Note to self: The contextual implicaton is that CREATIVITY ever existed in the Silo's of Irrelevance in the first place. NOT!
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Friday, October 26, 2007
Dangerous DIGITAL Consequence?
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The Outsourced Brain
The gurus seek bliss amidst mountaintop solitude and serenity in the meditative trance, but I, grasshopper, have achieved the oneness with the universe that is known as pure externalization.
I have melded my mind with the heavens, communed with the universal consciousness, and experienced the inner calm that externalization brings, and it all started because I bought a car with a G.P.S.
Like many men, I quickly established a romantic attachment to my G.P.S. I found comfort in her tranquil and slightly Anglophilic voice. I felt warm and safe following her thin blue line. More than once I experienced her mercy, for each of my transgressions would be greeted by nothing worse than a gentle, “Make a U-turn if possible.”
After a few weeks, it occurred to me that I could no longer get anywhere without her. Any trip slightly out of the ordinary had me typing the address into her system and then blissfully following her satellite-fed commands. I found that I was quickly shedding all vestiges of geographic knowledge.
It was unnerving at first, but then a relief. Since the dawn of humanity, people have had to worry about how to get from here to there. Precious brainpower has been used storing directions, and memorizing turns. I myself have been trapped at dinner parties at which conversation was devoted exclusively to the topic of commuter routes.
My G.P.S. goddess liberated me from this drudgery. She enabled me to externalize geographic information from my own brain to a satellite brain, and you know how it felt? It felt like nirvana.
Through that experience I discovered the Sacred Order of the External Mind. I realized I could outsource those mental tasks I didn’t want to perform. Life is a math problem, and I had a calculator.
Until that moment, I had thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more, but then I realized the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less. It provides us with external cognitive servants — silicon memory systems, collaborative online filters, consumer preference algorithms and networked knowledge. We can burden these servants and liberate ourselves.
Musical taste? I have externalized it. Now I just log on to iTunes and it tells me what I like.
I click on its recommendations, sample 30 seconds of each song, and download the ones that appeal. I look on my iPod playlist and realize I’ve never heard of most of the artists I listen to. I was once one of those people with developed opinions about the Ramones, but now I’ve shed all that knowledge and blindly submit to a mishmash of anonymous groups like the Reindeer Section — a disturbing number of which seem to have had their music featured on the soundtrack of “The O.C.”
Memory? I’ve externalized it. I am one of those baby boomers who are making this the “It’s on the Tip of My Tongue Decade.” But now I no longer need to have a memory, for I have Google, Yahoo and Wikipedia. Now if I need to know some fact about the world, I tap a few keys and reap the blessings of the external mind.
Personal information? I’ve externalized it. I’m no longer clear on where I end and my BlackBerry begins. When I want to look up my passwords or contact my friends I just hit a name on my directory. I read in a piece by Clive Thompson in Wired that a third of the people under 30 can’t remember their own phone number. Their smartphones are smart, so they don’t need to be. Today’s young people are forgoing memory before they even have a chance to lose it.
Now, you may wonder if in the process of outsourcing my thinking I am losing my individuality. Not so. My preferences are more narrow and individualistic than ever. It’s merely my autonomy that I’m losing.
I have relinquished control over my decisions to the universal mind. I have fused with the knowledge of the cybersphere, and entered the bliss of a higher metaphysic. As John Steinbeck nearly wrote, a fella ain’t got a mind of his own, just a little piece of the big mind — one mind that belongs to everybody. Then it don’t matter, Ma. I’ll be everywhere, around in the dark. Wherever there is a network, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a TiVo machine making a sitcom recommendation based on past preferences, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a Times reader selecting articles based on the most e-mailed list, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way Amazon links purchasing Dostoyevsky to purchasing garden furniture. And when memes are spreading, and humiliation videos are shared on Facebook — I’ll be there, too.
I am one with the external mind. Om.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Maxed Out in Chicago!
| TechTour Day Two: WiMax World touts the future of long-distance broadband | |
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Posted on 9/26/2007 4:52:50 PM
Thousands of believers in the future of WiMax gathered at Chicago's McCormick Place Wednesday morning for the official opening of the WiMax World 2007 conference. Conference founder Elliott Weinmann, president of Trendsmedia, the events division of Yankee Group Research, conference sponsors, said WiMax World is the fastest growing telecom show in the world. He joked that the first WiMax World four years ago attracted "about seven people," but Tuesday morning the legendary Arie Crown Theatre in McCormick Place was packed. Berge Ayvazian, chief strategy officer at Yankee Group, and Phil Marshall, vice president of enabling technologies at Yankee Group, presented a "state of the WiMax" address. The two men said there are 275 WiMax trials and deployments in 65 countries, of which 75 are actual commercial deployment. There are huge new commercial WiMax services going online soon, however, from Clearwire and Sprint Nextel, both of which will lead to true commercialization of the market. Ayvazian called that a "huge breakthrough." WiMax will also probably be offered under the upcoming auction of spectrum in the 700 megahertz band now used by VHF analog TV, although many current trials are in the 3.5 gigahertz band. WiMax will probably emerge as a two-market model, they said, with one part of the market concentrating on home and business broadband, and another portion of the market concentrated on mobile computing, taking over business that's now provided largely by WiFi hot spots and cell phone air cards. They also said the market will be comprised of three kinds of businesses: upstarts, which they call "rabbits;" regional pioneers, creating WiMax communities; and "dominant defenders," telecom companies who will use the technology to bring broadband to the masses. One thing for sure -- there's market demand. A Yankee survey showed that more than 40 percent of North American consumers want mobile internet, but less than 10 percent have it. Yankee Group predicts WiMax subscribers in North America will grow from one million in 2008 to eight million in 2011. WiMax developers must also continue to foster companion markets for their service -- the way Google married search and advertising, and the way eBay married online buying with brick-and-mortar buying. WiMax is also likely to become part of a wide diversity of devices, from cell phones to PDAs to PCs. Muni Wi-Fi, WiMax Two afternoon panels took up the issue of municipal wireless projects, in which WiMax will play an increasing part, whether for basic service or backhaul of large groups of data streams. Panelists said incumbent telecom carrier opposition to public-private wireless partnerships has largely evaporated, and some are joining partnerships. Several major revenue sources for such systems exist -- subscriptions, value-added services, and advertising. Grand Rapids' public-private wireless system was held out as a national model. Sally J. Wesorick, wireless project manager for Grand Rapids, described her city's lengthy process toward a citywide wireless system, which started with eight Wi-Fi demonstration hot spots that generated positive buzz. The city's goals for the project were public safety, economic development, digital inclusion, improved city services, service for visitors and residents, the ability to attract and retain young professionals -- and to design the system so that there was no burden on taxpayers. The city plans to use its WiMax network for field reporting, database access, e-mail connectivity, video surveillance, digital photos and work order management. The city's 2006 request for proposals allowed vendors to build a system with either Wi-Fi or WiMax technology. The city chose WiMax based on site visits to other systems, including a driving test in Greenville, S.C. The company last December awarded the contract to Clearwire LLC, the first partnership of this type between Clearwire and a municipality. The contract is also believed to be the first large scale municipal mobile WiMax deployment, the first truly cost-neutral arrangement and the first WiMax-Wi-Fi hybrid network. Clearwire will use city assets to build the system, whose rates will be market-driven, but the deal requires Clearwire to offer cheap, $9.95-a-month accounts to the poorest 5 percent of households in the 45-square-mile city. The system will have Wi-Fi hotspots for the transition period between now and the time WiMax chipsets are widely available in computers and other devices. There's not yet a firm date for the network's startup. Clearwire has 300,000 subscribers around the country for its wireless Internet services. |
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
A little "3-Card Monte' Anyone?"
