Daily Archives: April 8, 2012

Lawmakers must be kept under constant surveillance to make sure they don't pass…

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4583 days ago)

Lawmakers must be kept under constant surveillance to make sure they don't pass bills like this.

Reshared post from +Tim O’Reilly

Even worse than SOPA: New CISPA cybersecurity bill will censor the Web

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Even worse than SOPA: New CISPA cybersecurity bill will censor the Web — RT
An onrush of condemnation and criticism kept the SOPA and PIPA acts from passing earlier this year, but US lawmakers have already authored another authoritarian bill that could give them free reign to…

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This is a big part of why my Facebook usage has been cut dramatically over the past… 1

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4584 days ago)

This is a big part of why my Facebook usage has been cut dramatically over the past year.

I don't want frictionless sharing. I want to be reminded to think before I post and If I want to share something I read, I want to actively do it, not have it happen automatically. If G+ ever goes down this path, I will be rethinking my use of this site as well.

Reshared post from +Dan Gillmor

Yet more evidence that Facebook is dangerous in ways that its users do not understand (via Columbia Journalism Review) — and this case involves the journalism business' either naive or abusive behavior. Media organizations are exposing readers of their journalism to seriously problematic "sharing" that readers plainly don't realize is happening.

This is not an aberration. It is Facebook's basic method. For allegedly responsible journalism organizations to be part of it, however, is a violation of audience trust.

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The Ethics of Social News Apps
I don't know about you but my Facebook feed has gotten creepy and cringeworthy these days, and it's thanks to news organizations. Here's a list of stories that have popped in my news feed …

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While +Khan Academy has been getting plenty of praise over the past couple of years,… 5

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ on by (updated 4585 days ago)

While +Khan Academy has been getting plenty of praise over the past couple of years, some backlash has also been growing from certain quarters. As in so many things, I think the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes.

Khan Academy is not the silver bullet to solving America's educational woes, nor is it necessarily the enemy of teachers. It's a tool within the arsenal of educating the populace in math and science. We need good teachers to provide the foundations of understanding and thinking about how to solve problems. But the reality is that for a variety of reasons, the message doesn't get absorbed by every student in every classroom.

While many teachers try to work one-on-one with students to reinforce the lessons through tutoring and drills, constraints of time and resources limit what they can do. A tool like Khan Academy provides students with another resource that lets them review the material at their own pace (perhaps the single most important benefit of online learning) and then practice the skills they are being taught.

When doing the math practice, students have the opportunity to work it out for themselves, and then if they have difficulty, the system can walk them through solutions step-by-step.

Combine this technological capability, with hands-on instructors that teach students how to think and our students have the opportunity to truly advance in math and science. Just don't expect things to advance unless we utilize all of the resources at our disposal.

Reshared post from +Esther Wojcicki

One of education historian Diane Ravitch's oft-uttered complaints is that we now have a bunch of billionaires like Gates dictating education policy and education reform, without ever having been classroom teachers themselves (or without having attended public school). But the skepticism about Khan Academy isn't just a matter of wealth or credentials of Khan or his backers. It's a matter of pedagogy.

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The Wrath Against Khan: Why Some Educators Are Questioning Khan Academy
An Explainer Post There's an article in this month's Wired Magazine about Khan Academy. The headline speaks volumes — "How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education" — as do …

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Better late than never I suppose

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged Google+ schools on by (updated 4586 days ago)

Small school districts in Michigan are finally looking to consolidation to stave off financial apocalypse.
#schools

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School district consolidation finally on the table, many years too late! « Sam's Thoughts
It's long overdue, but under the threat of being taken over by an emergency financial manager, the Ypsilanti and Willow Run school districts are finally seriously considering consolidating into a …

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School district consolidation finally on the table, many years too late!

This entry was posted in Ann Arbor schools Ypsilanti on by (updated 4609 days ago)

It’s long overdue, but under the threat of being taken over by an emergency financial manager, the Ypsilanti and Willow Run school districts are finally seriously considering consolidating into a single entity. While this absolutely needs to happen, it doesn’t go far enough.  Nearly six years ago, I wrote a post on this blog advocating the idea of combining Ypsi, Willow Run and the Lincoln school districts and the situation has deteriorated dramatically since that time.

A combined Willow Run-Ypsilanti district will have about 5,300 students, less than half the number in neighboring Ann Arbor. At the very least, Lincoln (which covers much of southern Ypsilanti Township) should be part of this blended district and I seriously believe that they should be talking about merging with Ann Arbor as well.

The system in Michigan that allows so many tiny districts as well as separate cities and townships hurts everyone this state. I’m a liberal and a believer that there is a place for government in providing essential services like education, infrastructure and so on. But I’m also a pragmatist that understands that we need efficiency in how we deliver those services.

Administrators tend to have high salaries and if we want great teachers we need to pay them a decent salary.  Having many small districts means we are paying for too many administrators leaving less for the rank and file teachers that have to educate the students. It also makes it much more difficult to offer students a variety of elective educational options.

It’s important for residents to participate at the neighborhood school level, but the reality is they need to be willing to give up a bit of the hyper-local control and take advantage of some “economies of scale” in managing schools.

As long as we’re finally talking consolidation, lets take it a few steps further and at least combine more services at the county level such as busing, food services and others. Hopefully, these first steps will finally get our schools back on a more sound financial footing.