BibMe

Need help creating a bibliography?  Want to see how a book or journal article should be cited?  Try BibMe, a clever web site that creates a bibliographic record for you.  You can search for books or articles, web sites or newspapers, even films.   You can choose the bibliographic form, save your bibliography and download it.  The site even offers suggested reading based on the citations you create.  Very cool.   [URLs:  http://www.bibme.org/]

This Week’s Reports

Some interesting reports on the technology front this week.  First up is Technology-Based Distance Education Courses for Public Elementary and Secondary Schools: 2002-2003 and 2004-2005.  This NCES report concluded that distance education courses are increasing as is enrollment in the courses.  “The number of enrollments in technology-based distance education courses increased from an estimated 317,070 enrollments in 2002-03 to 506,950 in 2004-05.”  High schools offer more distance education courses than other schools and districts that currently offer distance education classes are planning to offer more.

The second technology-centered report is Learning in the 21^st Century: A Trends Update (registration is required to access this report).  The report is a follow-up to Learning in the 21^st Century: A National Report of Online Learning that was issued in 2007.  This report is also available on the site with registration required.  The reports are being issued by Blackboard.  Don’t have time for the whole report?  Check out the Executive Summary or read Report reveals growing momentum in online learning from CNN.

Another report, this one from the U.K., Young People and Social Networking Services:  A Childnet International Research Report, looks at how to use social networking sites to benefit education.  Section 5 addresses the potential benefits specifically.  The report was done by Digizen.

The Center on Education Policy report Has Student Achievement Increased since 2002? State Test Score Trends Through 2006-2007 assesses student test scores over the last 5 years and found that for the most part, scores have increased and the achievement gap has narrowed.  According to the authors, however, it is difficult to tell if the improvements are a direct result of NCLB.  To access the report, click on “Full Report” on the page.

 [URLs:  http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008008.pdf, http://www.blackboard.com/inpractice/k12/onlinelearningreport, http://www.blackboard.com/resources/k12/100121_1_3_K-12-executive-summary.pdf, http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0411950.htm, http://www.digizen.org/downloads/fullReport.pdf, http://www.cep-dc.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=document_ext.showDocumentByID&nodeID=1&DocumentID=241]

Newsworthy

Study: Parents clueless about kids’ Internet use is a story on eSchool News Online.  The study, from Symantec Corp., found that “many parents are unaware of their children's online activities and the security threats that surround those activities.”  These results are not just in the U.S.  Parents worldwide appear to be experiencing the same disconnect.

Another survey finds that “half of Americans say U.S. schools are doing only a fair to poor job preparing kids for college and the work force.”  The results of the survey were reported in USA Today, Poll: Half say schools aren’t preparing kids.  A large majority believe that classroom work and homework are better measures of achievement than standardized tests.

ISTE unveils the next generation of technology standards for teachers is a release from the International Society for Technology Education.  It outlines five new goals for technology teaching. 

A study was released recently by Youth Trends, the Tween & Teen Lifestyle Report.  Two articles highlight the findings.  GenDigital has a five part wrap-up of the findings.  And MediaWeek’s Study: Teens would rather hit Web, TV than read also summarizes the data.  “Only 19 percent of teen magazine readers said they spend more time reading magazines compared to last year. According to the study, 63 percent of teens read at least one magazine for fun in the last month, down from 65 percent last year. Among 'tweens, 48 percent read a magazine for fun compared to 52 percent last year and 55 percent two years ago.”

Reading aloud to children: the evidence is an article in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, a British journal.  It looks at the research on the impact of reading aloud to children.  It discusses “the impact of frequency as well as the quality of parent-child bookreading” and its influence on child development.

[URLs:  http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=54295;_hbguid=8cbda43b-f2a7-4c5e-be3e-1d99bdd77cf7, http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-06-27-schools-not-preparing-kids_N.htm, http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=News_and_Events&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=21086, http://gendigital.typepad.com/gendigital/2008/05/tween-teen-life.html, http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/media-agencies-research/e3i47ee828baa06c9e246f86eba4cd42c1a, http://press.psprings.co.uk/adc/may/ac106336.pdf]

Adolescent Literacy

We’ve mentioned the Education Commission of the States many times in past Weekly Web Finds.  Another good page on the ECS web site is the Adolescent Literacy page.  It includes individual state reports on adolescent literacy initiatives.  It also provides reports on specific topics within adolescent literacy that show what states are doing, like support for local literacy programs, teacher certification requirements or states with literacy report cards.  [URLs:  http://www.ecs.org/html/educationissues/HighSchool/highschooldb1_intro.asp?topic=al]

Old Money

No, we’re not talking about wealthy families here.  We’re talking about how much was money worth.  Current Value of Old Money provides a series of links to web sites that will give you comparative values of currency over time.  Some of the sites are calculators.  Others give you the numbers.  The sites included cover all areas of the world.  There are links to historical exchange rates, prices in the ancient world and much more.   Oh, and just as an example, we searched what something that cost 25 cents in 1952 would cost today -- $1.95!   [URLs:  http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html]

Procrastination

We can always think of something we’d rather be doing than the task at hand.  This short film, Procrastination, gives you lots of examples.  Of course, if you do all these things, you’ve accomplished quite a bit even if you didn’t actually finish the job you were supposed to be doing.  [URLs:  http://goodexperience.com/2008/06/procrastination-is-ma.php]

Have a great July 4th weekend.