Fintelo : Online Solution

Source: www.istockanalyst.com

By: Shay Maunz

When scrolling through their feed on the social networking site Twitter, hundreds of individuals see not only updates on their friends’ whereabouts or breaking news from national media outlets, they receive updates about recent happenings at West Virginia University.

WVU News, an outlet of News and Information Services at the University, joined Twitter last year and has since posted more than 500 updates to keep their followers informed about university affairs.

“The communication landscape is changing very rapidly and radically, and we are very committed to figuring out the best ways to communicate with and connect with people we care about,” said Dan Kim, director of News and Information Services (NIS) at WVU.

WVU posts updates on Twitter when new information is made available on its Web page, and also has been looking into ways to use the medium more interactively.

NIS worked with the College of Business and Economics, for example, to coordinate a venture that got the college’s dean tweeting from a conference in Las Vegas recently.

“I know he [was] tweeting all these really interesting facts he learned,” Kim said. “It’s a great way to communicate with a much larger group.”

The university also has a Facebook page, with more than 33,000 fans. Fairmont State and Marshall universities, as well, have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts.

As technology grows more and more advanced, the trend among colleges and universities, both state and nationwide, is to hop on board, implementing new technology in the classroom as well as in administrative processes.

WVU, for one, offered more than 400 online classes during the summer session, and enrollment was up for those classes by 22 percent.

Sue Day-Perroots, the dean of extended learning at WVU, said because this generation of college students have grown up in a technology-laden society, online classes are “a pretty natural learning environment.”

And they provide a degree of flexibility that is nearly impossible with traditional courses.

“The obvious interest in online is convenience,” Day-Perroots said. “People’s schedules are just so booked. The online class gives you the time to focus on your education at a time that is feasible for you.”

Because online classes afford students more flexibility with their coursework, the classes require commitment and self-discipline. Day-Perroots warns that they are not for procrastinators.

“In the early days of online there was a perception that online classes were easier, but I think we have done away with that myth,” she said.

“Going to class used to be the challenge. Now, it’s the same way for online learning.”

But Neal Shambaugh, an associate professor at WVU and program coordinator of instructional design and technology who has also authored two textbooks on instructional design, warns that the task of keeping students engaged also falls largely on the shoulders of instructors and administrators.

“Instructors have to work to pay attention to students in different ways than before. Teaching becomes more complicated and faculty members have to spend more time preparing their courses,” he said in an e-mail. “Academic programs have to spend more time marketing for students they’ll never see, and to pay attention to their progress, although they may never step foot on campus.”

Though acknowledging that online classes deprive students of the social environment provided by a traditional classroom, Shambaugh added that as technology evolves, it could provide “unique environments you could not use in a physical classroom, such as virtual simulations, gaming, networking and world-wide communications.”

Technology is also being developed to help ward off cheating, which is often cited as a concern with online classes and assignments. Administrators have already implemented some measures — imposing time limits and randomizing questions for online coursework, among other strategies — and Day-Perroots said she expects new technology to emerge that will help in these efforts.

Administrators are also looking into ways to allow for more personal contact between students and instructors. Day-Perroots noted that administrators learned early on that students respond to an online class better if they are able to see a photograph of their instructor.

“You don’t really need to know that information, but it makes a big difference in terms of how you enjoy your class,” she said. “It’s important to remember we are all humans. Because we are humans, we do favor and enjoy human interaction.”

And Shaumbaugh notes that learning with technology is not one-size-fits-all. He urges instructors to examine the course’s goals to see where technology is appropriate.

This measure, he says, is just one more way technology has benefitted higher education — by forcing instructors to reevaluate their courses and interact with their students to determine the most effective way to teach.

“Overall, the big plus to technology to my way of thinking is that it forces a college professor to re-think the learning outcomes, the learning activities, and the assessment…” he said. “Just because the technology exists doesn’t mean that a course needs to use it. Communication with students will be even more important than before.”

Source: http://www.twincities.com

By: Debra O’Connor

Out of work? Your best bet may be to go back to school.

Your education and skills may no longer be sufficient for the economy of the future, and that job you had, perhaps for decades, might be gone forever.