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High-Stakes Flimflam
It’s time to rein in the test zealots who have gotten such a stranglehold on the public schools in the U.S.
Politicians and others have promoted high-stakes testing as a panacea that would bring accountability to teaching and substantially boost the classroom performance of students.
“Measuring,” said President Bush, in a discussion of his No Child Left Behind law, “is the gateway to success.”
Not only has high-stakes testing largely failed to magically swing open the gates to successful learning, it is questionable in many cases whether the tests themselves are anything more than a shell game.
Daniel Koretz, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, told me in a recent interview that it’s important to ask “whether you can trust improvements in test scores when you are holding people accountable for the tests.”
The short answer, he said, is no.
If teachers, administrators, politicians and others have a stake in raising the test scores of students — as opposed to improving student learning, which is not the same thing — there are all kinds of incentives to raise those scores by any means necessary.
“We’ve now had four or five different waves of educational reform,” said Dr. Koretz, “that were based on the idea that if we can just get a good test in place and beat people up to raise scores, kids will learn more. That’s really what No Child Left Behind is.”
The problem is that you can raise scores the hard way by teaching more effectively and getting the students to work harder, or you can take shortcuts and start figuring out ways, as Dr. Koretz put it, to “game” the system.
Guess what’s been happening?
“We’ve had high-stakes testing, really, since the 1970s in some states,” said Dr. Koretz. “We’ve had maybe six good studies that ask: ‘If the scores go up, can we believe them? Or are people taking shortcuts?’ And all of those studies found really substantial inflation of test scores.
“In some cases where there were huge increases in test scores, the kids didn’t actually learn more at all. If you gave them another test, you saw no improvement.”
There is not enough data available to determine how widespread this problem is. “We know it doesn’t always happen,” said Dr. Koretz. “But we know it often does.”
He said his big concern is where this might be happening. “There are a lot of us in the field,” he said, “who think that if we ever really looked under the covers, what we’d find is that the shortcuts are particularly prevalent in lower-achieving schools, just because the pressure is greater, the community supports are less and the kids have more difficulties. But we don’t know.”
One aspect of the No Child Left Behind law that doesn’t get enough attention is that while it requires states to make progress toward student proficiency in reading and math, it leaves it up to the states themselves to define “proficiency” and to create the tests that determine what constitutes progress.
That’s absurd. With no guiding standard, the states’ tests are measurements without meaning.
A study released last week by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Northwest Evaluation Association found that “improvements in passing rates on state tests can largely be explained by declines in the difficulty of those tests.”
The people in charge of most school districts would rather jump from the roof of a tall building than allow an unfettered study of their test practices. But that kind of analysis is exactly what’s needed if we’re to get any real sense of how well students are doing.
Five years ago, President Bush and many others who had little understanding of the best ways to educate children were crowing about the prospects of No Child Left Behind. They were warned then about the dangers of relying too much on test scores.
But those warnings didn’t matter in an era in which reality was left behind.
“No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance,” said Mr. Bush, as if those who were genuinely concerned about the flaws in his approach were in favor of poor performance.
During my interview with Dr. Koretz, he noted that by not rigorously analyzing the phenomenon of high-stakes testing, “we’re creating an illusion of success that is really nice for everybody in the system except the kids.”
That was a few days before the release of the Fordham Institute Study, which used language strikingly similar to Dr. Koretz’s. The study asserted that the tests used by states to measure student progress under No Child Left Behind were creating “a false impression of success.”
The study was titled, “The Proficiency Illusion.”
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Agenda for Change / Update!
Agencies seize opportunity to pitch new plans
The newly established process for 2008-2011 agency applications will allow unaffiliated organizations the opportunity to become United Way partners. This is part of United Way's overall effort to direct community resources in areas of the greatest need.
The new multi-year funding process will focus on programs, services, strategies and collaborations that will address short and long-term goals in three specific areas - educational preparedness, financial stability and basic needs, as outlined in the organization's Agenda for Change.
Current member agencies and those looking to form United Way partnerships based on programs that align with one or more of the priority areas were invited to complete a letter of intent in September. The review of those LOIs will conclude Oct. 5. Applicants will be notified during the week of Oct. 8 if their submissions made it to the next phase, during which they are asked to respond to a request for proposal.
Those current partners not selected for the RFP phase will be directed to the transitional funding process.
While United Way will continue to significantly invest in a wide array of agency programs and services, funding will primarily be focused on achieving Agenda outcomes. The funding system further supports the Agenda for Change, which serves as the United Way blueprint for creating sustained community change that measurably improves people's lives.
"The decision to realign our funding process was driven by our region's growing socioeconomic and human service needs," said Michael J. Brennan, President and CEO of United Way for Southeastern Michigan. "We know that today's issues are far too complex for any individual, group, or institution to tackle alone. We must work together and bring new groups into the fold. It is only through community building and regional collaboration that we will effect lasting change."
