From all of the "24/7 monitoring" responses it looks like people are not reading the article. This kind of system is something that the schools have been waiting for eagerly. Many parents are technology savvy and are used to doing realtime online banking, managing investments, getting wire news &c. Now that it is increasingly likely that teachers have email at their schools, and the taxpaying parents are shelling out for it, it is natural for parents to expect increased interaction, news, and feedback from the teachers.
On the other hand, most teachers are not comfortable using technology, they do not have a lot of time in their day to add correspondance, the training provided by the schools is usually bad, and they are increasingly expected to use email or the web for school-home communication with no adjustments made to their schedules or compensaion. There are already a number of web sites that allow browser based updating of course assignments or news, and I know of many teachers that are setting up mail lists. (eschoolhouse.com, highwired.com) All that this system purports to do is add attendance information -- otherwise it has all been done before.
This is a Good Thing. Systems like this will reduce the (time) impact on teachers of using the Internet in a meaningful way, it will keep parents more engaged in the education of their kids, and it will increase accountability of the schools once the parents have a portal through which to view things. The only assumption is that the school districts adopting this will give the teachers additional prep time or increase their compensation. I would be intersted in knowing how all of those Washington schools are handling it.
I have spent some time checking out www.plagiarism.org. Their turnitin.com site pretty much automates the task from the instructor's point of view, the surprising thing is the cost of the service -- actually reasonable. I think that the fact that the students have to submit their work through the site might reduce plagiarism significantly even if the software doesn't do a thing.
We recently deployed RT (www.fsck.com/projects/rt/). It is a compact system with email, web, and command line interfaces. The stable version (1.x) does not allow the requestors to check the status via the web, but v2 (which is now at beta 2) does. If you check the status page of the web site you can get into a server running v2 to check it out. We have fallen in love with it and it is chugging happily away on a P120. It is implemented using mod_perl and mySQL, it took all of 5 minutes to get up and running. Cheers.
I worked in an education research lab and Hypercard proved quite valuable. None of us were really programmers, but HC was simple enough that we could rapidly develop program interfaces and full blown prototype applications without the time or expanse of bringing in a real programmer to develop something custom. I am still not a programmer, and while I am frinedly with PHP/mySQL I still think that something like HC is a great way to open development to a lot of people who just need to try out ideas and quickly implement changes. I feel the same way about BASIC, though, so I expect to be flailed by a gang of real coders.
I have a drawer full of floppies containing Great Ideas, all implemented in HyeprCard. I'm dreaming for a day that I can bring them out and let them see the light of day.:)
HyperStudio has a browser plugin. I know a lot of K-12 schools that use it so that parents can see student projects from home. The only downside is that people are not wise to image compression so there a lot of enormous stacks with scanned drawings and the like pasted in as bitmaps.
Whoever said that this was like a seventh grade report was right. This revolution came as no accident to people involved in it. Someone like Stafford Beer and other people working in cybernetics have held the changes in communication and the ability to move and access information could have profound positive effects on freedom. For starters try to find Stafford's book Designing Freedom, which is short, readable, and provides a great outline on how management cybernetcs might be applied both to individual freedom and a system as complex as a nation state at the same time. His concepts are further developed in his work on Syntegration.
The "Balkanization" mentioned is no such thing. In Beer's model it is essential that such "variety attenuation" occur. Think back to 1994, the big problem was that there was too much information (variety) on the web and no way to organize it in a useful fashion -- this would explain why search engines were among the first successful (ok, that is arguable) web ventures. Too much variety, not enough information. The lack of organization actually made the web less useful.
The question that everyone should be asking is this: should variety attenuation be a matter of of the government or industry, or should it be a matter of individual choice.
I guess one point that is missing is the fact that the intended uses of these new users is different than what people used to think about in the old days. One of the big points that used to be made all the way back in '94/95 was the low cost of informaion distribution that the web would allow, being a revolution for people of all SES levels as we handed the equilavent of printing presses out to every person who could reach the network. What JK mentions are pretty much the same-old same-old: new markets for business, and new opportunities for the entertainment industry. Sure we are bringing the poor online, but they are being brought in now that we have figured out how to make them customers/an audience -- consumers of information instead of producers. At least the the Wal-Mart comparison is right.