But one option is Minnesota’s state community and technical colleges, where you can get vocational training or a skills certificate or finish that associate degree you started back in the Summer of Love. These colleges focus on getting their students employment, and to that end, their officials keep in close contact with businesses and create programs to suit the job market.

They also understand the older worker’s situation: Some programs give credit for work experience and offer special counseling for people who are unexpectedly unemployed after years of work. And they have scrambled to create and enhance programs suited to the out-of-practice laid-off worker: short-term training, fast-tracking academic classes, dovetailing classes with state and federal retraining requirements, and aligning courses with what specific employers say they need.

Semester classes begin Monday; if a class isn’t full, students can enroll up to the last minute. Continuing-education classes often have rolling enrollments so students don’t have to wait for the beginning of a semester. That can be particularly important for older workers with immediate obligations such as trying to pay a mortgage.

“Some people don’t have any time to waste,” said Jane Nicholson, continuing-education dean at Century College in White Bear Lake.Although community college programs aren’t age-defined, some fit particularly well for older students who have been out of the classroom for a while.

“We’re trying to be responsive and welcoming for people in this situation,” Nicholson said.

Patricia Anderson, of Maplewood, who worked in the printing industry for 19 years, has college experience from the 1970s and the early 1990s. This week she is starting at Century College to prepare for a totally different second career — perhaps performing health inspections at restaurants and hotels.

“I worked so physically hard that I eventually had carpal tunnel (syndrome), and I had to see a hand specialist and she said you need a new career,” Anderson said. “The company let me go (in March 2008). And I said, ‘I’ll go back to school.’ ”

Federal stimulus money is being used to pay tuition for workers laid off in specific industries; many of them are headed to community and technical colleges. Also, President Barack Obama announced this summer a plan for a $12 billion cash infusion for community colleges that could begin in early 2010, endorsing them as a way to get an education in a slumping economy.

Thinking About Classes / “Frankly, we’ve never seen anything like this,” said Wayne Young, a dislocated-worker counselor at the Minnesota WorkForce Center in North St. Paul. In the past three years, the number of visits at the centers in Ramsey County zoomed from 48,500 in 2006 to 58,500 in 2007 to 84,000 in 2008. His center received stimulus funding to hire three more staff members “to help in terms of the sheer numbers.”

A big reason for the deluge is layoffs from industries that aren’t expected to rebound. At a workshop titled “Job Search in Mid-Life” this summer at the North St. Paul center, participants were considering going back to school to get a new job.

Patrick Zenk, 49, of Little Canada, had been laid off for just a few days when the Watchdog talked with him. His job had been in field-service electronics, installing color copiers, for example. He didn’t foresee finding another job doing the same thing, so he was considering turning to a growth industry — health care — and learning to work on medical equipment.

Carol McDugle, 57, of Little Canada, had been in customer service and already was taking computer classes to upgrade her skills. This month, she is starting a three-month course in medical billing and coding.

“For our age, you have to go back to school. It’s a must,” she said. “This is another layer (for me) to be able to market myself.”

Judy Lyons, 51, of Shoreview, has been laid off twice. She has had several types of jobs, and her what-next decision is complicated by the fact that, as she says, she just doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up. She’s thinking about a computer certificate or maybe a bachelor’s degree in computer science. But that would mean school loans, and she wonders, “Am I going to be able to pay it off at my age?”

Scott Hauble, 49, of Maplewood, was a forklift operator experiencing his second layoff in three years. It was a declining field, and he was feeling burned out anyway, he said, and he wants to do something different. He earned a degree in photography in 1983 and does wedding portraits on weekends, but he doesn’t see expanding that into full-time work. He said the upside of being unemployed is having an opportunity to go back to school.

The Hot Courses / As the unemployment rate rises, so does enrollment at Minnesota’s community colleges. Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System Chancellor James McCormick has required each campus to respond to the unemployment problem and to work together so programs don’t duplicate one another. MnSCU also will pursue new grants from the federal departments of Labor, Energy and Commerce for job training in green occupations, energy efficiency, health care and other high-growth industries, said MnSCU public relations director Melinda Voss.

Some new Century College programs are aimed at hot and emerging job markets: language translation and interpretation in health care and legal situations ($150 for three Saturday morning sessions); pharmacy technician ($850 for a semesterlong one evening per week class).