For more information about the LOI/Agenda for Change process (including guidelines, technical assistance sessions, and application deadlines), visit www.uwsem.org/partnertools.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Alignment ot OUR Purpose!
Ford likes the look of proposed contract
Chairman says automaker interested in health care fund
October 4, 2007
BY SARAH A. WEBSTER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford indicated on Wednesday that leaders at the company founded by his great-grandfather are generally satisfied with the tentative contract rival General Motors Corp. reached with the UAW.
It is expected to serve as a pattern for the Ford deal.
"The broad framework is certainly something we can work with," Ford told journalists during an appearance in Chicago. He was there for a ceremony to start a national network of community-based high schools, which is being supported by the automaker.
Ford spokesman Mark Truby confirmed the comments, which were first reported by Dow Jones, although he emphasized that the company still is studying the deal.
Ford and crosstown rival Chrysler LLC agreed to an indefinite extension of the current contract after GM was named a strike target Sept. 13.
GM and the UAW reached a deal Sept. 26 after a two-day strike, and the union's 73,000 members at GM continue voting on the proposed contract.
The UAW is expected to resume talks with Ford and Chrysler when the GM-UAW tentative contract is ratified.
Bill Ford, who learned labor relations early in his career from former Vice Chairman Peter Pestillo, seems to have good relations with UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who started his career at a Ford factory in Louisville, Ky., and was head of the UAW's Ford division prior to leading the entire union.
During his Chicago trip, Ford said the company is "very prepared to get going" in talks.
He also said that the automaker is interested in talking to the union about a voluntary employee beneficiary association, or VEBA. That form of union-supervised trust to manage health care for UAW retirees is set to save GM about $20 billion from its $50 billion in related liabilities.
J.P. Morgan Chase estimates Ford's UAW retiree health care liability at $22 billion, indicating possible savings for Ford of $9 billion from a GM-style VEBA.
Bill Ford's comments were notable in that they contrasted with industry experts' recent comments that Ford may need more -- or significantly different -- concessions than those GM won from the UAW.
For Ford, the specifics of the GM agreement could force it to provide greater clarity about its turnaround plan, which aims to make the North American division profitable by 2009, Arthur Wheaton, a labor expert from Cornell University, said last week. Ford lost $12.6 billion last year and is undergoing a restructuring.
David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said he expects that Ford, when it reaches a deal with the UAW, will disclose the six remaining of 16 plants it plans to close as part of its restructuring. Another large benefit of the proposed contract for GM is the savings related to replacing current workers in noncore jobs with lower-paid union members.
But Ford is ahead of GM in outsourcing noncore jobs, said John Casesa, a veteran auto analyst and managing partner of Casesa Shapiro Group LLC.
Over the past two years, the UAW approved what are known as competitive operating agreements at Ford plants that allowed noncore jobs to be subcontracted out at lower pay. UAW Vice President Bob King said that saved $750 million.
Casesa said the UAW will have to give a different deal to Ford and to Chrysler LLC if it wants to help the companies survive.
"Ford's financial situation remains fragile," Casesa said last week. "Because the main feature of the agreement is relief on health care for retirees and GM has the highest active-to-retiree ratio, it's disproportionately better for GM," he said.
GM provides health benefits to more than four retirees and surviving spouses for every active worker it employs. Ford's ratio is two retirees for each active worker, and Chrysler's ratio is about one-to-one.
Contact SARAH A. WEBSTER at swebster@freepress.com.
Chairman says automaker interested in health care fund
October 4, 2007
BY SARAH A. WEBSTER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
Ford Motor Co. Executive Chairman Bill Ford indicated on Wednesday that leaders at the company founded by his great-grandfather are generally satisfied with the tentative contract rival General Motors Corp. reached with the UAW.
It is expected to serve as a pattern for the Ford deal.
"The broad framework is certainly something we can work with," Ford told journalists during an appearance in Chicago. He was there for a ceremony to start a national network of community-based high schools, which is being supported by the automaker.
Ford spokesman Mark Truby confirmed the comments, which were first reported by Dow Jones, although he emphasized that the company still is studying the deal.
Ford and crosstown rival Chrysler LLC agreed to an indefinite extension of the current contract after GM was named a strike target Sept. 13.
GM and the UAW reached a deal Sept. 26 after a two-day strike, and the union's 73,000 members at GM continue voting on the proposed contract.
The UAW is expected to resume talks with Ford and Chrysler when the GM-UAW tentative contract is ratified.
Bill Ford, who learned labor relations early in his career from former Vice Chairman Peter Pestillo, seems to have good relations with UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who started his career at a Ford factory in Louisville, Ky., and was head of the UAW's Ford division prior to leading the entire union.
During his Chicago trip, Ford said the company is "very prepared to get going" in talks.
He also said that the automaker is interested in talking to the union about a voluntary employee beneficiary association, or VEBA. That form of union-supervised trust to manage health care for UAW retirees is set to save GM about $20 billion from its $50 billion in related liabilities.
J.P. Morgan Chase estimates Ford's UAW retiree health care liability at $22 billion, indicating possible savings for Ford of $9 billion from a GM-style VEBA.
Bill Ford's comments were notable in that they contrasted with industry experts' recent comments that Ford may need more -- or significantly different -- concessions than those GM won from the UAW.
For Ford, the specifics of the GM agreement could force it to provide greater clarity about its turnaround plan, which aims to make the North American division profitable by 2009, Arthur Wheaton, a labor expert from Cornell University, said last week. Ford lost $12.6 billion last year and is undergoing a restructuring.
David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, said he expects that Ford, when it reaches a deal with the UAW, will disclose the six remaining of 16 plants it plans to close as part of its restructuring. Another large benefit of the proposed contract for GM is the savings related to replacing current workers in noncore jobs with lower-paid union members.
But Ford is ahead of GM in outsourcing noncore jobs, said John Casesa, a veteran auto analyst and managing partner of Casesa Shapiro Group LLC.
Over the past two years, the UAW approved what are known as competitive operating agreements at Ford plants that allowed noncore jobs to be subcontracted out at lower pay. UAW Vice President Bob King said that saved $750 million.
