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Website of the Week
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This week's website is another recommendation by one of our members. It is a blog featuring information on technology in the classroom.
Education Origami
If you know of any great websites that you just can't live without, please share! Reply to this email with the link.
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PEN of Florida
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PEN Website
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Digital newspaper is boon to learning
By BRENDA HAWKINS
Posted September 23, 2009 at 3:18 p.m.
If you thought newspapers in the classroom were only for teaching research methods or the correct way to document a footnote, think again. Innovation and technology have come full swing into the realm of education and the majority of teachers couldn't be happier.
With the advent of interactive whiteboards (a much cleaner, technology-compatible, dust-free version of the old chalkboard), and interconnectivity with projectors and computers, teachers have been gifted with a wide array of formats to encourage the rapid exchange of ideas and build student involvement with lessons.
The classroom is a world apart from what we knew even a decade ago.
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House Loan Measure Would Free Up Cash for Early Education
Passage sends college-lending overhaul to Senate
By Alyson Klein
Early-childhood-education programs and school facilities would get major new federal aid under a bill approved last week by the U.S. House of Representatives that would cover the cost of that spending by revamping the way the federal student-lending program operates.
The House legislation, which passed Sept. 17 by a vote of 253-171, would scrap the Federal Family Education Loan Program, under which the government subsidizes private lenders to make federal loans.
Instead, starting in July of next year, all loans would originate with the William D. Ford Federal Direct Student Loan Program, in which students borrow from the U.S. Treasury. The change, largely based on a proposal put forward by President Barack Obama, would save about $87 billion over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
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Economic downturn reflected at Southwest Florida schools
In lunch lines and elsewhere, signs of vanished wealth
By Christopher O'Donnell
Published: Monday, September 21, 2009 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 10:43 p.m.
Hit hard by layoffs and paycuts, more Florida families than ever are turning to federal aid to feed their children at school.
Even in Southwest Florida, long seen as an area of affluence, the number of children qualifying for the federal government's free or reduced lunch program has risen sharply this year.
For the first time, more than half of Manatee County students -- some 22,000 children -- meet income guidelines that qualify them for government assistance.
In Sarasota County schools, almost 45 percent of students are eligible for free or reduced meals, a six-point jump from last year. Qualifying for free or reduced lunch is a commonly used by school officials as an indicator of poverty.
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Post analysis: Florida's new high school grading system
By LAURA GREEN
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 19, 2009
For a decade, the state graded high schools based on a minimum standards test, designed to measure primarily if students had learned ninth- and 10th-grade reading and math.
But now high schools also will be rated on the proportion of their students who can enter community college without needing remedial classes, pass exams to earn industry certification or college credit and actually graduate in four years.
This new, complex formula to compute A to F grades might sound like just another mathematical equation used to judge schools, but already it's changing the guiding philosophy of Palm Beach County high schools.
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Older teachers: Our vanishing treasure?
They have years of wisdom to pass along, but their ranks are few as teaching pressures rise
MOUNT DORA - For teacher Sheila Unruh, being almost 80 years old has its perks.
For one thing, she doesn't have to be so subtle when she tells parents how to improve. And moms and dads are far less likely to get combative with a grandmother who probably taught them years ago.
And she has mastered classroom management. Teens are on task in her class because they fear the alternative: taking a seat near her desk so she can serenade them with show tunes.
As one of Florida's oldest teachers, Unruh has had half a century to figure out what works in education.
There aren't many left like her. As many as half of new teachers don't even last the first five years.
Statewide, about 120 teachers age 75 and older are still working in the public schools, says the Florida Department of Education.
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New initiative offers Florida college students free digital versions of pricey textbooks.
Shannon Colavecchio, Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau
In Print: Thursday, September 24, 2009
University of Florida freshman Kelsey Viars, a graduate of East Lake High School in Pinellas County, spent hours online this summer hunting for the cheapest textbooks for her fall classes. She ended up paying about $200 total for used versions - less than many students pay, but still a tough bill to swallow on her tight budget.
"Bright Futures doesn't help pay for books anymore," said Viars, 18, who is studying criminology. "And I had to take out a loan as it is to help cover everything."
But through a new initiative state university system officials plan to announce today, Florida college students can get digital versions of some of those pricey textbooks for free. Students who really want a print version can order one custom-bound for between $30 and $50 - far cheaper than even many used textbooks.
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Unions Criticize Obama's School Proposals as 'Bush III'
By Nick Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 25, 2009
To the surprise of many educators who campaigned last year for change in the White House, the Obama administration's first recipe for school reform relies heavily on Bush-era ingredients and adds others that make unions gag.
Standardized testing, school accountability, performance pay, charter schools -- all are integral to President Obama's $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" grant competition to spur innovation. None is a typical Democratic crowd-pleaser.
Labor leaders, parsing the Education Department's fine print, call the proposal little more than a dressed-up version of the No Child Left Behind law enacted seven years ago under Obama's Republican predecessor.
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