This is a great site (www.kids.gov). I don't know why it took me so long to find it. Now, it's not as bad as my title suggests. There is a whole lot of great educational content here for kids of all ages. It seems like a bulk of the content, though, is for K-6.
I was pointed in the direction of this site by an article in the December, 2004 issue of Wired (p. 46). They point out the more insiduous sites that the government has for kids: National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), FBI Kids, National Security Agency and the Central Security Service (NSA/CSS), and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
These are a combination of interesting historical content and scary propaganda (see the NRO song list), but are definately a must see for techie educators.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Careful, they're watching you!
The Article
There was an interesting article in the September 27, 2004 Newsweek (p. 87), "The Connected Classroom," about a growning trend of providing parents with easy online access to student assignments, assessments, grades, and live video of classrooms.
Parents' Little Helper
The perspective author of the piece is that of a caring parent. I have to admit, that as a parent I would love what these services offer. This is a way for busy parents to get/keep involved in their child's education. In the good old days, we needed to wait for a parent/teacher conference or a report card. It would be nice to have this information at our finger tips.
The Evil on the Other Side
Viewing your child's assignments and grades is one thing. Who could complain about giving parents access to those items, but Video? How would you like to have a video camera in your office, cubicle, or so forth? I have to imagine that you would NOT want that. Of course, this is standard in many industries, banks, restaurants, hotels to name a few. I'm sure that these workers were no more thrilled than you would be, yet they were assured that they were just for security and wouldn't influence them in their jobs. That probably reassured folks until viewing of those tapes became a standard managment practice.
In an ever more complicated classroom, I want to not only see how my child is doing, but also how the teacher is teaching. I'm sure that this will become standard practice in teachers' performance reviews, I can't imagine that such a powerful look into the classroom will not be utilized by school administrators.
A Company
WatchMeGrow is a company cited in the article that specializes in the installation, support, and hosting of these solutions. Check it out. It doesn't seem like these solutions are anything more than a gimmick right now. The "streaming video" may stream, but it's a capture rate of about 1 frame per second. The only thing that you can do is see that your child is in the room and even that is difficult if they're on the other side of the room.
This isn't to say that they technologies won't get better in coming years. Higher bandwidth, better compression, and competition in the market will assure better products in coming years. I can't imagine that higher capture rates and surely audio will creep into these products very shortly. Once parents (and admins) taste this power, they'll want more.
There was an interesting article in the September 27, 2004 Newsweek (p. 87), "The Connected Classroom," about a growning trend of providing parents with easy online access to student assignments, assessments, grades, and live video of classrooms.
Parents' Little Helper
The perspective author of the piece is that of a caring parent. I have to admit, that as a parent I would love what these services offer. This is a way for busy parents to get/keep involved in their child's education. In the good old days, we needed to wait for a parent/teacher conference or a report card. It would be nice to have this information at our finger tips.
The Evil on the Other Side
Viewing your child's assignments and grades is one thing. Who could complain about giving parents access to those items, but Video? How would you like to have a video camera in your office, cubicle, or so forth? I have to imagine that you would NOT want that. Of course, this is standard in many industries, banks, restaurants, hotels to name a few. I'm sure that these workers were no more thrilled than you would be, yet they were assured that they were just for security and wouldn't influence them in their jobs. That probably reassured folks until viewing of those tapes became a standard managment practice.
In an ever more complicated classroom, I want to not only see how my child is doing, but also how the teacher is teaching. I'm sure that this will become standard practice in teachers' performance reviews, I can't imagine that such a powerful look into the classroom will not be utilized by school administrators.
A Company
WatchMeGrow is a company cited in the article that specializes in the installation, support, and hosting of these solutions. Check it out. It doesn't seem like these solutions are anything more than a gimmick right now. The "streaming video" may stream, but it's a capture rate of about 1 frame per second. The only thing that you can do is see that your child is in the room and even that is difficult if they're on the other side of the room.
This isn't to say that they technologies won't get better in coming years. Higher bandwidth, better compression, and competition in the market will assure better products in coming years. I can't imagine that higher capture rates and surely audio will creep into these products very shortly. Once parents (and admins) taste this power, they'll want more.
Monday, January 24, 2005
Buried in Quals - mentoring, technology integration, and the sort
Hi folks,
Well, I'm buried in Quals here (Quals are kind of comprehensive exams for doc students). The good news is that I'll be finished with these on Feb. 14 (barring the necessity of re-writes or, heaven forbid, failure). The bad news is that I'm stuck researching and writing for the next 3 weeks and I'm already burnt out on day 5!
I've undercovered some cool, one-stop resources in my research on teacher mentoring (not that they helped me on the current paper).
Well, I'm buried in Quals here (Quals are kind of comprehensive exams for doc students). The good news is that I'll be finished with these on Feb. 14 (barring the necessity of re-writes or, heaven forbid, failure). The bad news is that I'm stuck researching and writing for the next 3 weeks and I'm already burnt out on day 5!
I've undercovered some cool, one-stop resources in my research on teacher mentoring (not that they helped me on the current paper).
- Educational Technology & Society special issue on Integrating Technology into Learning and Working
- NCREL's Professional Development Annotated Bibliography of Resources 2003
- edutopia's section on Mentoring
- A group at Iowa State University put together A literature review of teacher technology mentoring
I thought that all of these helped me on my way somewhat. I still wish that I could find something that details, "What is technology integration?" OR even more importantly, "What is good technology integration?".
I know that this is a tough question to answer and it doesn't seem to have been answered (adequately) as far as I can tell. The question is tough to answer because it relies heavily on context. It's kind of like the "best practices" holy grail. It may not exist. The best that I've gotten so far is that it is the use of technology to help students learn. Insightful, huh?
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