Casesa said the UAW will have to give a different deal to Ford and to Chrysler LLC if it wants to help the companies survive.
"Ford's financial situation remains fragile," Casesa said last week. "Because the main feature of the agreement is relief on health care for retirees and GM has the highest active-to-retiree ratio, it's disproportionately better for GM," he said.
GM provides health benefits to more than four retirees and surviving spouses for every active worker it employs. Ford's ratio is two retirees for each active worker, and Chrysler's ratio is about one-to-one.
Contact SARAH A. WEBSTER at swebster@freepress.com.
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
INDEED! (THE BIGGER PICTURE!)
Our Schools Must Do Better
Boston
I asked a high school kid walking along Commonwealth Avenue if he knew who the vice president of the United States was.
He thought for a moment and then said, “No.”
I told him to take a guess.
He thought for another moment, looked at me skeptically, and finally gave up. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know.”
The latest federal test results showed some improvement in public school math and reading scores, but there is no reason to celebrate these minuscule gains. We need so much more. A four-year college degree is now all but mandatory for building and sustaining a middle-class standard of living in the U.S.
Over the next 20 or 30 years, when today’s children are raising children of their own in an ever more technologically advanced and globalized society, the educational requirements will only grow more rigorous and unforgiving.
A one- or two-point gain in fourth grade test scores here or there is not meaningful in the face of that overarching 21st-century challenge.
What’s needed is a wholesale transformation of the public school system from the broken-down postwar model of the past 50 or 60 years. The U.S. has not yet faced up to the fact that it needs a school system capable of fulfilling the educational needs of children growing up in an era that will be at least as different from the 20th century as the 20th was from the 19th.
“We’re not good at thinking about magnitudes,” said Thomas Kane, a professor of education and economics at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “We’ve got a bunch of little things that we think are moving in the right direction, but we haven’t stepped back and thought, ‘O.K., how big an improvement are we really talking about?’ ” Professor Kane and I were discussing what he believes are the two areas that have the greatest potential for radically improving the way children are taught in the U.S. Both are being neglected by the education establishment.
The first is teacher quality, a topic that gets talked about incessantly. It has been known for decades that some teachers have huge positive effects on student achievement, and that others do poorly. The positive effect of the highest performing teachers on underachieving students is startling.
What is counterintuitive, but well documented, is that paper qualifications, such as teacher certification, have very little to do with whatever it is that makes good teachers effective.
“Regrettably,” said Professor Kane, who has studied this issue extensively, “we’ve never taken that research fact seriously in our teacher policy. We’ve done just the opposite.”
Concerned about raising the quality of teachers, states and local school districts have consistently focused on the credentials, rather than the demonstrated effectiveness — or ineffectiveness — of teachers in the classroom.
New forms of identifying good teachers and weeding out poor ones — by carefully assessing their on-the-job performance — have to be established before any transformation of American schools can occur.
This can be done without turning the traditional system of teacher tenure on its head. Studies have clearly shown that the good teachers and the not-so-good ones can usually be identified, if they are carefully observed in their first two or three years on the job — in other words, before tenure is granted.
Developing such a system would be difficult. But it’s both doable and essential. Getting serious about teacher quality as opposed to harping on tiny variations in test scores would be like moving from a jalopy to a jet.
The second area to be mined for potentially transformative effects is the wide and varied field of alternative school models. We should be rigorously studying those schools that appear to be having the biggest positive effects on student achievement. Are the effects real? If so, what accounts for them?
The Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP), to cite one example, is a charter school network that has consistently gotten extraordinary academic results from low-income students. It has worked in cities big and small, and in rural areas. Like other successful models, it has adopted a longer school day and places great demands on its teachers and students.
Said Professor Kane: “These alternative models that involve the longer school day and a much more dramatic intervention for kids are promising. If that’s what it takes, then we need to know that, and sooner rather than later.”
If American kids — all American kids, not just the children of the elite — are to have a fair chance at a rewarding life over the next several decades, we’ve got to give them a school system adequate to the times. They need something better than a post-World War II system in a post-9/11 world.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
AIM reaches the STARS! CONGRATULATONS!
Detroit HS tech stars get backers
By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen
DETROIT - Leaders from the education, faith-based and labor communities came together in front of the Northwestern High School student body Thurs., Sept. 14, to announce the creation of the Northwestern High School Success Project.
The assembly, held in Northwestern�s auditorium was part of the Rainbow/PUSH Third Annual Community Symposium.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams, Detroit Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway and U.S. Representative John Conyers addressed the students.
The "Success Project" was initiated by a partnership of Northwestern Alumni with the Michigan Labor Constituency Council, the UAW, International Union, New Detroit Incorporated and the Rainbow/PUSH coalition.
Honorary Chairs and committee members include a long list of Detroit community leaders and activists. The five-year pilot program seeks to identify specific educational and structural needs at Northwestern and to raise a $500,000 fiduciary fund for the school to "augment their academic program over a five-year period", according to the symposium guide booklet.
The program also stresses the need for "community wide mobilization" to support student's scholastic needs and improve Detroit high school graduation rates.
"They've raised over $90,000 for us to augment our programs, organizations and clubs, to have a holistic approach, a community approach to transforming," Northwestern Principal Patricia Pickett told the Michigan Citizen. "We're going to try and develop a clean, safe learning environment with rigorous instruction. We're all stakeholders, continuously learning."
Northwestern High School was chosen to pilot the program in part because of its potential to incorporate an extended academic structure. The curriculum at Northwestern already includes nine advanced placement classes, four computer laboratories, two libraries and one of the only Planetariums located in a Michigan public school.
Dr. Shedrick Ward is the facilitator of the AIM program at Northwestern, which identifies and nurtures students from the ninth grade on and offers scholastic options based in technological fields.
"To bring the teachers together across areas to perform a unified approach" that's the American transformation of the high schools so that the kids are connected to places like Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, General Motors, who have their challenges in this global network," Dr. Ward told the Michigan Citizen in his office. "But young people still have some responsibility in understanding what that challenge is going to be when they leave high school."
In addition to the morning assembly, the Community Day Symposium also included a luncheon and town hall meeting, at which participants discussed and reviewed elements of the "Success Program".