Other programs drawing interest include solar-assessor classes, computer networking security and the GPS LifePlan program, which helps students figure out their goals and develop plans for achieving them.

Hot courses at Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount are in railroad conductor training, landscape horticulture, biomedical equipment technology and business entrepreneurship.

“We see a lot of older adults who want to do that,” said spokeswoman Erin Larsen. “Usually, they have an idea in mind.”

Have Gone Back Already / For 13 years, Kristi Paul, 47, of Andover, was a telephone technician for Minneapolis Public Schools. She had lots of on-the-job training installing and repairing telephones but no formal education after high school. When the school system outsourced its telephone staff, she had no obvious employment choices.

“Any jobs I thought I was qualified for, I didn’t have a degree. They wouldn’t look at me,” she said.

She got help figuring out what to do next through a dislocated-worker program at the Minnesota WorkForce Center in Blaine. Last spring, she took five general-college-level courses and this fall will begin Anoka Technical College’s occupational therapy assistant program.

“Going to college was scary because I’d never done it to begin with,” she said. She chose Anoka Technical College because she feels more comfortable among other older students, she said. And so far, “I aced all my classes, as the kids say.”

Community colleges in the Twin Cities area can build their own programs based on demand. For example, Inver Hills Community College in Inver Grove Heights has Adult Success through Accelerated Programs (ASAP). The goal is to get an associate degree, which typically takes two years, in just a year, using credits from college courses taken previously plus credits earned through a formal evaluation of life experience. The school also offers “cohort groups” — that means whenever 18 students or more sign up for certain programs, classes begin right away.

Some four-year colleges also are adopting approaches that work especially well for older students. Concordia University in St. Paul has an evening program of 10 to 20 students per cohort and acceleration options including credit for experience, such as for having a real estate license. Laid-off workers who’ve taken “survival” day jobs fit well into this, spokeswoman Lindsey Brown said. “They’re making ends meet and going to school at night,” she said. And the cohort becomes a support system for the students.

Gary Johnson, 56, of Apple Valley, is headed to that program. In 1973, Johnson received a vocational degree in graphic arts. He later took a few courses at St. Cloud State University. After being laid off from a graphic arts job, he attended church networking groups, then the ASAP program at Inver Hills, thinking long and hard about what kind of work he wants to do now. He has begun an associate degree at Inver Hills with the idea of getting his bachelor’s degree in organizational management and leadership at Concordia University.

“I consider this whole thing to be a total gift and an incredible opportunity for me, to go forward and do things in life that I would never have done,” he said.

Source: thejournal.com

By: David Nagel

President Barack Obama is calling on states and districts to set higher standards for student achievement. In a speech delivered at the United States Department of Education headquarters in Washington, DC Friday, Obama highlighted some of the top reforms he thinks will help accomplish this and also announced $4.35 billion in competitive grants designed to help support innovative reform efforts.

During the presentation Friday, Obama and representatives from the United States Department of Education outlined the previously introduced Race to the Top Fund and announced that the program will award grants on a competitive basis. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan also announced the draft application for the program, and a Notice of Proposed Priorities, Requirements, Definitions, and Selection Criteria has been published in the Federal Register.

The Race to the Top Fund, announced in the first quarter of 2009, is designed to help states bolster student achievement through various reforms. It provides $4.35 billion in incentives for states to create “innovative programs” that can be replicated throughout the country.

“Because improving education is central to rebuilding our economy, we set aside over $4 billion in the Recovery Act to promote improvements in schools,” Obama said. “This is one of the largest investments in education reform in American history. And rather than divvying it up and handing it out, we are letting states and school districts compete for it. That’s how we can incentivize excellence and spur reform and launch a race to the top in America’s public schools. That race starts today.”

Among the key points in the Obama administration’s “race to the top” strategy are performance-based incentives, data-driven decision making, and reforms to the manner in which student achievement is assessed. Obama indicated that reforms in these three areas could help bolster America’s competitiveness globally while also helping to narrow the achievement gap between cultural groups within the nation’s borders.

