Month: May 2003

Cindy has a very exciting opportunity this summer. She is going to spend 6 weeks in Japan as part of an educator exchange program.

There is strong technology emphasis in this project. Every Sunday evening at 9, Cindy uses CUSeeMe to meet with her Japanese language instructor online. I assume the unusual time has something to do with the time difference between here and Japan. When we happen to be out of town we have to look for a hotel with a fast Internet connection in the room.

While the teachers associated with this project get to travel, students in Japan and the U.S. will also communicate and work on projects collaboratively. Cindy, her colleagues and Grand Forks middle school students have been working on a web site as part of this collaboration. We welcome you to follow this project as it develops.

June 2003 has been designated as “National Internet Safety Month” by I-Safe Anerica. I-Safe is sponsoring activities for kids, parents, and educators.

Common Sense Media announces a new web-based media ratings system (New York Times).

I just finished finals week. One of the useful by-products of this time for me is the opportunity to read student papers. It becomes a useful way to increase the breadth of the material I normally read. A couple of papers this time dealth with high stakes testing and both papers cited the work of Arizona State Univ. profs Amrein and Berliner. These researchers assumed that any general benefit of high stakes tests would be evident on other standardardized tests administered in the state (ACT, SAT, NAEP and AP). They concluded “evidence from this study of 18 states with high-stakes tests is that in all but one analysis, student learning is indeterminate, remains at the same level it was before the policy was implemented.” This finding raises some interesting questions about what the tests actually accomplish.

A recent Education Week special report considered “Technology and Testing”. A variety of issues, applications, and concerns are addressed. I see the new PT3 “call” for proposals includes this area as a possible area of emphasis.

New York Times has an interesting description and analysis of how women are portrayed in video games. The article considers both positive and negative perspectives on the agressive roles female characters (or any character) portrays in interactive entertainment.

I see that KidLink has generated some online press. Kidlink has utilized the Internet to enroll students from 157 countries on every continent in a variety of programs. KidLink put “kids” in touch with each other through listservs, chats, forums, and lesson series.