Author: grabe

Here is a message I am passing along from Andy Carvin’s WWWEDU list

For those of us working on PT3 grants (or probably other grants identified on this list), the final statement from Secretary Rod Paige is frustrating. More on this topic if I can figure out what prompts this claim.

BUSH 2004 BUDGET CALLS FOR $144.5 MILLION IN CUTS FOR ED TECH
President Bush’s proposed 2004 budget calls for a $2.4 billion increase for the US Department of Education, but the increase is paired with cuts in technology-related programming totaling almost $145 million. Programs slated for cuts include Community Technology Centers ($32.5 million), Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology, or PT3($62.5 million), Ready to Teach ($12 million), Regional Technology in Education Consortia ($10 million), and Star Schools ($27.5 million) – all programs that Bush proposed cutting in FY 2003. “In these times of tight budgets and accountability, we can no longer continue to fund programs that simply are not helping students achieve,” argued Education Secretary Rod Paige.

[SOURCE: eSchool News](http://www.eschoolnews.com/) Note – you can ask for a free subscription if you are denied access.

OK – here seems to a key concept of the present administration – Paige claims “increased funding doesn’t seem to be the way to improve student achievement – but reform, flexibility, and local control. ” Translated — you spend money on what you feel needs to be addressed. So – this turns out not to be about an empirical approach as previous statements might lead you to believe (unless you are willing to accept the logic that “the way money was spent before has not achieved the desired consequences”). This is about a political position – local decision making is best.

I just came across this site (actually it was another Cindy contribution). iScienceProject focuses on projects using Hobo data loggers. According to the site you can even borrow a Hobo for a project. We have had the opportunity to work with Hobo projects. This site offers great resources for probe projects.

One of the first Internet projects I was involved with was based on the repurposing of a clipart collection originally created in HyperCard . As you might guess this was a few years ago. I sit in my office this afternoon and watch the hits on these images on my server (NDWild Clip Art) still roll in. With all of the high quality images on the Internet, why is there still an interest in clipart?

I think the interest is there because clipart is simple and flexible. You can resize it (at least make it smaller) and incorporate it into your own creations. I think this is what is most useful for students — using images in an active way. If you can’t collect the images in the wild yourself, manipulate the images in incorporating them into your own creations.

If you are interested in simple wildlife clipart, North Dakota Game and Fish encourages you to help yourself.

On Jan. 1, I made a commitment to lose weight. One month later things are going well. So far, it looks like 8-10 pounds. I have always worked out, but it grew difficult to keep up with my eating habits.

As I was getting ready for today’s workout, I saw my Polar Heart Monitor in the bottom of the gym bag. Cindy gave me this device as a birthday present a couple of years ago (hint, hint). I have not used it in several months so I decided to wear it during today’s workout. When I was wearing this device and was on one of the cardio machines, I used to play a kind of game with myself. The heart monitor allows you to enter settings (like age), the establish a ideal heart rate zone for your workout. The device keeps track of how much time you spend in the zone. When your heart rate is too low or too high, the device will not record time or estimated calories burned. There is a particular cardio machine I like to use and I would watch during a 35 minute workout to see how much of the time I would keep in the zone and how many calories I would burn during the workout. I think the idea is to push yourself, but stay within your zone.

Since the big weight reduction push, I have been putting more time into cardio. I have kind of established a routine during which I spend so much time at setting 5, so much at 6, bump it up to 7 for 5 minutes, then back to 6 for 2.5 minutes, etc. This routine used to be necessary to keep me in the zone, so I was wondering if the time in the gym since I had last used to heart monitor had resulted in some improvement. Sure enough, I was 25 minutes into the workout mostly at setting 7 before my heart rate hit 143 and I had to back it down to 6. So — the time in the gym is paying benefits. This is pretty cool and I guess it is time to push a little harder.

Isn’t technology great?

Kickin it up a notch in Grand Forks.

Cindy sent me this reference. It is an interesting analysis of what the process of education is (should be) about.

What is the purpose of education?

The source for the reference was the Committed Sardine – a great education e-zine.

CNN has just announced a major attack on the Internet. The virus appears to be attacking Microsoft servers, but it doing no harm to the contents of individual computers. Perhaps becuase of this problem, I seem to be having great difficulty getting Blogger.com to post this comment.

I have been aware of online document translation for some time and always wondered about the quality. I imagined a test in which a native speaker would generate a translation that would be compared with what the software was able to accomplish (kind of Turing test). At the time a grad student from China was working with me, but we never completed the task before he left. Over the break my college freshman daughter was willing to give my idea a try.

Here is the source material (from an online newspaper). http://www.jornada.unam.mx/

Africa existe un mundo natural y otro sobrenatural; un mundo palpable que define a las culturas de ese continente. La exposici??n Africa, en el Museo Nacional de Antropolog??a, que ya ha sido visitada por 76 mil 554 personas desde que se inaugur?? en octubre, muestra en nueve salas la forma de vida y el pensamiento de los grupos ??tnicos africanos, y se ha convertido en el acto estelar de la cultura en esta temporada de asueto.

Kim Grabe – translation

In Africa there exists a natural world and a supernatural world, a world that defines the cultures of this continent. The exhibition Africa, in the National Museum of Anthropolgy that has already been visited by 76,554 people since its inauguration in October while in new rooms the life forms and thoughts of the africans have converted in the stellar of the culture in this temporary place. (Kim admits to having difficulty with the second sentence).

Here is the translation provided by Babelfish

(An identical translation was provided by Google – probably based on the same software)

In Africa it exists a natural world and another supernatural one; a concrete world that it defines to the cultures of that continent. Exhibition Africa, in Museum National of Anthropology, that already has been visited by 76 thousand 554 people since it was inaugurated in October, shows in nine rooms the form of life and the thought of the African ethnic groups, and it has become the stellar act of the culture in this season of break.