For the last month, I've exercised a lot of procrastination time thinking about what's next. The problem is that I've spent the last 6 years fulfilling requirements imposed by various graduate programs, leaving me little time to do projects that I would like to do. Not that I still don't have quite a few requirements and projects going on that I am responsible for, but they part of the status quo. What I'm looking to do are some small publications and development projects that can help define my skills set not evident in my ongoing research and job projects.
Many of these ideas are still in the brainstorming stage, including: social networking in teacher education, template-based multimedia instructional environments, and an ESL syllabi exchange. While these are much larger issues, they could also be combined into a killer teacher resource. That may be more than I can do in the short term, but surely, smaller projects within these areas would be doable.
Any suggestions for me? What is out there already that would fit the bill? (either instructional or other)
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Tuesday, February 8, 2005
Performance Pay for K-12 Teachers
Original Story (until 3/10/2005)
It's something you hear about every so often. I wonder if it will finally come to fruition on a large scale.
This article discusses performance pay for public school teachers in a Minnesota district. It doesn't get into the specifics of how teachers will be assessed fairly (hopefully not another norm referenced test :)
Joking aside, I think this is a great idea. The problem of worthless teachers showing up for work for 30+ years really taints the profession in general. The rest of the world receives performance pay (including tenured professors), why not K-12 teachers?
Now, I know that this could be used for evil as well as good. The benefit is all in the implementation. A performance judged by a god-like administrator would be a big mistake and performance as a popularity contest with peer-reviewers would be just as bad. I'm not going to pretend to know the right combination, but I have to imagine that fairness can be achieved using a combination of the two.
It's something you hear about every so often. I wonder if it will finally come to fruition on a large scale.
This article discusses performance pay for public school teachers in a Minnesota district. It doesn't get into the specifics of how teachers will be assessed fairly (hopefully not another norm referenced test :)
Joking aside, I think this is a great idea. The problem of worthless teachers showing up for work for 30+ years really taints the profession in general. The rest of the world receives performance pay (including tenured professors), why not K-12 teachers?
Now, I know that this could be used for evil as well as good. The benefit is all in the implementation. A performance judged by a god-like administrator would be a big mistake and performance as a popularity contest with peer-reviewers would be just as bad. I'm not going to pretend to know the right combination, but I have to imagine that fairness can be achieved using a combination of the two.
Friday, February 4, 2005
CNN - Class seeks to rid kids of Appalachian accents
See original story
I suppose this issue never really disappears. As the world gets smaller the pressure gets greater to standardize everything, including the way we speak.
There was actually a great documentary done a while ago (can't remember who did it) that addressed these issues. I saw it in a socio-linguistics class at UIUC. It discussed how many people who made the move to larger cities or different regions, altered or even lost theiry regional dialects to fit in. Of course, then it's more than an issue of dialect, but more importantly an issue of indentity. Language is Culture is Identity.
I suppose this issue never really disappears. As the world gets smaller the pressure gets greater to standardize everything, including the way we speak.
There was actually a great documentary done a while ago (can't remember who did it) that addressed these issues. I saw it in a socio-linguistics class at UIUC. It discussed how many people who made the move to larger cities or different regions, altered or even lost theiry regional dialects to fit in. Of course, then it's more than an issue of dialect, but more importantly an issue of indentity. Language is Culture is Identity.
Thursday, February 3, 2005
Watching Spellings
I started a new blog today (http://spellingswatch.blogspot.com/) after hearing about the Spellings fiasco with PBS. She's up in arms over the fact that publically supported PBS was going to air a children's program that showed a lesbian couple raising children.
Not matter what your opinion is on homosexuality, this is reality. The argument is that (1) some tax payers think that it is not right to imply that homosexuality is acceptable and that (2)we often restrict what we show children to save them from reality.
As for the first argument, as a tax payer some people don't think that a white mouse (the cartoon character involved) and a brown mouse shouldn't play together or even a jewish mouse and a christian mouse. (note that one is designated by birth and the other by choice-both are social constructs as well-thus taking into account the two most popular beliefs on the "cause" of homosexuality).
As for the second argument, we mostly restrict what children on tv see if it is too violent, or sexually explicit. Is seeing two mommies together sexually explicit or in some strange way too violent? I don't think so. There is more sexual content in those randy telatubbies! Unfortunately, if you accept the first argument, then my counter-argument will likely fall on deaf ears.
As I've heard said before, wiping gay images from TV should be rather low on the priority list for the Department of Education. There are a lot more pressing issues in education.
Now, I don't want this new blog to be a Spellings bashing site, though it will likely turn into that. She's been in the news a lot lately and the only sites with a good spin are on the government sites :)
Not matter what your opinion is on homosexuality, this is reality. The argument is that (1) some tax payers think that it is not right to imply that homosexuality is acceptable and that (2)we often restrict what we show children to save them from reality.
As for the first argument, as a tax payer some people don't think that a white mouse (the cartoon character involved) and a brown mouse shouldn't play together or even a jewish mouse and a christian mouse. (note that one is designated by birth and the other by choice-both are social constructs as well-thus taking into account the two most popular beliefs on the "cause" of homosexuality).
As for the second argument, we mostly restrict what children on tv see if it is too violent, or sexually explicit. Is seeing two mommies together sexually explicit or in some strange way too violent? I don't think so. There is more sexual content in those randy telatubbies! Unfortunately, if you accept the first argument, then my counter-argument will likely fall on deaf ears.
As I've heard said before, wiping gay images from TV should be rather low on the priority list for the Department of Education. There are a lot more pressing issues in education.
Now, I don't want this new blog to be a Spellings bashing site, though it will likely turn into that. She's been in the news a lot lately and the only sites with a good spin are on the government sites :)
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