Could Free Online Resources Replace Textbooks?

Officials in the Sanford school district in Maine hope to one day replace textbooks with online resources to save money on textbooks. Recently, however, schools were unable to increase technology spending because of tight budgets. One state official said many online resources are free and have the added benefit of being updated frequently -- compared with traditional textbooks that can become outdated quickly. 

Using digital resources in place of textbooks, though a foreign concept to many, is a viable solution for presenting instructional content to students.

Online Resources

Six Ways to Make Student Laptop Programs Successful

There are six key lessons that can be learned from Maine's decade-old student laptop initiative, according to this blog post. Among them: Teachers should use technology as a tool and alter instruction accordingly. Schools also should adopt laptop programs -- not test them first -- and encourage teachers to integrate technology into existing lessons, rather than developing new curricula. School leaders should give teachers as much training and support as possible and encourage technology use among staff.

To read more, click on the link below.

Laptop Programs

Safari Montage to be Launched at Lowell Middle School

Lowell Middle School is set to implement a new video-on-demand system next month that will allow teachers and students in all grades to access video resources on their computers. Teachers can upload clips or entire video lessons from Safari Montage.

"It will really allow us to enhance the learning environment," said Principal Reid Gault.


Technology Director Bob Hopper is providing training for teachers to learn to use the program in the classrooms.  Media personnel at both Lowell Middle School and Lowell High School, which already has the system up an running, will be trained to manage and distribute the system content.

Tri-Creek strives to improve its learning environment daily!
 

Myth Buster!

Dr. Tony Bennett has put together a slide show to address misconceptions surrounding his "Putting Students First" agenda.  He stated that IDOE has been fielding questions from teachers and administrators regarding these misconceptions and presents the information attached to help teachers, school officials, and the public evaluate the most important pieces of IDOE's legislative agenda. 




Bennett Facts

Research on Obama/Duncan Turn Around Schools

A lot of attention is being given to the idea of school "turnarounds" lately — the concept of taking a poorly performing school and drastically changing the staff, curricula, or other elements in an effort to make it much better. But a study underlines just how hard it is to actually turn around a failing school. The study, Are Bad Schools Immortal?, examined more than 2,000 of the worst-performing district and charter schools in 10 states over five years. It found that very few of them closed, and even fewer — about 1 percent — truly "turned around." Link to Full Story

Videotaping for Evaluating and Training Teachers

With a push from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, other nonprofits, and the federal Race to the Top funding opportunities, 20 states are revamping their teacher evaluation systems. One tool they will likely include in developing better systems for evaluating teacher instruction is digital videotaping.

Videotaping is expected to be used to enhance the value-added assessment, a model used by many school districts to determine the contribution each teacher makes to a student's learning in a given year, which is then compared to other teachers' performance. Critics say that the assessment by itself, which is based on comparing students' grades, gives an incomplete picture of a teacher's overall performance.

The notion of videotaping is being explored through Gates-funded research, conducted by social scientists and teachers and headed by Harvard economist Thomas Kane. The videotaped classroom lessons would be scored by education experts and used not only to evaluate teachers, but also to train them on what works and what doesn't in terms of improving student performance. Such videotaping also could help administrators and teachers understand why some teachers are more successful than others. They can then use the successful teachers' videos as models for how to deliver better instruction. The researchers expect to have about 24,000 videotaped lessons by summer. Hundreds of educators will then be trained to score the lessons, a process headed by the Educational Testing Service. 

Source:www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/education/04teacher.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a23&pagewanted=print

Bedouin School in Israel

I was recently very fortunate to have the opportunity to visit a Bedouin school in Israel. 

Most Bedouins live on the desert in a nomadic lifestyle; however, Israel has established a Bedouin community where familities live in modern homes.  

This elementary school and a secondary school are located in the community.  Children who still live in tents in the traditional lifestyle are bussed to school under the Israeli requirement that all children ages six to sixteen receive free public education, similar to American children.    Beginning in grade four, Israeli children study three languages--Hebrew, Arabic, and English.