be aware of? What steps should we take to ensure that it doesn’t happen?

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Post tags: 2008, assessments, audit, blog, CUE, data, digital immigrants, Ed Tech, education, education policy, ELA, free, fundraising, integration, internet literacy, iPods, k-12, k12, learning, middle school, online, PI, podcasting, teaching, Title I

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Fundraising Stinks

heather — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:45:31 +0000

In response to a recent Washington Post article:
Obviously nobody has a problem with tackling the obesity problem in this country in any way we can. I remember the time when everyday for 10 months straight students would come up to me, carting a cardboard box, its cardboard handle cutting into their hands with the weight of the various evil, wicked, Wonkalicious treats inside. The student always said the same thing: “Mrs. W, would you like to buy a candy? It’s to support the .” Well, of course I want to support them, but have you ever taught hormonal middle schoolers jacked up on sugar how to write a thesis statement for a Response to Literature? It’s not easy, let me tell you. So, clearly, nobody is against the ratification of irradicating the candy on campus more than I am. But, it turns out, there was a down side to this decision. Yep, you guessed it, more work on the teachers; because now we have to fund our own programs and figure out how to do it as lucratively as we did before.

(...)
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