SITE Blog

Broadband, to Lead America out of the DIgital Dark Ages with Youth Leading the Way!!

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 17:14:45 +0000

Resilent Adaptors on the Mobile Divide Despite Barriers leading America Out of the Digital Dark Ages

The McArthur Foundation profiles one outstanding youth, in a conference. There are
many digital videos or youth protraits on the Edutopia site so you can
get an idea of the wide variance of their uses of the media.

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-youth-portraits.

When I do keynotes, I bring along one or two of these stories to share.
With young relatives of my own on Facebook, with a wide range of use of
various media, I know that the youth need to speak for themselves and
we need to understand them? Those who are not voices are a part of the
problem because of barriers( to be explained below)

DML 2010: S. Craig Watkins on Black and Latino youth remaking the
participation gap!

S. Craig Watkins
The opening keynote by S. Craig Watkins, author of “The Young and the
Digital,” on how black and Latino youth are remaking the participation
gap, and subsequent conversations related to the conference theme of
“Diversifying Participation,” got us thinking more about a
participation gap versus an access gap.

Watkins notes that black and Latino youth spend more time online than
white youth, and they more often access the web via mobile phones than
desktops. He calls them “resilient adopters,” because they need to
adapt and find ways to use media when equipment is broken or access is
limited. Although they are accessing digital media as or more
frequently than white youth, the concern shifts now to one of
participation—are there differences in how different groups of young
people participate and, if so, what are the ramifications of these
differences? Mobile affords youth much more privacy after all—and again
raises the question: What is the role for adults and mentors? Spotlight
will feature a more in-depth look at Watkins’s work next week, in
particular its link to hip hop culture.

For more about Watkins’ talk, read the write-ups by Liz Losh and Case
Insights.

Following the chair’s introduction by Dr. Henry Jenkins, the opening
keynote talk was delivered by S. Craig Watkins. Highly regarded for his
research about race, youth and digital media usage and his books, The
Young and the Digital and Hip Hop Matters. He was invited to join the
MacArthur Foundation Series on Youth, Digital Media and Learning.
With this in mind and with no experience in this area I was looking
forward to hearing the perspective from which he considers this space.
Below is provided a few key insights I took out of his keynote talk:
SCW Insight: The conversation around youth use of digital media and the
digital divide as a racial ravine has changed. Black and latino youth
are using technology and the degree of engagement has evolved
considerably since 1998 ?

Here he poses the audience to reflect on what this conference might
have looked like in 1998, over ten years ago in terms of race and usage?
SCW Insight: If we ask them [youth] if they use and access – it assumes
they are not connected for a certain period of the day? They are in
fact using social media ‘more’ than heir white counterparts.
He presents to the audience a number of emergent patterns about black
and latino youth usage, which challenged historical views about black
and latino participation in the digital media space:

Usage is mobile: Mobile phones are merging as the preferred platform.
92% own a mobile phone …

Usage is peer and Interest driven: They are ‘Living and learning’ with
new media … engaging their peers … peer interaction … peer informed
spaces that drive their usage and interest driven genres (e.g., hip
hop)…
Use digital media is the new town square: ‘Back in the day’ .. hip hop
… youth always writing stories, carrying pens and papers, documenting
their stories about their life in poems and hip hop … today, the
digital landscape is the new town square about hip hop … they go online
to engage with their community, and engage in a ‘stunning’ critique
about the world around them ….

Use digital media as a space of opportunity: Messaging & hanging around
in digital media is NOT just wasting time, but they are creating
gateways for them to create opportunities and engage with what they are
love and passionate about … e.g., a young girl who used hip hop to
connect with hip hop artists, but also to connect with her friends and
record/tweet about her own hip hop …

He goes on to discuss the affinity between social media and hip hop
(e.g., mobility, DIY, peer-based learning, participatory, view of them
in their world) and summarises some key tenants of what they have
learnt so far about black and latino youth in the digital media space:
Black youth capital is about – ‘keepin it real in the digital age’
Black cultural capital wherein “soft skills” and code switching
in/between digital and real world is important. Soft skills he defines
as the ways people interact with others, esp. how they talk … black and
latino youth profiles in digital space, how they present themselves,
their linguistic practices, these styles of behaviour suit their peers,
but not perhaps the wider/formal view of the world (e.g., getting a
job).

Creating and critiquing expression and peer-group connection: Digital
media is the space where they grapple with their own fears and their
own concerns and peer-group connection. He gives an example of New
Orleans and Katrina and how a young boys digital media practices
changed before (i.e., didn’t use/value Myspace) and after Katrina
(e.g., place to express and reconnect with his peers, post evacuation.
Creating and critiquing the politics of race and place … public
memorials, grieving and engagement with social issues… are engaging
with differing skills and life experiences and these life experiences
are shaping their interaction and participation in the digital world.
Creating and critiquing in any place through digital space …

Black/Latino … more likely than white via handheld … more reliable than
home access and in these places they feel ‘policed’, not so with mobile
technologies … mobile becomes an empowered space in any place …
In summary, S. Craig Watkins poses some interesting insights into not
just the usage of black and latino youth with digital media, disposing
the historical view of the 1990’s of the synergy between race and
digital divide .. but also sharing his learning on black and latino
youth in the digital space … their experiences, values and in his words
‘how they are in this world’ (S. Craig Watkins, DML-2010).

From this delivery I felt an additional area worth exploring:
In addition to how black and latino youth use, are, see, interact and
participate in the digital media space, how does digital media make
black and latino youth feel as part of this experience? This question
comes from an exploratory study with MedisSnackers in the UK that I was
fortunate to be part of entitled: The Web Makes Me Feel!

http://caseinsights.com/index.php/2010/02/21/dml-2010-s-craig-watkins-on-black-and-latino-youth-remaking-the-participation-gap/#more-491

The Digital Generation Projec
t. Edutopia’s in-depth coverage of students from around the country reveals how young people are using new media to learn, communicate, and socialize in new and exciting ways.

There is an achievement gap.All of today’s students do not fit the
stereotype of the kid glued to the computer or the television 20 hours
a day. A typical classroom is much more diverse, with students coming
from a range of backgrounds. Many do not have computers at home, some
have disabilities, and some are simply not interested in computer games.

The Lucas Foundation tells ius to sync up with the new generation of
connected learners. The Digital
Generation Project presents video portraits of the lives of young
students from around the country who are using digital media to learn,
communicate, and socialize in new and exciting
ways.http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-project-overview-video

The Digital Generation

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation

FCC Chairman shared this data with us.He acknowledges the Mobile Divide

Barriers to Use

Affordability: 36 percent of non-adopters, or 28 million adults, said
they do not have home broadband because the monthly fee is too
expensive (15 percent), they cannot afford a computer, the installation
fee is too high (10 percent), or they do not want to enter into a
long-term service contract (9 percent). According to survey
respondents, their average monthly broadband bill is $41.

Digital Literacy: 22 percent of non-adopters, or 17 million adults,
indicated that they do not have home broadband because they lack the
digital skills (12 percent) or they are concerned about potential
hazards of online life, such as exposure to inappropriate content or
security of personal information (10 percent).

Relevance: 19 percent of non-adopters, or 15 million adults, said they
do not have broadband because they say that the Internet is a waste of
time, there is no online content of interest to them or, for dial-up
users, they are content with their current service.

Digital Hopefuls, who make up 22 percent of non-adopters, like the idea
of being online but lack the resources for access.
Few have a computer and, among those who use one, few feel comfortable
with the technology. Some 44 percent cite affordability as a barrier to
adoption and they are also more likely than average to say digital
literacy are a barrier. This group is heavily Hispanic and has a high
share of African-Americans.

Julius Genachowski wants to be the Federal Communications Commission
chairman who brings cheap and fast broadband to a technologically
backward nation — the United States.

Compared to countries like South Korea or Finland the United States has
fallen behind in the broadband rankings like a stock car with a blown
engine. Citizens pay too much for service that’s too slow, or don’t
have access to high speed internet at all.

Teachers and Transformational Learning /ICT An International Look

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:12:30 +0000

Teachers and Transformational Learning /ICT

International Reflections

Some say, in thinking about teaching and learning

“A good teacher is like a candle – it consumes itself to light the way
for others.”lately, it seems that most people want to blame the teacher for the problems in our countries and burn out those currenly in the profession. I think many conversations about teaching and learning have put out the desire of many to be teachers, and have saddened those who effort to make change in places where it is very difficult.

The problem is that the world and what we know about learning has changed. In many places in the world educational practice has not changed.

Many education leaders point their fingers at the teacher as the problem .

If you have ever taught, anywhere one has to consider what
permission do you have to show your skills , and , who decides how much
you have invested in the school, what resources are given to the pupil, and to the teacher and most importantly, what kind of support is there for teaching, and learning and community support. Those things are decided in places where teachers rarely go or are invited.

In the age of ICT, learning technologies are undergoing an accelerating transformation and many teachers have little support of any kind for the kind of transformational changes to teaching and learning.

How do our respective national goals affect teaching and learning?

Have they been achieved/ Is there a method for sharing case studies that
can be applied world wide and that share promising practices?

What can we as educators do when faced with these problems and to what extent do these problems exist?

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

The MDG goals are ends in themselves, but they are also the means to a
productive life, to economic growth, and to further development. A
healthier worker is a more productive worker. A better educated worker
is a more productive worker.

Target 1a: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than
a dollar a day
1.1 Proportion of population below $1 (PPP) per day
1.2 Poverty gap ratio
1.3 Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
Target 1b: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for
all, including women and young people
1.4 Growth rate of GDP per person employed
1.5 Employment-to-population ratio
1.6 Proportion of employed people living below $1 (PPP) per day
1.7 Proportion of own-account and contributing family workers in total employment
Target 1c: Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from
hunger
1.8 Prevalence of underweight children under-five years of age
1.9 Proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy
consumption

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Target 2a: Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of
primary schooling
2.1 Net enrolment ratio in primary education
2.2 Proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach last grade of
primary
2.3 Literacy rate of 15-24 year-olds, women and men

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women

Target 3a: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
3.1 Ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary
education
3.2 Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector

In the Conversation about Preparing for the 21st Century

Teachers are often the scape goat, the one’s held accountable for the failure of education to educate. However, the real reasons often stem from problems that the MDG goals seek to mitigate.

It is important for the economic growth of any country that they have a workforce prepared for the 21st century. In the future, all nation will need a workforce equipped in literacy ,reading, math, engineering and science.

In order for transformational change, a whole generation with the capacities for creative thinking and for thriving in a collaborative culture which we today define as participatory needs to be in place.

We need workers who see problems as opportunities and understand that solutions are built from a range of ideas and resources. But of course, technology is but a part of this new learning. However, one problem rooted in the problems that MDG goals seek to solve is
access . Access and knowledge and expertise in digital media and tools. Technofluency with the tools available.

In a recent computational science workshop researchers complained that the access to classrooms is often denied to them based on local Internet safety standards.

Who Decides What we Teach, How we Teach and Supports our Efforts? Our Learning? Our Staff Development?

Ministers of Education decide policy.
Administrators define the
learning place and how learning will take place within the confines of
the educational community. In many countries a number of people who
never interact in the classroom define policy . Often they
may not have access to the latest in educational research that points
the way to achievement..

ICT

The use of the Internet and multimedia have transformed the world,
but not touched education in many places. With the tiniest of fingers
children with the right tools can reach out and touch the world. If
they have the tool. If the teacher has some skills and access and if
the system which provides education has any plan for the infusion of
technology wonderful things can happen.

There is the Digital Divide

Without access, future workers lack the ability to obtain the teaching , learning and understanding to be globally competitive in the 21st century. Traditionally, the digital divide is defined in terms of
access to computers and Internet , I will amend this to include the access to digital tools.

Digital exclusion is part of a broader divide contributing to social
and economic exclusion of people Multiple aspects: economic,
geographic, languages, gender, etc.

The Knowledge Divide

The digital divide influences an even more alarming divide – the
knowledge divide

Closing the digital divide will not suffice to close the knowledge
divide for access to useful, relevant knowledge is more than a matter
of technology access .Growing concern over the commoditization of
knowledge (knowledge for sale) is a problem as well as the language of
the product or the cost.

Knowledge, both basic and applied, is growing exponentially
World knowledge base doubles every 2-3 years
Similar growth trends in digital learning technologies
A problem is the source of the knowledge. Does it come from the
culture in which it is taught. Is the information , and the language made accessible for teaching and learning through access to technology

The Gender Divide

Teacher education should (and can) play a leadership role globally in the inclusion of and access to for all students

We know that in most parts of the world the majority of teachers are women.

If any of this looks familiar, it is because it is a message that Dr. Paul Resta has started to share.

Why Gender? Gender refers to accompanying social behaviors. Gender is something is accomplished through interactions with others, yet incumbent within social institutions (West & Zimmerman 1987). It is also a concept fraught with social and cultural connotations. Traditionally, women are expected to be “feminine”: sensitive, emotional, and nurturing. Men are expected to be “masculine”: assertive, analytical and unemotional (Kimmel 1995; 2000).

Gender roles are socially constructed through institutions such as family, media, religion, education, and are pervasive in daily routines. Gender roles frame actions and shape behaviors.

What Does Family Have to Do with It? Within the family context, Gender is shaped through interactions between men and women and actively shape their expectations of one another. Therefore, everything we do is affected each gender’s performances and actions. Within the family context, gendered interactions between men and women actively shape their expectations of one another and their performances. For example, the traditional household division of labor often presumes that women are primarily responsible for domestic work (West
& Zimmerman 1987).

Many gender related stereotypes are perpetuated through different cultures and countries.

Essentialist ideas claim that women are born to be wives and mothers because of their anatomical and hormonal differences from women. Women are presumed to be emotional and nurturing in nature, and therefore the caregivers of the household, family and friends. Men are presumed to be physically stronger than women, and therefore the instrumental breadwinners for the family.

In contrast, socialization arguments look to the different ways in which
girls and boys are brought up, with girls not encouraged to have scientific or interests in digital learning technologies. (Mann 1994; Spertus 1991; Frenkel 1990; Looker & Thiessen

We must also remember the rules of the culture, the society in which women are raised.

If there is no access, that is a part of the problem. If there is no understanding of the role of women, there is another problem.

New Areas to Probe

• Cyberinfratructure (CI) – Science and  Student Imagination,
• Innovation, Computational Thinking,Robotics
• Problem Solving -Applied Math and Science and Engineering

Emerging Technologies to Investigate

• Cloud Computing,
• OLPC, and or mobile device use in transformational ways.
• High Performance Computing.
• Ubiquitous technologies (handhelds, clickers, cell phones, etc.)

See the illustration here for a sort of technical fluency.

http://www.tpack.org/tpck/index.php?title=Main_Page

http://www.tpack.org/tpck/images/tpck/b/b1/Tpack-contexts-small.jpg

SITE 2010 (San Diego) Early Registration: Feb 10

Sarah DukeBenson — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:48:03 +0000

March 29 – April 2, 2010

San Diego, California

March 29 – April 2, 2010 * San Diego, CA

Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina

Early Registration/ Author Confirmation

SITE 2010 is the 21st annual conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education.

This society represents individual teacher educators and affiliated organizations of teacher educators in all disciplines, who are interested in the creation and dissemination of knowledge about the use of information technology in teacher education and faculty/staff development. SITE is a society of AACE.

The SITE Conference is designed for:

Teacher educators in ALL disciplinesComputer technology coordinatorsK-12 administrators & school
leadersTeachers

Curriculum developersPrincipals
All interested in improving education
through technology

Join with 1,200+ Colleagues from over 50 countries!

Advance Program

Online Advance Program: http://site.aace.org/conf/advprog.htm

PDF version to Print: http://site.aace.org/conf/pdf/SITE10Adv.pdf

The SITE Advance Program/Registration is online and includes information on all program activities and all sessions accepted to date. Early registration also helps ensure that you can reserve space in the pre-conference tutorial(s) and workshop(s) of your choice.

Take advantage of this discount and register today!

Tutorials, Workshops and Forums

Click Here for: Tutorial & Workshop Information

NEW!!!

Friday April 2: Forum for School Teachers and School Leaders

Teaching with Technology: Engaging Students through 21st Century Learning:

Teachers and School Leaders are invited to participate in
Sessions on practical, effective ways to teach with technology in
today’s schools. Take part in discussing the latest and most effective ways to engage digital learners.

Registration & Hotel Information

Click Here for : SITE 2010 Registration Rates

Hotel Information : Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina

Special discounted hotel rates have been secured for SITE
participants at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina. To receive this special rate, hotel
reservations must be made by: March 1, 2010 and you must identify yourself as an SITE attendee.

Furthering the Dream

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:21:32 +0000

This is a tribute to my friend Mano. We work together, but I only help in small ways. Martin Luther King would have been proud to know her.

Manorama Talaiver is an tireless, always working, inspired educator who has created wonderful opportunities for students, teachers and administrators.

When I worked for the president of the United States who was then Bill Clinton on the National Information Infrastructure Advisory Council she called me, and asked” What are you doing for Virginia?”

She invited me to make a difference in the state. I was not sure how to do this , but she created pathways , for me. At the time she was working at the Science Museum of Virginia. We started working then when we could to change the face of teaching and learning in the state.

The South has a burden of history!

Southern Schools Mark Two Majorities

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/us/07south.html

January 7, 2010
By SHAILA DEWAN
ATLANTA — The South has become the first region in the country where
more than half of public school students are poor and more than half
are members of minorities, according to a new report.

The shift was fueled not by white flight from public schools, which
spiked during desegregation but has not had much effect on school
demographics since the early 1980s. Rather, an influx of Latinos and
other ethnic groups, the return of blacks to the South and higher birth
rates among black and Latino families have contributed to the change.

The new numbers, from the 2008-9 school year, are a milestone for the
South, “the only section of the United States where racial slavery,
white supremacy and racial segregation of schools were enforced through
law and social custom,” said the report, to be released on Thursday by
the Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit group based here that
supports education improvement in the region. But the numbers also
herald the future of the country as a whole, as minority students are
expected to exceed 50 percent of public school enrollment by 2020 and
the share of students poor enough to qualify for free or reduced-price
lunches is on the rise in every state.

The South, desperate for a well-educated work force that can attract
economic development, will face an enormous challenge in tackling on
such a broad scale the lower achievement rates among poor and minority
students, who score lower than average on tests and drop out more
frequently than whites. Four of the 15 states in the report — Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas — now have a majority of both
low-income and minority pupils. Only one, Virginia, has neither.

“This is the beginning of a very clear trend that has enormous
implications,” said Michael A. Rebell, the executive director of the
Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia
University. “When we realize that the majority of graduates of our
schools in the long run are going to come from backgrounds with
educational deprivation, it makes it imperative that schools be
improved.”

School districts in the South are already struggling to adapt, but it
is not clear which methods are most effective.

“That’s the question that Congress, the legislature, the Gates
Foundation — everybody’s trying to solve that,” said Arthur C. Johnson,
the superintendent of the Palm Beach School District in Florida, which
has gone from 40 percent minority students to 63 percent in 15 years.
Remedial programs, career-centered academies, and intensive teacher
training have helped, Mr. Johnson said, but have not closed the gap in
achievement and graduation rates.

Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Maryland have been among those
states where poor and minority students have shown the most improvement
in fourth-grade reading and eighth-grade math. From 2003 to 2007, black
fourth-graders in Alabama showed the most improvement of any state in
reading on the National Assessment of Economic Progress, though they
still rank slightly below average.

In Tennessee, where many districts have seen Hispanic enrollment
increase by factors of 10 or more, districts have scrambled to hire
more teachers of English as a second language. In Mississippi, which
has no publicly financed preschool, some schools have used federal
money for poor students to prepare 4-year-olds for the classroom.

In Louisiana, a recent study has tried to determine which
teacher-training programs are most effective. Districts are
experimenting with ways to attract more experienced teachers to
high-risk schools.

“We’ve got to figure out how to break the cycle of poverty, and the way
we’re doing it now isn’t working,” said Hank M. Bounds, the Mississippi
commissioner of higher education and, until recently, the state
superintendent of schools. “An affluent 5-year-old has about the same
vocabulary as an adult living in poverty.”

More minority students in a district does not mean that classrooms are
more integrated, said Richard Fry, a senior research associate with the
Pew Hispanic Center, whose research shows that most white children in
the South attend predominantly white schools and an even higher
percentage of black and Hispanic children attend predominantly minority
schools.

Southern schools are far more segregated now than they were at the
height of integration in the ’70s and ’80s, a period that saw a
narrowing of the achievement gap, said Gary Orfield, the co-director of
The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at U.C.L.A. The
South has the lowest percentage of children in private school of any
region, Mr. Orfield said.

