Learning Aloud

I have to admit I have been ignoring NCLB – perhaps hoping it would go away. I guess now I must accept that this will not be the case. We do need to pay attention to how well each student is achieving and be concerned when progress is lacking. It is the “accountability” thing that bothers me. While I am a researcher, I also live in the world of real schools, real teachers, real neighborhoods, real tests and real instructional resources. I also understand that there is money to be made and jobs to be protected. I am not optimistic that the “problem” of poor achievement is simple or that some of the proposed consequences (allowing students to transfer from poorly performing schools resulting in lower levels of resources and probably the removal of some of the more motivated students) are meaningful solutions. Simple solutions and implied blame work well in the political arena, but such practices are more useful for generating votes than improving achievement.

So here is the deal. The Department of Ed has commissioned some “quality” research that will evaluate the potential benefits of a set of carefully selected reading and math software on standard measures of achievement. Companies were encouraged to propose the use of products in these areas and provide evidence of prior evaluation. The “winners” are listed on the Ed.gov web site. The focus will be on low-income schools. The studies will be conducted in schools that have not used this software but are interested. The research will be based on a control/treatment design model (I would guess this means that classes will be assigned at random to the no technology / technology conditions). The research will be considered “successful” if the treatment generates an effect size of .35.

Don’t get me wrong – I think this will be interesting. It may establish that some companies have created bodies of instructional materials that are effective. This will at least be a starting place.

Will this type of research tell us what software schools should purchase? I assume any company that has a product on this list and generates an effect size greater than .35 may think so. It will not be possible to determine why any given product is effective and hence it will not be possible to determine if similar products might be useful or how products might be improved.

eLections, a Cable in the Classroom project, provides an example of online interactive learning. You may have had more than enough of elections at this point, but this project represents an opportunity to experience what can be done online.

Results of the NSBA survey are now available. Funding and technology integration were identified as the greatest challenges in K-12 settings.

Wired Magazine claims that our use of the Internet is maturing. The article uses the analogy of the car. When cars were new, people went for a drive to go for a drive. As the car became more familiar, it became more of a tool we use to solve transportation problems. The data source cited in this article is a sample of search terms. For example, in 1997 20% of search terms were sex related. Now, sexual topics are the target of about 5% of searches.

The Consumers Union claims that U.S. government Internet policy under the present administration has been a failure and U.S. has slipped to 13th in broadband connectivity.

The situation is complex – companies claim they must invest heavily to serve broad band customers, but rising costs represent a significant barrier to those low income customers who presently struggle to afford even dial-up access. About half of all households with incomes above $75,000 have broadband, but half of all households with incomes below $30,000 have no access of any kind.

The full report can be obtained from http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/ddnewbook.pdf

Regular iTunes user or not, you may want to explore the iTunes site. iTunes makes some free content available and presently is providing material related to the election (e.g., debates).

Today I attended a local demonstration of Apple high end multimedia authoring products (Final Cut HD, Motion, Shake, etc.). These are not of great interest to me because I am not interested in “pro” tools, but the products are certainly impressive.

I did come away with a couple of web links for those looking for demonstrations and tutorials.
Ken Stone offers resources related to Final Cut
Apple offers some great instructional videos for its “pro products – follow the links under the heading “Professional Tools” and then look for the Quick Tour link on each of the pro tool pages. You will find a series of instructional videos.
Ripple Training offers some free training videos.