I have spent seven years working in community networking and still see, every day, vast differences in the way the technology is used by schools, non-profits, churches, and the poor. So while the news about access may be good, there are significant qualitative differences between the way that the tecnology is applied by people with different abilities (white educated techies compared to the wal-mart types) to raise their quality of life.
Law passed requiring all new Linux distributions to include lock.
Mass arrests of so-called Free Software cultists using unregistered or unlocked Linux distributions to terrorize Corporate Technology Oligar-monopolies and STIFLE or CRUSH the freedom and expression or countless Cubicle-dwelling Citizens producing corporate Intellectual Property.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone has looked at this from the perspective of voluntary informed consent. To do any research in a school (research directed at furthering good education, not marketing) it is extremely difficult for an outside agency (such as a university researcher) to get clearance from the board of education to come in and collect data, and parents are quite skeptical. Here, for example, are Indiana's standards
there is a case that N2H2 would need consent clearance:
The State of Indiana has placed certain restrictions on research conducted in the public schools. The restrictions apply to personal analyses, evaluations, programs, or surveys that: are not directly related to academic instruction; and that reveal or attempt to affect the student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings concerning:
political affiliations;
religious beliefs or practices;
mental or psychological conditions that may embarrass the student or the student's family;
sexual behavior or attitudes;
illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior;
critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the student has a close family relationship;
legally recognized privileged or confidential relationships, including a relationship with a lawyer, minister, or physician; or
income (except as required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under a program).
[end quote]
The N2H2 data collection meets both points. The standards that I apply to trying to perform quantitative research in the field of education are a lot more strict than those applied by marketing types, but as far as I know the stricter standards are the ones typically applied to the conduct of our school systems at least until some corporation looks like they are going to throw a buck or two the school's way. The important thing is that you remember that the students are generating the data *as individuals*, regardless of how the data is summarized and reported. Aggregate reporting by N2H2 is still performed through individual participation in the activities that generate the data, and the use of human subjects in research always requires the use of informed consent.
The issue with N2H2 is reminiscent of ZapMe. We have schools that are mandated by law to provide filtering, and we have students and teachers who have mandated learning outcomes that increasingly rely on (or require) the use of the Internet. N2H2 profits from the fact that many schools are unwilling or unable to fund their own filtering solutions, so they are willing to "purchase" BESS for the cost of student and faculty privacy.
This looks like a bargain to school administrators who don't really care about these issues so long as things such as pr0n or unwelcome political views out of the doors. There are still issues about expectation of privacy and commercialization should be seriously looked at. Unlike Nielson, students and teacher cannot opt out of the system and keep their activities to themselves. So a student who considers it their right to enter an educational institution and pursue their learning *without being watched by a for-profit corporation* is just out of luck.
In fact, this will be increasingly problematic for students, teachers, or parents who feel that there is no place for corporate presences in schools (particularly public schools). Why do you think that the Defense department bought the data? Because of the low cost, I would guess that BESS's deployment is skewed in the direction of schools with lower socioeconomic characteristics. This would happen to be the same group of schools that the armed forces spend more of their time recruiting from as the candidates better fit their recruiting targets. The aggregate data on entertainment/recreation destinations, employment destinations, politics/culture will take on increasing value as corporations look for ways to target their "partnerships" in schools so as to generate maximal returns.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone has looked at this from the perspective of voluntary informed consent. To do any research in a school (research directed at furthering good education, not marketing) it is extremely difficult for an outside agency (such as a university researcher) to get clearance from the board of education to come in and collect data, and parents are quite skeptical. Here, for example, are Indiana's standards -- there is a case that N2H2 would need consent clearance:
[begin quote http://www.indiana.edu/~resrisk/informed.html]
STUDENTS IN INDIANA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The State of Indiana has placed certain restrictions on research conducted in the public schools. The restrictions apply to personal analyses, evaluations, programs, or surveys that:
are not directly related to academic instruction; and
that reveal or attempt to affect the student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings concerning:
--political affiliations;
--religious beliefs or practices;
--mental or psychological conditions that may embarrass the student or the student's family;
--sexual behavior or attitudes;
--illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior;
--critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the student has a close family relationship;
--legally recognized privileged or confidential relationships, including a relationship with a lawyer, minister, or physician; or
--income (except as required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under a program).