“America will not succeed in the 21st century unless we do a far better job of educating our sons and daughters,” Obama said. “In an economy where knowledge is the most valuable commodity a person and a country have to offer, the best jobs will go to the best educated, whether they live in the United States or India or China. In a world where countries that out-educate us today will outcompete us tomorrow, the future belongs to the nation that best educates its people. Period. We know this. But we also know that, today, our education system is falling short. We’ve talked about it for decades, but we know we have not made the progress we need to make. The United States, a country that has always led the way in innovation, is now being outpaced in math and science education. African American [and] Latino students are lagging behind white classmates in one subject after another, an achievement gap that by one estimate costs us hundreds of billions of dollars in wages that will not be earned, jobs that will not be done, and purchases that will not be made. And most employers raise doubts about the qualifications of future employees, rating high school graduates’ basic skills as only fair or poor.”

He continued: “Of course, as I said before, we’ve talked about this problem for years. For years we’ve talked about bad statistics and an achievement gap. For years we’ve talked about overcrowded classrooms, crumbling schools, and corridors of shame across this country. We’ve talked these problems to death, year after year, decade after decade, while doing all too little to solve it. But … that’s beginning to change.”

He said what the nation’s education systems need is both reform and increased funding–not just one or the other. And he challenged leaders and stakeholders to embrace to make it happen by embracing some key “benchmarks” for reform.

“I’m issuing a challenge to our nation’s governors, school boards and principals and teachers, to businesses and [not]-for-profits, to parents and to students: If you set and enforce rigorous and challenging standards and assessments, if you put outstanding teachers at the front of the classroom, if you turn around failing schools, your state can win a Race to the Top grant that will not only help students outcompete workers around the world but let them fulfill their God-given potential. This competition will not be based on politics or ideology or the preferences of a particular interest group. Instead it will be based on a simple principle: whether a state is ready to do what works. We will use the best evidence available to determine whether a state can meet a few key benchmarks for reform. And states that outperform the rest will be rewarded with a grant. Not every state will win. And not every school district will be happy with the results. But America’s children and America’s economy [and] America itself will be better for it.”

These benchmarks, Obama indicated, include, among others:

1. Whether states are designing and enforcing high standards and assessments that are designed to prepare students for higher education and “life.” Obama was quick to point out that he is not calling for more assessments like those employed under NCLB. “This is not about more tests,” he said. “This is not about teaching to the test. And it’s not about judging a teacher solely on the results of a single test.” What it is about is still somewhat vague. Obama explained it this way: “It is about finally getting testing right, about developing thoughtful assessments that lead to better results, assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can use a pencil to fill in a bubble but whether they possess basic knowledge and essential skills, like problem-solving and creative thinking, creativity, and entrepreneurship.”
2. Whether “outstanding” teachers are being placed in classrooms. He said there’s currently no good way of distinguishing “good teachers from bad ones.” However, he said, this problem could be approached with more effective data systems, with student test scored being just one criterion among others for determining the effectiveness of a given teacher. “Success should be judged by results, and data is a powerful tool to determine results,” he said. “That’s why any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluations will have to change its ways, if it wants to compete for a grant.”

The phase 1 funding applications period is expected to open in late 2009, with grants awarded in “early 2010.” Phase 2 applications will open in late spring 2010, with grants to be awarded in September 2010. Phase 1 funding recipients will be able to apply for additional funding in phase 2. Likewise, those who are denied funding in phase 1 will nevertheless be able to apply again during phase 2.

According to ED, the department will also announce later this year an additional $350 million competitive grant program to help reform state standards and assessments.

Further information about the Race to the Top Fund can be found on ED’s site here.

Source: thejournal.com

By: David Nagel

Discovery Education is upgrading its digital services for educators and students. The company this week announced expanded offerings across its Science, Health, and MediaShare services, as well as Discovery Education streaming.

Across all of the services, Discovery has added new search functionality, which lets users find content from all of the different services through a single engine. In addition to the Science, Health, MediaShare, and streaming, the search also calls up content from the Discovery Educator Network (DEN), the company’s educator portal and professional development resource. The search also includes filtering, recommendations, and related content and digital assets.

Beyond search, the media player has also been upgraded throughout all of the services. It now supports Flash video, which Discovery said will ease the “management of classroom technologies by supporting one type of video file for both Mac and Microsoft platforms.”