Minority schools tend to be larger, have higher student-teacher ratios
and have higher poverty rates, Mr. Fry said. For some education
advocates, such correlations raise the possibility that politicians
will be less likely to adequately finance public schools as they fill
with poor and minority students.

“We have a history of providing the least educational resources to the
students who need the most,” said Steve Suitts, the vice president of
the Southern Education Foundation and the author of the study. “The
people in the South have to be concerned about all children, not just
their own grandchildren.”

On the other hand, Southern politicians are keenly aware of the need
for an educated work force. Spurred in part by school financing
lawsuits, more than half the 15 states included in the study already
provide more state and local financing to heavily poor or minority
districts than to affluent or low-minority ones, according to figures
compiled by Education Trust, an advocacy group in Washington. But
schools often layer programs on top of programs without analyzing which
are effective, said Daria Hall, the trust’s director of K-12 policy.

Mano is a leader. She went first to virtual work, with Margaret Corbitt, before it was the fashion.
She and I were going to present it at a conference,and we were ready, but the fashion had not
taken place and so we did not get to present it. I thought of her when I went to see Avatar, and of Margaret Corbitt who pioneered this work.She is a digital pioneer.

Mano’s work cannot be summed up quickly , and she works quietly , late and early so , she probably does not have time to share what she does with everyone. These pictures will help you to see a bit of her work. She brought Alan November for a conference to rural Virginia.

Manorama Talaiver, Ed.D., is Director of the Institute for Teaching through Technology and Innovative Practices (ITTIP) of Longwood University.

As a little girl, I wanted to go to Longwood University, but the opportunity has come to me in a different way. From time to time I get to work with Mano at Longwood, University.

My history and hers merge in some ways. She is of Indian descent. I had a Fulbright to India. She went to catholic schools, but then there are the differences. We have never had words. When I get most discouraged, she has a kind thing to say, and moves on. She let me attend the Supercomputing Conference in Portland as a part of the team, when there were only a few places this fall.

: Mano has a passion and commitment to transform instructional practices in the classrooms nationally and internationally. She has worked in Greece, Ghana and India. Online she has affected a lot more countries than that. She is active in ISTE, and other groups.

Her teacher education workshops in using computers and multimedia began in 1988 when she joined the mathematics and science center, a consortium of six school divisions. She has been a pioneer in implementing Lego integration in elementary instruction beginning in 1989, developing awareness about supercomputing among teachers and students in collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Lab in 1990-91, working with teachers in developing global projects using Kidsphere and Kidlink in eighties, training teachers in the use of videoconferencing with CUSEEME, and so on.

Every year Mano has introduced the pre-service and in-service teachers to new technology applications and instructional practices since 2005. Her recent teacher education efforts are focused on 21st century skills, STEM learning, integrating games in education, computational thinking, and cloud computing. She is facilitating teacher empowerment through face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for teachers so that teachers can receive professional development any time, anywhere based on their needs.

Mano also directs the enhancing education through technology grant project for Central Virginia Technology Consortium (www.cvctech.org)

Mano works in a place in Virginia where the economy was in trouble based on the change of
permission for industry. Tobacco trust may not mean anything to you, but I grew up in these
areas , in the summertime. Farms, with tobacco, truck gardens, and livestock. My family
was from Dinwiddie, which is one of the areas she serves. We owned tobacco and farmed peanuts and other crops.

A more interesting part of the history of some of the places in which Mano works, is the Brown vw the Board of Education ruling. One of the counties closed down schools.

Rather than abide by the U.S. Supreme Court mandate that public schools be desegregated, the Prince Edward County Board of Supervisors appropriated no funds for public schools during that period.

Many of the students in the county were displaced, and families were split apart. Some students received no education during what is called the “closed school era,” while others moved to other parts of Virginia or even out of state so they could attend school.

Tobacco was shut down as an industry in the state of Virginia. There was provided some tobacco trust funding to help with workforce development.

In 1999, Governor James S. Gilmore, III proposed and the General Assembly approved legislation allocating fifty (50) percent of the Master Settlement Agreement money due the Commonwealth of Virginia to tobacco community revitalization in Southside and Southwest Virginia.

Working closely with 25 rural school divisions in Southside Virginia and fifteen urban and semi-urban school divisions in Central Virginia, Mano is faced with challenges of closing the digital equity gap with regard to access, teacher expertise, and parent resources.

She used to call me and say,”W why aren’t this parents interested?” I used to tell her my Black history observations. My mother had to move to town to go to high school. The boys in her family were not that lucky to be able to be away from the farm.

She continues to strive to address digital equity issues by developing out-of-school programs for students, parent awareness workshops, providing technology access and resources through grants such as establishing community technology centers, and writing grants to support the teachers in receiving training, resources, and graduate credits. Her current educational technology initiatives to bring digital equity focus on motivating children to be game creators as a way to introduce them to research, design, communication, and programming; developing computational thinking skills in students through professional development; facilitating global collaboration projects; and on facilitating teacher empowerment through face-to-face, synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for teachers on developing 21st century skills, TPCK, and STEM learning. Until 2005, Dr. Talaiver was the Director of Learning at the Science Museum to develop technology skills in children. She implemented the Community Technology Centers and 21st Century Community Learning Center programs to serve children and adults in low-income communities. In her vision, children should be scientifically and technologically literate all over the world.
Digital equity work in Ghana and India: Talaiver trained teachers in a K-12 school in Tema, Ghana on integrating Internet resources in instruction and conducting global collaboration projects. The goal is to have interactions among the students and teachers in the US and in Ghana. Because of her work, along with the Dean of College of Education and Human Services, one of the teachers will join Longwood University in fall 2010.

. She and I are now on a team for Supercomputing and we have attended
conferences. Some thought, well what would happen if the teachers were in a team and had to write a plan.

Well we , with Mano’s leadership have participated in several summits, that was open to teachers, counselors and colleges, then the second one was sharing Bob Panoff’s Shodor.org.

We as a team learned a lot but, our team leader took what she learned and formed ITEST grants, and outreach in the state of Virginia.

We look forward to projects at the Robert Russa Moton Museum, and hope to establish Supercomputing , computational thinking as projects there. NSF, Supercomputing, and Teragrid
have been our ladders to excellence.

Let’s Give All American Kids the Dream!!

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 16:33:50 +0000

Martin Luther King, Dream Realized/ Not!!
The Dream? Let’s Update the Dream
By Bonnie Bracey Sutton

President Obama and Dr. King’s dream

During the 1963 March on Washington, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” One year after the inaguration
of Barack Obama— the first African American of the 44 presidents of the United States — we are seeing King’s dream at once realized and deferred.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/inauguration-central/inauguration

I am old enough to have seen Martin Luther King in Washington on the Mall. I am young enough to have technology as a tool, and the world of knowledge in science, engineering, math and technology as work I have advocated and championed for over 20 years. Some of the years have been lonely, some of them well supported. Perhaps the new dream and the new quest is to create the possibilities that all of our citizens can have a hand in creating the future for America.

King, I Have A Dream Speech

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

The Future is a Matter of National Importance
Concerns over national productivity, international competitiveness and homeland security have focused attention on the need to increase the participation of those who have been excluded. To learn more about this you can go to the website of Compete.org.

They say: With a billion new workers competing for the world’s jobs, simply being an American is not an entitlement to a secure, high-wage job. High-speed communications and digitization are commoditizing work processes; every day it is easier to ship work around the world. Even technical work requiring skills that once commanded a premium is now often outsourced, off-shored or automated. Policies aimed solely at recovering lost jobs or stemming the tide of globalization are destined for failure.

American workers must establish a competitive edge at the intersection of disciplines – for example, science and business, math and economics, cultural anthropology and marketing, or art and telecommunications. Educational institutions must continue to adapt to prepare Americans with new skills as new industries and opportunities arise. We must recognize and embrace the multitude of opportunities created by the convergence of manufacturing and services. We must better link young job seekers with the needs of businesses and better understand the opportunities for high paying technically skilled jobs that cannot be easily off-shored.

You can see why they are concerned about broadening engagement.
Many of our national technology groups are not. The people who represent technology are all white men. Nor are they particularly interested in digital equity. Most would rather reach to Uganda , or Dubai, or some exotic place, than work with our USA minorities wherever they might be.I was told that sponsors were not interested in digital equity by one organization, the idea of social justice? Old and not interesting to funders. Washington is speaking a different language they told me.Well ,the 18 groups that have been to the Congress speak my language.

Norm Augustine is my cheerleader!!

Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future urged the United States to make the investments needed to “compete, prosper, and be secure in the global community of the 21st century.”

The report recommended 20 specific implementing actions in four broad areas:

K-12 Science and Mathematics Education: Increase America’s talent pool by vastly improving K-12 science and mathematics education.

Science and Engineering Research: Sustain and strengthen the nation’s traditional commitment to long-term basic research that has the potential to be transformational to maintain the flow of new ideas that fuel the economy, provide security, and enhance the quality of life.

Science and Engineering Higher Education: Make the United States the most attractive setting in which to study and perform research so that we can develop, recruit, and retain the best and brightest students, scientists, and engineers from within the United States and throughout the world.

Incentives for Innovation: Ensure that the United States is the premier place in the world to innovate; invest in downstream activities such as manufacturing and marketing; and create high-paying jobs based on innovation by such actions as modernizing the patent system, realigning tax policies to encourage innovation, and ensuring affordable broadband access.

Convocation on the Gathering Storm

http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12537&page=2

What Needs to Happen to Broaden Engagement?
We must broaden engagement and create opportunities for our minority students and girls. It is nice to have Obama as a president. It would be also nice to see that we have created opportunities for all of the children of this nation in education. This is going to happen, but how and when? People seem interested enough in creating opportunities for others globally. What’s the problem with serving and caring about the distant,rural, urban, and underdeveloped areas of the country?

Many of Martin Luther King’s dreams, and ideas were not shared. Here’s a quote I like. It may fit as we have Obama for a president. This is the time to keep on going on!

“This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to open the doors of opportunity to all of God’s children. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” Martin Luther King

There is a digital divide, a content divide, information divide and a knowledge divide.

The Gender Divide

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle- Gender Equity -Women , so What?
Most of our teachers are women and men are not used to the concept of othermothering to explain how we work effectively in places of need.

As a digital equity advocate for social justice, and a person who is always pushing gender equity, I had another heroine. She was working in Supercomputing. When I first saw her I did not know what Supercomputing was, all I knew was that she was an old lady and that men thought she was a genius and wonderful and she was still in the Navy. I happened to live and teach in Arlington, Virginia, so I met Grace Hopper.

Grace Who? Grace Hopper
Pioneer Computer Scientist

The new discipline of computing and the sciences that depend upon it have led the way in making space for women’s participation on an equal basis. That was in some ways true for Grace Murray Hopper, and it is all the more true for women today because of Hopper’s work.

Perhaps her best-known contribution to computing was the invention of the compiler, the intermediate program that translates English language instructions into the language of the target computer. She did this, she said, because she was lazy and hoped that “the programmer may return to being a mathematician.” Her work embodied or foreshadowed enormous numbers of developments that are now the bones of digital computing: subroutines, formula translation, relative addressing, the linking loader, code optimization, and even symbolic manipulation of the kind embodied in Mathematica and Maple.

Her skills allowed her to be employed long past the time of usual retirement.
That is not something that is happening in education. In education, once one reaches a certain salary plateau, it is possible to be an endangered species. This is something that is not taught in the schools of education. These policies should be rethought.

Thinking about STEM .. I like this quote this from a physics professor.

“The demographic changes to occur in the U.S. over the next
half century make it vital that we increase the participation of
women and under-represented minorities in physics, as
well as all other scientific and technological fields.”
Artie Bienenstock, Stanford
University, APS President

I like this quote because I was publicly embarassed and challenged by a EOT officer who spoke to me that maybe I was not smart enough to do computational science. Not sure where that came from and or why!! This is a woman who is employed to make a difference with taxpayer money , ..It is not that I am stupid, or dense. Supercomputing was not a part of my college education. I humble myself to learn so that I can share and engage others
in STEM and other disciplines.

I am not a PhD, or even a rocket scientist. But I am a teacher, a mother, a grandmother and I touch the future with my ideas and dreams. My daughter, is a doctor, a child , not one that I birthed, but a child I nurtured in school.

How Do We Connect the Dots? Best Practices?

My way of advocating is to share the opportunities, to create a workshop in teacher outreach to show the possibilities and to connect the dots for educational leaders. We had a teacher outreach day at the Teragrid and Supercomputing Conferences. It was a way for me was a way to share the knowledge of the groups to teachers who have the skills to make a difference , but who may not have had the time to seize the opportunity of networking. We created the opportunity. I learned this from participating in the SITE Conference.

“Spreading best practices through
workshops makes the environment
better for everyone,not just women.” Patricia Rankin,
University of Colorado

The watering hole for me, has been the Teragrid, and the Supercomputing Conferences and their outreach. The woman did not know my history of work with President Clinton, or Vice President Gore, or even who Ron Brown was. Her idea was that I was spinning my wheels trying to get a handle on Supercomputing. Those are the conferences to link and connect back to the community of educators.

Here are some Teragrid links.
Smart Start http://sdsc/teachertech/smartteams

http://cbm.msoe.edu/stupro/smart/index/html

Don’t you just love this teacher outreach!! They did One of our participants went on the write grants of over a million dollars to serve her rural region. We had 384 applications for the few opportunities to attend the conference all expenses paid. So we created this experience.
Teacher Day. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=172892&id=593996326&l=a016368f54

There are two places to go to find out more
Shodor.org
www.shodor.org

Their mission: to improve math and science education through the effective use of modeling and simulation technologies — “computational science.”
Shodor, a national resource for computational science education, is located in Durham, N.C., and serves students and educators nationwide. Their online education tools such as Interactivate and the Computational Science Education Reference Desk (CSERD), a Pathway Portal of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL), help transform learning through computational thinking.
In addition to developing and deploying interactive models, simulations, and educational tools freely available on the web,

Concerns over national productivity, international competitiveness, and homeland security have finally focused attention on the need to increase and broaden engagement of natives of America, the minorities, in the US, science, technology , engineering, and mathematics workshop.

First, we have to make sure that they are on the pathways of learning, that education is valued, that reading and literacy are skills. Then?

Career experts say the key to securing jobs in growing fields will be coupling an in-demand degree with emerging trends. Job seekers will need to branch out and pick up secondary skills or combine hard science study with softer skills.

Council on Competitiveness ,

http://www.compete.org/explore/skills-race

Wall Street Journal, Landing a Job of the Future Takes a Two-Track Mind
HYPERLINK http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703278604574624392641425278.html?mod=wsj_share_facebook

Regarding the technology. I have a new partner, NCWIT is the National Center for Women & Information Technology

http://www.ncwit.org

NCWIT is the National Center for Women & Information Technology. It is a coalition of nearly 200 prominent corporations, academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profits working to increase women’s participation in information technology (IT). NCWIT is a 501(c)(3)*, established in 2004 with startup funding from the National Science Foundation, Avaya, Microsoft, Pfizer, Bank of America, Intel, HP, the Kauffman Foundation, and Qualcomm.

They Believe
NCWIT believes that inspiring more women to choose careers in IT isn’t about parity; it’s a compelling issue of innovation, competitiveness, and workforce sustainability. In a global economy, gender diversity in IT means a larger and more competitive workforce; in a world dependent on innovation, it means the ability to design technology that is as broad and creative as the people it serves.

Why They Exist

* Girls represented just 17 percent of Advanced Placement computer science (CS) exam-takers in 2008; that’s the lowest female representation of any AP exam.
* In 2008 women earned only 18 percent of all CS degrees. Back in 1985, women earned 37 percent of CS degrees.
* Women hold more than half of all professional occupations in the U.S. but fewer than 24 percent of all computing-related occupations.
* Only 16 percent of Fortune 500 technology companies have women corporate officers.
* A study on U.S. technology patenting reveals that patents created by mixed-gender teams are the most highly cited (an indicator of their innovation and usefulness); yet women were involved in only 9 percent of U.S. tech patents.
You may not have noticed that in the STEM and Supercomputing worlds there is limited diversity. You may have a solution. Mine is to create the networks, the information, the partnerships that allow minorities to broaden engagement. I want to bring pathways to computing.

Jan Cuny says. “Computing is a creative activity that draws on a wide variety of fields, such as natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, social sciences, business, and the arts.
Abstraction is a central problem-solving technique in computer science.
Algorithms are the essence of computational problem solving.

Today, every discipline of science and engineering is being
revolutionized by the widespread use of comprehensive
cyberinfrastructure (CI). Computing power, data volumes, and network
capacities are all on exponential growth paths, collaborations are
growing dramatically, and all forms of CI—and multiple communities
spanning multiple agencies and international domains—often must be
brought to bear to address a single complex grand challenge problem,
such as climate change. All of these developments are part of a
revolutionary new approach to scientific discovery in which advanced
computational facilities (e.g., data systems, computing hardware, high
speed networks) and instruments (e.g., telescopes, sensor networks,
sequencers) are coupled to the development of quantifiable models,
algorithms, software and other tools and services to provide unique
insights into complex problems in science and engineering.
Why So Few: Women and Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
How do we get more girls and women involved?

Darpa’s Kids’ Initiative
Darpa is

https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=69c81b4b7f892d4e0e0d8a7bec0eba29

soliciting proposals for initiatives that would attract teens to careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), with an emphasis on computing. According to the Computer Research Association, computer science enrollment dropped 43% between 2003 and 2006.

Darpa’s worried that America’s “ability to compete in the increasingly internationalized stage will be hindered without college graduates with the ability to understand and innovate cutting edge technologies in the decades to come.
Though they aren’t specifying what sorts of programs might work–that’s for applicants to figure out–but these might include mentorship programs and career days. (In related news, Time Warner, who can’t seem to get your cable working right, recently announced that they’re dedicating $100 million to http://www.connectamillionminds.com/
just such a mentorship program

Darpa’s RFP is barely written in English, but it contains some pretty sharp-eyed critiques of the current system. Darpa notes that even though there are plenty of sciency programs out there such as space camp, geared at middle-schoolers. But there’s not much else. The challenge is to create a continuum of activities that engage students all along the path from middle-school to college.

Of course, the smart, Darpa way to do something like this would be to have educational grants and extra-curricular programs that follow a kid through high-school and fund their college, provided they enter a scientific career. (This works for West Point grads and the Army, no?)

But the big elephant in the room is the American culture of science education.

Or the culture of exclusion of minorities. ISTE attendees can vote for their keynote, but the selection – 5 white males – is raising eyebrows. Tim Holt asks, “Where are the women? Where are the minority groups? Why couldn’t the list like like this for instance: Marco Torres, Sheryl Nussbaum Beach, Bonney Bracey Sutton, Chris Lehman, Ken Shelton?” I would add that it is possible – indeed, more likely – that you will find a diverse set of people through fair recruitment techniques. In order to get an all-white-male set of speakers, the selection process has to have been skewed in such a way as to select (even if unintentionally) for that outcome. Tim Holt, Intended Consequences, January 16, 2010.

We need more than Obama in leadership. We need the dream for all.

How can you really get kids into these careers when most of America views evolution on par with intelligent design; when so many science teachers can barely communicate the lesson, much less the broader value of the disciplines they’re teaching; and science is still looked as the providers of grinders and dweebs? We have been in a culture of men, who say just teach the kids. Teachers touch the future and need to have adequate professional development, not just the toys of 2.0 and 3.0.

If we are going to get students to be connected and interested beyond the participatory culture projects like this that involve teachers and kids are necessary.

Places to go!!
To find out what works in Public Education?
The George Lucas Educational Foundation

http://www.edutopia.org/

Darpa Kid Inititiave

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/darpa-sets-its-sights-educating-kids

”

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/cliff-kuang/design-innovation/darpa-sets-its-sights-educating-kids

Digital Generation Project
The George Lucas Educational Foundation has it right when they talk about the Digital Generation. Today’s kids are born digital — born into a media-rich, networked world of infinite possibilities. But their digital lifestyle is about more than just cool gadgets; it’s about engagement, self-directed learning, creativity, and empowerment. The Digital Generation Project tells their stories so that educators and parents can understand how kids learn, communicate, and socialize in very different ways than any previous generation.
HYPERLINK “http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation”

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation

I use these stories of their youth portraits, but you may have other favorites.
Luis
HYPERLINK “http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-luis”

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-profile-luis

tEXtSoftware

The future is in our hands and minds!!

