They are solving that at my wife's school by checking out a book for each student to keep at home. They have one in their classroom and one at home, so they tote the book for that class once a year each way. It's cheaper than readers, too. If the kid loses it, he bought it.
There are lies and there are lies. There are lies of commission and lies of ommission. Moore doesn't "lie" (tell outright statements that can be disproven) but he certainly has no interest whatsoever in the truth.
I, myself, was always recognized . . . as the "slow one" in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was . . . an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day.
--Agatha Christie
but I don't think you've thought this one through. I spell better than most people I know, but I'm no Robert Frost. I have known people who can't even write b and d correctly, but who create stunning imagery in their writing.
In writing, the content is the ideas, the sentence fluency, the voice, the organization, and the choice of words. The conventions of writing, like spelling, punctuation, and grammar, are incidental and can be edited without changing the intent of the original author. Granted that grammar has an impact on choice of words and sentence fluency, but they are still only incidental.
The content, or the author's intent, is the REAL content of writing.
I think you'll find that there are PLENTY of people who grew up before the advent of the spell-checker and calculator that can't spell or add correctly.
"Just because we can build tools doesn't mean we ALWAYS have to use them - or that we can forget (or never learn) how to do things without them!"
I think that the reason we have the tools is because these problems existed in the first place. I have a hard time believing that spell-checkers are creating more lousy spellers, rather they are probably helping lousy spellers perform better.
I think that what you said SHOULD be true, but the sad thing is this:
My little brother was applying for jobs, and was frustrated because everyone wanted his resumé in Word format. Now you can do it in OOo, but then you have to deal with it not looking quite right when you open it in Word. That's how they get you.
I wonder if this $148 figure includes the cost of granting security clearance.
I had an opportunity to speak with an FBI man whose job it was to certify people for security clearance. The man is a world traveller, interviewing personally as many people as he could to get an idea of how trustworthy the candidate would be.
When I asked him about these interviews, he said he didn't bother with the telephone, but went right to the interviewee and looked them in the eyes. He told me he recently went to Elko, Nevada to go down into the mine to talk with the candidate's former co-workers. He also mentioned that if the candidate had spent time overseas, then the process becomes very complicated and time consuming.
Now, that sounds like a very expensive process to me. It seems from the article that this cost would not be included (it doesn't say specifically, but it only mentions documents), but it certainly would be a related cost.
Another (unrelated) point:
From the article:"...and the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina shows the public needs to know what could happen in their communities and what the response plans are..."
What? Is it just me or did someone just drop the name Katrina to increase the emotional blow of his tirade? I don't see the connection. Are these response plans a secret? Is the possibility of a hurricane on the Gulf Coast some kind of NSA classified information?
I probably sound sarcastic, but if there is anyone who could enlighten me on this, let me know.
Now, that is something I would like to do, but our attendance software is strictly OSX and Windows, and it isn't worth the hassle right now to dual boot. We solved the compatibility problem by making sure we save in compatible formats. It's still a pain. Anyway, I have noticed issues opening Word documents in OpenOffice, especially when I use tables.
I have thought about it, though. In fact I just got a couple of iMacs, and am thinking of slapping Linux on there. Thanks for the recommendation of Yellow Dog.
As an elementary teacher, we have already begun to have problems with this sort of thing. I want to edit the text for our big assembly we want to put on each year, but if I am going to do that, I have to pay $50 for the latest license, or else my copy of Word (only like 2 years old) crashes when I try to save. I can think of a lot of things to use that $50 for.
Only problem now is that OpenOffice.org doesn't yet have a native version for the Smackintosh (you can't copy and paste between the Web and OO.o), and Appleworks SUCKS.
Are you sure they are your tax dollars and not your airfare dollars?
I'm not trying to be a punk. I really want to know how you know (I haven't flown on an airplane since I helped my brother move out to the East Coast in May of 2001).
Are we going through all this again? We hashed it all out here http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/2 0/1845247&from=rss
and I don't see the point in going over it again. What do we really hope to accomplish? You won't convince anyone, nor will they convince you. This bickering is pointless!
Isn't the icecap frozen fresh water? Maybe someone who really knows can tell us if it makes a difference that it is frozen fresh water floating on salt water.
Well, I'm sorry but I don't lose any sleep over people who lose money gambling, or who feel it is unfair. It's gambling! Who do you think pays for all those lights in Vegas? The losers!
I think that's one of the great benefits of education: exposure to a wide variety of stuff! I was kind of interested in some of the stuff we learned about in school, and I remembered a lot of it, though I wasn't sure how useful it was going to be. Why learn to play the trumpet? How exactly is this going to help me get a job? Why exactly do we need to learn about geometry and proofs if we are not planning to be mathematicians? Like I'm ever gonna really get a chance to converse in Spanish (If I was gonna need directions to the Principal's office while on vacation to Costa Rica, I was all set!)
Fastforward about 10 years...