Discovery has also added new content types to Discovery Education streaming Plus (the enhanced version of Discovery Education streaming), including:

• Skill Builders for helping students develop problem-solving skills through hands-on projects in core subject areas;
• A variety of games (more than 100) designed to support language arts and math; and
• Spanish-language content for ELL students to help with concepts in science.

Discovery has also added new content and tools for educators designed to “help educators easily assign digital quizzes, writing prompts, and assignments to either individual students or groups of students,” according to the company.

Further information about the enhancements can be found here.

Source: thejournal.com

By: David Nagel

Connections Academy and the American Public University System have announced a partnership that will offer high school students who attend National Connections Academy, an online K-12 private school, the chance to earn college degrees as they work toward their high school diplomas.

Connections Academy is a virtual education company that operates several regional K-12 online virtual schools. American Public University System is an online university. Through the partnership, students will be able to earn both a high school diploma from National Connections Academy and an associate degree from APUS in four years. The program will also provide an accelerated path to a bachelor’s degree. According to the two companies, students who participate will be able to earn the bachelor’s degree with two years of study beyond high school.

According to the companies, “Students enrolled in the new College Advantage Program must satisfactorily complete course requirements for both National Connections Academy and American Public University System in order to receive their high school diploma and Associate’s degree or Bachelor’s degree.”

“Our new College Advantage Program is a great way for students to jump start their college career,” said Steven Guttentag, senior vice president and chief education officer for Connections Academy, in a prepared statement. Guttentag is also head of school for National Connections Academy. “American Public University System is respected, regionally accredited and will offer our students over seventy degree programs to pursue. We are very pleased to be working with the dedicated team at American Public University System.”

“American Public University System is very excited about our new relationship with National Connections Academy,” said Wallace E. Boston Jr., president of American Public University System. “Promoting learning and helping people advance their education in order to achieve success in a chosen career and be tomorrow’s leaders is central to our mission. By offering this opportunity to students in high school means students may accelerate their success in a flexible and affordable manner.”

The program will be open to National Connections Academy students beginning in the 2009-2010 school year. Further information can be found here.

Source: thejournal.com

By: David Nagel

Two Florida school districts are using immersive online gaming in their summer math programs. Hillsborough County Public Schools added Tabula Digita’s DimensionM educational video games in its summer enrichment and intervention programs. The School District of Escambia County also put gaming to work this summer for course recovery and intervention.

DimensionM is an immersive gaming environment focused on math for students in grades 3 through 12. It offers a 3D environment in which players carry out missions (lessons) in multi-player tournament-style games. Players face mathematical obstacles, which, when solved, allow them to advance and score points.

At Hillsborough County, the district used DimensionM at four middle schools in an effort to build enthusiasm for math and improve student learning. Students finished the course with a gaming tournament.

“Our students commented that they never knew they could have this much fun at summer school,” said Janet Boatman, middle school mathematics supervisor for Hillsborough County schools, in a statement released this week. “As educators, we love to see this kind of enthusiasm for math coupled with improved student learning – it makes us all winners.”

Escambia County also rolled out the DimensionM game in four middle schools. Sheila Montgomery, secondary math supervisor for Escambia County, said the program was so successful that students were “begging” to continue the program. The students completed their program in July with team and individual tournaments.

“I was amazed at the retention rates our summer school program enjoyed this year,” Montgomery said. “Parents told us their students were begging them to let them continue attending after the session was over. It was so refreshing to see how interested these students were in math and how much they helped one another.”

Both districts used the DimensionM Multiplayer 2009 edition, which provides four levels of collaborative play focusing on more than 200 individual math skills. According to information released by Tabula Digita, the curriculum programs “correlate to both National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) and state standards” and focus on state test objectives.

DimensionM supports Mac OS X and Windows systems. Further information can be found here.

Source: www.examiner.com

By: Elaine Plybon

As teachers begin to prepare for the new school year, part of the planning is what to do in those first days of school. There are some things that will always be there: discussing the rules, getting equipment and supplies marked and put away, obtaining signatures on forms, etc., but outside of those things, there must be activities to get the school year started off right.

One of the ways to get students back into the habit of using technology in meaningful ways (they’ve had a whole summer of texting, video games, and mp3 players), is to integrate technology into back-to-school lessons. I will list five of my favorite back-to-school technology activities in this article. Feel free to add comments with yours and visit the links at the bottom of the article for more ideas.