The Digital Divide , Native American Perspectives

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:46:23 +0000

Here is a problem along the edges of the digital divide that most people are unaware of the perspective from Native American Tribes.

Given the fact that many Native American tribes have some land and some have casinos, people think that they live in the lap of luxury. There are a few tribes who have learned to create a business model to change the future of their children. But we have an interesting set of problems that the President has to address. For those not familiar with the cultures, here is a virtual tour if
The Four Directions project works to use technology as a catalyst for change in the schools. Recently students, teachers, community members and Four Directions personnel worked together to create a demonstration project with the National Museum of the American Indian.

Source: The 4Directions community of learners consists of 19 Bureau of Indian Affairs schools partnered with 11 private and public universities and organizations. Through technology, the community has been able to transcend geographic barriers and collaborate across the nation. Teachers and students use the Internet and World Wide Web to communicate and collaborate with 4D partners and other schools. 4Directions schools use technology to share in the diversity of various cultures and to ensure that the voices of Native people are heard in the emerging information age.
Source: http://www.4directions.org/community/index.html

I have spent time with Karen Buller, and earlier with Misty Brave, who are proponents of better education for Native American students. Karen was working with the FCC. Here is the website she created when there was funding. Most of the funding for the digital divide evaporated during the Bush administration as the nation was told that there is no, was no digital divide. Now that we can talk about it again, there is a digital divide, a technology divide, a cultural divide, an information divide and a fluency of use of new media divide.

Misty Brave is from the Pine Ridge Reservation and she and I had a debate when I first met her. We were Christa McAuliffe educators for diversity, from the NEA, NFIE.I was talking about the poverty in urban cities. She opened my eyes to the situation on the Pine Ridge Reservation and to the cultures of Native Americans in general. I have never lived 40 miles from a grocery store without a car. I have never lived where the chapter houses, as in Navajo lands are where people communicate emergencies from.

*( Cell phones have changed that a little, broadband is not available everywhere either.

Karen Buller Elliott and I worked together, but she was the funder and the person with the ideas. We tried to work from Santa Fe, and I often rode shotgun with her to learn, to experience and to see the disconnect between the Native American schools .. I learned the systems of communication and the difficulty in some places, … She shared programs did outreach and training, and projects she worked for several years together until the funding declined.
This is her website http://www.niti.org/

and some developed curriculum.

http://www.niti.org/html/cultural_curriculum.html

Four Directions Project and Work with Native Americans

Dr. Resta is a friend and heserved as director of the Four Directions project (1995 –2001) at the University of Texas at Austin. Funded by the U.S. Department of Education, this national project involved 19 rural Indian schools across the country and explored the use of new telecommunications and multimedia technologies to enhance the quality of education in schools in remote areas. The project received the 1997 Award for Outstanding and Innovative Use of Technology from Government Executive Magazine and the Government Executive Leadership Institute. He served as Chair of The Smithsonian Institution Off-Site Technology Committee. As senior consultant, he developed the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of the American Indian Off-Site Technology Planning Document for the extension of the museum’s collections, archives, and information resources to Indian communities and the general public through technology. He is also currently working with the Navajo Nation in projects to use telecommunications to enhance educational and economic development on the reservation.

Four Directions:An Indigenous Model of Education

The Learning Technology (LTC) has been a leader in exploring the ways that technology can enhance learning opportunities for students in rural isolated projects. Schools in Native American communities, like schools everywhere, are incorporating technology into the curriculum as fast as budgets allow. Will this technology, which brings the world into the classroom and opens the classroom to the world, be the final means of acculturalization for Native American students, or will it provide a way to preserve, enrich and tell others of their unique heritage?

The Learning Technology Center explored the ways technology can be used in Native American schools can use technology to develop culturally responsive curriculum in the Four Directions Project. From 1995 to 2001, through a grant funded by a U.S. Department of Education, the Learning Technology Center with other partners helped 19 Native American schools in ten states overcome their remoteness and preserve their cultural traditions by providing training in the use of computer and telecommunications technology and its integration throughout school curricula. Other partners in the Four Directions project included the University of New Mexico, the University of Kansas and Haskell Indian Nations University, the Heard Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Dr. Paul E. Resta helped the schools plan and create collaborative learning environments. Schools were equipped with Teachnet, collaborative communications software which provides email, conferencing and bulletin board capabilities.

Graduate level courses in curriculum design were provided for Four Directions teachers via the World Wide Web and Teachnet. Approximately 120 teachers took these classes, many of them multiple times.

Native students were trained in digital photography, virtual reality imaging and other multimedia techniques in order to create cultural “virtual museums.” The first virtual museum project created a Virtual Tour of the National Museum of the American Indian, as seen through the eyes of Native American children. The project was one of fifty finalists in the Global Junior Challenge, an Internet media contest hosted by the city of Rome, Italy. Four Directions has promoted school-museum partnerships for virtual museum projects, and by May 2001, ten Four Directions schools will have engaged in virtual museum projects with nine museums and two university archeology departments.

Dr. Loriene Roy helped the schools develop oral history projects for the schools and brought library expertise to the team. She began a family reading project, “If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything,” with Four Directions schools which has received its own with funding from the American Library Association and the Tocker Foundation. She has used TeachNet to conduct live chats between students in the Four Directions schools on reading and story-telling. The “scary story” chats at Halloween have garnered lively participation from students of all ages.

An Electronic Mentoring database was established that paired volunteer Native American mentors with specific schools or students and facilitated their communication.

The LTC team participated in two Access Native American Net Days. In April 1998, 28 schools of the Navajo Reservation in Arizona, the Pueblos of New Mexico, the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Reservation in Mississippi were connected to the Internet and provided with new computers. Team members were on hand to provide technical support at Red Water School on the Choctaw Reservation in Mississippi and at Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico. The second Native American Net Day, in September 1999, celebrated the wiring of the remaining Four Directions schools and many more Bureau of Indian Affairs schools.

The Four Directions partners worked hard to provide technology and curriculum training for the teacher participants at the annual Summer Institutes conducted at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas. But during the last year of the project, three Four Directions schools conducted their own summer institutes, and the Pueblo of Laguna won an Intel grant to create a technology training center for American Indian schools. These changes mark the success of Four Directions in the dissemination of the Indigenous Model of Education. Another mark of success for the project is a database of culturally responsive lessons on the Four Directions web site. These lessons were devised by the Four Directions teachers at the Summer Institutes and on-site workshops.

The LTC will continue its work with Indian schools and other schools in rural isolated areas to continue to explore the ways technology can help bridge the digital divide.

Four Directions Project

http://www.4directions.org/

The newest program.. If I can Read, I can Do Anything

http://sentra.ischool.utexas.edu/~ifican/index.php

If I Can Read, I Can Do Anything is teaming up with readergirlz, GuysLitWire, and YALSA for Operation Teen Book Drop 2010. They will help coordinate the delivery of thousands of new books to teens on reservation schools on April 15, 2010.

The goal is to encourage native children and community members to read for pleasure
To Provide Indian communities with opportunities to engage in and communicate about reading

To Promote Library use at tribal schools

To Help Improve Tribal school library collections

To Support…Tribal school librarians!

Internet to the Hogan

http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/hogan07.asp

There is another program that I have a little knowledge about, which is the Internet to the Hogan Program. Supercomputer experts from UC San Diego will help end the “digital divide” for many in the Navajo Nation in the Southwest.

Navajos in the American Southwest, many of whom have never had access to a personal telephone, will soon make a significant leap into the Internet Age, thanks in part to resources and expertise provided by the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) at UC San Diego.

The Navajos, who refer to themselves as the “Dine” (dee-nay), celebrated “An Internet to the Hogan and Dine Grid Event” at Navajo Technical College in Crownpoint, New Mexico. Highlights of the event include their official acceptance of a “Little Fe” mini-supercomputer from the TeraGrid – the world’s largest supercomputing network – and a demonstration of advanced radio technology.

This is the article that made me think about sharing with you some initiatives.Many more initiatives and projects need funding to reach the children.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2010/jan/11/native-americans-reservations-poverty-obama

The US president has pledged to improve the lives of Native Americans. But he
faces huge challenges, such as those on Pine Ridge Indian reservation where
unemployment is more than 80%, the average wage is ?4,400 ? and life expectancy
is 50

Chris McGreal
Monday January 11 2010
The Guardian

Indian country begins where the serene prairie of Custer county gives way to the
formidable rock spires marking out South Dakota’s rugged Badlands. The road runs
straight until the indistinguishable, clapboard American homesteads fade from
view and the path climbs into a landscape sharpened by an eternity of wind and
water. At this time of year, the temperature slides to tens of degrees below
freezing and a relentless gale sets the snow dancing on the road, a whirligig of
white blotting out the black of the asphalt.

The first marker that this may be a part of the United States but is also apart
from it, virtually invisible to most Americans, comes as the road descends on to
the plains of the Pine Ridge Indian reservation. Here, an abandoned,
half-wrecked mobile home, daubed with the name of a Sioux rebel who led the last
armed showdown between the tribe and US authorities nearly four decades ago,
stands as a monument to defiance and despair.

The signal from South Dakota’s Christian radio fades as an agitated caller
elaborates on her belief that God created global warming as a taste of the fires
of hell awaiting humanity. After a time the reservation’s own station struggles
through.

The tribe’s president, Theresa Two Bulls, is on air lamenting the death of a
schoolboy, Joshua Kills Enemy, who hanged himself the day before. His funeral
will be the second of the week, coming days after a 14-year-old girl took her
own life in the same way. They are not the first.

Two Bulls wonders how it can be that the Oglala Sioux tribe’s children are
killing themselves. “We must hug our children, we must tell them we love them. A
lot of these youth do not get a hug a day. They are never told that they’re
loved. We need to start being parents and grandparents to them,” she says.

Two days later, Two Bulls declares a “suicide state of emergency” in response to
the deaths of the children and a spate of attempts by others to kill themselves,
such as Delia Big Boy, who was 15 when she put a rope around her neck and came
close to taking her own life. “It had a lot to do with my parents and alcohol
abuse and what they say to you. The things they say make you think they don’t
love you,” says the high school student, who is now 17. “I hear the same thing
from my friends. There’s a sense of hopelessness on the reservation. There’s
just not a sense of belonging. There’s not a sense of a future. There’s
alcoholism. The parents drink. A lot of the children drink.”

In declaring the state of emergency, Two Bulls says that the deaths of the
children are a symptom of a wider crisis that has taken hold of generations of
Oglala Sioux, and this is certainly true. More than 100 people, mostly adults,
tried or succeeded in taking their own lives on Pine Ridge reservation last
year.

“This is about how defeated our people feel. There’s hopelessness out there,”
Two Bulls tells me later. “People across the United States don’t realise we
could be identified as the third world. Our living conditions, what we have to
live with, what we have to make do with. People think we are living high off the
hog on welfare and casinos. I’ve asked them ? US congressional people, US
secretaries of these departments who deal with us ? come out to our reservation,
see firsthand how we live, why we live that way. Find out why our children are
killing themselves. Learn who we are.”

Pine Ridge is among the US’s largest Indian reservations ? much smaller than the
vast plains of the midwest that the Sioux once roamed but still bigger than
England’s largest county ? and also among its poorest. No one is sure how many
people live on its 2.2m acres, but the tribe estimates about 45,000.

Conditions on the reservation are tough. More than 80% unemployment. A desperate
shortage of housing ? on average, more than 15 people live in each home and
others get by in cars and trailers. More than one-third of homes lacking running
water or electricity. An infant mortality rate at three times the US national
average. And a dependency on alcohol and a diet so poor that half the population
over the age of 40 is diabetic.

The Oglala Sioux’s per capita income is around $7,000 (?4,400) a year, less than
one-sixth of the national average and on a par with Bulgaria. The residents of
Wounded Knee, scene of the notorious 1890 massacre of Sioux women and children
and of the 1973 standoff with the FBI, are typically living on less than half of
that. Young people have almost no hope of work unless they sign up to fight in
Afghanistan. The few with jobs are almost all employed by the tribal authorities
or the federal government. It is not uncommon to hear people quietly speak of
the guilt they feel for having a job. Those who don’t survive on pitifully small
welfare cheques. It all adds up to a life expectancy on Pine Ridge of about only
50 years.

The myth of prosperity

This is not how most Americans see the reservations. The Great Sioux Nation and
the region it once ranged across are fixed in the popular imagination by the
legends of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, of Custer’s last stand at the Battle of
Little Bighorn, and Wounded Knee. It’s a history the Oglala Sioux constantly
assert to remind themselves of past greatness and what they believe they are
owed.

But the modern perception among many Americans is also of tribes growing rich on
casinos and Native Americans living well from treaties that require the US
government to provide subsidised housing, free healthcare and regular welfare
cheques.

Close to a million people live on the US’s 310 Native American reservations
(exact figures are hard to pin down because the census is considered widely
inaccurate on many of them). Some tribes have done well from a boom in casinos
on the reservations, such as the Seminoles in Florida who made enough money from
high-stakes bingo to pay close to $1bn to buy the Hard Rock Cafe and hotel
empire. Other tribes have made a more modest but comfortable income from
gambling, but the key for almost all of them was to be close enough to major
cities to keep the slot machines busy and the card tables full. Others pull in
an income from tourism and minerals. Affirmative action programmes have opened
university doors and jobs in the cities to the Navajo, Cherokee and other
tribes. But the leaders of many of the country’s 564 recognised tribes speak of
communities in crisis and they are pressing President Obama to make good on
promises to turn their lives around.

Obama faces a challenge meeting that commitment, in the midst of a deep economic
crisis. But he has responded by appointing Native Americans to some key
positions, assigning billions of dollars of additional spending to health,
education and policing and, recently, by calling the first of what he promises
will be an annual White House summit with Indian tribal leaders. At it he
acknowledged that the reservations face a struggle born of a history of broken
treaties, neglect and discrimination.

“Few have been more marginalised and ignored by Washington for as long as Native
Americans, our first Americans. You were told your lands, your religion, your
cultures, your languages were not yours to keep,” he said. “I know what it means
to feel ignored and forgotten, and what it means to struggle.”

The Sioux’s treaties with the US government in the second half of the 19th
century were similar to those of other tribes in that they were frequently
broken as an expanding America sought more land for railways, mining and
farming, and battered Native Americans into ceding ever more territory in return
for promises of financial support. Defeated and dispossessed, the Sioux signed
treaties that committed Washington to providing housing, education and health
care.

But the tribe’s leaders today view the treaties as a trap ? promising much but
providing just enough to create a culture of dependency and despair. “The
government wanted us to feel defeated and we played right in to their hands,”
says Two Bulls. “We were taught to feel defeated. Look how they brought welfare
and our people lived on welfare and some of our people don’t even know how to
work. They’re used to just staying at home all day, watching TV and drinking and
taking drugs. That’s the state the government wanted us to be in and we’re in
it.”

Poverty and overcrowding

It is a state Adelle Brown Bull has spent her life resisting, not always with
success. The 69-year-old great-grandmother is still in the same tribal-owned
house she raised her eight children in, and some of them never moved out. Today
the two-bedroomed home is stuffed with grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
She sits at her kitchen table, the green wall behind her dotted with photographs
of the generations of babies. Some of the pictures are so old they are in black
and white.

Among those living with Brown Bull are a daughter and her three children who are
all in their 20s. Two of the granddaughters have several children of their own,
one of them a baby. There’s another grandchild, nine-year-old Michael, who Brown
Bull is raising after his mother in effect abandoned him when he was 10 months
old. The numbers fluctuate but there is anywhere between eight and 15 people
sleeping in the house at any one time.

None of the occupants has a job. Brown Bull gets a pension of $538 (?337) a
month, plus $323 (?202) for caring for Michael. The other mothers in the house
get welfare cheques of a few hundred dollars a month. “We just manage,” Brown
Bull says, laughing.

The house shows its age and the wear and tear of so many residents. The tribal
housing authority has just replaced the window frames because they were letting
so much wind in. But it is almost impossible to heat the house, a common problem
on the reservation where residents typically nail plastic over the outside of
their windows in the winter as insulation.

Brown Bull’s house was built in the wake of President John F Kennedy’s pledge to
include Native American reservations in the US public housing programme. That
led to a boom in construction through the 60s and 70s, when many of Pine Ridge’s
homes were put up. But in the 80s, Ronald Reagan shifted public housing policy
dramatically away from new construction.

These days, Pine Ridge relies on a $10m-a-year housing grant from Congress that
is only enough to pay for the most basic maintenance ? such as combating the
poisonous black mould that infects many of the houses ? and the construction of
about 40 new homes each year. Which is far from enough.

“When you get two or three families living in a house, it affects the whole way
of life here ? education, health,” says Paul Iron Cloud, a former Pine Ridge
president and now head of its housing authority. “Our people have a tendency to
take people in, maybe their relatives who don’t have no place to go. So they all
share that house.”

Last year, the federal government offered to fulfil part of its treaty
obligations by selling the tribe old houses from an airforce base, no longer
considered fit for service personnel, at a dollar each. The Pine Ridge
authorities agreed but when the houses arrived they were charged $25,000 for the
removal costs of each one ? and then discovered the buildings were badly
battered, with walls torn off and windows smashed in. The houses sit in a yard
to this day, giving the impression of having been torn up by their roots.

Two Bulls regards overcrowded, bad housing as an important part of the
explanation for the loss of self-worth. Brown Bull sees it in her own family.
Among the baby pictures on the wall are photographs of two grandchildren serving
in the military. “That one’s signed on for a few more years,” says Brown Bull,
pointing to a young woman in a smart army uniform. “She’s in Afghanistan now.
She says she might as well stay in the military because there’s nothing for her
here. No job. The only place she can live is with me. I have another grandson in
the army in Afghanistan. He says the same thing.”

Most of this goes unnoticed in the rest of America. “Some of them still think we
live in teepees,” says Alison Yellow Hair, a former shipyard worker wrapped up
in a thick coat inside her freezing caravan. “Since we own the land they think
we’re rich and we shouldn’t have to be working. We should be living high off the
hog. I got a lot of that down there at the shipyards. You’re Indian, aren’t you?
Yeah. Don’t you get a cheque every week? Jeez, if I got a cheque every week I
wouldn’t be down here busting my ass for a pay cheque or trying to keep up with
my health insurance payments.”

Now she is back in Pine Ridge, Yellow Hair and her husband, Walter, do get a
cheque from the tribe’s general assistance fund ? $117 (?73) between them each
week. They live in a small caravan cocooned behind a pile of cardboard boxes and
plastic trunks stuffed with clothes and furniture that cannot fit in to the
cramped home, plastic sheeting protecting it all against the snow. Inside, there
is little more than a few cooking utensils, a tiny heater that stays off most of
the time and a large pile of blankets and duvets that they wrap themselves in to
keep warm after the sun goes down and the temperature sinks to -35C (-30F) with
the wind chill. There’s no running water and no electricity. “The heater runs on
kerosene,” says Walter. “Two gallons costs $25. We can use that in two days if
we leave it on.”

Walter used to work as a janitor until the tribal authorities laid off staff
five years ago. He hasn’t found a job since. Alison built ships in Oregon. “I
did 10 years in the shipyards before I came home and I’ve been home about 10
years. Haven’t really been able to get a steady job since I moved back. Can’t
make my money like I used to. Got hurt on the job while I was at the shipyards.
I was leaning back on a catwalk because a boilermaker went off to get some more
welding rods and the safety guy that was supposed to take care of us stepped on
me and pinned my arm. His weight was 250lb and he pushed my arm down on that
metal catwalk and it messed up my arm and shoulder ever since.”

There are jobs to be had but they are mostly working for the tribe in one form
or another. One of the largest employers is the tribal-owned Prairie Wind Casino
alongside the road between Pine Ridge town and the huge tourist draw of Mount
Rushmore. The casino was built in an attempt to replicate the small fortunes
made by other tribes but it is a sad affair, too isolated to make real money. On
a cold winter night there is no one at the card tables and most of those playing
the slots come from the reservation.

The curse of alcohol

The streets of Pine Ridge, the town that carries the same name as the
reservation, are dead at night. Aside from a Pizza Hut and a recently opened
Subway sandwich bar, there is not much open as dusk falls.

What street life there is occurs in Whiteclay, a few steps across the
reservation’s border with neighbouring Nebraska. Whiteclay has a couple of dozen
registered residents but no school, church or community centre. There’s only one
street, the main road due south. And there is only one type of business along
the 50 metres that makes up the town: alcohol.

A bar and three liquor stores, all rotting, dilapidated buildings, sell more
than 4m cans and bottles of cheap beer and rough, powerful malt liquor each
year. Almost all of it is to people from Pine Ridge, where alcohol has long been
banned.

