Friday, January 29, 2010
Maine Broadband News
Check out this new blog by Karl Beiser that gives updates on broadband networks in Maine.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Everyday Words
In my capacity as a MARTI trainer, I just got back from working with Joan Parker and a group of Oxford Hills Adult Education students on a new English class that focuses on personal stories. It is a diverse group with unique individuals who will be sharing, collaborating, and publishing in many ways, including online. Check out our fledgling Google website here.
Everyday Words
Everyday Words
Monday, January 25, 2010
Private Reader, Public Reader
By Pam Kenney
I've been asked many times to join book clubs, and my initial reluctance, and final decision to decline, have always surprised friends and acquaintances. After all, I love to read, spend much too much time in libraries and bookstores, and am not shy about expressing my views about the war in Iraq or healthcare legislation.
I've thought a lot about my hesitation to discuss books publicly, and I believe I don't enjoy the discussion format because I find it uncharacteristically difficult to articulate and communicate my thoughts about a book to a group. For one thing, a book's "theme" sometimes becomes secondary to me when I'm reading. I love language and words and frequently find myself so caught up in the way the author writes that I ignore the story line altogether. I can spend ten minutes mentally celebrating a turn of phrase by Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro, for example, marveling at their ability to use the English language to express the exact nuance of meaning they intend.
Discussing a book as part of a group interrupts and disturbs my inner dialogue, too. The books I most enjoy allow me to ponder at length, and often revise, my personal value system. When I read Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards, I spent hours re-evaluating my beliefs about right and wrong and the importance of self-respect. Somehow, talking with others about the feelings associated with such insights makes me uncomfortable.
Book clubs can help many people find meaning in the monthly selections they might not have gleaned on their own. For me, however, private contemplation is more satisfying, so I'll continue my love affair with books on my own.
I've been asked many times to join book clubs, and my initial reluctance, and final decision to decline, have always surprised friends and acquaintances. After all, I love to read, spend much too much time in libraries and bookstores, and am not shy about expressing my views about the war in Iraq or healthcare legislation.
I've thought a lot about my hesitation to discuss books publicly, and I believe I don't enjoy the discussion format because I find it uncharacteristically difficult to articulate and communicate my thoughts about a book to a group. For one thing, a book's "theme" sometimes becomes secondary to me when I'm reading. I love language and words and frequently find myself so caught up in the way the author writes that I ignore the story line altogether. I can spend ten minutes mentally celebrating a turn of phrase by Margaret Atwood or Alice Munro, for example, marveling at their ability to use the English language to express the exact nuance of meaning they intend.
Discussing a book as part of a group interrupts and disturbs my inner dialogue, too. The books I most enjoy allow me to ponder at length, and often revise, my personal value system. When I read Mercy Among the Children by David Adams Richards, I spent hours re-evaluating my beliefs about right and wrong and the importance of self-respect. Somehow, talking with others about the feelings associated with such insights makes me uncomfortable.
Book clubs can help many people find meaning in the monthly selections they might not have gleaned on their own. For me, however, private contemplation is more satisfying, so I'll continue my love affair with books on my own.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Moving to Google for Educators
Waynflete: Moving to Google
Google Apps for Education - Rating Our Transition - The Mistakes
Google Apps for Education - Rating Our Transition - The Good
Google Workshop for Educators
Successful Deployments for Educational Institutions
Google Apps Education Community
Independent Schools Educators Network - Moving to Google Apps
Castilleja School: Moving to Google for Educators
RSU 19: Google Apps in Action
Google Apps for Education - Rating Our Transition - The Mistakes
Google Apps for Education - Rating Our Transition - The Good
Google Workshop for Educators
Successful Deployments for Educational Institutions
Google Apps Education Community
Independent Schools Educators Network - Moving to Google Apps
Castilleja School: Moving to Google for Educators
RSU 19: Google Apps in Action
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Broadband Stimulus in Maine - A Battle between Fairpoint and UMS
Bills Take Aim at UMS' Role in Broadband
Backlash Against Broadband Stimulus in Maine
WetMachine: Fairpoint Tries to Scuttle Maine Broadband Stimulus Package
Maine Legislature Bills: HP1198, LD 1697, An Act to Protect Universal Service
Broadbank DSL Reports: Fairpoint Still Has Enough Cash for Anticompetitive Lobbying
GWI Requests Fairpoint Investigation
Backlash Against Broadband Stimulus in Maine
WetMachine: Fairpoint Tries to Scuttle Maine Broadband Stimulus Package
Maine Legislature Bills: HP1198, LD 1697, An Act to Protect Universal Service
Broadbank DSL Reports: Fairpoint Still Has Enough Cash for Anticompetitive Lobbying
GWI Requests Fairpoint Investigation
Monday, January 18, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Friday, January 15, 2010
Lubec: Google Applications for Education