I did learn Spanish. My 2 years of HS Spanish were REALLY a blessing to me. My accent is cleaner than most of my college classmates, and my grammar is good. I make a little money translating professionally. My interest in history (especially military and political) is really nothing more than an awakening of something that I think was planted by teachers long ago. The trumpet is a great joy in my life (I can make my own music! That's really something!) Learning how to prove something in a structured manner is actually a good skill to have. Now, I sure wish I had taken auto shop.
"I wasn't in high school but many years later I was. I still remember that teacher though and wish I could sit there and listen to him talk about those battles once again. Cest la vie..."
I'm with you. I wish I had that chance again, but I think the seed they planted is paying off now.
No kidding. I once knew a girl, though, whose parents lived in abject poverty. They lived in a trailer. Not a mobile home, but a trailer. They shared 2 small rooms with their children. They got a bonus and were going to spend it on a BIG-SCREEN TV!!! What the crap! I guess it's all about priorities.
Problem 1:
First of all, parents are pushing responsibility for their children's education on to the schools. Schools just can't do it all. Ask any 1st grade teacher who reads in their class. They'll tell you that the ones who read at home with their parents read well in school. I think the same goes for math. I learned long division long before my teachers taught me. My brothers showed it to me. Education is the responsibility of the parents, not the teachers. Also, schools are taking more and more responsibility for other needs: counseling, food, clothing. Look at a school in any lower-middle class neighborhood, and ask yourself how many students eat free or reduced lunch (that's reduced from the already subsidized price). Then, ask how many eat breakfast there. I have had students who get all their food from school breakfast and school lunch. The school program just can't deal with all of these issues forever, and we aren't even done talking about character education and responsibility!
Problem 2:
Everyone who has ever sat their butts behind a desk in a public school for even 5 minutes grows up to become a self-styled Education Expert. These people are slashdot posters and congresspersons and chief executives. They all know exactly what's wrong and they complain and legislate and mandate (but no one funds it), all the time thinking they have The Answer. They don't. YOU don't. Sorry. Steve Jobs surely doesn't. Many people (like me) drive down the highway and see the construction and think, "Idiots! They are so dumb! Why don't they...." We don't know. We aren't experts. You graduating with a 4.0 from your high school doesn't make you any more an expert than my experiences with road construction make me an expert on paving! In fact, once former teachers become administrators, even they usually forget what it's like to be in education.
Anyway, there's my rant. Maybe it isn't on topic, but really it is. We don't know. Ask some teachers. As a teacher, I think that technology is a tool and can be used or abused. Perform research on effective uses, train interested teachers in its use, then let people who know make informed decisions.
Disclaimer: I do not advocate giving teachers full authority over the purse-strings. Some kind of management is needed. I am only saying that I am sick of "experts" and irresponsible parents.
Slashdot Mirror
Did I muss it? How much would something like this cost? Sounds too expensive to be widely used. Still, it looks very fun.
They are solving that at my wife's school by checking out a book for each student to keep at home. They have one in their classroom and one at home, so they tote the book for that class once a year each way. It's cheaper than readers, too. If the kid loses it, he bought it.
Would you like to digitally sign my eYearbook? Put your thumb right there.
There are lies and there are lies. There are lies of commission and lies of ommission. Moore doesn't "lie" (tell outright statements that can be disproven) but he certainly has no interest whatsoever in the truth.
I, myself, was always recognized . . . as the "slow one" in the family. It was quite true, and I knew it and accepted it. Writing and spelling were always terribly difficult for me. My letters were without originality. I was . . . an extraordinarily bad speller and have remained so until this day. --Agatha Christie
In writing, the content is the ideas, the sentence fluency, the voice, the organization, and the choice of words. The conventions of writing, like spelling, punctuation, and grammar, are incidental and can be edited without changing the intent of the original author. Granted that grammar has an impact on choice of words and sentence fluency, but they are still only incidental.
The content, or the author's intent, is the REAL content of writing.
"Just because we can build tools doesn't mean we ALWAYS have to use them - or that we can forget (or never learn) how to do things without them!"
I think that the reason we have the tools is because these problems existed in the first place. I have a hard time believing that spell-checkers are creating more lousy spellers, rather they are probably helping lousy spellers perform better.
My little brother was applying for jobs, and was frustrated because everyone wanted his resumé in Word format. Now you can do it in OOo, but then you have to deal with it not looking quite right when you open it in Word. That's how they get you.
I had an opportunity to speak with an FBI man whose job it was to certify people for security clearance. The man is a world traveller, interviewing personally as many people as he could to get an idea of how trustworthy the candidate would be.
When I asked him about these interviews, he said he didn't bother with the telephone, but went right to the interviewee and looked them in the eyes. He told me he recently went to Elko, Nevada to go down into the mine to talk with the candidate's former co-workers. He also mentioned that if the candidate had spent time overseas, then the process becomes very complicated and time consuming.
