New and Improved! Technology initiatives in education.

Time for a big-ass rant.

The Tempered Radical knows why teachers give up on Interactive White Boards. With some major snipping, and hoping I don't eliminate context:

What bothers me ... is an attitude towards teachers that I see often in conversations about school change. "Teachers all resistant to change and lazy!" the argument goes. "If they'd just be persistent and determined, our schools would be saved." ... The general belief is that teachers lack determination and commitment in almost every circumstance.
... that's a flawed assumption. ... the amount of effort that most changes take doesn't align with the corresponding benefits that change is designed to produce. ... The software wasn't designed to naturally facilitate the kinds of teaching that I believe in and limited access to the hardware required that I restructure learning time in my classroom almost every day.

I'm all over this. I think that the programmers who do this stuff should spend some time teaching to find out how the "real-world" will use it and what those teachers actually need. This is, for me, the crux of the problem. Those who write don't know what problem they are trying to solve and often do not have a clue as to how I will use it. (Sort of an educational consultant, no?)

Then, the pressures of making a sale get in the way of making my life easier. All too often, the person making the purchase isn't the one who gets to use it. Even if they asked the teachers, they're still asking someone who hasn't used it and can't really tell.

There are four major problems with technology and tech initiatives: Variety, the learning curve, Usability and Availability.

The rant is below this break.

Hurricane Bloomberg

NYTimes: "The votes to close the schools fell along political lines, with the appointees of the Manhattan, Queens, Bronx and Brooklyn borough presidents voting against the closings while each of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s appointees approved them without question."

Kinda says it all, doesn't it?

Apocalypse Reform

From AccountableTalk:
Arne Duncan on hurricanes and education: "The best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. That education system was a disaster. And it took Hurricane Katrina to wake up the community to say that we have to do better."

Whew. I'm glad he cleared that up. I'm sure that makes it all better. Now it's New York's turn with Major Bloomberg.

"We had to close the school in order to save it"

An update below the fold.

The State of the Climate Debate

Is this the best they can come up with?

Temp is -12 global warming degrees F up the mountain at Killington today. Think I'll just ski half a day, have a couple of beers and some chili, and drive back to NYC.

or:

Late Thursday evening, in the hour before midnight, I found myself driving home from the airport amidst howling winds, blowing-and-drifting snow, and rapidly-falling temperatures. Watching the temperature dropping on the display of my truck's exterior-monitoring thermometer, an interesting and possibly didactic exercise occurred to me:

Ponder the following three factoids:
o The long-term average high temperature for this time of year (at the BTV airport reporting station) is 27F;
o Monday, the temperature reached into the low 50s;
o Friday (yesterday), the temperature struggled to reach into the low single-digits.

Do the math and ponder what these things tell you about the nature of the underlying "system"....

I know that this is supposed to be a clever rebuttal of the Climate Change theory, but I just can't bring myself to do anything but laugh at it. What a pathetic attempt.

I'm glad I don't live near the ocean in one of those low-lying cities like New York or Los Angeles. Though, to be able to travel by ship through the Northwest Passage which has opened for the first time in memory would be cool ...

30 Day suspension for being photographed.

It's time for another Highly Ineffective Administration

Wow. Private, Legal, Personal. Not on School Time. No students or underage people of any kind. A bridal shower with a stripper but you're fully dressed. Posted on someone else's Facebook account.

There are so many things wrong with this suspension, I just don't know where to begin.

What is this district trying to accomplish here? Removal of a teacher by any means possible? Do they really think that this is worth the fight? I love the moonwalking: not allowing comments at the next school board meeting - which is illegal, since the public has a right to speak (calmly and appropriately) at a public meeting. The Board can hide behind the "confidentiality" shield but this will not go away easily.

Let's hope the Union will do its due diligence on this one.

Reposted below the fold since it will disappear from there.

An honest man, Ted Olsen.

Ted Olsen, conservative lawyer, arguing against California's Prop 8 anti gay marriage law:

reposted below the fold if it disappears from the Newsweek site.

Game-Changing Graphics

Those of you who know me know that I love data visualization done well. I am always looking for, and hopefully finding, graphics that clarify or that bring a new perspective to data. Tables of numbers are rarely helpful. An appropriate graph or visual, on the other hand, leads everyone to the classic indicator of epiphany ... "Hummm, now that's interesting ..."
 
These are some that I consider the game changers ...

Below the fold so the graphics don't kill one-time visitors:

Polls, Damned Polls and Statistics.

From NYCeducator, who got it from Miss Cellania, who got it from PHDComics.com.

which brings to mind this gem from The Register

Since I'm in that sort of mood, I note that Pols (politicians) and Polls (the surveys) always seem to be liars of convenience. Go figure.

Dolphin Hunting techniques have evolved

I am fascinated by these dolphins. If this isn't "tool use", then it is at least a sign of awareness and intelligence.

Conversations with a counselor

I had a short conversation with the counselor (the psychiatrist one, not the college one) about two students who had been in my classes before and were scheduled to be in my class for the new semester. Both had failed things before and neither was any more capable of being in class, working, being a student. (with editing for anonymity) I was told, "[stuff happened] and [current problems], I'm not worried about classes. I just hope I can keep the kid alive. And the second kid is a bigger mess. I don't know if [he] will make it."

Both were a PITA, but neither deserves this. Bleah.

I expand on my views of WalMart YMMV

I have gotten some heat for my take on WalMart. It has been pointed out that it's just as the sign says and too many "locals" have gone out of business and their jobs aren't up to the standards of other parts of the country and all that. I am also keenly aware of the impact those jobs can have on a poor community where before there was only a bunch of family-owned shops (who didn't hire and had high prices) or somewhat larger shops; again with the limited opportunities and high cost of goods.

More below the fold:

Supreme Court and First Amendment

from NYTimes:

"The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether the First Amendment requires that the names of people who sign ballot-initiative petitions be kept secret." and "The Ninth Circuit panel said it was unclear whether petition signatures were speech protected by the First Amendment. In any event, it said, the signatures were gathered in public with no promise of confidentiality and collected on sheets with space for 20 signatures each."
James Bopp Jr., a lawyer for Protect Marriage Washington, said in a statement that the Ninth Circuit’s decision infringed “the rights of citizens who support a traditional definition of marriage to speak freely and without fear.”

Wow.

If I sign a petition with 20 spaces on it, I can read who those people are and they can see mine. It’s public.

Read more below the fold:

Bashing Walmart is ultimately pointless.

It's Saturday and I'm feeling cranky.

In another blog, this sign popped up. The comments were the usual "Right on" and "We need more of this." My favorite was "Yes, we certainly do need to draw attention to vanishing local economies and signs like this would definitely do the trick".

I find this sign silly. It reflects antipathy toward one company that built itself up in a classic sense, just like every small but somehow more worthy company wants to.

It should read "On this site stood a dinosaur which couldn't adapt to the reality around it."

If we were talking about a car company, bigger and foreign-built would apparently be fine. Who wants to buy a car made completely in East Podunk, Vermont? Even if such a company existed, its costs would be prohibitive. If it still made a decent product, people would pay more for it - it's called "custom car."

More below the break: