If you aren't in teaching to teach, you won't last long. It's probably the most thankless job you'll find sometimes. I love what I do, and I love teaching, but if it wasn't something I loved doing I could be making a lot more money doing something else. Personally I think this is a case of a state overstepping it's bounds. At some point teachers need to have some sort of rights to have lives, and unfortunately I see a spiral continuing down from here further and further. Pretty soon we'll be back to the 1800's teachers rules...
I don't know about the poster, but personally I remember paying $500/semester for a technology fee. I definitely was paying for an internet connection at my university (along with the software library, etc.). If this had gone on there we would have literally revolted I believe... I did not go to a state university though, and somehow I doubt the OP is either. It strikes me as something a conservative private college would do.
I was up in the mountains about 7 miles away when it started... It's ridiculously dry right now, high winds, and high temps. All that's going to be possible is evacuating people. The bad thing is it's going in the opposite direction of the 2000 fire, so there's plenty of fuel. The Bandalier National park has had about half of it's area burned so far as of earlier today.
Thoughts and prayers to all who are in its path.
Most superintendents tend to be teachers, turned principals, turned superintendents. In a lot of states, such as Texas where I teach, they base retirement based on the last 5 year average of salary earned... When a superintendent may make 80k-130k per year that's a pretty big incentive. That does not mean they were good teachers, and for the most part means a large gap between college and becoming a superintendent.
Overall I thought the premise of the letter rang very true.
The core teachers at the school I teach at were all issued iPads around November or December. They are stock models, the only major thing that seems to be locked down is install of applications? I'm a band director that was overlooked on it - so I'm not sure on the administrative situation there.
As far as using them in the classroom? I actually have a student who owns one and uses it around school I think more than the netbook that she was issued. I don't honestly believe they are any better/or worse than the netbook on writing papers. The Dell netbooks that our school bought last year are terrible to the point of being unusable without an external mouse. The screen on the iPad + thinness really makes it better on that point. An external bluetooth keyboard in theory could make it as useable as the netbook.
My biggest concerns about passing out iPads to kids though are the costs of replacement screens. As it is the netbooks this year have been dying at a higher rate than the first year (dropped, stepped on, etc.) The iPad 2 screens in particular are not supposed to be cheap if I remember correctly. The flip side though, is that if people would start allowing students to access their textbooks from them - and be able to annotate on them - it might be better there. Most of the time though our teachers are so locked into this curriculum system (C-SCOPE) that I don't even know how much they use their textbooks. They use a lot of materials from there that could be just as easily shared via PDF on iPads.
For me I love the device. It's great for so many things, and I love the flexibility to have music scores - and hopefully marching drill this year - on it.
Not sure exactly about the filtering, but I know that the singing was recorded with the performers listening and matching with headphones on. I also know there was a TON of entries to get into this video. Whitacre has almost a cult following in the choral world, and many people jumped at the chance. It could be that one of the ways they selected the vocalists was to throw out poor audio files.
The composer, Eric Whitacre, has been doing quite a few cool new things integrating multi-media into his works recently. This internet video is the biggest one so far, and I find it absolutely amazing how the project came off. The person who did the video editing did a great job. It's been talked about on CNN, BBC, and now much more imporantly Slashdot!;-) He's got a pretty faithful following on Facebook.
If you're into music at all check out some of his compositions. I'm a band person (director), but his choral stuff is amazing. He's also transcribed many of his pieces (including this one) into band works and written a number of orchestral pieces. (October is by far my favorite)
This is a pretty sweet video, if you think about how out of the box some of this was at the time it makes it even cooler. (Sad to think a calculator I used in high school could have done this easier...)
I'm not exactly sure where they're putting that in, but it sounds like you're discussing a lot of the reservation areas. That is still unlikely to improve. Since, in most of the tribes, you're not allowed to buy the property (just rent it for a dollar/100years) people aren't willing to build and repair on buildings that they don't even technically own. It would be almost like throwing away money at that point for them. It sounds like a pretty rural part of the state where they're putting this though, may not even be reservation land involved here.