A woman stands almost motionless a few steps from the door to State Line Liquor,
rocking back and forth as if straining to make that last lunge toward the store.
She is badly underdressed for the biting cold and snow, yet seemingly
impervious. Her face is bloated, her eyes unfocused. A few metres away two men
have passed out in the street. Other Sioux step past to load their pick-up
trucks with Hurricane, a powerful malt liquor glorified in gangsta rap songs
that alcohol-dependence groups in major American cities have tried to curb
because of the social devastation it has caused among minority communities.

Heading back across the state border, a large round sign greets arrivals:
“Alcohol is not allowed on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.” Possession is an
arrestable office, as is intoxication. But the Pine Ridge police captain, Ron
Duke, concedes the law has done little to deter the problem. “At one point we
thought about putting up a border there, making people stop at that border to
check ‘em. But we have all these outlying roads and trails that people use and
we’d probably be defeating our own purpose. We don’t want to be like the Mexican
border where we have to put a fence up all around,” he says.

Duke is bitter at what he sees as the cynicism of the store owners. “See how
rundown that place is? But the people who own those bars are millionaires. We
made them millionaires, the people here. Yet they treat us that way,” he says.
“I’ve been in law enforcement for 25 years. People I used to take to jail, their
kids and now their grandkids, I’m dealing with them. I’d say a majority of the
problems we’re having right now, 90% of it is because of alcohol. We don’t
really have an economy where people have the opportunity to get a job. People
have to live off a welfare grant or whatever’s available for them. That really
makes it tough on our people. Then they turn to alcohol, they turn to violence.”

Brown Bull sees the effects in her street. “Every other house is a bootlegger.
You can watch them and see who goes to where. One day I was opening my curtain
in the bedroom and I heard some boys laughing. There was three boys, 10 to 12
years old, standing right next door. They had a big old bottle going around. I
thought, my goodness, these little boys shouldn’t be drinking. They shouldn’t be
selling to these boys. I didn’t like that at all. If you go down the road, in
the back between the houses, there’s so much broken bottles back there,” she
says.

In theory, possession of alcohol is severely punished. The law allows prison
sentences of six months to a year for keeping or selling beer. But it’s more
common for those arrested to be held overnight and fined $25 court costs ? a
fraction of the money they make from selling beer.

That might be about to change. Like much of the rest of America, the Oglala
Sioux have decided that the way to deal with crime is to spend scarce resources
on bigger prisons. The reservation authorities have built a new 280-cell jail to
replace the old prison that crammed up to 200 inmates in to 25 cells. It’s
likely that many of the young will end up there. Rampant alcoholism has created
a raft of problems, but none more serious than the alienation of the tribe’s
young people. Hundreds have retreated in to gangs modelled on the black and
Latino ones of Los Angeles and Chicago, with names such as the Nomads and Indian
Mafia. The gangs are part of a surge in violent crime.

“Parents and grandparents are afraid of their own kids,” says Duke. “They’re
taking their money for drugs and alcohol. Parents can’t control their own
children. They attack their own relatives for money.”

Others, of course, find release by taking their own lives. Delia Big Boy only
survived because she was discovered in time. “They found me and I got sent to
the hospital,” she says, her voice breaking. “When I did that, my Auntie, she
came and talked to me and she invited me in to her home. I’ve been living with
her since. That changed a lot.” These days Big Boy counsels other young people
as part of the Sweetgrass network which encourages children in despair to call
or send text messages. “I get calls all the time from friends and others.
Usually it’s because of the way their parents treat them. They don’t feel loved.
Our parents are not always good parents on this reservation,” she says. “I tell
them to focus on their big dreams about college and the military. I want to go
to university to study chemistry.”

Rash of suicides

The 14 year-old girl, Mariah Montileaux, who was buried ? in her traditional
dance dress ? just days before 16-year-old Joshua Kills Enemy, had made no
secret of her plans to kill herself. “The mother knew this girl was attempting
to commit suicide,” says Duke. “Everybody knew yet nobody knew what to do with
her, how to help her. Whether or not anybody could have helped her, that’s what
she wanted to do. She made it known: I’m going to kill myself.”

After Kills Enemy’s death, the Pine Ridge high school principal, Robert Cook,
surveyed students and concluded that one in five of the 370 pupils were at risk.
Nine were immediately taken to the Indian Health Service because of what Cook
described as “impending suicide”.

Duke’s men are frequently the ones to cut the victims down. “The hardest ones
are the kids. The deaths are disturbing but so are the funerals,” he says. “At
the funerals you see the glamorised attention they get. They’ve got their names
written all over the windows in honour of this kid because he took his life.
Kids see that. Kids want attention. This is how they’re going to get attention.
I’ve heard them say: when I go, I hope that’s how they honour me.”

In fact, Native Americans teenagers are more likely to kill themselves than any
other minority group. Some statistics show the rate at three times the national
average. But those figures shield the fact that self-harm is most likely to
occur on poorer reservations, such as Pine Ridge and neighbouring Rosebud; here
rates are far higher.

The tribal government is attempting to entice businesses to the reservation,
including a wind farm. One local entrepreneur is building an increasingly
successful business shipping buffalo and cranberry health bars around the
country. But Two Bulls and other Oglala Sioux leaders know that it will take the
kind of money that only the federal government can provide to begin to turn the
situation around: their hopes are pinned on Obama, who has told them: “You will
not be forgotten as long as I’m in this White House.”

Two Bulls believes him. “It’s just like we’re being held down and my message
every time I go to Washington DC is we are a government, a nation, right in your
backyard, and you should be treating us like that but you’re not,” she says.
“But this administration is different. They’re listening. I got the sense of
understanding from these people.”

Iron Cloud, the former reservation president, says he too believes Obama but
intends to ensure he doesn’t forget his promise. “What I feel is kinda like a
light at the end of the tunnel where the Obama administration is looking at some
new beginnings for the minorities and the poor people to have some jobs and give
more money to education. Just taking care of our people in a better way than
they have been.

“Obama understands, but then there’s Congress. If we can get enough of our
tribal leaders ? and I’m talking 500 tribes coming together and flooding the
halls of Congress ? and just say to them that it’s time to take a good look at
Indian tribes. We were the first Americans ? and I know it’d have an impact.”

Chris McGreal is the Guardian’s Washington correspondent.

Red Flags Regarding Michelle Rhee,Stop the Canonization by the Press

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:17:28 +0000

There is a large and vocal support of Michelle Rhee in the press. I beg to differ and to offer an opinion and some research that the reporters, and her friends have not examined to think about her policies.No one speaks for many who have worked in urban, or rural or
difficult education for years without any support, funding or publicity. Maybe some of these people should attend the Think Tanks on Scholarship to tell their truths or at least question the soothsayers.

I am a citizen of Washington DC. I have taught in a school in my neighborhood in South west. No, I am not one of her victims. I taught in Arlington, Virginia for years, I taught in DODDS schools in Baumholder, GDE, and I have taught using technology in every state in the US but Montana, and North Dakota. I am not unaware of the plight of the Native American students, nor the Hispanic students. I am the digital equity chair of two educational organizations and we study these ideas and talk about them for our members, this essay however, reflects my own views.

Empowerment and Enterprise Zones

I taught in an initiative for the White House that crossed the country in areas of need and especially in urban areas. I have friends wo have invited me to Mississippi to teach and it was a wonderful experience, I have worked in 22 countries in educational technology during WSIS and for the GAID. The work in developing nations is not much different that the problem of the places without broadband. The key to successful education is teacher professional development of a quality nature.

My Beef, The Canonization of Ms . Rhee as the only Educational Leader

The Wall Street Journal recently wondered out loud why Michelle Rhee is not supported by the President.

Heavens forbid such a thing should happen!

Ms. Rhee is a business entrepreneur. She has worked her way into the think tanks of the rich and famous along with Mayor Bloomberg. She had a very brief teaching experience in Baltimore. She admits that in her short time of teaching that she was not very good.

Her plan works well economically, dump the older teachers, close and consolidate the schools and save the mayor money. Oh and get rid of the Union influence. This has been brought before the think tanks of the US. You know, the ones that most of us cannot afford. They cost anywhere from $4,000 to $10,000.
Regular people are not able to attend these thought police programs.

The programs bring her out as a provocative speaker. She is their rock star.
Her project is Teach for America. The ideas of the project are not bad. That students go to the best schools and then dedicate their time to schools in need is not a bad one.

There is some conflict for the jobs within the grasp of those who finish in the
Minority Serving Colleges and Universities, but that is a minor blip. Teach for America is less expensive than hiring the recent graduates of the colleges and universities in the regions and who may have very dedicated students who are hoping to be the base of broadening engagement for America as well.
The economic base works. If you are not one of the older teachers or one of the minority teachers seeking to work in your own area.

Achievements? Depends on What you Read!! Who Do you Believe?

ONLY ONE CONCLUSION can be drawn from national tests showing D.C. public schools outpacing many of their big-city peers in bettering students’ math skills: The reforms being undertaken by Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee are working. But even as the District celebrates the loss of its dubious status as one of the nation’s worst school systems, the sobering reality is there is still a long way to go before it can boast about its public education system.

New findings released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department showed the District making dramatic gains in fourth- and eighth-grade math on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Of the big cities studied, the District was the only one to post gains of more than five points in both grades; only two other big cities have ever done that, with the last having done so in 2005. D.C. now ranks 11th out of 18 urban school systems at the fourth-grade level, and 13th out of 18 at the eighth-grade level.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/09/AR2009120903940.html

Red flags regarding Michelle Rhee

Regarding the Dec. 10 editorial “Doing the math in D.C.”:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2009/12/13/AR2009121302446.html

As a former D.C. public schoolteacher, I find it perplexing that The Post’s editorial board continues to participate in Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee’s cult-of-personality campaign despite a body of evidence, some reported in these very pages, that much of what has been accomplished is an illusion.

Ms. Rhee has gone as far as to comment that previous test gains were the result of picking “low-hanging fruit.” Moreover, the recent internal and external investigations into cheating and the changes in the number of students who can be given alternative assessments are indicative of an administration that is scrambling to educate itself in the realities of the classroom.

Chancellor Rhee says, “Students [defied] naysayers who told me two years ago that the school district of D.C. was a lost war for the prosperity of children’s minds.”

The low Hanging Fruit..? The work done by Clifford Janey!!

This from the Washington Post

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2009/12/janey_says_footprint_still_fre.html

When Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee met with reporters last week to tout the District’s improved math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) , she did it with a nod to her predecessor, Clifford Janey. It was under Janey, who was dismissed by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty after Fenty took control of the public school system in 2007, that the six year rise in NAEP scores began.

In Janey’s view, the shout-out wasn’t necessary.

“The Janey footprint is there and it needs no excavation to be seen,” he said in a phone interview last week from his office in Newark, N.J., where he has served as superintendent of schools since mid-2008. “Those in-the-know, know. I don’t need affirmation to know we made some incredible acts of transformation in Washington D.C. over a short period of time that is evidenced now much more publicly through the NAEP.”

Janey said that one of his first tasks after he came to the District in 2004 was to find a new standardized test to replace the Stanford 9, which he said lacked rigor.

“The first thing I did in he first month of my tenure was organize a group of teachers, administrators and community advocates and members of the business community,” Janey said. “I tasked them to research the very best content standards and curriculum frameworks at the state level and to see who was making faster improvement on the NAEP.”

Permission?

What Michelle Rhee is good at is holding NCLB, as the mantra for her doctrine of what should happen in schools. We DC citizens are crippled by the lack of an active voice on the hill that matters, and in DC by a lack of interest in school policies as to what the community wants. You have only to read Bill Turque’s columns to see the difficulty.

Hidden problems are the moving around of school populations , not that gang territories should be the map of the way schools are designated for closure.

There have always been members of the minority populations who have given their all to upraise their race, culture and minority group. There have always been those who stood in harms way to make a difference. There have also been those who have not had a Harvard, or Brown education, nothing from the Ivy League, but they have soldiered on working with students who have been in the direst need. The implications of the press are that none of us have ever made a difference and that we have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.

Ms Rhee holds the doctrine of No Child Left Behind as her mantra for chance.
The National Academy, National Research Council, Washington DC neither Republican, or Democratic in nature examined the assessment practices of NCLB , both negative and positive and found them wanting. The testing specialists are called pyschometricians. You can find all of their presentations on this home page and reach your own conclusions.

The goal to reach all children was a great one. But there were problems that exceed the positive impact of reaching out to every child. The system is broken
Education needs change in many ways. As we use the participatory cultures in technology we are aware that there is a digital, a content , an information and a technology divide.

Here is where educators are now, we share formal and informal learning practices using participatory cultures that foster and motivate student development of the skills needed to achieve in a new media learning environment that will lead toward workforce readiness for the 21st Century. .

We feature broadening engagement in the use of emerging technologies with referential case studies, research and books, as well as videos from the George Lucas Educational Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences and provide examples of how digital media empower youth, and encourages self-directed learning, unfolds in three stages of progressively greater immersion and learning: what they label as “hanging out,” “messing around,” and “geeking out.”

Finally, we connect the dots to STEM and the computational sciences with games, and virtual learning initiatives that go from data to discovery and scientific learning that identifies and nurtures pools of potential STEM talent ?

Since No Child Left Behind was created testing has taken over our schools. Not just the testing for the program , the state tests, the interim tests, the practice tests, the grade level tests, and the school focus tests. Even in the best of teaching situations, testing has become out of control. Think AYP. Thinking about it is one thing individualizing it for a school a difficult problem.One has only to look at the matrix of the tests that have been created in Washington DC to see that testing has become teaching. The board said that innovation had been strangled in our schools and offered new ways or working.

People who should be brought forward with new ideas in education, are people like Dr, Chris Dede,Dr. Shirley Malcom, Dr. Norm Augustine, Dr. Paul Resta, Dr. Robert Panoff. But maybe they are not “sexy” enough. Maybe the Barbie doll syndrome even fits in education. Maybe you have to be “cute” to get a voice.
Maybe reporters don’t do their homework even through contacts with their own networks?

Food for Thought

Best Practices workshop last Thursday and Friday, December 10-11. The videos are now posted, and the links appear on the attached agenda. As a reminder, here is the link to the project site with power points.

http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bota/B

est_Practices_Homepage.html Please feel free to share these links with anyone you think might be interested.
Best Practices for State Assessment Systems: Improving Assessment while Revisiting Standards
www7.nationalacademies.org
Board on Testing and Assessment The National Academies 500 5th Street, NW – 11th Floor Washington, D.C. 20001 Tel: 202-334-2353 Fax: 202-334-1294 E-mail: bota1@nas.edu

So we are on another journey to find a solution. State Standards are the New Movement.

First Ever Computer Science Education Week

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:51:04 +0000

December 7, 2009— The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and its
partners are launching Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) to
uncover and remedy the inadequacy of the nation’s computer science
education system at the K-12 level. While 5 of the top 10 fastest
growing jobs are in computing-related fields, the percent of schools
with rigorous high school computing courses fell from 40 percent to 27
percent from 2005 to 2009. The last 60 years witnessed an
extraordinary burst of innovation and talent that have produced a
nation where most can scarcely remember life without computers. Yet
this innovation-based society is at risk if students are not learning
fundamental computing knowledge in our nation’s schools.

“CSEdWeek is a new national movement to raise awareness of the
significance of computer science in our daily lives and our economy,”
said John White, CEO of ACM. “We need to make a concrete connection in
people’s minds between that reality and the need to focus on computing
knowledge in K-12 classrooms. The conversation about computer science
education speaks directly to the issues of innovation, competitiveness,
and a healthy future.”

Watch John White’s introduction to CSEdWeek on the official YouTube
channel: http://www.youtube.com/CSEdWeek

Computer Science Education Week, December 6-12, 2009, recognizes that
computing:
Touches everyone’s daily lives and plays a critical role in society
Drives innovation and economic growth
Provides rewarding job opportunities
Prepares students with the knowledge and skills they need for the
21st
century

Why is Computer Science Education Important?
It exposes students to critical thinking
It is essential for success in the digital age
Too few students are exposed to opportunities presented by computer
science

Educators, parents, policymakers, professionals and students are
invited to become part of this important effort by utilizing the
valuable resources on this web site.
Computer Science Education Week is a joint effort led by ACM with the
cooperation and deep involvement of the Computer Science Teachers
Association, the Computing Research Association, the National Center
for Women & Information Technology, the Anita Borg Institute, the
National Science Foundation, Google, Inc., Intel, and Microsoft. The
U.S. House of Representatives passed the resolution creating CSEdWeek,
which was introduced by Congressmen Vernon Ehlers (R-MI) and Jared
Polis (D-CO).

Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek), December 6-12, recognizes
the critical role of computing in society and the need to expose more
students to the opportunities Computer Science presents.

The week was designated in honor of Grace Murray Hoppers’ Birthday on
December 9th. While living in Arlington, we students had the priviledge
of meeting Grace Hopper.

H. Res. 558

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

Enacted on October 20, 2009.

Whereas computing technology has become an integral part of culture
and is transforming how people interact with each other and the world
around them;
Whereas computer science is transforming industry, creating new
fields
of commerce, driving innovation in all fields of science, and
bolstering productivity in established economic sectors;
Whereas the field of computer science underpins the information
technology sector of our economy, which is a significant contributor to
United States economic output;
Whereas the information technology sector is uniquely positioned to
help with economic recovery through the research and development of new
innovations;

Whereas National Computer Science Education Week can inform
students,
teachers, parents, and the general public about the crucial role that
computer science plays in transforming our society and how computer
science enables innovation in all science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics disciplines and creates economic opportunities;
Whereas providing students the chance to participate in
high-quality
computer science activities, including through science scholarships,
exposes them to the rich opportunities the field offers and provides
critical thinking skills that will serve them throughout their lives;
Whereas all students deserve a thorough preparation in science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics education, including access to
the qualified teachers, technology, and age-appropriate curriculum
needed to learn computer science at the elementary and secondary levels
of education;
Whereas these subjects provide the critical foundation to master
the
skills demanded by our 21st century workforce;
Whereas computer science education has challenges to address,
including distinguishing computer science from technology literacy and
providing adequate professional development for computer science
teachers;
Whereas the field of computer science has significant equity
barriers
to address, including attracting more participation by females and
underrepresented minorities to all levels and branches;
Whereas Grace Murray Hopper, one of the first females in the field
of
computer science, engineered new programming languages and pioneered
standards for computer systems which laid the foundation for many
advancements in computer science; and
Whereas the week of December 7, in honor of Grace Hopper’s
birthday,
is designated as “National Computer Science Education Week”: Now,
therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) supports the designation of National Computer Science Education
Week;
(2) encourages schools, teachers, researchers, universities, and
policymakers to identify mechanisms for teachers to receive cutting
edge professional development to provide sustainable learning
experiences in computer science at all educational levels and encourage
students to be exposed to computer science concepts;

(3) encourages opportunities, including through existing programs, for
females and underrepresented minorities in computer science; and

(4) supports research in computer science to address what would
motivate increased participation in this

resources
http://www.csedweek.org/CSEDWeek

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:03:13 +0000

Dialing Up the Digital Divide

Maybe those connected really don’t care about us!!

One of the following stories of the digital divide is a story of of the suburbs near Washington. I live in Washington DC, my family lives in Fairfax and I travel all over the US in my work to see and understand the various aspects of the DIgital Divide. I am passionate about the work because I am an accidental technology pioneer and I am a woman, and a teacher.

In the discussion of the digital divide opinions like mine are often dismissed.Many teachers have been overlooked in the quest for the meaningful use of technology. Lots of men want to cut to the chase and leapfrog over the teachers. I find that insulting. It is also short sighted in that teachers do indeed touch the future.

Is there still a Digital Divide?

Sure there is. As long as technology advances there will be a digital divide. We can at least talk about it again,this is a new administration. We have been asked by the FCC, the Dept of Education and other groups to give voice to our frustration and angst with the uses of technology. Of course the problem is that those who need to talk to us the most about the digital divide may not be connected.

I am a Digital Pioneer, and I helped to write the documents that helped the US to think of how we might use the Internet. The NIIAC KickStart Initiative was the first major effort by the private sector to identify the importance of integrating technology into the classrooms and to develop an initiative to make it happen. Then, in February of 1996, President Clinton issued his technology literacy challenge, at which time he challenged leaders from across the country to work together to connect all schools to the Internet by the year 2000. It did not happen.

