Coaxing students out of the ‘cloud’

While a number of colleges and universities devote resources to keep campus e-mail grounded on their own servers, they are finding it difficult to coax students out of the cloud.

Students are increasingly arriving at college already managing multiple e-mail addresses with “cloud”-based e-mail services -- such as Gmail and Hotmail -- which are hosted remotely by third-party companies. These students are often reluctant to use the e-mail client provided to them by their institution.

“We did a survey several years ago, and the overwhelming majority of incoming students said they had between three and four e-mail accounts,” said Beth Ann Bergsmark, director for academic information technology services at Georgetown University.

In order to keep things simple, many students set up their institutional accounts to automatically forward mail to one of their existing, cloud-based mailboxes. Students prefer not to check multiple mailboxes if they don’t have to, said Geoff Nathan, faculty liaison to computing and information technology at Wayne State University. When he asked his students recently why the majority of them auto-forwarded their e-mails to an outside account, they cited features often unavailable on campus accounts, such as texting, video chatting, and virtually unlimited storage space.

However, this is presenting colleges/universities with a dilemma regarding privacy issues with third party providers. If e-mail accounts are hacked or go down, like Google’s Gmail did recently, how will this effect university communications and what is the institutions responsibility to their students and faculty?

Great questions, not really sure we have the answers yet. As technology begins to grow faster than college e-mail procedures do to implement the advances, only time will tell whether or not the “cloud” will be lifted.

The full article by Steve Kolowich

Summer vacations may be cut short

If President Obama has his way, they will! The Associate Press reported today on President Obama's comment that "kids spend too little time in school, putting them at a disadvantage with other students around the globe."

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education concurred in a recent interview, "Our school calendar is based upon the agrarian economy and not too many of our kids are working the fields today."

I don't have children, but do have several nieces and nephews and often wondered why school wasn't more of a year-round event with small breaks in between. I think it would be easier on child care for many parents struggling to find "sitters" during long summer time periods.

More importantly I agree with the president that to compete globally, we first need a strong educational system.

Read the full AP article

Keeping Social Skills Alive at Online High Schools

As the digital age continues to grow for teen and young adults, online high schools and colleges are concerned with students developing social skills.

This has always been a concern for parents who home school their children. Many home schooled students actually enter high school just to have social interaction with other students through sports, drama, and events like proms.

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal an article by Paul Glader outlines what some online schools are doing to prevent student isolation.

As online high schools spread, educators are ramping up efforts to counter the social isolation that some students experience. At the same time, sociologists and child psychologists are examining how online schooling might hinder, or help, the development of social skills.

"For online high schools, the biggest obstacle is addressing the social interaction for the students," said Raymond Ravaglia, deputy director of Stanford's Educational Program for Gifted Youth, which Ms. Ray attended. "At that age, people really crave social interaction."

Read the full article

Northwestern University Moves Print Journal to Online

Northwestern University announced Monday it will be moving their printed journal to online. With the economic downturn threatening the viability of some university presses, any "review" of a publishing house is likely to crank up the jitters. Northwestern University has "reaffirmed its commitment to publishing and disseminating scholarly writing," and that it will conduct a national search to hire a new full-time director of the Northwestern University Press. But while the review solidified Northwestern's commitment to a sustained role in scholarly publishing, it also reinforced that changes are coming to its press, as to the publishing industry overall.

Beginning next year, the university announced, the press will make its primary journal, TriQuarterly, available only electronically. “This move will align publishing efforts more closely with the university’s academic enterprise while at the same time expanding electronic dissemination and public access to the wonderful literature and essays that are published in TriQuarterly,” said Sarah Pritchard, the Charles Deering McCormick University Librarian. “Scholarly publishing is increasingly moving to open access, allowing greater distribution of academic work. This reflects that trend and allows the journal editors to take advantage of the multimedia capabilities offered through online publishing.”

Read more

A Party for 'Community'

I first saw Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live (I used to sneek a look when my parents weren't around), and fell for his slap-stick comedy immediately. I've been missing him of late and was glad to see he is back on the tube in "Community" on Thursday nights.

The debut of "Community" an NBC sitcom set at a fictional community college has been the subject of much debate among community college leaders, with some welcoming the attention and others objecting to the way their institutions are portrayed. Administrators and some faculty members of Prairie State College planned a premiere party Thursday night to watch together. And the American Association of Community Colleges has created a blog for viewer comments.

In this economy many students are deciding to go to community college first before moving on to a State or private university. Supposedly any publicity is good publicity. As far as I'm concerned, I thought the show was a hoot and loved seeing Chevy, be Chevy again.

Name that style

Yesterday I read an article in the Shawnee State online news site University Chronicle about a research program being conducted by Professor Loretta Harvey at Ohio State University to study learning habits of students to see if their if a certain learning style has an effect on student performance in class. My first thought was YES or course it does!