1. Animoto. This free web-based application allows students to create visually stimulating and exciting videos. Have students make an Animoto video that introduces themselves to the rest of the class or reveals where they spent their summer vacation. One thing I like to do is to make my own as an example and see how many things they get correct by watching - then point out the things they got wrong by making assumptions about the picture. In science classrooms, this can be especially helpful toward getting students started thinking about making educated observations instead of assumptions.

2. Google Earth. Another free web-based application, Google Earth has multiple uses in the classroom. How about having students create a Google Earth “trip” that shows where they went over summer vacation, or where they were born, grew up, and/or have gone to school? Students can creat placemarks in each location and add images, text, video, or audio to create a virtual trip for the rest of the class. See the sites at the bottom of this article for how-to help. One note about Google Earth, it can be bandwidth intensive.

3. This next activity was suggested to me by lorir on Twitter: Use Wordle to have students create an “all about me” graphic to post on a board (electronic or traditional). Wordle is a free web-based site that allows students to upload text of any kind and a graphic is generated that uses the words in the text. The larger the word in the graphic, the more frequently it was used. I created the picture on this article by uploading the text of the article to Wordle.

4. Have students create podcasts to introduce themselves. Be creative with this. If you group students, they could do it like a newscast or set it up like the interview of a famous person. If students create individual podcasts, you could play each for the class and have them guess who made it using the clues in the podcast. Audacity is a free program that enables students to create podcasts complete with background music and effects, as well as multiple tracks of voices.

5. If digital storytelling will be a large part of your classroom during the school year, you might want to do a quick lesson on digital storytelling. One of my favorites is to break the class into groups of four. Each group has to use six pictures to create a story in Photostory 3, a free program available for Windows. The catch is that the entire class has the same six pictures. This is a cool way to introduce them to the easy-to-use Photostory, and to help them learn about what a difference perspective makes in what a set of pictures could mean. No two stories will be alike. If you teach in a school where digital storytelling has already been a part of your students experiences, you could begin the year with the “Door Scene” from the American Film Institute (AFI) curriculum “Lights, Camera, Education!” This activity is more intensive and will require more than one class period to complete.

Whatever you decide to do, making the return to school exciting and engaging for students will make it exciting and engaging for teachers, as well! Teachers, post your own technology-rich back-to-school activities by adding a comment to this post.

Source: thejournal.com

By: Bridget McCrea

Kathy Schwabe knows that there’s a standard assessment that most American schools use to keep tabs on their students’ reading progress, but that didn’t stop this Title I teacher from exploring a newer, more promising option a few years ago.

“It was sort of a fluke,” recalled Schwabe, a reading teacher at Speas Elementary School in Winston-Salem, NC. “We didn’t have enough first grade teachers, and until new ones were hired we needed a better way to monitor the children’s progress.”

Schwabe, who was working with the school’s lowest level reading group at the time, was prompted by the institution’s principal to attend a meeting about the Predictive Assessment of Reading (PAR), a tool developed by Winston-Salem, NC-based Child’sMind Publishing based on research conducted in the neuropsychology department at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

According to Paul Zimmerman, general manager at Child’sMind Publishing, PAR provides immediate results with specific recommendations for corrective intervention to address areas of weakness. The tests take 15 to 20 minutes for students to complete and provide educators with overall and specific reading proficiency scores, prioritized remediation recommendations, and estimates of the degree of educational challenge for individual students.

Schwabe said a two-day PAR workshop sold her on the idea of using a new method of reading assessment for her students. “At the time, I also had a group of third graders who were reading at a pre-K level,” she said, “and I knew this would be a great tool for monitoring their progress.”

PAR was first used on Speas Elementary’s first graders, who were all tested to determine their reading levels. Schwabe said the fact that the text takes just a few minutes to complete makes it attractive for both students and teachers. “I can get a lot of information in just 15 minutes,” said Schwabe, who can quickly determine if a child is deficient in phonics, lacking in fluency or in need of more vocabulary instruction.

“I’ve used a lot of tests over the years, and you can spend three hours on it or 15 minutes,” said Schwabe, “the latter is about the entire time it should take to get all of the information you need as a teacher.”