[end quote]
The N2H2 data collection meets both points. The standards that I apply to trying to perform quantitative research in the field of education are a lot more strict than those applied by marketing types, but as far as I know the stricter standards are the ones typically applied to the conduct of our school systems -- at least until some corporation looks like they are going to throw a buck or two the school's way. The important thing is that you remember that the students are generating the data *as individuals*, regardless of how the data is summarized and reported. Aggregate reporting by N2H2 is still performed through individual participation in the activities that generate the data, and the use of human subjects in research always requires the use of informed consent.
When you sign up for service, you are told what SMTP server to use for outgoing mail. Use it. Or find whatever other way works for you. But they are not offering SMTP connection services to you. The solutions are easy, so deal with it.
I am a telocity customer. Their smtp worked for a while, but when they upgraded their mail servers I started getting "relaying denied" messages as the mail header information pointed to a domain that I host on my line. Until December it appears that the server was just concerned with my being on their network, but now they don't want the headers forged so I have to go back to using my own smtp daemon. So far I don't know of any mail that was blocked, but I am worried that something like MAPS DUL will start to list DSL blocks in the future.
I work with my local chamber of commerce, and one of the "member benefits" is the ability to participate in the purchase of things like medical insurance as part of the group. For a one-person consulting business membership is usually pretty cheap, and it may well be worth it if you are trying to insure a family.
I am sure that a number of people here have kids, and they most likely read to their children a great deal. The only thing that I don't like about the review is that that the "it is boring to read these books" line caves in to the whole "we fear children" mentality of the 18-34 viewing/reading demographic. Just look at how children are used as props in TV shows aimed at this audience.
If you are a parent, the most important thing that you can do with your kids (apart from the expected loving/feeding bit) is to read to them. And the most important thing about reading to them is that you do with entheustiastically in such a way that you not only read to them, but you demonstrate the pleasure that you are taking in reading.
Have to agree with the other posters, though, that it is good to see somting kid related that is not about a gaming console or cracking school filtering systems.
Remember too that the average reflects a 9 month appointment, making it the equivalent of $52,463. Having worked in public education that is not necessarily unfair, but it certainly is not poverty. My wife is working in a middle school right now, and if you really try to engage the students and give a damn it is downright stressful work.
What, don't they teach you kids how to search for things on the net? Oh, wait a sec, you are probably a BESS school.
I turned up a couple of good starting points. It is easy to find a lot of pro-DARE stuff published by the dare folk. Here is a link to some information from PBS's Front lin e. I also came across this article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. The latter talks about negative studies from the Dept of Justice, the GAO, and the Department of Ed -- the might be worth tracking down. Hope this helps.
OK. One point that is missing in all of this is the fact that BESS and other filters are the path of least resistance for schools and administrators who feel bound to bring the Inernet into their classrooms. The debate about usefulness aside, the fact of the matter is that teachers and administrators, on average, have little cluse about what effective practices are. Because of this lack of focus, it is a lot easier to shift the discussion to other topics.
I worked for a very high tech and connected school district, and I spent almost as much time working on "network security" issues as I did on curricum development and staff training. After I left the district adopted BESS to solve its big problem, but to this date is still not really doing anything truly worthy of the millions (literally) invested.
The porn issues is easy for parents, the public, and the school board to understand. It is easily solved when someone like BESS makes it look like a cheap solution that does not involve investing in things like real curriculum development and good technology management. Why is everyone so surprised about filtering technology's penetration? I would suggest contacting your local schol district and asking to look at their tech plan as well as examples of how it is being used instructionally. Then get pissed off. --chris
We at Aurora U are one of those "small schools" that are supposed to benefit from this sort of service. Last spring we had a visit from Pipeline clone Mascot. While the sales people were sufficiently peppy, they fell flat on their face when we started asking questions about privacy issues. From the corporation's point of view they not only have eyeballs, but they can also begin developing sophisticated user profiles as they track your search patterns and your activities in their co-branded partner sites: all of which appeared in pretty much the same frameset as official university information (there was only a lame attempt to distinguish between university and partner pages).