The day ended with a black tie gala and fundraising dinner at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Keynote speaker Judge Greg Mathis has strong ties to the "Success Program" through his National Youth and Education Crusade, which focuses on issues of crime and education.
But the day was best exemplified by the gathering of the student body in the high school auditorium on Grand Boulevard, during which wisdom was passed from generation to generation in the spirit of community uplift and educational advancement.
"We are now the conscience of this country," congressman and Northwestern High graduate, John Conyers told the listeners. "We are now holding hands with the 6.6 billion people in the world and we can all make a difference."
Keynote speaker Rev. Jesse Jackson paid tribute to Northwestern High and its role, even beyond the neighborhood.
"You have such a sterling history and heritage of impacting our world by lessons taught and learned from this school," Jackson began.
He focused directly on the students in the building and their responsibility to uphold the advancements made by those in the Black community.
"We're going another way, against the odds, we at Northwestern, are going to higher ground," the audience repeated with Jackson. "We shall lift ourselves, and our community, our city, our state, by the power of our minds. We change our minds, and the whole world changes. We must first change our minds to change the world."
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| Principal Patricia Pickett, Superintendant Connie Calloway, Rev. Jesse Jackson. PHOTO BY JACKIE BARBER |
By Eric T. Campbell
The Michigan Citizen
DETROIT - Leaders from the education, faith-based and labor communities came together in front of the Northwestern High School student body Thurs., Sept. 14, to announce the creation of the Northwestern High School Success Project.
The assembly, held in Northwestern�s auditorium was part of the Rainbow/PUSH Third Annual Community Symposium.
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Deputy Mayor Anthony Adams, Detroit Schools Superintendent Connie Calloway and U.S. Representative John Conyers addressed the students.
The "Success Project" was initiated by a partnership of Northwestern Alumni with the Michigan Labor Constituency Council, the UAW, International Union, New Detroit Incorporated and the Rainbow/PUSH coalition.
Honorary Chairs and committee members include a long list of Detroit community leaders and activists. The five-year pilot program seeks to identify specific educational and structural needs at Northwestern and to raise a $500,000 fiduciary fund for the school to "augment their academic program over a five-year period", according to the symposium guide booklet.
The program also stresses the need for "community wide mobilization" to support student's scholastic needs and improve Detroit high school graduation rates.
"They've raised over $90,000 for us to augment our programs, organizations and clubs, to have a holistic approach, a community approach to transforming," Northwestern Principal Patricia Pickett told the Michigan Citizen. "We're going to try and develop a clean, safe learning environment with rigorous instruction. We're all stakeholders, continuously learning."
Northwestern High School was chosen to pilot the program in part because of its potential to incorporate an extended academic structure. The curriculum at Northwestern already includes nine advanced placement classes, four computer laboratories, two libraries and one of the only Planetariums located in a Michigan public school.
Dr. Shedrick Ward is the facilitator of the AIM program at Northwestern, which identifies and nurtures students from the ninth grade on and offers scholastic options based in technological fields.
"To bring the teachers together across areas to perform a unified approach" that's the American transformation of the high schools so that the kids are connected to places like Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, General Motors, who have their challenges in this global network," Dr. Ward told the Michigan Citizen in his office. "But young people still have some responsibility in understanding what that challenge is going to be when they leave high school."
In addition to the morning assembly, the Community Day Symposium also included a luncheon and town hall meeting, at which participants discussed and reviewed elements of the "Success Program".
The day ended with a black tie gala and fundraising dinner at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Keynote speaker Judge Greg Mathis has strong ties to the "Success Program" through his National Youth and Education Crusade, which focuses on issues of crime and education.
But the day was best exemplified by the gathering of the student body in the high school auditorium on Grand Boulevard, during which wisdom was passed from generation to generation in the spirit of community uplift and educational advancement.
"We are now the conscience of this country," congressman and Northwestern High graduate, John Conyers told the listeners. "We are now holding hands with the 6.6 billion people in the world and we can all make a difference."
Keynote speaker Rev. Jesse Jackson paid tribute to Northwestern High and its role, even beyond the neighborhood.
"You have such a sterling history and heritage of impacting our world by lessons taught and learned from this school," Jackson began.
He focused directly on the students in the building and their responsibility to uphold the advancements made by those in the Black community.
"We're going another way, against the odds, we at Northwestern, are going to higher ground," the audience repeated with Jackson. "We shall lift ourselves, and our community, our city, our state, by the power of our minds. We change our minds, and the whole world changes. We must first change our minds to change the world."
Meeting: YAPO Computer Learning Center / Board of Directors
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 4:00PM
Post "Comments" for Agenda Items
Post "Comments" for Agenda Items
The Milford Powerhouse Project
The Milford Powerhouse
http:www.milfordhistory.org (click-on "powerhouse" on left-side)
Powerhouse (Virtual Tour)
http://www.visualtour.com/shownp.asp?SK=13&T=843903
The Pettibone Creek Powerhouse blog-site
http://pcpowerhouse.blogspot.com
Milford Powerhouse Renovation Committee
NEXT Meeting: Wednesday, October 10, 2007 7:00PM (Informal Presentation)
Friday, September 21, 2007
SWEET! (UWSEM Agenda for Change Initaitive)
September 7, 2007
United Way for
Ref: UWSEM Agenda for Change “Educational Preparedness” Collaborative LOI
Agenda for Change Committee:
Communities to Schools Regional Digital Collaboratory
SKETCH of INTENTION “Pilot Project”: Create and develop a youth-based digitally networked community (networked two-way telecommunications) of inclusive entities to include schools, neighborhood and city community centers, human service organizations, various community capacity building organizations, public service organizations, arts and cultural organizations, business, industry and government.
Attributes of Aspirations (Limited Only by Our Combined Imaginations, Creativity and Innovation)
- Community Interaction and Engagement
*Build deeper and richer community alliances. Build organizational leadership and capacity, service-learning and engagement vehicles for change from merely synergistic to systemic imperatives.
- Educational Enhancement and Distribution Channels
*Utilize existing K-12 educational assets; teachers, pedagogy, curriculum, underutilized digital infrastructure, etc. Develop digital media and learning curriculum, pedagogy, distribution methodologies and modalities aligned with new 21st Century economic realities with a particular focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disciplines. Create connections to relevant real-world experts and working environments.
