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Happy Reading for today - there is more on the blog than in the email
- it's truthier :-) too!
best,
<Karen>
1)
NAEP FORECASTING
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007328 A recent study by the Department's National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES) attempts to
relate student achievement on the twelfth-grade National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP)
in math in terms of postsecondary educational outcomes. For
example, of the seniors who scored below
NAEP's "Basic" level, 46% did not go on to higher education and
only 18% went on to receive a
bachelor's degree. In contrast, of the seniors who scored at NAEP's
"Basic" level, 82% went on to
college (53% to a four-year institution) and 50% went on to receive a
bachelor's degree. Moreover,
of the seniors who scored at NAEP's "Proficient" level, most
students (95%) went on to college
(84% to a four-year institution) and 79% went on to receive a bachelor's
degree. And, of the
seniors who scored at NAEP's "Advanced" level, nearly all
students (98%) went on to college
(94% to a four-year institution) and 91% went on to receive a bachelor's
degree. On their
own, the study's findings are intuitive. Yet, in light of an
earlier NCES study
http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2007482 which found
that most state
fourth- and eighth-grade proficiency standards fall at or below NAEP's
"Basic" range, they
do suggest the need to raise expectations to improve students' odds in
higher education.
2) FORECASTING when they can't read by 3rd. grade.
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Literacy/stats.asp (NAEP) figures show that the minority differential in reading
achievement is a persistent problem
that has not changed in the least since 1979 (NAEP1998)
Department of Education recent findings indicate that U.S. schools show
little ?significant
difference? in the performance of kids in the early grades since 1992 and
literally no
differences in the math and reading scores of 17-year-olds over the past
34 years.
3)
SPEAK UP SURVEY
http://www.netdayspeakup.org/ Through December 15, K-12 students, teachers, administrators, and
parents from
across the nation have the opportunity to share their ideas and opinions
on how technology
should be used in the education process through Project Tomorrow's fifth
annual Speak Up survey.
This year's survey features new questions, addressing student interest
(and parent support)
in math, science, and technology careers; utilizing web 2.0 tools, like
MySpace, in school; the
merit of 21st century skills, such as learning a new language; the value
of emerging technologies,
such as video games, in education; and designing the ultimate, 21st
century school.
Results are shared with participating schools and school districts so
they can use the data
for planning and community discussion. Results are also used by
government agencies
and various organizations to inform new programs and polices.
4)
Teenage Privacy and Age Verification
http://www.techliberation.com/archives/042597.php Adam Thierer of the Progress & Freedom Foundation
complete with a podcast he did with other experts on the issue.
5)
EDUCATION selling K-12 student INFORMATION and their rights to privacy
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Technology/PRIVACY_INFORMATION.html Privacy and Encryption companies gather and sell k12 student
information.
Check to see whether your school district has a policy about disclosing
student information.
6)
Copyright Protection on the Social Web:
Fair Use Rights and mashups
Media and social-Web companies Coalition
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_7215686?nclick_check=1 Media: Disney, Viacom, CBS, NBC, and News Corp. on the media side
Web: Microsoft, MySpace (parent is News Corp.), Veoh Networks and
Dailymotion (In france)
announced some copyright-protection guidelines
1) having in place by the end of the year "filtering software that
blocks all
content media companies flag as being unauthorized,"
2) keeping the filters up to date
3) "cooperation between media and Web companies to allow 'wholly
original'
user-generated videos to be posted and to accommodate 'fair use' of
copyrighted material as allowed under law.
YouTube's copyright-protection uses "software to find unique
characteristics in
the clips so it can detect copies posted by YouTube users without
permission,
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-youtube16oct16,0,3144564.story "Media companies can ask Google to automatically delete
every unauthorized copy
or to slap ads on the clips and promote them."
Both the AP and the L.A. Times said neither the new coalition nor YouTube
have as yet defined "fair use,"
though both said fair use of copyrighted material would be allowed.
What is the definition of copyright?
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Internet/1copyright.html Learn about Copyright do's and don't
including digital rights management at the Educational CyberPlayGround.
Topics Include: Copyleft, Plagiarism, Fair Use, Mashups, Open Source,
Music, Art, and Publishing.
8)
BARDS ARE THE OFFICIAL STORY TELLERS
http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Arts/Story_telling.html "In ancient days, all the men knew the same hunting songs, and
all the women knew the same lullaby.
Then, when agriculture was invented, then class society developed and you
have priesthood and
aristocracy that owned the land, and now they could afford to have, for
example, music made for them.
And this was the beginning of high art. Talented professionals would
spend their whole lives
creating the most elegant culture they could -- if you want to use that
word. The ordinary person,
99 percent of the population probably, could look at this and admire it
from afar, but in their daily
life they kept on making their own music, doing their own sewing,
constructing their own houses
and telling their own stories, usually without the benefit of any writing
paper.
20)
How much time is too much time?
http://www.news.com/When-the-PC-becomes-a-parenting-problem/2009-1025_3-6212826.html "More than three-quarters of Americans age 12 and older spend
about 8.9 hours online per week,
up about an hour from a 2005 ~ USC-Annenberg Digital Future Project
"But young people, specifically ages 8 to 18, spend about an hour on
the computer and 49 minutes
playing video games per day ~ Kaiser Family Foundation.