While people can argue the commercialism issue in higher ed all day long, the privacy argument agains these sorts of services is pretty straightforward and I would encourage people at institutions considering these services to check them out and raise whatever stink is necessary. We just licensed Blackboard and the new version includes a "search" box when students log in as well as off-site "resources" requiring registration. We are trying to disable those, but it appears to have become part of the profit model even for normal academic web environments.
--chris
Re:Educational software and teachers and training
on
Laptops In Education
·
· Score: 1
I would have to agree on all points. I used to work in a district that built a $75M ultra-modern high school (12 labs, drops in every room, building-wide video distribution &c), at the end of the day the staff did not know what to do with it all. Not that the staff was well intentioned, but administrators are under a lot of pressure to buy boxes and get them deployed as if that is enough to do the trick. Other than a lot of low-level staff development offerings (Office, Claris Works, bookmarking web sites) there was no actual plan for the useful intgration of the technology into the curriculum. This would be evidencedy by silly things like paying staff to develop better curricula or paying for developers instead of just technicians.
To make matters more interesting, once they did start to put together a "technology curriculum" the actual things that the kids did was still heavily focused on learning an office suite, keyboarding, and safe surfing. There was largely a focus on skills as opposed to looking at how to change teaching methods or classroom environments. All of the money and all of the PR makes the parents feel good, which makes the board feel good, which makes the administration feel good, which is about all that really matters at the end of the day.
Some suggestions:
People in the community should stand up and ask their schools and school boards on what basis they are purchasing technology. This is something that the open source community could actually do well. This is also something that someone like CPSR could/should do.
People should take in interest in how their districts are supporting the use of technology. The mentality in many administrations is that parents want to buy boxes but they do not want to spend money on tech support. Do you see curriculum developers in the picture? Often tech support staff is quite thin, and developers are not even part of the picture. By making it known that the community thinks that this is an important part of their original hardware investment administrations will not feel so shy budgeting for such things.
This is almost a whole seperate issue, but people need to start letting schools know that a lot of these "free" services make their buck on the backs of the students. Not only the advertising, but in the data that they collect on student habits (I am thinking ZapMe here). Parents do not understand how valuable this information actually is and how easily many schools are giving it away.
Which brings me to a final point that someone made somewhere else recently and I would give attribution if I could remember. As long as schools expect everything for free or at a deep discount, it will discourage the entry of small or innovative developers into the market. Just something that I felt I had to add because this is a followup to "jas" the developer.
Slashdot Mirror
From all of the "24/7 monitoring" responses it looks like people are not reading the article. This kind of system is something that the schools have been waiting for eagerly. Many parents are technology savvy and are used to doing realtime online banking, managing investments, getting wire news &c. Now that it is increasingly likely that teachers have email at their schools, and the taxpaying parents are shelling out for it, it is natural for parents to expect increased interaction, news, and feedback from the teachers.
On the other hand, most teachers are not comfortable using technology, they do not have a lot of time in their day to add correspondance, the training provided by the schools is usually bad, and they are increasingly expected to use email or the web for school-home communication with no adjustments made to their schedules or compensaion. There are already a number of web sites that allow browser based updating of course assignments or news, and I know of many teachers that are setting up mail lists. (eschoolhouse.com, highwired.com) All that this system purports to do is add attendance information -- otherwise it has all been done before.
This is a Good Thing. Systems like this will reduce the (time) impact on teachers of using the Internet in a meaningful way, it will keep parents more engaged in the education of their kids, and it will increase accountability of the schools once the parents have a portal through which to view things. The only assumption is that the school districts adopting this will give the teachers additional prep time or increase their compensation. I would be intersted in knowing how all of those Washington schools are handling it.
I have spent some time checking out www.plagiarism.org. Their turnitin.com site pretty much automates the task from the instructor's point of view, the surprising thing is the cost of the service -- actually reasonable. I think that the fact that the students have to submit their work through the site might reduce plagiarism significantly even if the software doesn't do a thing.