PAR has proved to be most effective in schools when every child in a classroom is tested within a short time (say, a few weeks). Because the test can detect problem areas before a child experiences the frustration of failure, Zimmerman said the assessment should be given to all students, not just the ones who are already struggling.

Through a secure Web site, teachers can access prioritized remediation recommendations and overall and specific scores are immediately available for letter-word calling, vocabulary, phonemic awareness, and rapid naming. In addition to individual test results, collective reports may be ordered for classroom, grade level, school, and district.

Schwabe said she enjoys PAR’s accuracy and specificity. Starting with one large group of students, for example, she can drill down and determine which need help with phonics, those who would benefit from more classroom instruction and the ones who simply need to do more independent reading.

“It’s especially useful with Hispanic children, and helps me figure out if they’re getting hung up on English vocabulary, or if their challenges stem from language issues,” said Schwabe.

PAR also adds value when working with students who have specific reading issues. Recently, for example, one of Schwabe’s new third grade students came to her only able to read at a first grade level.

“I really couldn’t believe that he’d made it through to third grade like that,” said Schwabe, who after testing the student was able to tailor an effective reading program for him. Using PAR, she was also able to report back to her principal regarding the student’s progress.

“That particular student, and a number of other individuals that I was using PAR with,” Schwabe said, “grew at least 20 percent over the course of a school year.”

Zimmerman, who spends much of his time educating teachers to give PAR a try in lieu of their existing reading assessment programs, isn’t surprised by the success that Speas Elementary has had with his firm’s product. He said PAR’s proactive approach to “catching” students in grades K-3 before their reading issues blossom into significant challenges makes it unique in the marketplace.

“You can give this test as early as the second semester of kindergarten and it will diagnose any problems, tell how severe they are and what you can do about it,” said Zimmerman. “Within an 80 to 90 percent accuracy, you can also tell at that stage what the student’s third grade and eighth grade reading test scores will be.”

Selling schools and districts on those benefits isn’t always easy for Child’sMind Publishing, which is used by “schools all over the world, but not in any significant concentration,” according to Zimmerman. “We’ve seen extraordinary success at a number of schools, and right now we also have some Reading First schools that we’re trying to standardize on PAR.”

Funding shortages, lack of teacher preparation mean schools offer less online learning than students desire, this research suggests

Source: eschoolnews.com

Online learning is one option that students really want.

Despite a growing interest in online learning among students, the availability of online classes in K-12 schools and districts hasn’t kept pace with the demand, according to a new report from Project Tomorrow [and a partnering LMS].

According to the report, more than 40 percent of sixth through 12th graders have researched or demonstrated interest in taking a course online, but only 10 percent have actually taken an online course through their school. Meanwhile, 7 percent of middle school students and 4 percent of high school students instead have pursued opportunities outside their school to take online courses–underscoring the disconnect between the supply and demand for online learning in today’s schools.

What’s more, a majority of school principals, 58 percent, say the online classes currently offered in their districts are primarily for teachers; just 31 percent say the classes are primarily for students. Additionally, while a third of teachers have taken an online course for professional development–a 57-percent increase from 2007–only 3 percent of teachers say they’ve taught a class online, a number that has not changed in three years. Just 13 percent of teachers say they’re interested in teaching online, a considerable mismatch with the growing student desire to learn online.

The findings are included in the report “Learning in the 21st Century: 2009 Trends Update,” which offers a further analysis of data from Project Tomorrow’s Speak Up initiative, an annual survey that has collected and reported on the views of more than 335,000 K-12 students, parents, and educators in the United States about online education and 21st-century learning.

“While many of our nation’s K-12 schools clearly recognize the advantages of online learning and instruction in teacher professional development, there remains a lag in utilizing this technology for student achievement,” said Julie Evans, CEO of Project Tomorrow. “Educators must embrace these emerging technologies to enhance student learning and fully prepare today’s students for future success.”

School administrators cited funding and teacher preparation as key barriers to offering expanded access to online courses, with 22 percent reporting that online learning was not a funding priority in their district. Some administrators said their teachers are not comfortable using the tools (18 percent) or teaching online (17 percent), are reluctant to try (14 percent), or their school does not have the expertise to create online courses (14 percent).