- Youth Development and Leadership
*Create student-led, student-taught, project-based explorations emphasizing creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors that resonate with their world as they encounter it while also learning how to think instead of what to think.
- 21st Century Skills for New Creative Economy Career Development
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Something from which to "Frame" our Intentions
Some recent additions to OUR Portfolio
The Creation of Consious Culture through Educational Innovation
http://changethis.com/38.03.EdInnovation
The Mind of The Innovator
http://changethis.com/37.01.MindInnovator
The Creation of Consious Culture through Educational Innovation
http://changethis.com/38.03.EdInnovation
The Mind of The Innovator
http://changethis.com/37.01.MindInnovator
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
BEGIN With the END in MIND!
Leadership by Visualization
Science hasn't fully explained how or why visualization works.
But the fact that it does is enough for most major air forces in the world to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in flight simulators.
Frankly, if you're aiming to achieve a major goal, who cares if you know how or why visualization works - just that it does!
And there's no doubt that visualization is a proven success technique used by achievers in every field, from athletes to actors to astronauts. None other than golfing legend Jack Nicklaus is said to have always played a course in his mind before actually beginning a game. John Goddard, the number one goal achiever in the world, told me several months ago that visualization was one of the main techniques he used to accomplish more that 550 major goals!
Brian Tracy says that, "All improvement in your life begins with an improvement in your mental pictures. Your mental pictures act as a guidance mechanism that causes you to act in ways that make your mental pictures come true in your life."
Last December we introduced a brand new tool as part of our Champions Club program. The Goal Tiger Vision Board is a very powerful application for your computer that enables you to take the teachings of the Law of Attraction and apply them in your daily life. It helps you to visualize your goals and dreams in a unique and dynamic way on your computer screen, using your personal dream images. You can combine these images with self chosen affirmations and power words. This way, the Goal Tiger Vision Board assists you in adjusting your belief system to break through any self limiting barriers you might have to reach your goals and create the life you desire.
Until now, the Goal Tiger Vision Board has only been available with membership in the Champions Club. But we've heard from a lot of our subscribers that they'd like to put the Vision Board to work to magnetically attract their goals and dreams.
So, with special permission from our software developers, for a limited time we are making the Goal Tiger Vision Board available as a stand-alone tool.
For a lot more details and all the benefits of the Goal Tiger Vision Board go here: http://www.goals-2-go.com/visualize/
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
21st Century Digital Learning Environments!
Pennsylvania's "Classrooms for the Future" Program Increases
Two hundred-twenty-five more high schools will benefit from Pennsylvania's innovative Classrooms for the Future technology initiative this school year, bringing the total number of participating high schools to 358.
The expansion of the program means high school students in 303 of the state's 501 school districts will be able to begin using laptop computers and other high-tech tools to improve their learning and better prepare for future success.
"Classrooms for the Future is helping our high school students engage in learning on a new level," Governor Edward G. Rendell said. "The new technology will nurture students' minds and feed their appetite for learning and it will prepare them to use equipment and machines that are commonplace in colleges and universities, corporate offices, production plants and just about anywhere they will go after graduating.
"By using technology as a learning tool, we are ensuring Pennsylvania's workforce will remain relevant and competitive in the global economy."
Classrooms for the Future is a three-year investment to provide laptop computers, high-speed Internet access and state-of-the-art software to high school classrooms across the state. Under Rendell's plan, every high school would be part of Classrooms for the Future by 2009.
The 2007-08 budget signed by Rendell in July allocates $90 million to provide the 255 high schools with 83,000 laptop computers and related equipment. It also invests $11 million in high-quality professional development for 12,100 teachers in new Classrooms for the Future high schools. That money, coupled with $2 million in federal funds, will enable each Classrooms for the Future high school to receive $30,000 for staff development.
Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak said professional development is crucial to the success of Classrooms for the Future. As teachers learn how to integrate the technology into classroom instruction, they can move beyond being a mere lecturer and facilitate student-driven work.
The technology is being used in math, science, English and social studies classes to broaden the learning possibilities for Pennsylvania students and provide an unprecedented "gateway" to information and knowledge, the secretary added.
"After only one year, Classrooms for the Future already has proven to be a success for students and educators," Zahorchak said. "Teachers tell us students are more excited and engaged because of these new learning tools. In some cases, truancy and absenteeism are declining."
Greater student engagement is not the only benefit, he noted. Classrooms for the Future helps students connect their academic coursework to the real world, giving deeper meaning to what goes on both inside and outside the classroom.
As examples, the secretary cited a current events teacher who used Classrooms for the Future equipment to help her students stage a videoconference with a soldier serving in Iraq. In another classroom, a group of students studying bridge design used computer software to not only design structures but also to test them to determine whether they would work in a real-life application.
Such activities move students beyond being passive listeners and make them into active learners, Zahorchak said, while the professional development component of Classrooms for the Future ensures teachers are prepared to integrate high-technology into classroom instruction and activities.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Something for OUR Consideration
| Michigan State PIRC Holland, MI | 11172 Adams Street Holland MI, 49423 | Ms. Deanna Depree 616-396-7566 ext. 116 ddepree@lifeservicessystem.org |
Innovations in Education series report: Engaging Parents in Education: Lessons from Five Parental Information and Resource Centers
A generation ago, “parent involvement” in schools usually meant “not very involved at all.” Parents seldom visited the classroom unless they received a call from their children’s teachers or principals. Often, the closest that mothers and fathers came to the school building was when they dropped off their children in the morning. Actual visits to the school were confined to big events such as plays and science fairs. Unfortunately, some parents still do not feel welcome in the classroom, nor do they feel they can ask substantive questions about the quality of their children’s teachers and schools.
However, in a growing number of communities, the picture is very different. Gone are the days when moms just organized bake sales. On any given day, students see parents in the school building helping to organize kindergarten registration, identifying ways to raise money that will buy materials teachers need to enhance a math lesson, tutoring kids that need more time to master skills and lessons, starting after-school programs where students can learn to play a new sport or understand the stock market, serving on a school site council, or coordinating resources and services from the community for families, students, and the school. It’s not just the moms participating who are participating either. Dads, grandparents, and other caregivers are getting involved. Families of economically disadvantaged or limited English proficient students are becoming more involved in their local schools too—because schools are providing more information about the range of programs and services available to them.