As part of his challenge, President Clinton identified four critical elements — these have become known as the “four pillars.” These are:
Connections — Ensuring that all schools are connected to the Internet
Hardware — Ensuring that schools have adequate hardware for instructional use
Content — Ensuring that appropriate content exists for teachers to integrate into their curricula
Professional Development — Ensuring that teachers are equipped with the necessary skills to integrate the technology into the curriculum.

That was two administrations ago and a whole decade of student have grown up since then. I understand the plight of many teachers who have had little or no real training to be fluid users of media in their work. I also know that there are teachers who are not ready for the depth of knowledge that students can reach with the tiniest of fingers, on the Internet. It is true that many students do not know how to judge the information they attain as to accuracy. But that is only a small part of the story. First you need to be connected in meaningful ways.

Wiki, Blog? Twitter? Second Life , White Board.. Or?Ed Tech Pedagogy?

My story is variable. I work in Outreach to the use of Educational technology. I am an accidental pioneer in the use of technology, because a child had a need. I am always racing to learn the newest application, to finesse the uses of technology and sometimes I am behind in my learning. I am a minority who fell into the use of technology at the National Geographic for a summer and then later with the NASA educational portals and projects, and other prominent partnerships. I am a Christa McAuliffe Educator. I don’t believe in just vendored solutions to the problem of the digital divide. There are products that make a difference but the real difference has to be in changing the way in which we teach.

I like this paragraph too, in a recent Bob Herbert Opinion in the New York Times.

Bob says, ” For me, the greatest national security crisis in the United
States is the crisis in education. We are turning out new generations
of Americans who are whizzes at video games and may be capable of
tweeting 24 hours a day but are nowhere near ready to cope with the
great challenges of the 21st century.”

“An American kid drops out of high school at an average rate of one
every 26 seconds. In some large urban districts, only half of the
students ever graduate. Of the kids who manage to get through high
school, only about a third are ready to move on to a four-year college.”

“It’s no secret that American youngsters are doing poorly in school at
a time when intellectual achievement in an increasingly globalized
world is more important than ever. International tests have shown
American kids to be falling well behind their peers in many other
industrialized countries, and that will only get worse if radical
education reforms on a large scale are not put in place soon.”

Reality? Reality!

So students have some familiarity with the use of media, but what about
subject content? What about the deep divide in knowledge networks and
access to learning resources. We know that many students, and families
do not have access to broadband, or quality resources based on a lack
of the first problem which is the tool.

They have neither regular access to the Internet at home, limited in some places but not a steady way to use the resources on the Internet. I call these the digitally deficit. They don’t have time to really, explore, examine, evaluate and embed the use of the Internet in their work. They cannot
learn the sophisticated uses of the resources that are available.

Or they don’t have a reliable tool, neither a phone, a Netbook, a PC. They have no easy access to what a lot of people take for granted. Cable is onetype of media they may have some access to and or limited games.

Contrasts/ Maybe They Don’t Really Care about us!!!

I went last month to the Supercomputing Conference in Portland where we talked about the future and saw wonderful things in Supercomputing, to a rural tribal area in Oregon where I only could do dialup, and it was much too slow for my work. I was busy all day at the conference and had no clue that in a few days I would be basically unconnected for days. My hosts did not have broadband it was also not available to me in the community without driving long distances in the dark over treacherous roads.

You probably don’t know the disconnect in rural areas, and I am very sure that you would be surprised about the disconnect in tribal areas of the US.

Recently a group of tribes went to the FCC.

Among the key policy recommendations in the NPM New Media Study are that the Federal government needs to:

Implement a new and robust strategic initiative targeting Tribal communications development.

Create a Tribal Broadband Plan within the National Broadband Plan.

Create new means of effectuating consultation and coordination with Tribal governments.

Undertake Universal Service Fund Reform to recognize the unique characteristic of both Tribal Lands and Tribal cultures.
Increase access to spectrum and remove barriers to use of spectrum by Tribal Entities.

Undertake greater federal funding and education, and the creation of a new federal program mechanism to support further connectivity and adoption within Native Nations

Support future additional research and analysis.

Beyond Tribes!!

I have a dear friend who lives near Olympia That was where I went next.. She only uses dialup once a week. Her eyes were wide in wonder as I snapped pictures with my IPhone. The GPS was new to her too. She did have limited channels of television on Comcast. She would have loved the FoodNetwork. I was able to show her how to pull recipes from the web.
She is not a minority, nor poor. She just was not into the technology of today. We do email together. I never knew that she had limited technology resources. This was In rural Washington State.

What No Connections?

No broadband was available to me until I checked into a posh hotel. I curled up at the fireplace and attacked the mountains of email that had waited for me. In the rural place I did have an IPhone, but checking my vast correspondence with the IPhone was a task I could not accomplish. I work a lot with developing nations. Perhaps we have many places in the US that also qualify as places of need.

My other tools worked just fine.I could find and locate the places I wanted to drive to by satellite. Most of the time my cell phone worked.

Who Tells the Stories of the Digitally Deficit?

In my work I carry a DVD from the George Lucas Education Foundation in my purse to tell the story of the DIgital Natives.

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation.

I don’t think many people are telling the stories of those who are digitally deficit.I admire the work of the Department of Education in outreach, but many of the people they need to talk to are unaware of the best uses of technology. You can just check into the school system in the District of Columbia to see what I mean, if you wanted to test my theory. Even, however in Virginia, once you drop below Richmond, Virginia teachers tell me that they cannot access most of the sites i want them to use in workshops. It is a fact.

. There is also a group that does not have a clue as to what they are missing who do not do the participatory culture, or much beyond a possible cell phone, and or video games. They would never quality to write a story for the various foundations because they are not equipped to use the new tools of media that are a part of the application, except perhaps in a guided experience at school or in a learning place where technology is used. What would happen if the NTIA and or other groups had a way of letting people tell their digitally deficit story?

There are digital natives, digital immigrants, and the digitally
deficit, as well as digital pioneers. When you are cruising on the net,
poking in the cloud, using your 2.0 applications you may forget that
there are people who cannot, on a regular basis access the content you
can on the net.

According to the Pew Charitable Trust,

http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2009/Home-Broadband-Adoption-2009.pdf

Home broadband adoption stood at 63% of adult Americans as of April
2009,up from 55% in May, 2008.
The latest findings of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American
Life Project mark a departure from the stagnation in home high-speed
adoption rates that had prevailed from December, 2007 through December,
2008. During that period, Project surveys found that home broadband
penetration remained in a narrow range between 54% and 57%.

According to the report the greatest growth in broadband adoption in
the past year has taken place among population subgroups which have
below average usage rates. Among them:

Senior citizens: Broadband usage among adults ages 65 or older grew
from 19% in
May, 2008 to 30% in April, 2009.

Low-income Americans: Two groups of low-income Americans saw strong
broadband growth from 2008 to 2009.
Respondents living in households whose annual household income is
$20,000 or
less, saw broadband adoption grow from 25% in 2008 to 35% in 2009.
Respondents living in households whose annual incomes are between
$20,000
and $30,000 annually experienced a growth in broadband penetration from
42%
to 53%.

The important clue here is respondents. If you don’t have access you
can’t respond to the query, and give a voice to your frustration. Maybe
you don’t have frustration because you don’t know what you are missing.
Maybe you don’t care!!

Digital divide narrows, but gap remains for many

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/05/AR2009120501746.html

By Annie Gowen
Saturday, December 5, 2009 1:41 PM

Julija Pivoriunaite’s heart sinks when one of her teachers at Glasgow
Middle School announces that the class must go online to do a homework
assignment. It happens almost every school day.

Julija’s mind whirls with the complicated — and stressful — options
available to get her assignments done, as her family has no reliable
Internet service at home. The 11-year-old could work after school in
her Fairfax County school’s computer lab, but she said it’s only open
two days a week. The library has free computers, but students can only
work for a limited time if it’s busy. Finding rides is tough.

“I see my friends do their work, and I struggle to get the access I
need. It makes me sad,” said Julija, 11, a hoodie-wearing blond whose
fluent English betrays little hint that she came here from Lithuania
just a few years ago. She keeps asking her parents for high-speed
Internet and the answer is always the same: Soon, soon, but money’s
tight.

The digital divide has narrowed dramatically in the last ten years.
Roughly two-thirds of American households now report using the Internet
at home, according to the U.S. Census. In the affluent Washington
suburbs, the numbers are even higher; more than 90 percent of Fairfax
households with children have home computers, according to a recent
survey by the school system.

But even in Fairfax, the digital divide lives on in the study carrels
of Woodrow Wilson library. Most afternoons, the Falls Church library is
crowded with students from low-income or immigrant families using
computers. While they live in one of the richest counties in the
nation, these students recount skipping lunch to work at school labs or
trudging up to 45 minutes to the library after the school day is over.

Such effort is necessary because students are doing more and more of
their work online — reading textbooks, watching podcasts, posting on
discussion boards and creating PowerPoint presentations. The most
searched-for term in the D.C. area this year was “fcps blackboard”
according to Google. That’s the county’s 24-hour online system where
teachers post homework assignments and study guides, children ask
questions or participate in discussion groups, and parents monitor
classwork and grades.

University of Southern California professor Henry Jenkins calls this
new phase of the digital divide the “participation gap” — the huge
chasm between students who have 24-7 access to the Internet at home
versus those struggling to do their work in public spaces. Those with
home access have a big advantage because they’ll have ample time to
develop social networking, research and other skills necessary to
succeed later on, Jenkins said.

Without a computer, “There’s a kind of a wall, a barrier to the world,”
explained Ying Wu, 18, a senior at J.E.B. Stuart High School.

She earned a 4.2 G.P.A. in the school’s International Baccalaureate
program despite the fact that she did not have a computer at home until
recently. She says she got really good at coping skills like writing
her papers out longhand then typing them out “so fast” at school. She
filched her sister’s library card so she could get more than her
allotted time at the library. It’s another complicated calculus – card
holders can only work in two 30 minute increments if others are
waiting, for a total of 60 minutes a day.

She remembers looking longingly at a classmate’s elaborate PowerPoint
project on eco-friendly medical technology, trimmed with pictures of
doctors and solar panels, that she would never have had time to do. She
worked at a Borders book store this summer so she could buy herself a
$700 Dell laptop.

“This is the most expensive thing I have,” Wu said, rubbing it
lovingly. “It’s the whole point of my world.”

Administrators said they work to accommodate students like these by
opening school libraries and computers labs before and after school and
at lunch. The district has 103,000 computers, about 90 percent of them
available for student use.

But the effort is complicated because many lower-income students take
the bus home right after school to care for younger siblings or work
jobs to support their families.

“We are limited unfortunately because of the situation of many of our
students,” said Pamela Jones, the principal at J.E.B. Stuart, where 40
percent of students hail from other countries and more than half are
eligible for free and reduced lunches, a key indicator of poverty.
“It’s hard for them.”

This year the school instituted a 40-minute study period called “Raider
Time” built into the school day aimed at those who can’t stay after
school.

Students said their instructors showed varying degrees of sympathy for
their plight.

“They don’t want to hear excuses,” said Daritza Perla, 16, a junior at
Edison High School. She was cited for being tardy earlier this year
after she got held up at the school library trying to print an
assignment out. “Most of my teachers are pretty understanding, but they
would prefer to have it on time.”

Her mother, Maria, 49, said in Spanish that she and her husband, an
auto mechanic, would love to buy Daritza a computer, but can’t afford
it. She worries that she misses important news from school by not
having email and wishes her daughter was home more instead of
constantly at the library.

“It gives me sadness and frustration,” she said. “I would prefer she be
here.”

Librarians at Woodrow Wilson crafted an excuse note for 15-year-old
Juan Henriquez after he lost a eight-page paper on the Bill of Rights
because his session on the computer timed out before he’d saved his
work.

“I felt mad,” Juan recalled recently. “I didn’t know what I was going
to do.”

Librarians often find themselves stepping out of their traditional
roles to become part counselors, part social workers to the students.

“Even in one of the richest counties in the country, there are pockets
…where people don’t have access to modern technology,” said Mohammed
Esslami, the Woodrow Wilson branch manager. Fairfax has the
second-highest median income in the country, second only to neighboring
Loudoun County.

Juan, the son of Salvadoran immigrants, said he prefers working at the
library because if he stays after to work in the school lab he gets too
hungry. He usually takes the bus home and eats a quick dinner of beans,
chicken and rice his mother has left him before heading out to study.

He lives in one of the many low-slung brick apartment complexes in the
Culmore neighborhood just off Route 7 in Fairfax. From there, it’s a
short walk to Best Buy, where he often goes to look at the shiny
laptops for sale. He wishes he had one. But he insisted he doesn’t envy
his classmates who do.

“I don’t feel jealous for nobody,” he said.

A minute later he sees a reporter whip out a small BlackBerry. His eyes
widened.

“Do you have WiFi on that?” he asked.

Call for Chapter Proposals: Ethics and Game Design

david.gibson — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:09:20 +0000

Thank you to everyone who sent in a proposal for Ethics and Game Design: Volume Two.

The proposals were originally due today. Since many of you are still
recuperating from airplane delays, the swine flu, and holiday
shopping, I decided to postpone the deadline one week to Monday,
December 7th, 2009.

Thanks!
Karen
___

I am excited to announce that “Ethics and Game Design: Teaching Values
through Play” will be coming out in February 2010.

The book features the following authors:

Henry Jenkins
Chris Swain
Miguel Sicart
Brenda Brathwaite
John Sharp
Colleen Macklin
Erin Hoffman
John Nordlinger
& many more!

Wish you could have contributed? You still can, because Volume 2 is
coming out in late 2010/early 2011. I invite you all to contribute to the book,
which will provide a diverse and comprehensive compendium of case
studies, theoretical frameworks, and empirical research in the
emerging field of ethics development through games and play. Your
proposal would be due on or before December 7, 2009 (a brief two to
three-page synopsis will suffice), with accepted proposals notified by
December 23, 2009. The full chapter is due by February 15, 2010.

For more detail on what we’re looking for, you can see the full call
below or check out the call for Volume One here:

http://www.columbia.edu/~kls2108/callforchapters.htm

And, please join the Ethics and Game Design Facebook Group at:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=39391086363&ref=ts

Thanks!
Karen Schrier

____________

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS
Proposal Submission Deadline: December 7, 2009
Full Chapter Submission Deadline: February 15, 2010
Designing Games for Ethics: Models, Techniques and Frameworks

A book edited by
Karen Schrier, Columbia University, USA, and Dr. David Gibson,
University of Vermont, USA

To be published by IGI Global:

http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=735

Introduction
Ethics is the practice of enacting moral judgment to achieve a better
life—the process of making choices according to one’s own conception
of how to be a good person. Games and simulations can be rich
playgrounds for the practice of these ethical choices, as they offer
the ability to iterate and reflect on multiple possibilities and
consequences. As such, educators and researchers are beginning to
consider the use of games in supporting ethical reasoning and
character development. Moreover, games have been and continue to be
the subject of conversations, controversies, and deliberations about
ethics. Game developers, publishers, and the public often differ in
opinion about the choices made in the creation, distribution, and
promotion of a game, bringing up larger questions about the role of
entertainment, art, and business in our society. The potential for
games to foster ethical thinking and discourse—and not whether games
are inherently good or bad—will be the thrust of this timely book.

Objective of the Book
Designing Games for Ethics will provide a diverse and comprehensive
compendium of case studies, theoretical frameworks, and empirical
research in the emerging field of ethics, values, games, and play.
This book will take a cross-disciplinary approach, inviting research,
critiques, and perspectives from computer science, education,
philosophy, law, media studies, management, cognitive science,
psychology, and art history. It investigates the following questions:
How do we better design and use games to foster ethical thinking and
discourse? What are the theories and methodologies that will help us
understand, model, and assess ethical thinking in and around games?
How do we use games in classrooms and informal educational settings to
support moral development? A major goal of this collection is to bring
together the diverse and growing community of voices and begin to
define the field, identify its primary challenges and questions, and
establish the current state of the discipline. Such a rigorous
foundation for the study of ethics will help to appropriately inform
future games, policies, standards, curricula, products, and the like.

Target Audience
The target audience is very diverse, ranging from practitioners of
game development to journalists, to philosophers and educators.
Researchers and students studying game design, media and games will
find this an essential text for understanding how to better design,
teach, and study the current generation of learners. Educators will
use this to further their understanding of the potentials and limits
of games, and how to creatively incorporate emerging technology into
their curricula, standards, and policies. Game developers and
publishers can use this text to further their designs, to help refine
their choices and practices, and to better think through the
implications of their decisions. Journalists, cultural critics, and
reviewers can use this publication to consider alternate ways to view
games and the nature of their controversies. Finally, this text will
attract members of diverse academic, development, and consumer
communities to interact, share and discuss findings, frameworks and
theories.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Definition of the field of ethics and games
• Evaluation and formulation of relevant theoretical frameworks
• Methods for assessing ethics in games
• Criteria for studying ethics and games
• Historical and contemporary context of ethics and games
• Case studies (from researchers, educators and practitioners)
• Ethics and literacy
• Ethics and ethics games in the classroom
• Educational opportunities and limits for teaching values through play
• Ethics and standards in game development
• Ethics and the promotion of games
• Communities of play and ethics
• Issues of race, sex, violence and gender in games
• Ethics and transmedia storytelling
• Future implications and the ethical citizen

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before
December7, 2009, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the
mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of
accepted proposals will be notified by December 23, 2009 about the
status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters
are expected to be submitted by February 15, 2010. All submitted
chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Further
information on this publication can be found at:

http://www.columbia.edu/~kls2108/callforchapters.htm.

Publisher
This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea
Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference”
(formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science
Reference,” “Business Science Reference,” and “Engineering Science
Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the
publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This publication is
anticipated to be released in late 2010.

Important Dates
December 7, 2009: Proposal Submission Deadline
December 23, 2009: Notification of Acceptance
February 15, 2010: Full Chapter Submission
March 22, 2010: Review Results Returned
April 15, 2010: Revised Chapter Submission
May 15, 2010: Final Chapter Submission

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) to:

Karen Schrier
Columbia University, USA
E-mail: kschrier@alum.mit.edu

http://www.columbia.edu/~kls2108/callforchapters.htm

They Left No Child Behind Before Others Cared to Think About Minority Chidren

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:00:34 +0000

You never hear me fuss about religious schools, or charter schools, or
most types of schools I have even taught in DODDS Schools and in a
school for dropouts. Teaching is sometimes a challenge but the nuns who
taught me were up to every challenge. So, that is one of the reasons I get fired up
when people like Michelle Rhee make fun of older teachers and do not realize that
these people and others stood in places where no one cared to teach and produced miracles.

My skill in teaching and being able to adjust to the learning landscape
came from observing and being in the schools of these nuns, the Oblate
Sisters of Providence who served in the urban, poor and ghetto
communities of the nation. I was surprised when I found that my school,
Saint Joseph’s was a missionary school. I remember looking at the
envelope for collection a long time. I could not understand why the school was a mission school.
But, it was.

I had no idea how the school was supported. I remember we did class
parties by asking people to bring in potatoes and such, but I never
thought of the finances. There were rummage sales. There were parent meetings.I
remember some students stole the milk by using straws to drink it out
of the bottle. The nuns just let them. They found ways to feed more
children. They also insisted that everyone learn . One of my friends
brothers was in class wth me, my sister and another sister, but they
made him learn. They did not take excuses. they thought a disability
was a chance to help students and they did.We did not laugh at anyone.
Every child was to be a learner. No one was
allowed to play around. If you could do a lot , they encouraged your giftedness.

My mother paid tuition to the nuns since we could afford it. The nuns
had 50 or more students in my time in two grade level groupings and not
a lot of resources, but lots of love. We were taught to be fearless
about learning. We learned our heritage. We listened to classical music
and our own spirituals and sang like angels. We did a play a month.and
we were a learning community. they took us to operas and we sang Irish
songs.. The Josephite Fathers were supporting our schools and the Kelly
Family of Philadelphia.

Most of all in these schools.. there was advanced learning. You could
be skipped I skipped three grades. They used tests to advance people and
to give them wings for learning more. They had a wonderful library. I
had elementary years in Catholic School, my high school was a disaster, but I survived on the
skills the nuns taught me. I went to a ghetto high school , my dad
taught there, shop. electricity et al. Not much was expected of us. I
was a pain in the butt to the other students because of my love of
learning instilled by the nuns. Even a substandard college did not harm my
interests.

