History Stuff

There are two very nice American history sites to look at today.  America at a Crossroads is the online companion to a WETA series that ran on television in 2007.  The show examines the post-9/11 world and its antecedents.  It looks at the history of events in the Middle East and presents several timelines tracing America’s involvement from 1970 through 2007.  Good, clear site with text and video.  The other site goes back a few years to The Coming of the American Revolution.    This site, from the Massachusetts Historical Society, allows you to explore topics like the Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, and other events.  You can look at primary documents associated with the text.  And there are suggested questions for students for each topic. 

A third history-related item is New resources help teach 21^st century skills, an article in eSchool News Online that describes the 21^st Century Skills and Social Studies Map, a free online document that “gives educators concrete examples of how 21st-century skills can be infused into classroom practices at various grade levels, and it highlights the critical connections between social studies and 21st-century skills.”  

[URLs:  http://www.pbs.org/weta/crossroads/, http://www.masshist.org/revolution/, http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=54606;_hbguid=f15a50ee-5e1f-420e-bbf8-be9d9b209be3]

Make Up Your Mind!

We have conflicting stories to report on back-to-school sales coming up.  First, from the National Retail Federation, comes Parents holding on to rebate checks for back-to-school purchases.  The NRF projects that parents will spend on average $594.24 on each school-age child compared to $563.49 last year.  Most categories will remain flat, except for electronics, which the NRF predicts will increase.  Second, Crain’s New York Business reported on a Deloitte survey that found Poor economy to hurt back-to-school sales.  Shoppers planned to make their purchases in discount stores to get the most bang for their bucks.  [URLs:  http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=551, http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080721/FREE/506090670/1061/newsletter01]

This Week’s Reports

Public Agenda has posted to its site Our Money, Our Schools: Ten Top Findings from Our Research Team.  For each of the 10 findings, you’ll see a brief description with a pie chart or bar chart with the results displayed.  And for each, you’ll also find a link to the individual reports that provided the data.  Some of the findings include: “most students support a high school exit exam”; “most parents think school today is better and harder than it was when they were in school”; and “most new teachers say they were trained in teaching an ethnically diverse student body, but fewer than 4 in 10 say that their training helps them a lot in the classroom.”

Career and Technical Education in the United States: 1990-2005 is now available from the NCES.  “Findings indicate that against a backdrop of increasing academic coursetaking in high school, no measurable changes were detected between 1990 and 2005 in the number of CTE [Career and Technical Education] credits earned by public high school graduates.”

The Progress of Education Reform July 2008 issue is now online.  This publication from the Education Commission of the States (ECS) includes a look at the changes in math and science requirements over the last 30 years.  It also reports on the findings from several reports on teacher preparation and attrition. 

[URLs:  http://www.publicagenda.org/pages/our-money-our-schools-top-ten-findings-our-research-team, http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008035.pdf, http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/78/41/7841.pdf]

Newsworthy

The Baltimore Sun’s story Using books to fill the gap describes the use of book fairs in Maryland to help middle school kids avoid the summer reading slump.  The children had to commit to reading a certain number of books.  And a teacher will track their progress to see if their achievement test scores improve.

Peter Fortenbaugh, the executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula, wrote a thoughtful article for the San Francisco Chronicle, A need to look beyond the school day.  It’s a call for more participation by parents and community leaders in solving the achievement gap problem.

First ‘hybrid’ courses; now a ‘hybrid’ school is a story on eSchool News Online looks at a high school in Hawaii that is offering students both an online and in-person learning experience.  “The combined online and face-to-face curriculum gives students the benefits of a flexible schedule, while maintaining a high-quality education.”

A few weeks ago, we mentioned that Philip Pullman was involved in the U.K. in a protest against “age banding” reading materials (Weekly Web Finds – June 12, 2008).  He’s joined a new campaign to abolish another program, Early Years Foundation Stage framework, which would have instituted certain requirements for five year olds to be able to write simple words and create simple sentences (Authors oppose ‘toddler targets’). 

[URLs:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/k12/bal-ar.books06jul06,0,7129804.story, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/21/EDDO11OT1E.DTL&type=education, http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=54655;_hbguid=42ac7139-162c-425b-92bd-736b242e3b56, http://community.scholastic.com/scholastic/blog/article?blog.id=Librarian&message.id=107, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7523076.stm]

Talking Technology

Google is constantly developing new tools.  Their most recent one is called Knol.   It’s kind of like Wikipedia but authors must identify themselves so their credentials can be checked.  And Google sees Knol as a companion to Wikipedia, not a competitor.  Right now, most of the entries are medical in nature.  There are a few odd ones, like Toilet Clogs.  But hey, it’s just getting started.  So check back to see what interesting articles have been posted.  

The American Library Association (ALA) is partnering with the Verizon Foundation to assess “how electronic games improve players' literacy skills,” according to Gamers in the Library, an article in Teacher Magazine online.  Once this project is completed, a tool kit will be developed for libraries around the country to “develop gaming programs.”

[URLs:  http://knol.google.com/k#, http://knol.google.com/k/the-family-handyman-magazine/toilet-clogs/24fnzmhl3vkiz/11#, http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/articles/2008/07/20/08librarygames_ap.h19.html?tmp=207134306]

The Maxine Code

She’s gruff.  She’s cranky.  And she’s funny.  Enjoy Maxine in this parody of the Da Vinci Code, the Maxine Code.  [URLs:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wwSZI1IJDg]