Morning Announcements: January 3, 2012

Good Morning (barely), before the noon hour hits and you’re off to an extended, three-day “lunch break”, enjoy the latest in education news. These stories should hold you over for the weekend, oops, we mean “lunch hour.”

California, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma are among many states that are working on ways to promote, and measure, creativity and innovation in their schools. According to Education Week, as U.S. policy and business leaders are voicing concerns about the importance of bettering creativity and innovative thinking among young people, several states are exploring the implementation of an index that would measure the extent to which schools provide opportunities to foster those qualities.

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Afternoon Announcements: February 2, 2012

We hope that you were too busy enjoying the Digital Learning Day live stream to notice the break from Afternoon Announcements yesterday. But if you've been anxiously awaiting getting caught up on all the critical education news here is a double dose just for you. You're welcome.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Public Schools' is lifting a ban on YouTube. As an efforts to expand digital learning in the classroom, CPS is allowing students and faculty limited access to the video content sharing website in hopes that it will better engage students in the learning process. Teachers will also be able to jump onto YouTube and find other teaching tools on that website and others to create playlists.

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Academies At Risk: The Effect on Budget Shortfalls on a College and Career Ready Education

In my current position at the Alliance, I work a lot on understanding and advancing the practices of high quality career academies and other high school models that promote college and career success for all students. What I saw at a recent site visit though is that recent state budget short falls have come to really endanger some of the key attributes of what makes for high quality career academies. Moving forward, policy makers must be more aware of the consequences current budget decisions can have on state and local educational and economic outcomes.

Indeed, the nation’s economic downturn has made significant budget challenges an on-going reality in schools and districts everywhere. According to analysis by the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities, 37 states are providing less funding per student to local schools in the new school year than they provided last year and 30 states are providing less than they did four years ago. In the nation’s largest state, California, since 2007-2008 funding per pupil for the state’s K-12 public schools has declined by roughly 5 percent (from $8,235 per pupil to $7,693).

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Digital Learning Day: Empowering Teachers, Promoting Innovation

Technology has made nearly everything in modern life more efficient, accessible, richer, and faster, yet students are frequently asked to check their smart phones, laptops, and other devices at the door when they enter a classroom. That will change on Wednesday, February 1, when thirty-nine states, 15,000 teachers, and more than 1.7 million students participate in the first-ever national Digital Learning Day-a day to showcase how technology can take learning in the United States to a much higher level and provide all students with experiences that allow them to graduate from high school prepared for college and a career.

Digital Learning Day is not about technology for technology's sake-simply slapping a netbook on top of a textbook will not move the education needle very much. Instead, it's about recognizing the great potential that effective technology has to transform the world of learning when combined with powerful teaching and rigorous content.

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Afternoon Announcements: January 31, 2012

Digital Learning Day is almost here and the momentum surrounding the day is growing. As 39 states are now taking part in the first national initiative to integrate technology within the classroom, publications all across the country are highlighting local efforts to get involved. If you haven’t quite positioned yourself to jump on the digital bandwagon, the latest news will surely get you ready to plunge.

The New York Times draws attention to their extensive history of covering technology's role in education applauds the Alliance for Excellent Education’s mission of continuing the focus. Additionally, Education Week gives you a synopsis of just what to expect for tomorrow first annual Digital Learning Day with ways to stay informed about your state's plans ahead of Wednesday's big event.

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Senator Tom Harkin Celebrates Digital Learning Day, Announces HELP Hearings On Education Technology

The following blog post comes from U.S. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), the Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Digital Learning Day is a day to celebrate promising innovations in technology that will help us educate our students to succeed in the 21st century global economy. This is a one-day celebration, but the fact is, digital learning in or out of the classroom is now a daily reality for most students.

All over the country, educators are coming up with innovative ways to help students learn, using technology to individualize instruction or to connect with classrooms in other countries to learn about other cultures. Other schools are increasing the variety of courses offered to students, such as through dual enrollment at colleges offering online courses. Teachers also use technology to access professional development programs, connect with professional learning communities, and download open educational resources.