Sister gave breakfast to those who ate syrup sandwiches because
there was no food in the home they came from. My mother and father were
teachers, they chose the school for academic purposes. I know lots of
successful doctors,lawyers and teachers who were taught by these nuns.
Mickey Proctor, Marvous Saunders, Arthur Bracey and my sister Barbara
who became a lawyer. That is from one school. There are many successful graduates.
They had standards and courage to stand in places where few dared to
teach and ask for excellence. Please read this article and know that there are older
black teachers who can teach and who do well. Sister Mary Alice was one of my teachers.
Michelle Rhee never met these ladies.

Amid downturn, tough financial times for Oblate Sisters

By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/24/AR2009112403883.html

These are trying times for the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first
Catholic sisterhood started by women of African descent in 1831. The
recession is drying up charitable contributions, and the meager income
they earn from teaching is being lost as aging nuns retire.

Construction of an infirmary at the Our Lady of Mount Providence
motherhouse, the convent just outside of Baltimore where about 50
elderly sisters live, was recently halted for lack of funds.

Earlier this year, the sisters fell three months behind on their
grocery bill; food delivery was stopped until the nuns paid up.

Not that anyone’s complaining.

“Don’t make it sound like we’re destitute,” said Sister Mary Alice
Chineworth, who is 92 and a former superior general of the Oblate
order. “We just had to plan our meals more carefully, eat as little as
possible.”

Then there was the heating oil crisis. The Oblates might have ended up
sleeping in coats and gloves this winter were it not for an anonymous
donor who paid that bill.

“That’s what surprises most of us: God always comes to our aid in
seemingly miraculous ways,” Sister Mary Alice said, still in awe after
75 years as a nun.

Faith in divine Providence — the Oblates have been relying on it since
Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, who was born a slave in Haiti, made her
way to Baltimore and started a sisterhood devoted to educating black
children.

Today, the sisters run St. Frances Academy in Baltimore, where 97
percent of high school graduates go to college.

The Oblate presence had been especially strong in the District, where
nuns taught at St. Augustine, Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian, St. Benedict
the Moor and St. Vincent DePaul.

Sometimes working for as little as a dollar a day, they proved time and
again that any child could be properly educated, regardless of race,
family income, religion or lack thereof. Sister Mary Alice, who
received a doctorate in higher education from Catholic University,
taught fifth grade at St. Augustine.

The days of having nuns like her in urban schools have all but gone.

“We lost 10 sisters last year. . . . the Lord said it was time to call
them home. And we have no prospects to replace them,” Sister Mary Alice
said.

The trend is widespread. Most sisterhoods are shrinking; the average
age of a nun in the United States is 70. For many young women, taking
vows of celibacy and poverty to become “brides of Christ” is just
asking too much.

A generation ago, there were 300 Oblate Sisters of Providence working
in 17 states and several missions abroad. Now there are about 75 –
including the 50 at the convent, which is the motherhouse for the
order. Their only remaining missions are in Buffalo, Miami and Costa
Rica.

To make up for the lost income, the Oblates decided to modernize their
infirmary and make medical services available to the public. They also
planned to renovate the convent — situated on 46 wooded acres — and
rent parts of it for spiritual retreats.

Then the recession hit, and the plans collapsed.

“A lot of people think that we are cared for by Rome, but the
archdiocese mostly takes care of priests,” Sister Mary Alice said. “We
live on charity. But that doesn’t mean we sit back with our hands out.
We work hard to take care of ourselves.”

On Saturday, they held a yard sale at the convent and all but gave away
clothes and household goods that had been donated to them through the
years.

To resume construction of the infirmary, the nuns asked family members
and friends to sponsor bricks at $25 each. About 96,000 bricks are
needed to complete the project. After six months, they had raised
enough to buy 3,000.

At that rate, it will take 16 years to collect them all. Sister Mary
Alice would be 108. “Whatever happens will happen in God’s time, not
ours,” she said.

The nuns pool the money they bring in, then divide it into stipends.
Each person gets $40 a month. “We haunt the thrift shops,” Sister Mary
Alice said. A pair of shoes she wears came from a nun who recently died.

Even with the tight budgeting, however, they don’t always have enough
to make ends meet.

“We’re thinking we could also make candy and sell that, like the
Carmelite sisters,” Sister Mary Alice said. “We can sew, too. We have a
lot of good hands.

http://www.oblatesisters.com

Teacher Outreach Day, November 14, Portland for Supercomputing

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:50:56 +0000

What I love about this project is that we who crafted it are teacher educators, consultants, research people and game developers as well as STEM specialists. We worked together to fill a need for teachers, but our networks must not be good enough. We need a few more teachers to make this go. You can email me bbracey at aol com to register. Our registration was a barrier to some as they did not understand the difference between the SC conference and Teacher Day. We want teachers, professionals, educational experts and teachers working in a knowledgenetwork. We especialy want teachers.

Norm Augustine, Shirley Malcom and a legion of others have testified that STEM and computational knowledge is lacking in K-12. The department of education is looking for innovation. We have innovation and new ideas.

While everyone else is deep in 2.0 the Supercomputing is going on. Here is what we have put together for a conference. . If you have friends who are in the Portland area or if you can comeI need your involvement.

The National Academy of Sciences has had hearings on STEM, on Science Learning and , gaming, simulations in education. A group of us, mostly EOT, NCWIT and others crafted a conference to further that message. This is a group of us who have worked together over months and years to change teaching and learning.

Since the discussion on the Convocation on the Gathering Storm people have been talking about ways to help teachers move to the STEM need and to the new emergence of Supercomputing.

We will explore the connections between what is known about science learning and computer gaming and simulations through discussion and use of models. We will network to provide resources for teachers to continue their learning in this area. There are opportunities for teachers to work at the national labs, to attend NCSI workshops with full support, you just have to get yourself there and we have regional workshops. Jeff Sale will keep us connected through his on ine work.

You might even get a chance to be taught by Dr. Bob Panoff as you continue to work with us.

Here is a sketch of the day

SC-09 Teacher Day
Saturday November 14, 2009
Portland, Oregon
Location: Portland State University- Fariborz Maseeh College of
Engineering and Computer Science
Time: 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM
Schedule
Map. Moodle and other info here.

http://www.computationalscience.org/workshops/9891

9:30 AM – Welcome
9:35 – 10:50 AM – Melanie Stegman: (1) Introduction to Immune Attack –
how to play, installation, learning objectives, general concepts, and
highlights
11:00 AM – 12:30 – Melanie Stegman: (2) How to use Immune Attack in
the Classroom (facilitated discussion)
12:30 – 1:15 PM – Lunch (provided for registered participants and
presenters by the SC-09 Education Committee
1:15 – 2:00 PM – Jeff Sale, San Diego Supercomputer Center – Data
Discovery in the Classroom (hands-on activity on laptops)
Look at the resources .. great stuff. Online components.

http://education.sdsc.edu/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=…

2:00 – 3:15 PM – Pallavi Ishwad, Pittsburg Supercomputer Center –
Exciting Education Programs from PSC for K-12 Teachers

3:15-3:30 PM – Break

3:30 – 4:15 PM – Brad Armosky, Texas Advanced Comp
uting Center – Computational Thinking in Context – Integrating
computational
approaches into your STEM teaching and learning. SC09-TeacherDay-flyer-1-1.pdf

4:15 – 5:00 PM – Blair Baldwin, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry
- OMSI’s Resources and Activities for Computational Science Education –
Local activities, programs, and resources for Portland Area teachers
and students
5:00 – 5:30 PM – Evaluation, Discussion, and Distribution of take-home
materials
Teachers are strongly encouraged to bring their laptops to be able to
participate in the hands-on activities.
We will provide resources from NCWIT.org their resource box.

www.ncwit.org

www.edutopia.org

www.concord.org

Even Heard of Andres Alonso? A Quiet Storm of Change in Baltimore

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:40:59 +0000

I have often commented on the theatrics and the misery of being a citizen of DC with Ms. Rhee as the cheerleader in chief as if we in DC want bad teachers. Its more than teachers, its a national change that has to happen, but there are ways to do it. I guess Andres must not be cute or known about. Read this and see how it should be done. Andres and a few other leaders in education should get some of the play that Michelle Rhee is getting.

Where are the articles on this guy or on Norm Augustine, Convocation on the Gathering Storm sho started the whole conversation about why we NEED change.

baltimoresun.com
Road to reform
Our view: Baltimore’s school reform has been surprisingly low key compared to Washington’s, but it may have the best chance of success of any city in the nation
October 19, 2009

In the last two years, both Baltimore City and the District of Columbia have embarked on ambitious school reform programs led by dynamic new CEOs committed to proving that urban school systems can produce high levels of student achievement.

In both cities there’s enormous popular and political support for reform, and both have adopted similar strategies for change: Reduce the size of central headquarters staff, give principals more authority over budgets and programs and hold teachers accountable for classrom effectiveness.  Yet today the mood of the two cities couldn’t be more different.

In Washington, where city public school students recently posted the highest gains in the country on national standardized tests, Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee is locked in confrontation with the union over contract negotiations and a recent decision to lay off 200 teachers. National labor leaders have called for her ouster, and the city council is holding raucous public hearings on the issue.  By contrast, in Baltimore, where city school students also registered historic gains recently on statewide tests in reading and math, schools chief Andrés Alonso has enjoyed smooth sailing almost from the beginning. Aside from an early tiff with the union over classroom prep time, he’s won the support of teachers, principals, parents and students as well as virtually the city’s entire political establishment – even though his reform agenda is in many ways indistinguishable from Ms. Rhee’s.  What accounts for the difference? It is of course a combination of things – personality, politics and other factors – that make each situation unique.

Baltimore has an appointed school board, for example, whereas Washington effectively abolished its elected school board. The District’s City Council plays a larger role in setting school budgets than Baltimore’s, which adds to the political complexity a schools chief there has to contend with. And in Washington, unlike Baltimore, charter schools are not under the control of the schools chancellor, and there are many more of them to compete with the public schools for staff, students and public resources.  Still, there’s little doubt the personal leadership styles of the two CEOs have largely determined how reform efforts have been received. In public, at least, Mr. Alonso eschews drama.

Ms. Rhee, by contrast, once appeared on the cover of a national news magazine wielding a broom to symbolize her intention of cleaning house.  Both Mr. Alonso and Ms. Rhee have spoken out about the importance of excellent classroom instruction and the need to weed out ineffective teachers. But Ms. Rhee’s tone can seem shrill when she addresses the issue, wheras Mr. Alonso cultivates an intense but non-threatening persona that allows him to mostly avoid public notice even when he is replacing dozens of principals, firing hundreds of uncertified teachers and downsizing North Avenue.  

Aside from personal preferences, however, the only important question such discussions should evoke is this: Which leadership style is more likely to produce the kind of improvements in student achievement that people in both cities want?  We’re betting on Baltimore getting there first, if for no other reason than that Mr. Alonso’s style seems to mesh better with the players in a city that also seems to have fewer structural obstacles in the way of reform than comparable urban school systems. It’s freer from political meddling, enjoys a more harmonious relationship with its unions and is outside the national spotlight that magnifies – and possibly distorts – everything a Washington school superintendent does.  

In fact, former Baltimore City school board member Kalman R. Hettleman says that Baltimore may have the best chance of any American urban school system of reaching the next plateau of achievement, which he describes in an upcoming book as a situation in which two-thirds of poor children score proficient or better on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exams within five years. Low-key and calm as things here may seem in comparison to our sister city down the road, Baltimore may already be on track to get there sooner than anyone thinks.
Copyright © 2009, The Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/baled.reform19oct19,0,31477,print.story

www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/baled.reform19oct19,0,7069078.story

Bullying, CyberBullying, Students as Victims.. why?

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:38:50 +0000

RACE or FACE? Bullying , CyberBullying?

___ ___ CE

_ _ _ erior

This page from a slide that Frank Worrell presented to the National Academy of Sciences. What two words come to mind for you when you see those words?
Ask your friends.. Think about it.

I immediately thought of it when I read about the murder of the student in Chicago. First, I remembered my own history. One day
I got tired of dashing to school quickly for the safety of it.. t I gave up and took rides from my father to school . I admitted to myself that I hated the battle of pretending I was not afraid.

In case you missed it.

Beating Death Caught on Camera: Chicago teens charged with murder of honor student
September 29th, 2009
When will these mob-like attacks go out of style? A 16 year old honor student lost his life when a group of kids beat him to death. Somebody, get your kid. This type of violence is outta control. Before anybody says, this ain’t my kid, this ain’t my brother, this ain’t anybody I know, everybody needs to get real. Its happening too often, in too many communities for it not to be anybody that you know. Sit down, TODAY, and talk to a young somebody about violence.

Most people outside of cultures don’t understand the behavior that happens within cultures to gate the progress of students who want to achieve but who also want to keep their friends and be in the loop. It is a tightrope fraught with danger. It is a dance that ends often in difficulty.

IN PERSON

Back in my day, I almost always ran all the way home in my Catholic school uniform. When I went to high school there was no Catholic school and I went to school with my tormentors. If I wentto parties I wore an old coat after an occasion when my pockets were slashed with a razor, and I learned not to respond when people sang the song,” I got my eyes on you”. ( and I will beat you too). I didn’t smile much and I avoided social after school kinds of things after almost getting physically attacked. I hated high school.

Fear would strike into my heart like a stabbing knife but I had some protection. People were supportive of my dad. My dad was a teacher in the public school in the community and knew everyone, including the police. This did not make me very popular and often I was set up in school, one being put out for saying a student was black (nonsense) and once I used a big word which kids found offensive… I cried all the way home both times.
My dad didn’t fuss and I understood the price of being a teacher’s kid.

Interestingly enough my parents understood the problem. But do kids know to tell? How do you know when to tell? So when my hair was pulled I remembered not to jerk my head so my hair would attract attention, or when I was pushed down the steps, I learned how to negotiate the steps, without moving my head. Many of the kids I went to school with were very poor and my family had a car, and money and we had nice clothes. I was not hungry.

I often two copies of my homework and I took two lunches. That way I was protected from a sneak attack.
Riding to school with my dad in his truck was how I solved my problem. That was safe.
We did not live in the projects. My mother owned a small business and I used to read a lot, those were markers back in the day.

You would think that times had changed and this type of torment was over, but it has moved to the participatory culture world of influence. Today lots of kids wear uniforms, and lots of kids use technology. It is true that lots of kids don’t have or own technology.

Besides being stuck in the shallow end of learning and the most difficult of school settings often people of color who achieve are also tormented in a lot of different ways by the other students in their culture.

Frank Worrell said in his presentation, to the National Science Board, that ”There is the suggestion of the development of an oppositional identity to school in some minority group members.”

“Opposing academics and a punishment for those who achieve. Hazing, teasing, oppositional tactics , which can include violence “

“It is suggested that negative stereotypes can depress stigmatized group’s performance and enhance that of non-stigmatized groups. The concept of what reality is in performance and learning is altered by the stereotypes.”

Identity profiles indicate that some are more closely associated with academic success and engagement.* If students have some mentorship, leaders, community collaborators or teachers who can demonstrate the positive components of academic success,there is some hope of students connecting the dots.

Identity has independent effects on institutional identification and academic identification.

“Negatively stereotyped groups are more likely to interpret unbuffered critical feedback as an indication of bias and lose motivation and academic identification.”

“Individuals who are concerned about not being racist are likely to provide less honest feedback to students from negatively stereotyped groups. “

It makes learning to be who one is a bit difficult.

In the “Achievement Trap ”.A report by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation on underachievement This report, published by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation & Civic Enterprises, focuses on the needs of high-achieving lower income students and finds that these students have been over-looked and are caught in an “achievement trap” where educators, policymakers, and the public assume they can fend for themselves when the facts show otherwise. The report discusses the disadvantages faced by these students from elementary school through college and graduate school. The report includes studies, statistics, and recommendations. The number of high-achieving lower-income students
nationally is larger than the individual populations of
21 states.
When I became a teacher I wanted to change the world for all students and to involve all kids and to not let the social groups torment various students. I learned to read a child’s face, or whatever signal I needed to discern or interpret to understand that child.
I may not have always succeeded, but when I taught school
I tried to make it so interesting that most of the behaviors that create problems were muted. But that would be a book.

ONLINE BULLYING

I don’t cry much these days. But yesterday I cried. I also went home hugging two teddy bears furnished by Build a Bear as they support the efforts to help students with Cyberbullying.

October 13, 2009 , I attended the Wired Safety, StopCyberbullying Coalition Roundtable US Senate, SR 325.
Parry Aftab brought to our attention the stories of some students and parents who have become victims of Cyberbullying. This is from the beginning of the Roundtable. We listened to the stories.

Here’s what happened. Debbie Johnston shared the story of Jeffrey, her sone who took his own life after 2 years of cyberbullying torment at the age of 15.

Through her hard work Florida adopted the “ Jeffrey Johnson Stand Up for All Students Act” which requires schools in the state to adopt policies that discourage bullying in person and online.

The thing is I know this story. The thing is this mother wished that the teachers had paid more attention to her son. I held this mother in my arms after she told the story once. It is a powerful story. Still it hurt to watch his brother cry as his mother told the story to the hushed audience.

CASE STUDIES/ Suicide

Cynthia Logan told the story of her daughter who also took her life after a sexting related harassment among students. Cynthia’s 18 year old daughter Jessie Logan tried desperately to teach others the risks of sexting after her private nude image to her 19 year old boyfriend was broadcast to more than 1000 people in her learning community. The staff and teachers were not prepared to help her and did not understand what had happened. After no one would help her and after a lot of , she took her own life.
Teachers and the learning community were not prepared to deal with this issue. You need to hear the story. But it will make you cry. She got no sympathy from anyone, and was vilified, harassed and set upon.

I thought of the song, “Cry me a river “ when these two ladies shared their sorrowful stories. I wished that more students could hear the stories.

Are Teachers prepared to teach about Cyber Bullying and to
Help Kids Develop strategies?

We in education often are not prepared. Nancy Willard online kept educators informed about best practices and case studies that we needed to know about. Bill Belsey also has a Stop Bullying center. There are many types of curriculum such as

Cybereducation is not a vaccination, a one time injection of knowledge that will stand over time. Technology is changing and we must help the students to be aware of best practices,
National Crime Prevention Council

http://www.ncpc.org/

McGruff Club
McGruff Club is a crime prevention and safety education program for children who are between the ages of six and ten. Through McGruff Club, children become engaged in their communities and learn about safety while having fun with their friends and adults who care for them.
The National Crime Prevention Council created McGruff® Club to educate children on what they can do to stay safe, prevent crime and violence in their communities, and engage them in projects designed to make their communities safer.
The goals of McGruff Club are to
Teach children about ways they can ensure their personal safety and security

Engage children in service projects designed to make their communities safer
Raise children’s awareness of McGruff as a trusted source of information on how to stay safe from crime
Teach children about what they can do to prevent crime and violence in their communities
Foster positive relationships among children, law enforcement officers, and other community members

http://www.ncpc.org/programs/mcgruffneighborhood/mcgruff-club

“Cyberbullying involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.” -Bill Belsey

The Other Action in Education in Washington

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:59:07 +0000

Those of us who live inside the beltway have been observing Michelle Rhee. Some see her as the savior of DC School, others have an opinion that she should ride away on the broom that she was holding while talking about getting rid of teachers. Her claim is that she wants to help the children of DC . Her no nonsense talk, gets your attention, well unless you are a teacher in the system or a
parent. No matter how boring a school board meeting is , in some places you get to have your say.but in DC we not only don’t have a say, we have a Chancellor who is wreaking havoc with the permission of the Mayor. Finally the Washington post sees the problem. I call it “oneupsmanship”.
We don’t have a senator to complain to or any voice in the action . You might find this article enlightening. There are plenty more in the Washington Post today. Professors, how do we prepare undergraduates for this kind of tragedy? Or veteran teachers. Michelle Rhee says that no one shoul be in an occupation for 30 years.. Maybe not.. but this???

‘Feels Like My Heart Has Been Broken’
New and Veteran Teachers in D.C. Stunned By Their Dismissal, as Well as Handling of It
By Michael Birnbaum Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, October 8, 2009

A neat row of X’s stretches down Eve McCarey’s performance evaluation, showing that in category after category, she is someone who “exceeds expectations.” With three years of experience as a special education teacher at Anacostia High School, she is hardworking, well-spoken and now unemployed.

McCarey seems to be the sort of teacher any hard-charging, reformist schools chancellor would want in a classroom. But despite layoff rules designed to help the system retain high-performing teachers, McCarey found herself out of a job Friday, along with other educators who range from idealistic Teach for America newcomers to a 32-year guidance counselor who is praised by parents as uncommonly effective.

