Ramblings 395

I am interested in ways which teachers can gain information about techniques that might be useful to them in their day-to-day efforts in the classroom. Edutopia is an organization established by the George Lucas Foundation which provides resources that can be helpful. The organization provides webinars, reports on research, and publishes a magazine that highlights some interesting developments in classroom techniques. One article published recently gives some practical tips on how to increase student engagement. I think it worthwhile to visit www.edutopia.org and investigate what it has to offer.

A website I think worth recommending to anyone interested in ideas worth considering is www.TED.com. TED comes from the beginning letters of Technology, Entertainment and Design. TED is “devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading”, and I find myself watching the videos that are a record of some of the great speeches given by leading thinkers that are available on the website. One I have just watched that I thoroughly enjoyed was a video of a speech by Martin Seligman, a psychologist, who founded the field of positive psychology. Seligman examines what makes us happy, and his conclusions maybe somewhat surprising.

The Hillsborough County schools (Florida) were the recipients of a $100 million teacher effectiveness grant from the Bill and Melinda Bates Foundation in November. “The award — part of a $335 million investment into a handful of districts the foundation believes can unlock America’s stickiest education challenges — puts Hillsborough squarely on the cutting edge of national reform efforts.”

The award, which apparently has to be matched be the school district, is meant to “to transform the way it recruits, trains and retains high-quality teachers” over the next 7 years.  www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/hillsborough-wins-100-million-gates-grant/1052897

As I understand the award, it is extra money available to the district, and needs to be matched by the district. It seems to me to beg the question about the long term effects of setting up expectations within the district for having the extra funding available. I am also concerned that the funding may be a solution to a problem in one district that is not available, generally. Reading the comments following the story shows that there is significant cynicism about the award and its effects.

One obvious impact that the reliance on digital resources is the changing nature of the textbook industry. Some seem to believe that these digital resources are going to greatly reduce the cost of textbooks. For example, one article reports “California, acting on a mandate this summer by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to save hundreds of millions of dollars on instructional materials, will offer free, downloadable science and math textbooks to schools around the state under what is called the Digital Textbook Initiative.”

Do such initiatives threaten the textbook industry? Force it to change? Change the nature of the development of classroom materials? Some of the potential impacts are probably unanticipated by the present proponents of such an initiative.

One of the blogs that I visit regularily is written by Kim Cofino, who oftgen leads workshops on use of technology in the classroom. In her post http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2008/01/19/the-technology-toolbox-choosing-the-right-tool-for-the-task/, she intiates a long discussion about how to select the right tool t