We recently deployed RT (www.fsck.com/projects/rt/). It is a compact system with email, web, and command line interfaces. The stable version (1.x) does not allow the requestors to check the status via the web, but v2 (which is now at beta 2) does. If you check the status page of the web site you can get into a server running v2 to check it out. We have fallen in love with it and it is chugging happily away on a P120. It is implemented using mod_perl and mySQL, it took all of 5 minutes to get up and running. Cheers.
I worked in an education research lab and Hypercard proved quite valuable. None of us were really programmers, but HC was simple enough that we could rapidly develop program interfaces and full blown prototype applications without the time or expanse of bringing in a real programmer to develop something custom. I am still not a programmer, and while I am frinedly with PHP/mySQL I still think that something like HC is a great way to open development to a lot of people who just need to try out ideas and quickly implement changes. I feel the same way about BASIC, though, so I expect to be flailed by a gang of real coders.
I have a drawer full of floppies containing Great Ideas, all implemented in HyeprCard. I'm dreaming for a day that I can bring them out and let them see the light of day. :)
HyperStudio has a browser plugin. I know a lot of K-12 schools that use it so that parents can see student projects from home. The only downside is that people are not wise to image compression so there a lot of enormous stacks with scanned drawings and the like pasted in as bitmaps.
Whoever said that this was like a seventh grade report was right. This revolution came as no accident to people involved in it. Someone like Stafford Beer and other people working in cybernetics have held the changes in communication and the ability to move and access information could have profound positive effects on freedom. For starters try to find Stafford's book Designing Freedom, which is short, readable, and provides a great outline on how management cybernetcs might be applied both to individual freedom and a system as complex as a nation state at the same time. His concepts are further developed in his work on Syntegration.
The "Balkanization" mentioned is no such thing. In Beer's model it is essential that such "variety attenuation" occur. Think back to 1994, the big problem was that there was too much information (variety) on the web and no way to organize it in a useful fashion -- this would explain why search engines were among the first successful (ok, that is arguable) web ventures. Too much variety, not enough information. The lack of organization actually made the web less useful.
The question that everyone should be asking is this: should variety attenuation be a matter of of the government or industry, or should it be a matter of individual choice.
I guess one point that is missing is the fact that the intended uses of these new users is different than what people used to think about in the old days. One of the big points that used to be made all the way back in '94/95 was the low cost of informaion distribution that the web would allow, being a revolution for people of all SES levels as we handed the equilavent of printing presses out to every person who could reach the network. What JK mentions are pretty much the same-old same-old: new markets for business, and new opportunities for the entertainment industry. Sure we are bringing the poor online, but they are being brought in now that we have figured out how to make them customers/an audience -- consumers of information instead of producers. At least the the Wal-Mart comparison is right.
I have spent seven years working in community networking and still see, every day, vast differences in the way the technology is used by schools, non-profits, churches, and the poor. So while the news about access may be good, there are significant qualitative differences between the way that the tecnology is applied by people with different abilities (white educated techies compared to the wal-mart types) to raise their quality of life.
It is a slippery slope.
All true PATRIOTS know what they need to do.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone has looked at this from the perspective of voluntary informed consent. To do any research in a school (research directed at furthering good education, not marketing) it is extremely difficult for an outside agency (such as a university researcher) to get clearance from the board of education to come in and collect data, and parents are quite skeptical. Here, for example, are Indiana's standards
there is a case that N2H2 would need consent clearance:
[begin quote http://www.indiana.edu/~resrisk/informed.html]
STUDENTS IN INDIANA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The State of Indiana has placed certain restrictions on research conducted in the public schools. The restrictions apply to personal analyses, evaluations, programs, or surveys that: are not directly related to academic instruction; and that reveal or attempt to affect the student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings concerning:
[end quote]
The N2H2 data collection meets both points. The standards that I apply to trying to perform quantitative research in the field of education are a lot more strict than those applied by marketing types, but as far as I know the stricter standards are the ones typically applied to the conduct of our school systems at least until some corporation looks like they are going to throw a buck or two the school's way. The important thing is that you remember that the students are generating the data *as individuals*, regardless of how the data is summarized and reported. Aggregate reporting by N2H2 is still performed through individual participation in the activities that generate the data, and the use of human subjects in research always requires the use of informed consent.