“It just feels like my heart has been broken,” said counselor Sheila Gill, 57, of McKinley Technology High School. “I have been trying to process all of what’s going on. It happened so quickly and so suddenly.”

McCarey, 28, a graduate of D.C. public schools who once helped develop curricula in Sudan, shared Gill’s bruised feelings about the decision to lay her off and the manner in which her dismissal was executed. Nearly 400 school employees, including 229 teachers, lost their jobs.
“It was just the most disrespectful thing,” McCarey said. Teachers were interrupted in the middle of class, escorted to the principal’s office and read a script by their soon-to-be-ex-boss. The office of Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee told principals not to give laid-off employees specific reasons for their dismissals.

The reasons for McCarey’s dismissal from Anacostia High couldn’t have been based on much observation, she said. The administration was new this school year. Her contact with her new supervisors was limited to an interview over the summer, after which she was rehired, and a five-minute classroom visit the week before the layoff, she said.

Her June 1 job evaluation, a copy of which she shared with The Washington Post, gave her 28 of 30 possible points.

Now McCarey is worried about her students, some of whom don’t adapt well to change, she said. She’s also worried about her family. Her 4-month-old child and her husband, a freelance Web designer, were both on her health insurance.

An uncle of one of McCarey’s students credited her for his nephew’s improved grades and attitude. “This really makes me burn on the insides,” said James Toon, the primary caregiver of his nephew, a senior. “If it wasn’t for her, I don’t know how I could have pulled this off.”
School officials have said the layoffs were necessary to close a $43.9 million gap in their 2010 budget caused by D.C. Council spending cuts in July. Critics, including council members, students and the teachers’ union, have questioned the timing and underlying math of the layoffs.
Rhee said Wednesday that, faced with the council’s cuts, she sought to minimize the effect on individual schools and to protect the system’s best teachers. “Arguably in [Anacostia High] you were in the position where you were letting go of some people where you wouldn’t want to let them go,” Rhee said.

At elementary schools that cut one or two people, “a lot of principals said they felt good about being able to remove ineffective teachers,” she said. Gill, the McKinley guidance counselor, had been with D.C. schools for 32 years and is a member of the executive committee of the Washington Teachers’ Union. Her dismissal, and those of 14 other staff members at McKinley, helped spark a protest Monday that brought about 200 students to the school system’s headquarters and the John A. Wilson Building.

Gill said she was inspired in part by the idea of teaching children who were affected by the drug epidemic of the 1980s. She held out hope that she might work at McKinley again.
“I’m confident that I’ll get my job back. I haven’t done anything wrong,” Gill said. Numerous parents and students praised Gill for helping students navigate high school and making sure they got into college.

“She’s probably one of the most awesome and caring and loving counselors in this city,” Lynne Holcomb said. She credited Gill with helping her son track down many of the 28 scholarships that together have helped pave the way to a full ride at N.C. State University this year.
Gill said that she had received excellent job evaluations in the past but that she hadn’t had one in the two years since Principal David Pinder arrived at McKinley. Pinder and other principals contacted for this report declined to comment, citing personnel rules.

Rhee revamped the evaluation system last month, noting that most teachers are stamped with “satisfactory” ratings.

The layoffs also caught the young, although Rhee and the union disagree on the extent. Rhee said that, overall, less-experienced teachers were more likely to have been laid off. But she declined to release the numbers, saying they were being reviewed by District lawyers. The union has expressed concerns that veteran teachers might have been disproportionately affected by the cuts and filed suit Wednesday in D.C. Superior Court.
One laid-off teacher had taught in D.C. schools for six weeks. Brian Mokoro, 23, who graduated from Duke University last spring, joined Teach for America and moved to D.C. four months ago, taught math at Spingarn High School. He was one of six Teach for America teachers laid off out of 170 in the system, said Rhonda Stewart, a spokeswoman for the organization, which places high-achieving graduates into struggling districts nationwide.

Mokoro, who taught two classes of algebra and one of geometry to freshmen, said he was drawn to the District after double-majoring in public policy and economics.

“I think the only way to understand education reform is to teach,” he said. “I hope that teaching is my calling.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/07/AR2009100701196_pf.html

Reaching out to Teachers or Not?

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:35:58 +0000

Grids, Clouds, Participatory Culture and Thinking Toward the Future.
Beginnings in Computational Science

How do we do that?

Bonnie Bracey Sutton

I am not a computer scientist, or a computer science teacher, but I
have been fascinated by the supercomputing field since I accidentally
stumbled into it, at the end of my classroom teaching career. I worry
about those teachers who have never gained facile use of technology and
who see the Internet and all things considered as an enemy or a
nuisance to be added to the do list. Ok folks, lots of people are still
in powerpoint mode.

At the time I learned about Supercomputing I knew a little through
demonstrations at OSTP . I thought I knew technology like the back of
my hand. I had worked for Vice President Gore, the Commerce Dept and
in advocacy with President Clinton on the National Information
Infrastructure Advisory Council. So I knew , was aware of lots of
technology, sometimes working at NIST, or with the various task forces.
I helped bring classrooms from analog to digital in many ways. I rode
around America on a 18 wheeler teaching about the Internet , fax
machines and resources to use on the Internet. My friends tease me
that my worries and tears helped to make the map to E Rate. I was very
concerned about the costs of connectivity. Now my concern is about
looking toward the future in the use of technology and not just
mouthing the same old 21st Century babble that we have been speaking
about since 1992 or before. How long is that train going to run?

I acknowledge the fact that there are many teachers who have not
learned a lot based on many variables of professional development, access
interest and administrative permission. I am hoping that there will be
sufficient input into the new educational technology plan so that they
can see the light.

Now we have technology that can leap the digital divide, the technical
divide, and the information divide, cultural divide. But technology is a moving target.

I don’t see much discussion about Supercomputing.

Don’t teachers who touch the future need to have information to
understand where we are going in technology? Norm Augustine thinks so.
I went to the Access Center in Arlington, near the NSF building and
found that I had no idea of the new ways in which technology was
emerging. Don Mitchell shared the ideas and resources with me. I was on
the GRID. I had never heard of it.

Moving On to Clouds

Not the Charlie Brown kind of clouds mind you!

I am thinking about the Cloud! I don’t know if teachers have heard of
it. I am excited about the possibility of a tool that will connect all
students to the Internet. With the roll out of broadband , and Open
Source resources we can change the world of education. If we infuse new
thinking into education we can create an emerging set of students ready for the workforce of
the future.
I want teachers to be better prepared to share content and knowledge
using a variety of methodologies and deep knowledge.

Here’s what I am organizing with help from my friends in Supercomputing
for the Porttland Conference.

Diane Baxter of San Diego Supercomputing Center and I have been working
together with Jo Oshiru of Oregon to craft a day
to share nuggets of Supercomputing with the teachers.

SC-09 Teacher Day
Saturday November 14, 2009
Portland, Oregon
Location: Portland State University- Fariborz Maseeh College of
Engineering and Computer Science
Time: 9:30 AM to 5:30 PM
Schedule (draft)
9:30 AM – Welcome
9:35 – 10:50 AM – Melanie Stegman: (1) Introduction to Immune Attack –
how to play, installation, learning objectives, general concepts, and
highlights

11:00 AM – 12:30 – Melanie Stegman: (2) How to use Immune Attack in
the Classroom (facilitated discussion)

12:30 – 1:15 PM – Lunch (provided for registered participants and
presenters by the SC-09 Education Committee

1:15 – 2:00 PM – Jeff Sale, San Diego Supercomputer Center – Data
Discovery in the Classroom (hands-on activity on laptops)

2:00 – 3:15 PM – Pallavi Ishwad, Pittsburg Supercomputer Center –
Exciting Education Programs from PSC for K-12 Teachers
3:15-3:30 PM – Break
3:30 – 4:15 PM – Brad Armosky, Texas Advanced Comp
uting Center – Computational Thinking in Context – Integrating computational
approaches into your STEM teaching and learning.

4:15 – 5:00 PM – Blair Baldwin, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry
- OMSI’s Resources and Activities for Computational Science Education –
Local activities, programs, and resources for Portland Area teachers
and students
5:00 – 5:30 PM – Evaluation, Discussion, and Distribution of take-home
materials
Teachers are strongly encouraged to bring their laptops to be able to
participate in the hands-on activities.

Why not the attendance of teachers at the real supercomputing
conference for less than $500.00

Got Cash?

Teachers who may want to go to the conference need to ante up $550.00
so you can bet that there won’t be a lot of teacher involvement.

Students on the other hand can attend for $100.00. We had 384
applications to the education program, but we were not able to fund
very many. Simulus help or support needed here. You think?

Supercomputing is a whole different arena. I would give you a
definition , but the definition changes with the technology.

Here is what wikipedia says about Supercomputing.

“A supercomputer is a computer that is at the frontline of current
processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercomputer

But I know someone who is up to date and who can share this information
with you so that you understand it.

My friend, Henry Neeman, who patiently helps me to
share the information is great at explaning things. Sometimes we call
it” emerging technologies” so that the real titles don’t scare people
off..

Face to Face or E-Learning?

Henry can teach using any method.Dr. Neeman can teach in lots of
e-learning styles. Once I took the Supercomputing course from him and
accessed it at the Access Grid Site in Arlington, but when that was no
longer available to me, not to worry, Henry Neeman has many ways to
teach a lesson. So you will know that he is a fun guy
take a look at his home page. http://hneeman.oscer.ou.edu/

The depth of his knowledge is not the first thing you learn about. He
has a way of hooking you to make you interested in a subject. Brutally
honest he is with his words. He is teacher friendly. He has small
children and so I know that he thinks about school. When I get
discouraged there he is and approachable.

Another friend Michael Nelson pushed me to go learn about the cloud. I
had no idea that I was already using it. Here is a bit of his article
from ISGTW

http://www.isgtw.org/?pid=1001657

The introduction of the World Wide Web in the early 1990’s
revolutionized communication and information sharing. But the Internet
revolution is just beginning. The next few years will define the next
generation of the Internet as it becomes a platform for computing with
the cloud.

“We are in a critical and exciting phase in computing development,”
said Michael Nelson, an Internet studies visiting professor at
Georgetown University,while speaking at the 2009 AAAS conference in Chicago.

“When the Web first came out, we had the core technologies and knew
what they could do, but really didn’t have a sense of all the ways they
would be used,” Nelson said. “Likewise today, we’re laying the
foundation for the cloud, with the grid as a prototype.”

Nelson defined three phases of computing. In the first phase, software
applications and data resided on the user’s local computer. The same
was true in phase two – the Web –but in addition, a browser allowed
access to data anywhere on the Web. In phase three – the cloud – data
and applications are hosted on remote machines available online, not
locally – a fundamental shift in the way computing is done.

Michael Nelson, Georgetown University

Nelson predicts that in the next five to ten years, more than 80
percent of all computing and data storage could be done in the cloud,
with more than 100 billion devices connected. He also expects the
amount of data flowing through the Internet to increase by a factor of
50 to 100.

If the cloud can be access using broadband and with a netbook help us
leap the tool divide, academic divide, solve the heavy backpack
problem, and provide open source with e resources
being better than textbooks in update and accuracy why not?
Books will still be available to those who want them as will more
expensive laptops and other tools , cell phones, cameras, video
devices.. but for many access is the real deal.

Like I said, in education we are so far behind that people showed
Some beautiful pictures of kids working using visualization and
modeling at the FCC hearing without even knowing what it is or why they
can only do it in the summer. The need for broadband
and the infusion of the ways in which we daily use supercomputing might
help us all.

Near Portland , yall come!!

On the Sidelines , Watching the Chancellor, DC , Michelle Rhee

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:38:49 +0000

I didn’t write this. As a concerned DC citizen, as a teacher, as a voter. I have no power in my city. I watch the battle go on without any way to understand. Perhaps this post will give you understanding of the power struggle in DC. The mayor has given her unlimited power and she wields it like an overseer on the plantation. We all want children to succeed but at what cost. Please read this article closely. And as I always say, don’t we all teach for America? Well?

Mass Teacher Layoffs in D.C. Amount To One Hell of a Power Play by Michelle Rhee

Read More: Adrian Fenty, Dc Reduction In Force, Dc Rif, Dc Schools, Dcps, Education, Education Reform, George PArker, High Stakes Testing, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, Nclb, New York City Public Schools, No Child Left Behind, Public Schools, School Accountability, Standardized Testing, Teach For America, Teachers Unions, Wtu, Politics News

The power plays over D.C. public schools just went into gonzo territory. This week, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced a reduction in force (RIF) was imminent — despite having just hired 900 new teachers in a system of just 3,800 teachers. Layoffs begin September 30; fear and confusion abounds.
No one knows yet who’s going to go, but I wouldn’t bet that the shiny new hires will be first out the door. Rhee’s celebrity– burnished by a cover story in Time Magazine– is defined by her quixotic “battle against bad teachers.” In Rhee’s world, the quality of public education in D.C. has been dismal for years because of a critical mass of lazy, ineffective veteran teachers haunting classrooms.
In her mind, the solution lays in clearing out the oldies in favor of legions of rookies with prestigious degrees and two-year teaching commitments. Evidenced by her death-match negotiating tactics with the Washington Teachers’ Union, Rhee would love nothing more than to eviscerate collective bargaining and make all teachers at-will employees, corporate-style, accountable only by their students’ test scores.
Her latest gambit might be her wildest. How can someone hire nearly 25% of their work force over the summer and then less than a month into the school year throw up her hands and move to lay so many off?
Here’s how:
Step 1: Hire a lot of Teach For America rookies and people who agree with you.

 Step 2: Put in place impossible-to-meet standards for teacher performance to make anyone a target for sacking.
Step 3: Announce there has been a budget shock and a reduction in force is unavoidable because of the economic downturn. Pretend you somehow didn’t understand in July 2009 how bad our budget situation would be in just two months. The teachers to be reduced will be selected out of those with less than stellar “performance” (and practically everybody will be vulnerable).
Step 4: Get rid of whoever you want, sidestepping due process and remaking the teaching force in your image.

This brand of shock therapy is attractive to observers who love words like “bold” and “hard-charging” and assign them to self-styled reformers like Rhee who want fast revolutions. They dismiss voices of caution and defense of existing contracts and due process as defense of the abominable status quo.
That’s disingenuous. The union ought to be open to loosening tenure provisions, but Rhee simply misses the boat by blaming DC children’s academic struggles squarely on teachers. Rhee’s mislaid battle of gutting the union and purging veteran teachers will leave an experience and institutional knowledge vacuum that no quantity of super-caffeinated twenty-two-year-old Yalies can remake. As with any profession, there are some teachers in D.C. who should not be there, but Rhee is moving here to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
It’s a fallacy that Ivy League grads are sprinkled with the fairy dust of brilliance to waltz into a classroom and be a great teacher. I received a world class education at NYU, and got the tar kicked out of me by a class of Bronx 4th graders in my rookie year. Becoming a good teacher takes time, reflection, and support. Many of the strategies it takes to succeed are non-intuitive and reflective of each teacher’s unique personality. Most of the Teach For America teachers I meet have the makings of great teachers — but they’re nowhere near great in their first two years.
Rhee’s sweeping dismissal of so many experienced teachers will hurt far more than its sending a small number of truly washed-up teachers out to pasture will help. The ground-level effects of this veteran bloodletting will be immeasurable.
Since the start of her tenure, Rhee has followed New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein’s lead by repeatedly calling herself a reformer, and trumpeting basic skills standardized test scores as the definitive word on a student’s education. To achieve success in this brave new world, autocratic, corporate-style power is crucial. Too many dissenting voices could reveal that the emperor of testing isn’t wearing any clothes when it comes to truly supporting students.
Rhee’s mass hiring of newbies thankful to have jobs, juxtaposed with an expected mass layoff of veterans who know about how schools should run, takes cold-blooded, short-sighted “reform” to a new level.

Dan Brown is a teacher at a public charter school in Washington, D.C. and the author of The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle. He is not a member of any teachers’ union.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-brown/mass-teacher-layoffs-in-d_b_291701.html?view=print

Conference Themes Set for 2010

david.gibson — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 20:33:18 +0000

For those busy preparing articles and submissions for SITE 2010, the program committee announces these themes, which we hope will help connect your research and reflections to a broader emerging agenda of the conference:

21st Century Skills - What do students, teachers and teacher educators need to know about the skills needed for success in the 21st Century, and the technologies that underpin them?

Performance and Assessment of 21st Century Skills

New Media, New Possibilities for Teaching & Learning

Global Challenges in Teacher Education

K12 Partnerships

These themes are meant to help organize articles in cross-cutting ways , not to replace existing categories and SIG themes. So, we offer them as something to reflect on as you organize your thoughts! Please feel free to comment back and help us shape the conference.

Cloud Computing for Education?

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:33:18 +0000

Cloud Computing for Education can bridge the knowledge divide, the resource divide and the digital divide
Teachers could be empowered Under the Cloud
Warning,it is disruptive technology…
Must have broadband to do this. It’s coming
Can be on your device,netbook, ebook. cellphone

The Limitations of Textbooks

“One of the critical teaching/learning resources used in schools is the textbook. They organize and present all of the information that the academic standards require a student to know in order to pass the high-stakes tests. They provide teachers with activities and assessments that enable the teachers to deliver the lessons to their students and assess their recollection of the information.

Textbooks have some well known limitations; the most often cited is that they go out of date. In today’s eco-friendly world, they “kill” a lot of trees. They are also very expensive. Most recently, there is a lot of excitement around the introduction of digital textbooks. They would seem to mitigate the big issues. They don’t use paper. They can be kept up to date. And they are less expensive. Unfortunately, digital textbooks do not eliminate the most significant and yet insidious problem associated with their use. Textbooks create generations of passive, dependent learners.

One of the great hopes for saving education over the past few decades has been the appropriate use of technology. Unfortunately, education failed to learn from General Motors experience when it implemented factory automation and robotics. GM CEO Roger Smith told and audience of his manufacturing peers, “After several years and several billion dollars, we have proved conclusively that we can make defective cars faster.” GM had simply used the technology to automate the way they always made cars instead of looking at their system and redesigning it to take full advantage of what the technology allows. Digital textbooks are education’s way of automating a bad practice.

Education has to learn from GM’s mistake – forget the old classroom paradigm that worked for an agrarian economy and was modified to work for a manufacturing economy. The global economic, high performance, information rich world our graduates will face requires a comprehensive redesign of the education system.

In the traditional educational setting, the school provides a textbook for each subject. The textbook tells the students what they will learn, provides the information for them to learn and then provides tests to determine if they have learned it. When a student graduates and is facing a problem or project in the real world, who will tell them what they will need to know to solve the problem? Who will tell them where to find it? “

Allan Jones, Emanginos

Personal Notes

A few months ago a friend of mine on Facebook recommended that I attend Cloud Camp. Cloud Camp? I sort of did not know what he was talking about. But this friend has always shared wonderful resources with me. So I went off to the camp..

So this is what I went to CloudCamp is an unconference where early adapters of Cloud Computing technologies exchange ideas. With the rapid change occurring in the industry, they needed a place to can meet to share experiences, challenges and solutions. At CloudCamp, you are encouraged you to share your thoughts in several open discussions, as we strive for the advancement of Cloud Computing. End users, IT professionals and vendors are all encouraged to participate. I go to lots of professional conferences. This was out of the box I was just learning from basic lack of information..

What is Cloud Camp?

CloudCamp follows an interactive, unscripted unconference format. You can propose your own session or you can attend a session proposed by someone else. Either way, you are encouraged to engage in the discussion and “Vote with your feet”, which means … “find another session if you don’t find the session helpful”. Pick and choose from the conversations; rant and rave, or sit back and watch.. What if educational conferences were like that I thought!!

At CloudCamp, they tend to discuss the following topics
* Infrastructure as a service (Amazon EC2, GoGrid, Rackspace, Nirvanix, etc) * Platform as a service (AppEngine, Azure, etc) * Software as a service (salesforce.com, Yahoo! Mail, etc.) * Application / Data / Storage (development in the cloud)
Each topic has a moderator (the person who proposed the topics) to keep things going.

The problem for me was at the time I was not sure I understood cloud computing. But my friend Mike Nelson, never leads me wrong. I thought this time he had. There was not a teacher in site, or anyone I knew and an unconference is different. I learned a lot. You may be able to go to a cloud conference . Most of what I heard was for business applications. It was a total learning experience, I forgot to eat and drink.

But I think there’s a wonderful opportunity for education in the cloud.

First you have to understand something about supercomputing.
Don’t worry you use it every day in some way. It is in the cloud.

Supercomputing?