Helping Parents Share Responsibility for School Improvement
Helping to make this happen are Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs). A new U.S. Department of Education Innovations in Education series report, Engaging Parents in Education: Lessons from Five Parental Information and Resource Centers, highlights the practices of five centers, with successful strategies for parent and educator engagement. Assistant Deputy Secretary for Innovation and Improvement Morgan Brown announced the release of the new guide at the annual meeting of the directors of the 2007 PIRC grantees in Baltimore, Maryland on August 1st.
Drawing on lessons learned, the guide shares promising strategies for increasing effective parent involvement. The five PIRCs highlighted in the guide were selected through a rigorous peer review process that relied on both benchmarking and case study methodologies, in which researchers and practitioners helped screen the programs. From an initial list of 45 programs that support parent involvement, five highlighted PIRCs were chosen based on the range and quality of their practices, the organizations’ locations and demographics of their target populations, and the quality of their collaborations with other parent involvement organizations or education agencies.
Funded through a discretionary grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII), PIRCs have operated since 1995 to support parent involvement in Title I schools. The centers must be of sufficient size and scope to ensure that they can serve parents throughout a state, and each are required to focus on services to parents of low-income, minority, and limited English proficient students, using at least 50 percent of the federal funds they receive annually to serve areas of their states with high concentrations of low-income families. Special attention is directed to parents of children in Title I schools that are not making adequate yearly progress under NCLB. This effort to increase parent involvement is critical to student achievement. According to leading researchers on this topic, “students with involved parents, no matter what their income or background, were more likely to earn higher grades and test scores and enroll in higher-level programs; be promoted, pass their classes, and earn credits; show improved behavior, and adapt well to school; and graduate and go on to postsecondary education.” 1
At present, more than 60 PIRCs across the United States as well as in each of the special jurisdictions including the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, and the Federated States of Micronesia, work to strengthen partnerships that support children in reaching high academic standards, closing the achievement gap, and providing parents and educators with information and resources to help their children succeed.
To ensure that PIRCs maintain high-quality standards and implement research-based parental-involvement strategies and practices, the Department also supports the National PIRC Coordination Center, which was created in 2006 by the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) in collaboration with the Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP). SEDL’s three decades of experience with issues of family involvement in schools, combined with HFRP’s knowledge of helping education stakeholders develop and evaluate strategies that promote the well being of children, youth, families, and communities, equips the Center to assist the PIRCs with their numerous program management needs.
Leadership Training for Parents
Three of the PIRCs highlighted in the new guide -- the Indiana Partnerships Center, based in Indianapolis; the Family Works, a program of the nonprofit Gaithersburg-based (Md.) Family Service Agency; and the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA), based in San Antonio, Tex.-- have not only created strategies for increased parent involvement (described in the book), but they also offer parent leadership training institutes. The institutes have a common goal: empower parents to lead other parents and educators in efforts to raise student achievement.
After deciding to incorporate parent leadership training into their services, these PIRCs looked for a model from which to develop their own programs. Each offers training that was adopted—and adapted—from aspects of the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership (CIPL), which has been training over 200 Kentucky parent leaders a year since 1997. They have individualized the parent leadership training, but all have preserved the mandatory “CIPL-model culminating project” that aspires to raise parents to a new level of parent engagement by requiring them to create an individualized project.
The culminating projects at each of the sites have ranged from efforts focused on getting more fathers involved in school, such as a mentoring program for boys that seeks to involve positive male role models, to curriculum-oriented efforts, such as creating a children’s book club and or staging Family Monopoly Night to increase math skills.
Executive Director Jackie Garvey of the Indiana Partnerships Centers explained that their projects often aim to empower parents to link parent activities to student achievement. She recalled a memorable project that started as a small literacy effort known as “Donuts with Dad and Muffins with Mom,” and reflected on how the effort evolved. “The project grew tremendously. A member created a train from a golf cart and it went around the school promoting books and reading. The organizers obtained community partners, the whole community rallied around them. It became project ‘All Aboard.’ It went so far as to take all the kids and families on a real train to Chicago to visit a museum. Everyone read on the train. Then we saw that the reading scores in that school really improved.”
Different Ways to Engage Diverse Parents and Educators
The Indiana Partnerships Center recruits leadership trainees by reaching out to other community-based organizations and education agencies to ask for nominations. It looks for a diverse pool of participants that reflects their communities. Unlike trainings offered by the other highlighted PIRCs, at the Indiana Partnerships Center, if an organization submits candidates for consideration, the candidates are sent in teams. According to Garvey, “using teams (where parents are the majority, but there is always a school staff member) has helped in several ways: it creates buy-in for the leadership projects; it helps make it easier to integrate the project into the school improvement plan; and it makes recruitment easier. The team approach lets quality projects go deeper,” she said.
The Family Works leadership training program aggressively recruits parents through targeted mailings, using lists generated by the Maryland State Department of Education, State Title I schools, the Maryland PTA, district family involvement offices, and other family support organizations. E-mail distribution lists and a network of program graduates serving as "ambassadors” also have been used. They seek candidates who are "traditionally not-involved or untapped parents who have capabilities.” Applicants have to receive a sign-off from the principal of the school they represent to ensure that the parent and school are establishing a productive partnership. A committee of stakeholders charged with developing a group that is balanced, both geographically and racially, and that spans K–12 education, selects the candidates.
In addition to training parent leaders, San Antonio’s IDRA targets educators, too. For example, they see the staff of a district’s Title I office as a natural audience for the training. Their model is the “train-the-trainer” approach, resulting in parents and educators developing even more parents to become leaders, which builds capacity. The San Antonio PIRC broadened the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership model to cover four different types of parent involvement: parents as teachers of their own children, parents as resources to the school, parents as decision makers, and parents as leaders and trainers. The goal is to help parents see the variety of ways they can participate in the classroom and elsewhere at school. IDRA is also one of the only PIRCs that currently offers bilingual leadership training, but does not offer programs in Spanish and English separately in an attempt to bring people together.
Schools are no longer the only stakeholders in our children’s education. The efforts of PIRCs and other parent involvement organizations are helping to increase student achievement as they all work together to ensure success for every child.