Now, that sounds like a very expensive process to me. It seems from the article that this cost would not be included (it doesn't say specifically, but it only mentions documents), but it certainly would be a related cost.
Another (unrelated) point:
From the article:"...and the inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina shows the public needs to know what could happen in their communities and what the response plans are..."
What? Is it just me or did someone just drop the name Katrina to increase the emotional blow of his tirade? I don't see the connection. Are these response plans a secret? Is the possibility of a hurricane on the Gulf Coast some kind of NSA classified information?
I probably sound sarcastic, but if there is anyone who could enlighten me on this, let me know.
So what's the difference between what Fuddruckers did to him and what he did to the slaughterhouses?
Just kidding, in case you are curious. But it does look an awful lot like Utah or Nevada.g
http://www.numoonus.com/BizTravel/SFOtoLAS/Dry.jp
I have thought about it, though. In fact I just got a couple of iMacs, and am thinking of slapping Linux on there. Thanks for the recommendation of Yellow Dog.
Only problem now is that OpenOffice.org doesn't yet have a native version for the Smackintosh (you can't copy and paste between the Web and OO.o), and Appleworks SUCKS.
A large number. That's why it's called vast, duh!
Gosh!
As for the real purpose of airport security, I think you are probably right.
Then, if we lost, maybe we could sue the lawyer who sued the first lawyer...
I'm not trying to be a punk. I really want to know how you know (I haven't flown on an airplane since I helped my brother move out to the East Coast in May of 2001).
Are we going through all this again? We hashed it all out here http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08/2 0/1845247&from=rss
and I don't see the point in going over it again. What do we really hope to accomplish? You won't convince anyone, nor will they convince you. This bickering is pointless!
Isn't the icecap frozen fresh water? Maybe someone who really knows can tell us if it makes a difference that it is frozen fresh water floating on salt water.
I stand corrected.
Well, I'm sorry but I don't lose any sleep over people who lose money gambling, or who feel it is unfair. It's gambling! Who do you think pays for all those lights in Vegas? The losers!
Fastforward about 10 years...
I did learn Spanish. My 2 years of HS Spanish were REALLY a blessing to me. My accent is cleaner than most of my college classmates, and my grammar is good. I make a little money translating professionally. My interest in history (especially military and political) is really nothing more than an awakening of something that I think was planted by teachers long ago. The trumpet is a great joy in my life (I can make my own music! That's really something!) Learning how to prove something in a structured manner is actually a good skill to have. Now, I sure wish I had taken auto shop.
"I wasn't in high school but many years later I was. I still remember that teacher though and wish I could sit there and listen to him talk about those battles once again. Cest la vie..."
I'm with you. I wish I had that chance again, but I think the seed they planted is paying off now.
No kidding. I once knew a girl, though, whose parents lived in abject poverty. They lived in a trailer. Not a mobile home, but a trailer. They shared 2 small rooms with their children. They got a bonus and were going to spend it on a BIG-SCREEN TV!!! What the crap! I guess it's all about priorities.
First of all, parents are pushing responsibility for their children's education on to the schools. Schools just can't do it all. Ask any 1st grade teacher who reads in their class. They'll tell you that the ones who read at home with their parents read well in school. I think the same goes for math. I learned long division long before my teachers taught me. My brothers showed it to me. Education is the responsibility of the parents, not the teachers. Also, schools are taking more and more responsibility for other needs: counseling, food, clothing. Look at a school in any lower-middle class neighborhood, and ask yourself how many students eat free or reduced lunch (that's reduced from the already subsidized price). Then, ask how many eat breakfast there. I have had students who get all their food from school breakfast and school lunch. The school program just can't deal with all of these issues forever, and we aren't even done talking about character education and responsibility!
Problem 2: ...." We don't know. We aren't experts. You graduating with a 4.0 from your high school doesn't make you any more an expert than my experiences with road construction make me an expert on paving! In fact, once former teachers become administrators, even they usually forget what it's like to be in education.
Everyone who has ever sat their butts behind a desk in a public school for even 5 minutes grows up to become a self-styled Education Expert. These people are slashdot posters and congresspersons and chief executives. They all know exactly what's wrong and they complain and legislate and mandate (but no one funds it), all the time thinking they have The Answer. They don't. YOU don't. Sorry. Steve Jobs surely doesn't. Many people (like me) drive down the highway and see the construction and think, "Idiots! They are so dumb! Why don't they
Anyway, there's my rant. Maybe it isn't on topic, but really it is. We don't know. Ask some teachers. As a teacher, I think that technology is a tool and can be used or abused. Perform research on effective uses, train interested teachers in its use, then let people who know make informed decisions.
Disclaimer: I do not advocate giving teachers full authority over the purse-strings. Some kind of management is needed. I am only saying that I am sick of "experts" and irresponsible parents.
What's the matter with you? How dare you question (insert topic here)? Didn't your mama raise you right? What kind of person are you?!
We hear this sort of thing a lot.