The issue with N2H2 is reminiscent of ZapMe. We have schools that are mandated by law to provide filtering, and we have students and teachers who have mandated learning outcomes that increasingly rely on (or require) the use of the Internet. N2H2 profits from the fact that many schools are unwilling or unable to fund their own filtering solutions, so they are willing to "purchase" BESS for the cost of student and faculty privacy.
This looks like a bargain to school administrators who don't really care about these issues so long as things such as pr0n or unwelcome political views out of the doors. There are still issues about expectation of privacy and commercialization should be seriously looked at. Unlike Nielson, students and teacher cannot opt out of the system and keep their activities to themselves. So a student who considers it their right to enter an educational institution and pursue their learning *without being watched by a for-profit corporation* is just out of luck.
In fact, this will be increasingly problematic for students, teachers, or parents who feel that there is no place for corporate presences in schools (particularly public schools). Why do you think that the Defense department bought the data? Because of the low cost, I would guess that BESS's deployment is skewed in the direction of schools with lower socioeconomic characteristics. This would happen to be the same group of schools that the armed forces spend more of their time recruiting from as the candidates better fit their recruiting targets. The aggregate data on entertainment/recreation destinations, employment destinations, politics/culture will take on increasing value as corporations look for ways to target their "partnerships" in schools so as to generate maximal returns.
I would be interested in knowing if anyone has looked at this from the perspective of voluntary informed consent. To do any research in a school (research directed at furthering good education, not marketing) it is extremely difficult for an outside agency (such as a university researcher) to get clearance from the board of education to come in and collect data, and parents are quite skeptical. Here, for example, are Indiana's standards -- there is a case that N2H2 would need consent clearance:
[begin quote http://www.indiana.edu/~resrisk/informed.html]
STUDENTS IN INDIANA PUBLIC SCHOOLS
The State of Indiana has placed certain restrictions on research conducted in the public schools. The restrictions apply to personal analyses, evaluations, programs, or surveys that:
are not directly related to academic instruction; and
that reveal or attempt to affect the student's attitudes, habits, traits, opinions, beliefs, or feelings concerning:
--political affiliations;
--religious beliefs or practices;
--mental or psychological conditions that may embarrass the student or the student's family;
--sexual behavior or attitudes;
--illegal, antisocial, self-incriminating, or demeaning behavior;
--critical appraisals of other individuals with whom the student has a close family relationship;
--legally recognized privileged or confidential relationships, including a relationship with a lawyer, minister, or physician; or
--income (except as required by law to determine eligibility for participation in a program or for receiving financial assistance under a program).
[end quote]
The N2H2 data collection meets both points. The standards that I apply to trying to perform quantitative research in the field of education are a lot more strict than those applied by marketing types, but as far as I know the stricter standards are the ones typically applied to the conduct of our school systems -- at least until some corporation looks like they are going to throw a buck or two the school's way. The important thing is that you remember that the students are generating the data *as individuals*, regardless of how the data is summarized and reported. Aggregate reporting by N2H2 is still performed through individual participation in the activities that generate the data, and the use of human subjects in research always requires the use of informed consent.
--chris
When you sign up for service, you are told what SMTP server to use for outgoing mail. Use it. Or find whatever other way works for you. But they are not offering SMTP connection services to you. The solutions are easy, so deal with it.
I am a telocity customer. Their smtp worked for a while, but when they upgraded their mail servers I started getting "relaying denied" messages as the mail header information pointed to a domain that I host on my line. Until December it appears that the server was just concerned with my being on their network, but now they don't want the headers forged so I have to go back to using my own smtp daemon. So far I don't know of any mail that was blocked, but I am worried that something like MAPS DUL will start to list DSL blocks in the future.
I work with my local chamber of commerce, and one of the "member benefits" is the ability to participate in the purchase of things like medical insurance as part of the group. For a one-person consulting business membership is usually pretty cheap, and it may well be worth it if you are trying to insure a family.
