[ECP] Educational CyberPlayGround K12 Newsletter Headlines and Resources
- From: Educational CyberPlayGround <admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: K12NewsLetters@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 08 May 2007 04:00:00 -0400
Hi Everyone,
Happy Reading for today.
best,
<Karen>
Digital media players as a potential cheating device.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/plagiarism.html
Mp3 Players can be hidden. Students use voice
recorders to record test answers in advance and
then play them back or download crib notes onto
the music players and hide them in the "lyrics" text files.
And the buds blow out your ears Kids need to listen to *this*
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/ears.html
Rapper Ben Johnson has joined a team of hearing
loss specialists who talk to young music fans
with earbuds about ear damage. He?s a very
cool-looking 20-something musician who?s very
effective at driving home the point that people
need to be really careful about earbud volume
levels and music listening time He does this for
a very person reason and because of some numbers.
First, ?his father Isaiah, who is looking on from
the back of the cafeteria [of the middle school
where the team is conducting a special assembly],
is a classical musician - a conductor - who lost
much of his hearing a few years ago.? Second,
according to a Centers for Disease Control study,
nearly 13% of Americans ages 6-19 (more than 5
million) have suffered noise-induced hearing
loss. Earbuds can cause that if they?re used for
long periods (at 7+ volume on a scale of 10). The
rule of thumb these experts give is to ?limit
earphone listening to an hour a day, at a setting
no greater than six? on that scale of 10.?
Adults +Teens = Screenagers
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/whatresearch7.asp
switching songs on an iPod is just as distracting
to a driver as, say, dialing a cellphone.
The cost of educating illegal aliens
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/04/29/mexico.border.ap/index.html
Thousands of Mexican children are flocking across
the U.S. border to attend school, sparking a
debate in towns along the border over whether
U.S. taxpayers should have to bear the costs of
educating them. The influx has prompted
complaints from those opposed to spending U.S.
tax dollars to teach students from Mexico. The
issue is especially timely in El Paso, where the
school district -- which expects to take in
10,000 new students in the next five to eight
years -- is preparing for a $230 million bond
election for new schools next month. Elaine
Hampton, a professor at the University of
Texas-El Paso, says the strained state of public
education in Mexico pushes many students across
the Rio Grande, just as the hope of better jobs
entices their parents. The growth of Mexican
border towns like Ciudad Juarez far outpaces the
government's ability to build schools, Hampton
said, forcing many to turn away students. Mexican
schools also can be too expensive for some
parents, charging fees for books, photocopies and
sometimes even the cost of administering a test.
Although many school officials are unhappy about
the situation, they say there are few ways to
control the number of Mexican residents attending
their schools. As long as a parent or guardian
has proof of residency in that school district --
such as a water bill or lease -- their child can
attend. Many of the students were born in U.S.
hospitals, making them U.S. citizens who live in
Mexico. Others use the addresses of American
friends or relatives. Community pressure has
pushed other districts to crack down on those who
violate residency requirements.
For some data on teens sharing media with phones
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=194899
On mobile socializing in general
http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/entry/177696.html
Moconews.net
http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-social-networking-moving-to-mobile-with-teething-troubles/
Uncomfortable schools creates self-disciplined kids?
http://beta.edutopia.org/node/3884
Many of the places where vital teaching occurs,
if not designed expressly for physical torment,
are infamously uninviting. Most public schools
today are 20th century adaptations of the schools
in the original American colonies. In the
industrial version of schools, students became
products to be passed from grade to grade until
sufficiently educated to work in a factory.
School buildings reflected this ultimate goal,
with classroom after similar classroom aligned
along each side of a corridor, and regimental
rows of hard chairs symbolizing strict attention
and serious purpose. Nothing about the industrial
school model required comfort as a precondition
for success. In fact, school comfort, through the
introduction of seemingly superfluous elements,
was often seen to militate against the high ideal
of efficiency. Even though no research or
evidence supports this idea, a myth persists to
this day that an uncomfortable school is probably
good because it creates self-disciplined kids,
not pampered softies. A considerable body of
research about environmental design shows the
positive effect comfort can have on learning,
human productivity and creativity. In this
Edutopia article, Prakash Nair and Randall
Fielding argue for greater investments in softer
seating, cleaner and fresher air, noise controls,
adaptive and flexible learning spaces, access to
healthy food, smaller learning communities, and
creating environments where students can feel both secure and significant.
You Can't Censor the Internet
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/drm2.html
A 16-digit hexadecimal code that hackers can use
to attempt disable the copy protection built into
high-definition DVDs. That code which could
help someone copy these otherwise "protected"
discs has been circulating on the Internet for
months. Most people probably never paid much
attention to it until this week when Digg
responded to a cease and desist letter by
removing all references to the hack code on its site.
Crazy Kids don't get mental health care
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=594781
The editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
offer three facts to keep in mind when weighing
whether security aides should be allowed to use
plastic handcuffs on unruly students in Milwaukee
Public Schools: (1) The aides already are
restraining students. The aides sit on them or
otherwise hold them down until police arrive; (2)
Students already are leaving school in metal
handcuffs. Police called to disturbances often
use the restraints in making arrests; and (3) The
need for the restraints is a symptom of a huge
problem that exceeds the schools' scope: the lack
of mental health services for troubled children,
whose ranks appear to be swelling. The problem
transcends board of education policy.
