Month: December 2004

The question of why technology has not made more of an educational difference has been addressed many times on this site. One position has been that there is still not enough equipment available to encourage classroom teachers to commit to using technology on a regular basis. When companies selling product take this position, the argument is perceived as self-serving.

Apple has a 1 to 1 initiative (like other hardware companies). The website link provided here includes a streamed panel discussion of the benefits of 1 to 1 computing. So, if you are unfamiliar with some of the arguments, here is a reasonable source.

A couple of weeks ago I simply needed a break and took a road trip into a very rural area of North Dakota to take one picture.

Twenty or so years ago I was hunting with my brother in this same area on a foggy fall day. The experience of seeing this structure (and a totally abandoned military base) emerge out of the mist was a bizarre experience.

I recently wrote a grant (unfunded unfortunately) that focused on linking local realities to U.S. history. North Dakota, it could be argued, played a major role in the cold war. With the bomber bases and missile silos, it was, by itself, one of the biggest nuclear threats in the world. It also had the thing I went to photograph.

A “super sensitive” radar installation intended to spot enemy attacks coming from the North. The history of this installation is itself very interesting. It cost millions and millions of dollars and functioned for only a few months. By the way, I am not suggesting that the information in the linked article is accurate. If you make use of the link from the article, you will note that the small and now nearly abandoned town described is not spelled correctly.

We pretty much “spent” the old Soviet Union into submission. It makes you wonder if the U.S. could be manipulated into a similar fate.

I wonder how many of the students taking history in North Dakota have idea any idea what the structure I photographed is or what their state had to do with world events.

The end of the semester is approaching and the last chapters in most ed psych books involve testing and evaluation. One of the topics I consider concerns the practices involved in standardized assessment and the reasons such practices are employed. Part of the point of the exercise is to reveal assumptions that guide the process and what we think the results of standardized tests mean. For example, students taking standardized tests typically are given exactly the same amount of time to complete tasks and hear exactly the same instructions. These actions are taken basically so that all students have an equal opportunity to understand and complete the tasks SO that the scores generated can be compared and differences attributed to the capabilities of the student.

The discussion about expectations started me thinking about some of the behaviors and consequences I have observed with ???high stakes??? testing. Are we really recognizing what we standardize and what our assumptions are? For example, I know that many 4th grade teachers approaching the ???test??? begin to allocate class time differently and begin to emphasize different skills. Math and language arts receive more attention and sessions devoted to history receive less. Experiences in math and language arts may be best characterized as test prep rather than traditional instruction.

So, what might such differences in experiences imply when comparing performance results across schools? When experiences are different, just like when time allowed to complete the exam is different, one can no longer progress to simple conclusions. If results are a function of time spent on test taking strategies and not content knowledge, it cannot be assumed that differences in achievement across schools taking different approaches to preparation mean the same thing. If achievement in one area is sacrificed to boost achievement in another, what is represented as achievement no longer implies the same thing. What standardized tests show mean the same thing only when the preparatory experiences are standardized?

A USA Today article identifies threats faced by your computer when online, provides data on which operating systems are most vulnerable, and offers suggestions for defense.

Microsoft (MSN) now offers a blog service (msn spaces). Note the service is still listed as a beta version.

It appears MSN is attempting to compete the Google which acquired blogger.com in order to offer another service to attract users.

Blog on!