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Department’s Approach to Rethinking Civics Education Gives New Lens Into A More Effective Education System

Earlier this month, Secretary Duncan gave a speech on a 21st century civic education. The speech and the subsequent reports that accompanied it, highlight the depth of an important problem. What’s captured my attention more and more in looking at these reports and statements more closely is elements of a common, coherent strategy to tackling key educational challenges and achieving stronger educational outcomes. There are two striking features of these reports that is supported by approaches the Alliance advocates for. First, there is an emphasis on blurring the lines of what falls in the responsibility of secondary vs. postsecondary education. Secondly, there is an emphasis on changing the fundamental way education is delivered to focus on more active approaches.

Of course the need that gives rise to the Department’s initiative on civic education could not be more important. Education is not only the key to the nation’s economic health, but the nation’s civic health as well. To that end, if a doctor was asked to give a prognosis on the nation’s civic health through students’ civic competency, the nation would fail its’ check up. Governor Wise and other panelists highlighted some of these points this last summer in a 4th of July webinar on the Nation’s Report Card for History and Civics. On the nation’s most recent US History Report Card, less than a quarter of 12th graders were deemed proficient and a significant civic achievement gap persists between racial and ethnic groups. The numbers are unchanged over the last ten years.

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Nyssa Arcos Evans: Transforming Schools Through Digital Learning

The following post comes from Nyssa Arcos Evans, a 6th, 7th and 8th Grade Globaloria Educator at East Austin College Prep (EA Prep), in Austin, Texas. Before joining EA Prep, Nyssa was an elementary bilingual educator with Elgin ISD and Pflugerville ISD. While teaching at Pflugerville ISD, Nyssa was a participant in a Model Technology Pilot integrating Promethean technologies in the classroom as well as ST Math and Music in the curriculum. Prior to teaching middle school, she taught 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th grade. Nyssa received her B.S. from TCU and holds a M.S. in Education Media Design and Technology.

What was school like when you were a kid? Were you provided with many opportunities for self-exploration and creation? For me, school was pretty monotonous. Almost everything was taught from a textbook and most of our assignments consisted of multiple-choice worksheets and tedious bookwork. Visiting the computer lab once a month was a privilege, but in some ways it wasn’t much better than the drill-and-kill classroom, with a very pixilated Oregon Trail the only program available to us. Looking back, I can’t help but wonder how I could have really learned anything in such a drab academic atmosphere.

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Afternoon Announcements: January 30, 2012

Happy Monday! Break out of your sluggishness by grabbing a cup of caffeine and make use of the afternoon announcements as your newspaper, with insight into the latest in education news.

Michigan is taking a big step in recognizing the importance of early childhood education. In September, public schools in the state of Michigan must offer all-day kindergarten to receive full funding for each kindergarten pupil. According to the Huffington Post, the new rules were approved last year by the state legislature.

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Sue McIntyre: Beyond the Digital Curtain- Bringing Technology Into the Classroom and Professional Development

The following article is provided by Sue McIntyre, a composition instructor at Humboldt State University and director of the Redwood Writing Project.

The Redwood Writing Project (RWP) is a National and California Writing Project site located on the rural coast of Humboldt County--a full five- to six-hour drive on winding roads north of San Francisco. Such remoteness offers challenges, and many of our Teacher Consultants (TCs) have found that digital tools are one way to enhance communication with (and between) our students and bring the world on the other side of our so-called “Redwood Curtain” into the classroom. Despite our efforts to keep up with technology, though, few of us are digital natives, and we realize that our students are coming into our classrooms with a whole set of skills we don’t have. To address this gap, we began to inquire into the best practices of tech-based teaching and explore some of the many digital platforms available to educators. For the past five summers, 8-12 TCs per year have participated in summer technology institutes, learning about blogs, wikis, podcasts, glogs, and more. We’ve developed classroom-learning platforms, integrated digital learning opportunities into our current curriculum, and shared our successes and failures. In the past three years, we’ve begun taking what we’ve learned into the community, partnering with K-12 schools and districts and offering technology workshops to teachers throughout the area.

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