The report suggests that K-12 students want to pursue online learning to gain more control of their own learning experience, have access to more courses, and work at their own pace. But middle and high school students continue to have different priorities for taking online classes, the report says: Older students were most likely to desire online classes to earn college credit, while younger students would pursue online learning to get extra help in a subject.

When asked why learning through an online class might make school more interesting, 47 percent of nine through 12th graders, 39 percent of six through eighth graders, and one in four third through fifth graders said they want to learn online to “be in control of my learning.” Students don’t expect courses to be easier online, but they do expect the online format to make it easier for them to succeed, because they can review materials when they want and are more comfortable asking teachers for help.

When asked, “What is the one thing that you would do to improve schools to ensure that all students had the skills they needed to be successful in life,” a 10th-grade student from Alcoa High School in Tennessee responded, “I would provide personal laptops for each student and provide online classes. Every school does not have all the classes a student is interested in, and online classes [provide] another option.”

Project Tomorrow and [a partnering LMS] released their report June 30 at the 2009 National Educational Computing Conference in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with a panel discussion about online learning.

Panelists included Maribeth Luftglas, chief technology officer for Virginia’s Fairfax County Public Schools, and Rod Carnill, technology resource specialist for Virginia’s Frederick County Public Schools.

When asked what advice she would give to school leaders about starting online-learning programs in their own schools, Luftglas said support is key, adding: “Don’t even try online learning if you don’t have the infrastructure, support, and training in place” to sustain it.

Sourse: thejournal.com

By: David Nagel

America’s schools, colleges, and universities are making limited progress toward providing technology-rich environments for students. According to the results of a benchmark study released this week at the 2009 National Educational Computer Conference (NECC) in Washington, DC, schools improved most in the area of broadband adoption in the last year but are still weak in the use of technology for assessments and creating educational equity.

The findings are part of the Software & Information Industry Association’s Vision K-20 initiative, an effort to “ensure that all students have access to a teaching and learning environment capable of preparing them to compete globally and lead the world in innovation.” Through the Vision K-20 site, the initiative offers resources for education stakeholders and, in general, is designed to reinforce the notion that technology and electronic learning tools can help improve student achievement, expand learning opportunities, maximize teacher effectiveness, and ingrain 21st century skill in students.

The annual Vision K-20 survey itself consists of questions related to 21st century learning, differentiated instruction, mobile/online access, assessment tools, enterprise support, and demographics. It’s meant to be used as a benchmarking tool for individual institutions while also compiling aggregate data for SIIA’s national report. Measurements from the survey relate to the progress, as a percentile, that schools are making toward a goal of 100 percent adoption and effective use of technologies in these areas.

“America’s students thrive in their personal lives by quickly adapting to 21st century technologies, but they often lose access to that technology in classrooms. The Vision K-20 initiative helps education leaders understand the opportunities to incorporate those same tools into our nation’s curriculum and instruction, ensuring we prepare our students to compete on a global scale,” said Karen Billings, vice president for the SIIA Education Division, in a statement released to coincide with the report.

Findings from this year’s survey were mixed. It showed that in general, higher education is further along than K-12 schools in various measures of progress. Across the board, the areas of greatest progress were high-speed broadband access and the use of Web portals to enhance learning and communications. But still the strongest area overall, at 70 percent, was in the use of technology to support the enterprise and “facilitate communication and collaboration.”

The lowest score went to the use of technology-based assessments, at 46 percent. Other low scores went to the use of technology to “meet the needs of all students,” at 59 percent, and the use of technology to nurture creativity and self-expression, at 60 percent.

Overall, between the 2008 and 2009 surveys, educational institutions improved in 17 or the 20 measures included in the survey. However, they only improved by one point in their total score, from 61 percent in 2008 to 62 percent in 2009.

“These are extremely challenging times for education, making it even more critical for institutions to use technology to achieve their educational goals and outcomes,” Billings said. “SIIA calls on education leaders and public officials to increase support for, and adoption of, innovative technology-based and online educational models needed to meet the needs of today’s digital-native learners and prepare them for the digital, knowledge economy.”

Further information about Vision K-20 initiative and the survey can be found here.