Okay, this is ridiculous. Apple is giving them free advertising. Providing the pipeline and distribution network for the advertising... And selling their product for them at a profit for the company. Now they want Apple to pay for them to be able to advertise the recording studio's product that they're trying to sell...
What part of this makes sense to anyone except greedy lawyers and CEO's? The sheer amount of gall is amazing. Do they really expect Apple to bend over and say 'thank you sir may I have another?' I'm pretty sure they now how to tell them where to stick it.
While I'm also sure that this will end in disaster, I must confess if there is anything that can be done about the ants down here I would be incredibly grateful. The electrical equipment doesn't surprise me one bit, they go for anything, and I've regularly seen these wonderful little creatures around outlets and such.
As a teacher I have to say I think that it is an incredibly common problem for every school to have someone that isn't being as effective of a teacher as they could be (read in some cases awful and idiotic). In my experience it tends to be the teachers that have been in the system for a long time, most likely tenured, who are protected just by the length of time they teach. Many times these 'teachers' spend their time as place holders, completely ineffective as teachers, and often times as people that pull down the morale of the whole teaching staff. Knowing that someone is a terrible teacher, but gets to continue to teach year after year, doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the schools to many people.
That being said, in my experience it's ONE teacher in the whole school (at most two in a large school). Not a problem at a level that should cause people to lose hope in the system. They're there, and we're unfortunately generally stuck with them unless they really screw up. Which happens sometimes. But, for every one case like this we get so much bad press that it causes people to make their snide comments about the rest of the school's employees. Myself, and most of the teachers I know, all give more time to these students than anyone ever acknowledges. There's no right answer right now, but the evaluation systems in education are definitely a spot that needs re-examined in many places.
As a teacher I do think that perhaps what is unsaid is probably the bigger cause of this. I know there are a lot of slashdotters that are all about 'students rights,' and I agree to an extent they have to be there. But, when you're dealing with a classroom of students and attempting to teach state mandated material to students, maintain discipline, and manage to teach kids everything else in between (including often times being someone that they're more willing to talk to than their parents,) there has to be rules in place. (That's of course not including any daily fun you have with parents, politics, and whatever else comes up in your daily routine).
Cell phones in particular are a real big hot button in the education setting right now. At my school as long as we don't see them or have evidence they're there we leave well enough alone. I teach band, I'm down right happy for cell phones when I come back from trips - they keep me from waiting till 2 in the morning for parents to show up! The issues of photos, bullying through the phones, and much more importantly emergency management are causing this kind of stuff to begin being mandated to us by district lawyers. Word for my campus is next year they're not to be here at all - automatic consequences.
In the past I have had students outright say that they'll not listen to me on that issue if there's an emergency lock down or something. That kind of break down in discipline at that kind of time is something that can't be tolerated. Now I know that there are none of these circumstances being mentioned here - but please get off the high horse about students should be able to have every disruptive device and use them at all times.
Most importantly with this, I'd be willing to bet the student in question was blatantly disrespectful to all of the authority figures involved. At a certain point the student probably limited the options available to them. Perhaps there were mistakes, but due to privacy issues you will never hear the school side of the story.
As already mentioned above, they announced a plan to have complete compatibility with Exchange. They also announced a number of other enterprise features that should make the phone look much more attractive to corporate settings.
I am a teacher, and I do completely agree that some stuff has to be done at some level. As a teacher (esp. being a male teacher) my biggest fear in this day in age is being falsely accused of something. It doesn't even have to have really happened - all it takes is a rumor. When I announced I would not be returning last year to my last school all sorts of malicious rumors started up - they even made it to the neighboring school district where my mom works.
There should be serious recourse for slander (which is what it is in many cases.) Whether or not it's true - if even a possibility of truth is there - teachers lose their jobs for things like this. Not necessarily the fat comments (that's a little too far), but certainly untrue accusations should be stomped on.