Harvey said she hopes that this research project will make students and professors more aware of learning styles. She believes that every student has a learning style (auditory, visual, tactile, and kinesthetic) which best suits him or her, and Harvey says that most of these styles of learning are not being accommodated by lectures.

Again, YES!

In all due respect to Professor Harvey, do we really need a research study to tell us students learn better through interactive teaching rather than lectures. Professors were doing lectures in my day (suffice to say a long time ago). With all the technological advances I would think professors would have changed their teaching styles to meet the student’s style quite a while ago.

Harvey said her research into learning styles began as a project in a quantitative data class at OSU. She says the goal of her research is to "look at students' attitudes towards science, cooperative learning and critical thinking in a science course, and identify their learning style to see if there is a relationship between their attitudes and their learning styles.

Perhaps a professional research study is just what the teacher ordered. Let’s hope professors enter the 21 century and realize “talking heads” are not the way to teach science or any other course for that matter.

Read the full article

ICT Enters the Classroom

Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) partners with the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) to provide a new vision of education.

The following article is provided by the National Science Foundation and details ICT’s biggest challenge in proposing new educational plans for the classroom.

Read the article

Education for Sale

In my day there were always those who could “work around” the pop quiz or written essays by having someone else do the work or copying off their papers with wandering eyes.

Now with the Internet it has become a growing for-profit business. In a recent article by AFP, a Google search for "buy term paper" turned up 183 million sites, some of which, such as acceptedpapers.com, offer to write students' papers for them when they are "unable to be creative for an essay" or would "rather enjoy a night out than write a book report at the library."
The real kicker here, according to AFP is that many of these term papers are just plain wrong and filled with grammatical errors. A paper comparing Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" to J. D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" posted on dreamessays.com began with the line: "The forthcoming of American literature proposes two distinct Realistic novels portraying characters which are tested with a plethora of adventures."

"This paper is just too awful to read. I would be mortified if one of my students handed it in," said Carol Zoref, who teaches a course at Sarah Lawrence College in New York called "Narrative Design," which often deals with Huckleberry Finn.

The paper was "overflowing with grammar mistakes, vocabulary mistakes, and nonsensical repetition," Zoref said. Her advice to a student who submitted it would be "to get their money back."

Students who buy their papers are not only wasting their money but are naive to think they might pull the wool over their teachers' eyes, educators say.

Read the full article here

Gen Y-ers Drive Classroom Technology

A recent MediaPost blog, The Battle of College Textbooks Begins Anew by Dan Coates provides great stats on why textbooks and their high prices are not liked among many students but doesn’t really address the real issue of the next step. The real issue here is that Gen Y-ers and the generations to follow are not using the textbooks they buy, even if the teacher recommends it. Why?

Today’s students are online, in their homes, as they are walking down the street and sitting in cafes. And that is where publishers need to be as well. Providing accurate information for student learning needs to be digital and not just through a website, but through many applications.

So what’s the hold up? According to Coates blog, electronic textbooks really haven't found much of a foothold, with fewer than 7% of students have ever purchased a textbook in electronic format.

This lack of adoption has much to do with digital rights management, limiting the comfort level that publishers feel in releasing textbooks in this format. Gen Y-ers have little sympathy for the creators and owners of digital content, feeling that once it has been digitized, it's fair to share. They are right by the way.

As was and is the case with entertainment, the solution to the textbook problem may be device-centric. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Amazon's pilot to bring textbooks to the Kindle DX at seven campuses this fall and McGraw-Hill Education's plans to bring 100 college textbooks to the Kindle and Kindle DX platform bring solutions to the price and weight of what's in students' backpacks. Meanwhile, CourseSmart has brought more than 7,000 titles to Apple's iPod Touch and iPhone platforms.

Note to publishers…open access is here to stay and grow. Better get on this train or you will be left at the station.

“Race to the Top” and outside the box

Creating conditions for innovation and reform is one of the stated aims of the new education initiative launched by the Obama administration.

Race to the Top is one of those innovations and the brain child of a sixteen-year veteran educator, Kim Ursetta. Ursetta brought the idea of a teacher lead not an administrative lead school to her board. She assumed she’d be shot down, but was pleasantly surprised to find the idea was well received.

She immediately started "pulling together a group of teachers to sit down with a blank sheet of paper and ask how you would do a school differently. See statistics.

Three weeks ago, Ursetta's dream became a reality, the first Race to the Top school, Mathematics and Science Leadership Academy opened its doors to 142 kindergartners and first- and second-grade students in Denver's mostly low-income, largely Hispanic Athmar Park neighborhood. As a teacher at traditional schools, Ursetta said she and her colleagues weren't allowed to change the order of their lessons.

Two of the school's 12 teachers take on administrative duties as "lead teachers," performing the traditional role of a principal. The lack of quality school leadership is a big reason that experienced teachers leave their schools, Ursetta said. "Studies show when you take accomplished teachers and allow them to have a leadership role, that's when they see the most success. Scores just soar. That's how we're focused here."