I am sure that a number of people here have kids, and they most likely read to their children a great deal. The only thing that I don't like about the review is that that the "it is boring to read these books" line caves in to the whole "we fear children" mentality of the 18-34 viewing/reading demographic. Just look at how children are used as props in TV shows aimed at this audience.
If you are a parent, the most important thing that you can do with your kids (apart from the expected loving/feeding bit) is to read to them. And the most important thing about reading to them is that you do with entheustiastically in such a way that you not only read to them, but you demonstrate the pleasure that you are taking in reading.
Have to agree with the other posters, though, that it is good to see somting kid related that is not about a gaming console or cracking school filtering systems.
Remember too that the average reflects a 9 month appointment, making it the equivalent of $52,463. Having worked in public education that is not necessarily unfair, but it certainly is not poverty. My wife is working in a middle school right now, and if you really try to engage the students and give a damn it is downright stressful work.
What, don't they teach you kids how to search for things on the net? Oh, wait a sec, you are probably a BESS school.
I turned up a couple of good starting points. It is easy to find a lot of pro-DARE stuff published by the dare folk. Here is a link to some information from PBS's Front lin e. I also came across this article in the Daily Hampshire Gazette. The latter talks about negative studies from the Dept of Justice, the GAO, and the Department of Ed -- the might be worth tracking down. Hope this helps.
OK. One point that is missing in all of this is the fact that BESS and other filters are the path of least resistance for schools and administrators who feel bound to bring the Inernet into their classrooms. The debate about usefulness aside, the fact of the matter is that teachers and administrators, on average, have little cluse about what effective practices are. Because of this lack of focus, it is a lot easier to shift the discussion to other topics.
I worked for a very high tech and connected school district, and I spent almost as much time working on "network security" issues as I did on curricum development and staff training. After I left the district adopted BESS to solve its big problem, but to this date is still not really doing anything truly worthy of the millions (literally) invested.
The porn issues is easy for parents, the public, and the school board to understand. It is easily solved when someone like BESS makes it look like a cheap solution that does not involve investing in things like real curriculum development and good technology management. Why is everyone so surprised about filtering technology's penetration? I would suggest contacting your local schol district and asking to look at their tech plan as well as examples of how it is being used instructionally. Then get pissed off.
--chris
While people can argue the commercialism issue in higher ed all day long, the privacy argument agains these sorts of services is pretty straightforward and I would encourage people at institutions considering these services to check them out and raise whatever stink is necessary. We just licensed Blackboard and the new version includes a "search" box when students log in as well as off-site "resources" requiring registration. We are trying to disable those, but it appears to have become part of the profit model even for normal academic web environments.
--chris
To make matters more interesting, once they did start to put together a "technology curriculum" the actual things that the kids did was still heavily focused on learning an office suite, keyboarding, and safe surfing. There was largely a focus on skills as opposed to looking at how to change teaching methods or classroom environments. All of the money and all of the PR makes the parents feel good, which makes the board feel good, which makes the administration feel good, which is about all that really matters at the end of the day.
Some suggestions:
- People in the community should stand up and ask their schools and school boards on what basis they are purchasing technology. This is something that the open source community could actually do well. This is also something that someone like CPSR could/should do.
- People should take in interest in how their districts are supporting the use of technology. The mentality in many administrations is that parents want to buy boxes but they do not want to spend money on tech support. Do you see curriculum developers in the picture? Often tech support staff is quite thin, and developers are not even part of the picture. By making it known that the community thinks that this is an important part of their original hardware investment administrations will not feel so shy budgeting for such things.
- This is almost a whole seperate issue, but people need to start letting schools know that a lot of these "free" services make their buck on the backs of the students. Not only the advertising, but in the data that they collect on student habits (I am thinking ZapMe here). Parents do not understand how valuable this information actually is and how easily many schools are giving it away.
- Which brings me to a final point that someone made somewhere else recently and I would give attribution if I could remember. As long as schools expect everything for free or at a deep discount, it will discourage the entry of small or innovative developers into the market. Just something that I felt I had to add because this is a followup to "jas" the developer.
That's enough steam for today. Back to trying to make a difference.--chris
I am putting some of the report PDFs that I have around in my cache on my web site at www.kolar.org/echelon.