I spent yesterday at the Lubec School with Ed Latham and Dawn Fernandez in an initial training for using their new Google Apps for Education network. Lubec has 1-to-1 laptops for grades 5-12 and now is focusing intensely on providing the necessary professional development. Dawn, the regional mentor for Downeast, will be doing at least 5 additional sessions this year with the whole staff on helping leverage this hardware to be optimally used in meeting the school's learning goals. She'll also work with teachers in their classrooms to assist in the process of integrating with classroom goals.By the way, the people at Lubec School are incredibly welcoming, friendly, caring, and enthusiastic. I love small schools! :)
Being a user of the many excellent Google tools, but not having seen the special "Educators" version that allows local administration, I probably learned as much as I taught, thanks to expertise of Ed, Dawn, and Larry (the amiable and extremely helpful local technical guy). I was impressed at the incredible free opportunities in this package for school systems. I drove 4 1/2 hours home to Western Maine wondering why all schools didn't make use of this user-friendly and powerful set of tools. With their well-integrated web applications, the good people at Google have done away with the clunkiness of many of the learning environments that I've experienced . They have done away with much of the top-down control issues and put the ubiquitous system directly in the hands of teachers and principals. Why would anyone use anything else?
What other Maine SAU's are using this in their school?
See Google Applications at LIM Resources
Google Apps for Education
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
National Standards: Alfie Kohn Challenged - Part I
By Pam Kenney
A few years ago Time magazine described Alfie Kohn as "perhaps the country's most outspoken critic of education's fixation on grades [and] test scores." He has written extensively about the current push for national standards, and, for the most part, he doesn't like it. In fact, he labels the standards an "accountability fad." A link to one of his recent articles, "Debunking the Case for National Standards" appeared yesterday in a post on "Learning in Maine."
One of Kohn's concerns is that the adoption of national standards would signal a concomitant shift in the focus of learning from one where students develop and use high-level thinking skills to exchange ideas, grapple with complex viewpoints, and solve problems to a routinized one of memorization, drill, and objective tests. The dismal picture Kohn paints is typical of many critics of national standards, and it's not accurate. To refute Kohn's criticism, I will draw examples only from the mathematics area because I am currently reading math standards from individual U.S. states and five foreign countries.
Yes, all the documents I have studied have objective, measurable standards that require children to memorize addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts, and most mandate that students learn standard algorithms. In addition, however, they contain standards that delineate the understanding of concepts through the application of high-order thinking skills; they concentrate on problem-solving strategies that stress reasoning, demonstrating understanding using several methods, cooperating, and communicating ideas among peers. The national math standards being proposed today are not trying to re-capture the pre-Sputnik philosophies of rote learning and drill and test; they are an attempt to balance understanding and the acquisition of specific skills that are necessary to daily life.
My question is this: Why are the arguments against national standards by writers like Alfie Kohn so black and white? This isn't an "either/or" or "us versus them" debate. Of course, we want our children to have a deep understanding of math concepts. Certainly we want them to reason well mathematically and to solve complex problems. But when a sixth grader in Maine is still looking at a chart to solve 6*8, then perhaps a national standard will force his school district to realize it's just as important for him to learn his multiplication facts as it is for him to draw a picture to explain why the answer is 48.
Tomorrow: Part II: "Who Should Determine the Content of National Standards?"
Student Technology Showcase
You are cordially invited to the 7th Bi-Annual Student Technology Showcase. Located in Newport at the Sebasticook Valley Middle School on Saturday, January 16th. This event features the technology projects of fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students from throughtout the year.
From 10:00 to 1:30 please tour the school and experiment with many of the technological tools our students use every day. Watch digital animated movies, view galleries of skateboards and hand built artwork, see a computer lab custom built by students, try your hand at anchoring in our News Studio, assemble and program robots, scan through student blogs, wikis and web portfolios, or take a virtual tour of the school.
If you are unable to attend physically, please consider attending virtually. You can use Skype in and get a personal live tour of the events going on during the showcase. The Skype name is studentshowcase and you can sign up here: http://tinyurl.com/ststour
The awards ceremony begins at 1:30 where participants can win prizes of iPod Touches or a MacBook. Please come and see the work of some amazing students! If you have any questions or want more information, please check out the website: www.studentshowcase.org or contact Kern Kelley at kkelley@rsu19.org / 368-4592.
Hope to see you there!
For an additional viewpoint, please check our Cheryl Oakes' blog post from last year's event:
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