I'll be honest, my students and I banter back and forth quite a bit in class - I don't mind, and in fact enjoy it - but there is a line that constitutes fun and slander. It may not be clearly drawn from the outside, but from the other side you can see where it can be a problem. I definitely agree that MySpace pages are probably a terrible idea for teachers to have as far as risk factor. Even on my website I take extreme care about what I post on there.
Should it take a law for this? No. But unfortunately with many administrations and the state of parents out there it's what it's going to take.
Slashdot Mirror
If you aren't in teaching to teach, you won't last long. It's probably the most thankless job you'll find sometimes. I love what I do, and I love teaching, but if it wasn't something I loved doing I could be making a lot more money doing something else. Personally I think this is a case of a state overstepping it's bounds. At some point teachers need to have some sort of rights to have lives, and unfortunately I see a spiral continuing down from here further and further. Pretty soon we'll be back to the 1800's teachers rules...
I don't know about the poster, but personally I remember paying $500/semester for a technology fee. I definitely was paying for an internet connection at my university (along with the software library, etc.). If this had gone on there we would have literally revolted I believe... I did not go to a state university though, and somehow I doubt the OP is either. It strikes me as something a conservative private college would do.
I was up in the mountains about 7 miles away when it started... It's ridiculously dry right now, high winds, and high temps. All that's going to be possible is evacuating people. The bad thing is it's going in the opposite direction of the 2000 fire, so there's plenty of fuel. The Bandalier National park has had about half of it's area burned so far as of earlier today. Thoughts and prayers to all who are in its path.
Overall I thought the premise of the letter rang very true.
As far as using them in the classroom? I actually have a student who owns one and uses it around school I think more than the netbook that she was issued. I don't honestly believe they are any better/or worse than the netbook on writing papers. The Dell netbooks that our school bought last year are terrible to the point of being unusable without an external mouse. The screen on the iPad + thinness really makes it better on that point. An external bluetooth keyboard in theory could make it as useable as the netbook.
My biggest concerns about passing out iPads to kids though are the costs of replacement screens. As it is the netbooks this year have been dying at a higher rate than the first year (dropped, stepped on, etc.) The iPad 2 screens in particular are not supposed to be cheap if I remember correctly. The flip side though, is that if people would start allowing students to access their textbooks from them - and be able to annotate on them - it might be better there. Most of the time though our teachers are so locked into this curriculum system (C-SCOPE) that I don't even know how much they use their textbooks. They use a lot of materials from there that could be just as easily shared via PDF on iPads.
For me I love the device. It's great for so many things, and I love the flexibility to have music scores - and hopefully marching drill this year - on it.
Nobody could predict that... well not until after the fiasco that was the Star Spangled Banner!
Not sure exactly about the filtering, but I know that the singing was recorded with the performers listening and matching with headphones on. I also know there was a TON of entries to get into this video. Whitacre has almost a cult following in the choral world, and many people jumped at the chance. It could be that one of the ways they selected the vocalists was to throw out poor audio files.
If you're into music at all check out some of his compositions. I'm a band person (director), but his choral stuff is amazing. He's also transcribed many of his pieces (including this one) into band works and written a number of orchestral pieces. (October is by far my favorite)
Take back what I said about calculators... those dials are pretty sweet. And he didn't do it solely on math like I thought he would have.
This is a pretty sweet video, if you think about how out of the box some of this was at the time it makes it even cooler. (Sad to think a calculator I used in high school could have done this easier...)
I'm not exactly sure where they're putting that in, but it sounds like you're discussing a lot of the reservation areas. That is still unlikely to improve. Since, in most of the tribes, you're not allowed to buy the property (just rent it for a dollar/100years) people aren't willing to build and repair on buildings that they don't even technically own. It would be almost like throwing away money at that point for them. It sounds like a pretty rural part of the state where they're putting this though, may not even be reservation land involved here.
Okay, this is ridiculous. Apple is giving them free advertising. Providing the pipeline and distribution network for the advertising... And selling their product for them at a profit for the company. Now they want Apple to pay for them to be able to advertise the recording studio's product that they're trying to sell...
What part of this makes sense to anyone except greedy lawyers and CEO's? The sheer amount of gall is amazing. Do they really expect Apple to bend over and say 'thank you sir may I have another?' I'm pretty sure they now how to tell them where to stick it.
The printer's great, but the Fax machine... now that's where it's at!
While I'm also sure that this will end in disaster, I must confess if there is anything that can be done about the ants down here I would be incredibly grateful. The electrical equipment doesn't surprise me one bit, they go for anything, and I've regularly seen these wonderful little creatures around outlets and such.
As a teacher I have to say I think that it is an incredibly common problem for every school to have someone that isn't being as effective of a teacher as they could be (read in some cases awful and idiotic). In my experience it tends to be the teachers that have been in the system for a long time, most likely tenured, who are protected just by the length of time they teach. Many times these 'teachers' spend their time as place holders, completely ineffective as teachers, and often times as people that pull down the morale of the whole teaching staff. Knowing that someone is a terrible teacher, but gets to continue to teach year after year, doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the schools to many people.
That being said, in my experience it's ONE teacher in the whole school (at most two in a large school). Not a problem at a level that should cause people to lose hope in the system. They're there, and we're unfortunately generally stuck with them unless they really screw up. Which happens sometimes. But, for every one case like this we get so much bad press that it causes people to make their snide comments about the rest of the school's employees. Myself, and most of the teachers I know, all give more time to these students than anyone ever acknowledges. There's no right answer right now, but the evaluation systems in education are definitely a spot that needs re-examined in many places.
As a teacher I do think that perhaps what is unsaid is probably the bigger cause of this. I know there are a lot of slashdotters that are all about 'students rights,' and I agree to an extent they have to be there. But, when you're dealing with a classroom of students and attempting to teach state mandated material to students, maintain discipline, and manage to teach kids everything else in between (including often times being someone that they're more willing to talk to than their parents,) there has to be rules in place. (That's of course not including any daily fun you have with parents, politics, and whatever else comes up in your daily routine).
Cell phones in particular are a real big hot button in the education setting right now. At my school as long as we don't see them or have evidence they're there we leave well enough alone. I teach band, I'm down right happy for cell phones when I come back from trips - they keep me from waiting till 2 in the morning for parents to show up! The issues of photos, bullying through the phones, and much more importantly emergency management are causing this kind of stuff to begin being mandated to us by district lawyers. Word for my campus is next year they're not to be here at all - automatic consequences.
In the past I have had students outright say that they'll not listen to me on that issue if there's an emergency lock down or something. That kind of break down in discipline at that kind of time is something that can't be tolerated. Now I know that there are none of these circumstances being mentioned here - but please get off the high horse about students should be able to have every disruptive device and use them at all times.
Most importantly with this, I'd be willing to bet the student in question was blatantly disrespectful to all of the authority figures involved. At a certain point the student probably limited the options available to them. Perhaps there were mistakes, but due to privacy issues you will never hear the school side of the story.
As already mentioned above, they announced a plan to have complete compatibility with Exchange. They also announced a number of other enterprise features that should make the phone look much more attractive to corporate settings.
I am a teacher, and I do completely agree that some stuff has to be done at some level. As a teacher (esp. being a male teacher) my biggest fear in this day in age is being falsely accused of something. It doesn't even have to have really happened - all it takes is a rumor. When I announced I would not be returning last year to my last school all sorts of malicious rumors started up - they even made it to the neighboring school district where my mom works. There should be serious recourse for slander (which is what it is in many cases.) Whether or not it's true - if even a possibility of truth is there - teachers lose their jobs for things like this. Not necessarily the fat comments (that's a little too far), but certainly untrue accusations should be stomped on. I'll be honest, my students and I banter back and forth quite a bit in class - I don't mind, and in fact enjoy it - but there is a line that constitutes fun and slander. It may not be clearly drawn from the outside, but from the other side you can see where it can be a problem. I definitely agree that MySpace pages are probably a terrible idea for teachers to have as far as risk factor. Even on my website I take extreme care about what I post on there. Should it take a law for this? No. But unfortunately with many administrations and the state of parents out there it's what it's going to take.