Resources:
Harvard Family Research Project
Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence
Southwest Educational Development Laboratory
Note: Readers should judge for themselves the merits of the practices implemented in the schools or programs profiled in the Education Innovator. The descriptions of schools or programs and their methodologies do not constitute an endorsement of specific practices or products by the U.S. Department of Education.
1 Henderson, A. and Mapp, K. 2002. A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Parent and Community Connections on Student Achievement , p. 7. Austin, Tex.: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.
Something to Consider
Writing on Chalkboards Fading?
Officials Push for SMART Devices in All Classes by 2010
By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Write
Thursday, August 30, 2007; LZ01
With the continuing rollout of interactive electronic whiteboards in schools across Loudoun County, the digital age is spreading its wings and the ancient world of the chalkboard is crumbling like, well, a stick of chalk.
The SMART Boards look much like their unplugged whiteboard counterparts, but they have a touch-sensitive display connected to a computer and a projector.
Loudoun school officials have set a goal of putting a SMART Board in every classroom by 2010, and each Loudoun school already has at least a handful of them -- one of the reasons the school system was honored by the National School Boards Association last year for its efforts to use new technology to enhance student achievement.
For Elizabeth "Betty" Korte, head of mathematics at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, the boards are nothing less than the dawn of the future. Korte's department was one of the first in the county to use them. Two years ago, she purchased several with a stipend she earned from a teaching award and matching funds from her husband's employer. The boards were $1,400 apiece at the time, Korte said.
In the past two years, the technology has improved and prices have dropped by about half, said Michael Williams, principal of Sterling Middle School, which also started using the boards two years ago and now has them in 13 classrooms. "It's a very valuable thing," Williams said.
Korte said the possibilities for instruction are endless. "In my mind, the boards let me turn the math classroom into a lab. I can introduce things like color, detailed diagrams, animated Java applets that change before the kids' eyes."
Other teachers agreed that one of the board's chief benefits is providing visual tools to illustrate the abstract, making concepts seem more real.
Probability can be demonstrated with a throw of dice. Graph lines can tantalize with a line of stars instead of points. And with different software, "you can be a million different colors," Korte said. "All kinds of crazy things."
Because the boards digitally record notes scrawled across them with a finger, they can be recalled a day later if lessons end too soon, Williams added.
Korte said she typically posts notes onto her Web site so that struggling students can relive a class in full, and students with heavy loads from other classes can catch up later.
After Korte purchased the first set of SMART Boards, the other math teachers in her department -- as well as three special education teachers -- soon caught on, she said, and their use "just mushroomed."
But Williams cautions that the extent of a student's engagement depends somewhat on the teacher's versatility with the board, which can vary based on experience with the technology. Teachers typically get a day and a half of training, Williams said.
In short, not everyone is quite the "virtuoso," a word used by Loudoun schools spokesman Wayde B. Byard to describe Korte.
"I pretty much use the SMART Board and its associated software as the center of my lesson," Korte said. "It's not just a pretty show-and-tell. The more of that we do, the better off we'll be."
Moreover, for the students, she said, "they are so used to technology and all the bells and whistles that this just fits into their world." The software gizmos "absolutely" grab their attention, and every day, she said, is a new adventure.
And what of the time-tested technique of grabbing the attention of unruly students with the screeching of nail on chalkboard? Has Korte any nostalgia for the chalkboard?
"Me?" she said. "Nooooo."
Officials Push for SMART Devices in All Classes by 2010
By Delphine Schrank
Washington Post Staff Write
Thursday, August 30, 2007; LZ01
With the continuing rollout of interactive electronic whiteboards in schools across Loudoun County, the digital age is spreading its wings and the ancient world of the chalkboard is crumbling like, well, a stick of chalk.
The SMART Boards look much like their unplugged whiteboard counterparts, but they have a touch-sensitive display connected to a computer and a projector.
Loudoun school officials have set a goal of putting a SMART Board in every classroom by 2010, and each Loudoun school already has at least a handful of them -- one of the reasons the school system was honored by the National School Boards Association last year for its efforts to use new technology to enhance student achievement.
For Elizabeth "Betty" Korte, head of mathematics at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, the boards are nothing less than the dawn of the future. Korte's department was one of the first in the county to use them. Two years ago, she purchased several with a stipend she earned from a teaching award and matching funds from her husband's employer. The boards were $1,400 apiece at the time, Korte said.
In the past two years, the technology has improved and prices have dropped by about half, said Michael Williams, principal of Sterling Middle School, which also started using the boards two years ago and now has them in 13 classrooms. "It's a very valuable thing," Williams said.
Korte said the possibilities for instruction are endless. "In my mind, the boards let me turn the math classroom into a lab. I can introduce things like color, detailed diagrams, animated Java applets that change before the kids' eyes."
Other teachers agreed that one of the board's chief benefits is providing visual tools to illustrate the abstract, making concepts seem more real.
Probability can be demonstrated with a throw of dice. Graph lines can tantalize with a line of stars instead of points. And with different software, "you can be a million different colors," Korte said. "All kinds of crazy things."
Because the boards digitally record notes scrawled across them with a finger, they can be recalled a day later if lessons end too soon, Williams added.
Korte said she typically posts notes onto her Web site so that struggling students can relive a class in full, and students with heavy loads from other classes can catch up later.
After Korte purchased the first set of SMART Boards, the other math teachers in her department -- as well as three special education teachers -- soon caught on, she said, and their use "just mushroomed."
But Williams cautions that the extent of a student's engagement depends somewhat on the teacher's versatility with the board, which can vary based on experience with the technology. Teachers typically get a day and a half of training, Williams said.
In short, not everyone is quite the "virtuoso," a word used by Loudoun schools spokesman Wayde B. Byard to describe Korte.
"I pretty much use the SMART Board and its associated software as the center of my lesson," Korte said. "It's not just a pretty show-and-tell. The more of that we do, the better off we'll be."
Moreover, for the students, she said, "they are so used to technology and all the bells and whistles that this just fits into their world." The software gizmos "absolutely" grab their attention, and every day, she said, is a new adventure.
And what of the time-tested technique of grabbing the attention of unruly students with the screeching of nail on chalkboard? Has Korte any nostalgia for the chalkboard?
"Me?" she said. "Nooooo."
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