To qualify for Race to the Top, the rules call on states to create "data systems" linking student success with teacher performance.

Race to the Top isn’t without critics. The National Education Association -- the nation's largest teachers union -- fears it opens the door to measuring teacher performance by how students score on tests. "What we're really against is using a single [student] test on a single day" to assess teacher performance, said NEA Executive Director John Wilson. "What we're more accepting of are multiple indicators," and teacher performance "observed in classroom should count as the major part of evaluation."

But Wilson said many teachers are reacting coolly to Race to the Top because they "feel like it's too much like No Child Left Behind and are looking for something different." Teachers wonder if the program will undermine innovation and creativity, Wilson said.

I truly hope the NEA gets behind this new innovative idea and let it take hold. Our schools and more importantly our students need it.

"Get Schooled" with Bill Gates and Viacom

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is partnering with Viacom Inc.'s television networks, education leaders and celebrities to launch an awareness campaign to reduce the number of dropouts. The foundation, started by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates and his wife, has invested more than $2 billion in educational programs since 2000.

"People should understand how the system is falling short today and how it really contradicts our commitment to equal opportunity," Gates told The Associated Press. "If we don't change it now, it will hurt the future of the country as a whole."

The "Get Schooled" initiative focuses on low graduation rates in college and high school and the accountability of teachers. Gates criticized the practice of salaries rewarding seniority over proven efficacy, calling it a detriment to quality education.

Only one-third of American high school student’s graduate with the skills necessary to succeed in college and the nation's workplaces, he said.

To launch the five-year campaign, the documentary "Get Schooled" premiered on all of Viacom's networks simultaneously at 8 p.m. EDT last night.

The documentary features pop singer Kelly Clarkson, basketball star LeBron James and President Barack Obama, but the program's real focus is on people behind the scenes, like a presidential speechwriter, and how education brought them success.

Tuesday's event coincided with a speech Obama made in Arlington, Va., that was broadcast to schools across the nation. In the address, Obama urged students to hit the books, saying that success is hard-won and that every student has something at which they excel.

"All too often, the value and benefit of education are not real enough to kids," said Tony Miller, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. Charities and industry won't have to go it alone; about $100 billion of the federal stimulus package is dedicated to improvements in education, said Miller.

A student drops out of an American high school every 26 seconds, according to the Seattle-based Gates Foundation.

At that rate, not enough American children are graduating high school and college to stay competitive in the global marketplace, said Viacom President and CEO Philippe Dauman.

" Dauman said the "Get Schooled" initiative would find its way into plot lines and programs, like BET's documentary "Bring Your 'A' Game," which featured prominent black men who have achieved success.

But "we're not going to go to all PBS-type programming," Dauman said. "In order to reach kids, you have to entertain them."

Read the full article here

Obama Gives Good Advice to Students

I don’t know about you, but I’m quite confused regarding the debate over President Obama’s address to students. The president’s advice to students in today’s speech that will be broadcast on the White House website, www.whitehouse.gov, will focus on students taking responsibility for their education, going to class, listening to their teachers and not to let failure define them.

Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan calls the dust up, “silly.” Duncan, in an interview Tuesday on MSNBC, said the controversy wasn't merited, but he also acknowledged that guidance the administration sent to schools about how kids could participate Tuesday could have been better worded.

In his talk, Obama says: "At the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents and the best schools in the World and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities."

Obama makes no reference in his prepared remarks to the uproar surrounding his speech. Nor does he make an appeal for support for tough causes such as his health care overhaul. He uses the talk to tell kids about his at-times clumsy ways as a child and to urge them to set goals and work hard to achieve them.

In his remarks, Obama leaves the students with some words of encouragement. "I expect great things from each of you," he said. "So don't let us down — don't let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it."

Sounds like good advice to me.

NSF Awards Annual Support of $7.81M to PREM’s

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announces eight Partnerships for Research and Education in Materials (PREMs) awarded as a result of the 2009 PREM competition.

The objective of the PREM program is to broaden participation of under-represented groups and enhance diversity in materials research and education. The objective is achieved by encouraging formal, long-term, multi-investigator, collaborative research and education partnerships between women- and minority-serving colleges and universities, colleges and universities dedicated to educating a majority of students with disabilities, and NSF Division of Materials Research (DMR)-supported centers and facilities. This is the third PREM competition since the program was launched in 2004.

Each PREM has made a substantial commitment to effectively integrating its educational and outreach activities with its scientific research program towards the PREM goal of broadening participation for under-represented groups in materials research and education, and enhancing diversity at all academic levels. The educational outreach activities cover the entire range from elementary school to the postgraduate level.

Three of the awards were made with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds that DMR received in FY 2009.

The eight PREMs and their partners are listed in a Nanowerk News article.