Second Life
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/Second_Life.html
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration created an immersive, interactive
3D exhibit for avatars in a virtual world. Of
course, there are humans behind those avatars who
are learning from the exhibits, learning things
like what it?s like to fly through or around a
hurricane in one of the NOAA?s research planes or
a weather balloon, and other things such as ?the
effects of global warming on large glaciers? and
?what undersea caves and marine life looks like
from a submarine,? CNET reports (with a photo of
what one of NOAA?s demos looks like) .
The Big Secret - Supplemental Education Services
aren't monitered and held accountable.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/standards2.html
Supplemental Education Services, a key component
of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) act, has been
adopted and implemented without any systematic
research or scrutiny, notwithstanding potential
problems that call out for investigation,
according to a new report from the Education
Policy Research Unit and the Education and the
Public Interest Center. The policy brief, by
professor Patricia Burch of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison, examines the supplemental
education services (SES) provision of NCLB, which
requires school districts to pay the cost of
after-school tutoring services for eligible
students attending schools that have failed to
meet mandated Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
benchmarks three years in a row. Those schools
must set aside up to 20 percent of their Title I
funds to pay for tutoring services provided by
state-approved operators. These operators are a
mixture of for-profit or nonprofit, public or private firms.
Which kids belong in Special Ed?
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/specialed.html
Many children in special education classes may
not belong there, the government says. The Bush
administration, following passage of a broad
special education law, issued rules in October
that rewrote the way schools determine if a child
has a learning disability. States have largely
relied on a 1970s-era method that looks for
disparities between a child's IQ and achievement
scores. The diagnosis of a learning disability is
often made around 4th grade, reports the Associated Press.
England gives every kid a ticket to a symphony concert.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Music/musicsmart2.html
England's eight top symphony orchestras are
jointly promising that they will give every
schoolchild free entry to a classical music
concert. They say it enriches children's lives,
teaches the value of sustained effort and can
help disruptive youngsters. "A better musical
education for pupils can also help them hit the
right note in their studies," a spokesman said.
Among other things, the government has announced
significant new funding to boost music education,
especially school singing, both in and out of school hours.
?Understanding High School Graduation Rates?,
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/newretention.html
a new publication explains how certain federal
policies have contributed to the graduation rate
confusion. ?Misleading graduation rate
calculations, inadequate systems to track
students throughout their education, and lack of
accountability by the school are undermining
efforts to understand and increase the nation?s
graduation rate Additionally, the report
considers the costs of the dropout crisis and
identifies three core areas that are fundamental
to calculating, reporting, and improving accurate graduation rates
GRANT AND FUNDING INFORMATION
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Teachers/grants.html
?Grants for High School Physics Teachers?
http://www.aapt.org/Grants/hsgrant.cfm
The American Association of Physics Teachers High
School Physics Teacher Grant will reward a
proposal designed to result in better teaching
practice, student understanding and interest, and
increased class enrollment. The proposal may use
a new teaching method or an adaptation of an existing idea.
Maximum Award: $1,000.
Eligibility: members of AAPT.
Deadline: November 1, 2007.
?Awards Recognize Classroom Integration of Arts Education?
http://www.mossfoundation.org/page.php?id=73
The P. Buckley Moss Foundation for Children?s
Education 2007 National Teachers' Awards
recognize creative, innovative and original work
and instructional collaboration among teachers
whenever arts are included in the classroom
learning experience as an essential component in
the education of all children. Maximum Award: $2,500.
Eligibility: teachers who consistently integrate
the arts into their teaching of children,
especially those with learning disabilities and other special needs.
Deadline: May 15, 2007.
?Helping Latino Students Graduate from High School?
Youth Venture and MTV Tr3s Voces Tu Voz My
Venture will support the creation of 50 teams of
young people who create Ventures that help Latino
students graduate from high school and prepare
for college or work. The top five teams will also
be awarded a team scholarship, and one team will
be featured in a news segment on MTV Tr3s.
Maximum Award: $5,000. Eligibility: young people
ages 13-20. Deadline: June 29, 2007.
Youth Venture
http://www.genv.net:80/tuvoz
has partnered with the MTV Tr3s Voces campaign,
and received support from the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, to create an initiative that
seeks to advance Latino educational achievement.
Tu Voz My Venture will support the identification
and creation of at least 50 teams of young people
ages 13-20 who create Ventures that help Latino
students graduate from high school and prepare
for college or work. The top five teams will also
be awarded a $5,000 team scholarship, and one of
those winning teams will be featured in a news segment on MTV Tr3s!
?Fund For Children's Dental Health Grants Program?
The American Dental Association Samuel Harris
Fund For Children's Dental Health Grants Program
http://www.adafoundation.org/ada/prod/adaf/prog_access_harris.asp#eligibility
will award grants to oral health promotion
programs designed to improve and maintain
children?s oral health through community education programs.
Maximum Award: $5,000. Eligibility:
community-based, not-for-profit, oral health
promotion programs in the United States.
Deadline: July 17, 2007.
?Grants to Increase Public Understanding of the Humanities?
http://www.grants.gov/search/synopsis.do
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer
Stipends support individuals pursuing advanced
research that contributes to scholarly knowledge
or to the public's understanding of the
humanities. Recipients usually produce scholarly
articles, monographs on specialized subjects,
books on broad topics, archaeological site
reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly tools.
Maximum Award: $6,000.
Eligibility: faculty or staff members of colleges
or universities, primary or secondary schools, or
independent scholars or writers.
Deadline: October 2, 2007.
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