The fastest type of computer. Supercomputers are very expensive and are employed for specialized applications that require immense amounts of mathematical calculations. For example, weather forecasting requires a supercomputer. Other uses of supercomputers include animated graphics, fluid dynamic calculations, nuclear energy research, and petroleum exploration.
The chief difference between a supercomputer and a mainframe is that a supercomputer channels all its power into executing a few programs as fast as possible, whereas a mainframe uses its power to execute many programs concurrently.

The Cloud?

InforWorld “As a metaphor for the Internet, “the cloud” is a familiar cliché, but when combined with “computing,” the meaning gets bigger and fuzzier. Some analysts and vendors define cloud computing narrowly as an updated version of utility computing: basically virtual servers available over the Internet. Others go very broad, arguing anything you consume outside the firewall is “in the cloud,” including conventional outsourcing.
[ Learn how early adopters of cloud computing have used the technology and the lessons they have learned. | See how Amazon, Google, and other cloud platforms stack up in the InfoWorld Test Center's comparison. ]
Cloud computing comes into focus only when you think about what IT always needs: a way to increase capacity or add capabilities on the fly without investing in new infrastructure, training new personnel, or licensing new software. Cloud computing encompasses any subscription-based or pay-per-use service that, in real time over the Internet, extends IT’s existing capabilities.”

http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031

Cloud computing is at an early stage, with a motley crew of providers large and small delivering a slew of cloud-based services, from full-blown applications to storage services to spam filtering. Yes, utility-style infrastructure providers are part of the mix, but so are SaaS (software as a service) providers such as Salesforce.com. Today, for the most part, IT must plug into cloud-based services individually, but cloud computing aggregators and integrators are already emerging.

National Institute of Standards definition of Cloud Computing

NIST Working Definition of Cloud Computing

Peter Mell and Tim Grance — National Institute of Standards and Technology, Information Technology Laboratory
Note 1: Cloud computing is still an evolving paradigm. Its definitions, use cases, underlying technologies, issues, risks, and benefits will be refined in a spirited debate by the public and private sectors. These definitions, attributes, and characteristics will evolve and change over time. 
Note 2: The cloud computing industry represents a large ecosystem of many models, vendors, and market niches. This definition attempts to encompass all of the various cloud approaches.

Definition of Cloud Computing:
Cloud computing is a pay-per-use model for enabling available, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is comprised of five key characteristics, three delivery models, and four deployment models.
Got that? Here’s a video for more understanding.

http://www.slideshare.net/kvjacksn/nist-cloud-computing-standards

That means that we in education have the opportunity to build it.
We can gather resources of all kinds , we can deliver professional development, we can be change agents in delivering curriculum, and knowledge .
csrc.nist.gov/groups/…/cloud-computing/cloud-computing-v25.ppt

Howard Gardner on Digital Media in education

http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation-howard-gardner-video

Here is the video from You Tube

Educational Video on use of Cloud Computing

http://netgened.wikispaces.com/6B+Fun+and+Cloud+Computing

We are not talking Charlie Brown on the lawn looking up at the clouds wondering what they look like.
When I talked about it online people chided me. It’ s a commercial thing they said!! Not for educators. I was thinking Why not for education??

Think Cloud Computing, think netbooks, think of replacing all of that paper. A text book is a wonderful reference but the problem is the long buy that school systems make and the cost. I will be kind about the workbooks and related documents, but the cost of textbooks could be reduced. Waay reduced… if the books were e-texts or e-books and could be used only for the time they are needed and we could customize education for every child. Every student and infuse
Participatory culture and advanced uses of technology.

Then think like Seymour Papert, or others who thought about the new uses that digital media would allow. The McArthur Foundation is funding powerful media. The Lucas Foundation shows us powerful digital use by kids in the Digital Generation. http://www.edutopia.org/digital-generation

Think about educational gathered resources under the cloud. Think about the ways in which participatory culture could enhance learning.
But I go too fast.

Here is what educators will understand

Many, many technologies that were previously expensive or unavailable are now becoming free to anyone with a web browser. This is true for web sites, blogs, video sharing, music sharing, social sharing, collaboration software, editing/presentation and publishing, computing platforms in the “cloud”, etc. Our students are already using many of these technologies in their personal lives. In the professional world, the trend of discovering and using technologies in your personal life, and then bringing it into your professional life is called “consumerization”. Our education system should take advantage of this same trend, which will both enrich our student’s technology-enabled education, and importantly, reduce our budget impact.

The need for hardware and software isn’t being eliminated, but it is
shifting from being on-premises to being in the cloud. All that is
needed is a cheap access device and a web browser, broadband in the schools, perhaps wireless hotspots. While equitable access to
technology is clearly important, more and more students already have some kind of access device – a laptop, an Ipod. The district needs to fill the gaps, not replace existing access devices.

What is Cloud Computing? ???

“Comes from the early days of the Internet where we drew the network as a cloud… we didn’t care where the messages went… the cloud hid it from us” – Kevin Marks, Google

First cloud around networking (TCP/IP abstraction)
Second cloud around documents (WWW data abstraction)
The emerging cloud abstracts infrastructure complexities of servers, applications, data, and heterogeneous platforms
– (“muck” as Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos calls it)

Here is a simple working definition from NIST.

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.
This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.

Three Cloud Service Models

Cloud Software as a Service (SaaS)
Use provider’s applications over a network
Cloud Platform as a Service (PaaS)
Deploy customer-created applications to a cloud
Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
Rent processing, storage, network capacity, and other fundamental computing resources

Surely a way to close the digital divide is to
make information and textbooks cheaper and more accessible.

A textbook buy often takes years and the book is out of date in less than a year. Little kids have huge backpacks to lug around these books and the books, workbooks, and other “stuff” could be reduced to e-resources. Some so powerful that books while still relevant would just be a part of the way of thinking about learning. ( your thoughts?) Surely a way to halt the digital divide, the information divide, the resource divide and to foster e-learning, teacher professional
development.

Tim O’Reilly, CEO O’Reilly Media Cloud Computing?

• “I think it is one of the foundations of the next
generation of computing”
• “The network of networks is the platform for all computing”
• “Everything we think of as a computer today is really just a device that connects
to the big computer that we are all collectively
building

A Signal..

1. US CIO Shifts to Cloud Computing and Apps: Take a few minutes and look at a
brand new government site: http://apps.gov

This was released this week by the US CIO, Vivek Kundra, as a way of pushing the
Federal Government to start innovating with Cloud Computing, Thin Applications
and Open Source Solutions. The page has a range of “cloud” based applications
that Federal employees can start to leverage for free or very low cost – for
productivity, collaboration or knowledge sharing. It is interesting to see the
CIO take an advocacy vs. command and control approach to building awareness and
use of these types of apps.
Check out the page http://apps.gov and pay
attention to the range of Web 2.0 Social Media and Collboration applications.
There has already been quite a bit of rapid experimentation from agencies
ranging from the Marine Corps to the U.S. Dept of Energy.

Remember that I told you that my friend told me on Facebook that the cloud was not for educators? This is why it was funny. She used Facebook to tell me. Its in the cloud!!

Examples of Cloud Computing

FaceBook
Price: Free

Product Description:
Facebook is a free-access social networking website mission that gives people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Facebook makes it easy to stay up-to-date with your favorite public figures and organizations.

URL:http://www.facebook.com

Amazon is one of the early pioneers of cloud computing. After the dot-com bust, the vendor revamped the datacentres behind its e-commerce operation and decided to recoup the investment by selling its internal web-based services to third-party developers.
The launch of the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) under the Amazon Web Services banner in August 2006 was one of the first times the term ‘cloud’ had been attached to a commercially available, pay-as-you-go online service, although the term itself had been used generically to refer to the internet for at least a decade. The vendor is still considered to be a leader in cloud computing and its moves are watched closely by the rest of the market.
How long has Amazon operated in cloud computing? Amazon Web Services launched its first cloud service, the Simple Storage Service (S3), in March 2006.

Search giant Google is one of the early pioneers of cloud computing. Although the company was early to market with its Google Apps online personal productivity applications, which were launched in 2004, at the time it described the offerings as software-as-a-service (SaaS).
The company did not start using the term ‘cloud computing’ for another couple of years, but is nonetheless considered something of a poster child for the service delivery model. It is at the very least one of the concept’s biggest advocates as its advertising-based business model is predicated on it.
How long has Google operated in cloud computing? The company was set up in 1998, but introduced its first cloud service beyond its online search tool on 1 April, 2004.

HP has been a relatively low-key advocate of the cloud concept, but nonetheless the company is influential because of its presence in the datacentre and its strength at board level via its acquisition of EDS in August 2008. For the moment, the supplier is positioning itself more as a provider of enabling technology for the cloud than a cloud services provider, but it will undoubtedly follow the money as the market evolves.
How long has HP operated in the cloud space? Its first service delivered using a cloud computing-based infrastructure was launched in 2004.

IBM has been pitching the utility-computing, computing on-demand message for at least seven years as a means of selling more systems and services. Consequently, the company has been happy to latch onto the cloud concept as an extension of existing activities. The vendor — perhaps afraid of being left behind and having to play catch-up as it did when the world moved to client-server — is adopting the new service-delivery model wholeheartedly across its business. Given IBM’s general market strength, it is always one to watch, not least because of the credibility it provides when it enters new sectors.
How long has it operated in the cloud space? IBM entered the cloud market in 2004 when it introduced Deep Computing on Demand (CoD) for supercomputer users.

Salesforce.com has long been the prime exponent of SaaS, and has more recently taken a leaf out of Microsoft’s book by attempting to grow an application ecosystem through the launch of its platform-as-a-service products in a bid to broaden its appeal. It has retained the advantage afforded by being among the first to market and remains a leader rather than a follower in this largest segment of the cloud market.
How long has it operated in cloud computing? The company opened for business in 1999 as a dedicated SaaS provider.
Microsoft has consistently been late with all things relating to the internet and its move to the cloud is no exception. But Microsoft being Microsoft, such delays are unlikely to dent its influence over its all-important application development community or the broader value-added reseller channel, to which it invariably manages to sell its world view.
The vendor will be one to watch when it enters the market in the second half of 2009 — even though it faces attacks from all sides, and from Google, Amazon and Salesforce.com in particular.
How long has it operated in cloud computing? Microsoft plans to launch its Azure Services Platform in the second half of 2009.

Here is the government definition of cloud computing

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. This cloud model promotes availability and is composed of five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.
Essential Characteristics:
On-demand self-service. A consumer can unilaterally provision computing capabilities, such as server time and network storage, as needed automatically without requiring human interaction with each service’s provider.
Broad network access. Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard mechanisms that promote use by heterogeneous thin or thick client platforms (e.g., mobile phones, laptops, and PDAs).
Resource pooling. The provider’s computing resources are pooled to serve multiple consumers using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically assigned and reassigned according to consumer demand. There is a sense of location independence in that the customer generally has no control or knowledge over the exact location of the provided resources but may be able to specify location at a higher level of abstraction (e.g., country, state, or datacenter). Examples of resources include storage, processing, memory, network bandwidth, and virtual machines.
Rapid elasticity. Capabilities can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, in some cases automatically, to quickly scale out and rapidly released to quickly scale in. To the consumer, the capabilities available for provisioning often appear to be unlimited and can be purchased in any quantity at any time.
Measured Service. Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported providing transparency for both the provider and consumer of the utilized service.
But wait there is more. Go to the NIST Site. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/index.html

References
csrcRnist.gov/groups/SNS/cloud-computing/index.html

Jeff Bezos’ quote: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9977100-80.html?tag=mncol
Kevin Marks quote: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13953_3-9938949-80.html?tag=mncol video interview
Cloud Camp

http://www.cloudcamp.com/

Your Ideas as Secretary of Education

Bonnie Bracey Sutton — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:54:39 +0000

What would most professors of education do If they were secretary of education? Beyond Tinkering some of us have been involved in education through a fashion show of new initiatives…

Arnie Duncan’ s article is here.
But those of us who toil in classrooms are curious about what most professors who teach teachers and think about teaching and learning think about the new policies at the Dept. of Education.

Read this article and then have your say. Who better to understand the urban initiatives and difficulties than someone who at times was feuding with the Department of Education. Does the experience make him a better Secretary of Education? What do you think?

What changes would you make?

Monday, Sep. 14, 2009
Can Arne Duncan (And $5 Billion) Fix America’s Schools?
By Gilbert Cruz
The secretary of education is on fire. He’s running up and down a makeshift basketball court in a Kentucky parking lot and has just executed one of those rare flashy moves that also manage to be completely functional: a behind-the-back, no-look pass to a teammate, who cuts backdoor for an easy layup. Moments later, he drains a fadeaway jumper with an opponent dead in his face.

On some weekends, when the rest of Washington is on the back nine or a racquetball court, Arne Duncan (whose first name is pronounced Are-knee) can be found playing in three-on-three street-ball tournaments across the nation. On a muggy, overcast Saturday in late July, while 50 Cent’s “I Get Money” blares from a set of speakers, the former head of the Chicago Public Schools pounds the blacktop, alternating between playing intensely and walking off to take calls on his BlackBerry. Almost none of the other ballers know who the white dude with the salt-and-pepper hair is, and even fewer expect him to last long in the tournament. And yet his team goes on to win every game (20-10, 20-6, 18-9, 20-11, 20-10, etc.) and eventually the grand prize of $10,000.

That may sound like a lot of money–Duncan plans to give his share to charity–but it’s chump change compared with the kind of cash he gets to play with at work. The economic-stimulus bill passed by Congress in February included $100 billion in new education spending. Of that total, Duncan has $5 billion in discretionary funding. That money alone makes him the most powerful Education Secretary ever. “I had very little–in the single-digit millions,” says Margaret Spellings, Duncan’s predecessor. “That’s millions, with an m.”

Duncan’s choices could have a transformative impact on America’s beleaguered public-education system. On July 24, he stood beside President Barack Obama and announced the guidelines for states to compete for most of that cash. The $4.35 billion Race to the Top (RTT) fund lets states apply for grants that focus on a short list of reforms guaranteed to anger one of the Democratic Party’s core constituencies, the teachers’ unions. (The remaining $650 million will go to innovative local school districts and nonprofits.) With Duncan handling the ball, the Obama Administration is about to square off with the unions over perhaps the most controversial classroom issue of all: the idea that teachers should be held accountable for the success or failure of their students.

The Everest of Reforms

For all the money at his disposal, Duncan is not making it easy to get. To qualify for the cash, states are being encouraged to remove laws limiting the expansion of public charter schools (which are typically exempt from union rules and other regulations), sign on to common standards, develop a strategy to turn around their worst-performing schools and work toward building better data systems.

But the provision that has provoked the greatest outcry is a requirement that states drop any legal barriers to linking student test results and teacher performance. After years of dancing around the issue, Washington wants to know which teachers produce the best and worst students and is finally backing up that desire with real money.

To the powerful teachers’ unions, however, the idea that their jobs could hinge on a set of standardized-test results is anathema, in part because many teachers believe the tests are unreliable indicators of student performance. “Our disappointment is clear,” says Kay Brilliant, director of education policy and practice for the National Educators Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union. “If it’s going to be more of the same, more NCLB [No Child Left Behind], more testing and minimal support, then we’re not interested.” Duncan admits he is tackling the Everest of entrenched interests with this particular reform. “It’s pretty controversial,” he says of the rule. “But to say that great teaching doesn’t matter and should be disconnected from student outcomes, to me, is ludicrous.”

As states get ready to apply for funding, the opposition is still strategizing. “Are the unions going to tell legislators that they’re dead ducks if they support this?” says Chester Finn, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a leading education reformer. “I bet not. But they’ll definitely work hard to soften the RTT language and then work to undermine the implementation.” The Administration believes it can overcome resistance to its plans. Eight states have amended or removed laws to make themselves friendlier to charter schools, partly in anticipation of Duncan’s pot of gold. And California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is pushing hard to drop a law that prevents state officials from using student data to evaluate teachers.

Duncan’s approach has also scrambled the once predictable politics of educational reform. Republicans typically favor reform. But Duncan’s top-down approach, with Washington telling states how to behave, makes some conservatives nervous. “When you’re talking about that much money and you’re using the language that the Secretary is using, then you get states already starting to change some of their laws before any money has actually been given out,” says Representative John Kline, the new ranking Republican member of the House Education Committee. “I’m not completely comfortable with that.”

After-School Special

Duncan, 44, is no stranger to occasional discomfort. He grew up in Hyde Park–the tony South Side enclave that’s home to the University of Chicago–but played a lot of basketball in one of the rougher neighborhoods nearby. Often the only white player on the court, he became adept at figuring out when to be aggressive and when to hang back. In the early 1960s, Duncan’s mother started an after-school tutoring program in an inner-city neighborhood following her discovery that few of the 9-year-olds in her Bible-study class could read. “In Chicago at the time, you didn’t see many white people around black neighborhoods unless they were selling insurance,” says Michelle Gordon, who attended the program as a teen and now works in a North Carolina law-school library.

Duncan and his siblings spent each weekday afternoon helping out at their mother’s center on the corner of 46th and Greenwood. After the tutoring, everyone would shoot some hoops. Those were his evenings. During the day, Duncan attended the prestigious University of Chicago Lab School, a rigorous K-12 program that led him to Harvard. There he graduated magna cum laude while maintaining his obsession with basketball, co-captaining the team his senior year. After college and a failed tryout with the Boston Celtics, Duncan flew to Australia to play in that nation’s professional basketball league. He stayed for four years, playing ball, working with foster kids and eventually meeting his wife Karen.

He returned to Chicago to run a nonprofit for investment banker and Obama backer John W. Rogers Jr.–his mentor since their years together at the Lab School, where Duncan says he followed Rogers around “like a puppy dog.” Duncan proceeded to co-found a small school with his sister. He then ran the magnet program for the Chicago board of education and was the system’s deputy chief of staff, before being tapped to serve as its head. His 7½ years as superintendent produced mixed results. While he oversaw modest gains in student achievement, Duncan’s tenure was most notable for his willingness to try anything, regardless of ideological association–expanding charter schools, paying students for good grades, experimenting with teacher merit pay and shutting down failing schools and reopening them with new staffs. He’s still keen on such controversial turnaround strategies. In late August, he announced another competitive grant program that uses $3.5 billion in nondiscretionary funding in an effort to fix the nation’s worst schools.

No More Tinkering

Duncan has spent a lot of time in his new job crisscrossing the country, talking to teachers, teachers’ unions, school boards and teachers’ colleges about the need to shake things up and change the way they all do business. Finn says Duncan’s courage in speaking truth to the educational establishment is his greatest achievement, at least so far.

But it is also clear that the nation’s educators are still recovering from the comparatively modest changes that the Bush Administration forced on school districts, particularly the NCLB measure, which so emphasized test scores to the exclusion of other educational goals that many experts now regard it as a failure. NCLB has become, in Duncan’s estimation, such a “toxic” brand that his Education Department recently tore down the faux red schoolhouse emblazoned with the law’s name that sat outside its main entrance in downtown Washington. Duncan will be instrumental in rewriting NCLB, starting with the name. “We’ll probably get a really smart 10-year-old to figure this one out for us,” he says. “It’s got to be something more aspirational, more inspirational, more about the direction we need to go.”

But Diane Ravitch, a pre-eminent education historian at New York University, says Duncan’s RTT initiative is in effect an extension of the Bush-era reforms. “This whole fund is being used to lure or bribe or implore or compel states and school districts to do things that we don’t actually know are going to make things better,” says Ravitch, who is critical of the accountability movement’s emphasis on standardized testing. “My biggest problem with Duncan and Obama on education is that they are giving Bush a third term in education.” Duncan counters that he is merely breaking down walls–borrowing a little bit from the left, a little bit from the right. “I just want to do what works,” says Duncan, who is planning a multicity listening tour with Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton. “There are great ideas everywhere along the political spectrum, and there are terrible ideas. But that’s never how I’ve viewed the world. I view it in terms of, What’s good for the kids at 46th and Greenwood?”

Duncan’s background has made him intimately aware of what is at stake for America’s students. As he puts it, if you made it through school in the gang-ridden South Side, you had a chance of making it out. And if you didn’t, you might have ended up dead. “The dividing line between those two was clearly educational opportunity,” he says. Sure, all kids are guaranteed seats in a classroom, but too many are taught by middling teachers in awful schools, Duncan says. “It’s obvious the system’s broken. Let’s admit it’s broken, let’s admit it’s dysfunctional, and let’s do something dramatically different, and let’s do it now. But don’t just tinker around the edges. Don’t just play with it. Let’s fix the thing.”

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