ODYSSEYWARE

Challenges, obstacles and plain tough circumstances grip students throughout this country. Outside circumstances can do more to a student, in many cases, than what is occuring in the classroom.  This touching story, showing how OdysseyWare can help students achieve their educational goals, demonstrates just that.

Since their mother’s death in February 2007, she and an older brother have been raising a younger brother and sister. Nguyen wants to be a role model for them. I want to take care of my family, and offer a better life for them,” she said. Those goals keep her focused.

Focus is something she could never do before due to a variety of life factors.  As a result, many schools are offering alternative education programs which allow students who might not be able to be in class during the regular 8am-3pm schedule to still achieve their goals.  In Oregon, just such an option allowed this story’s students to do that.

SOARR is an acronym for Southern Oregon Alternatives at Rogue River. The students are utilizing OdysseyWare, an on-line interactive educational program with more than 50 grade-level courses in core curriculum areas and electives, including foreign languages and higher mathematics.

OdysseyWare is unique in the sense that it provides first rate online curriculum with internet portability, accessible at all times, to allow students like these to achieve.

OdysseyWare recognizes that every student learns differently, and presents material in a manner appropriate to the variety of learning styles. It’s an individualized program for the students who are segregated from the general classroom setting. They complete lessons and tests on-line, but they also are responsible for writing papers and doing hands-on projects and experiments. Many of the students enroll as a means to recover lost credits, others don’t fit the mold of a traditional classroom, and others have truancy and behavioral issues.

Very good story.  Congrats to both students.

In classrooms across the country, students taking Algebra II might be taking a drastically different version from their couterparts in other parts of the country.  As this Washington Post article notes, this can be problematic when gauging progress as well as transporting student transcripts from school -to-school.

Historically, “academic standards have been all over the place,” said Sandy Boyd, a vice president at Achieve in the District. The organization works with states to strengthen education standards and graduation requirements to prepare students for college or more than a dead-end job. If students can crack advanced algebra, experts say, their college chances and career prospects will be brighter and their future evenings free from rehashing the same concepts in community college.

In many ways, this diverse collection of course material can create a laboratory out of classrooms where teachers find multiple options for best teaching a course.  This is, of course, a good thing.  The trouble, however, arises where some students might not receive an optimum instruction.  This, of course, is not a good thing.

A new report was released today by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills which says that American schools are not currently equipped to take on the technology necessary for a globally competitive classroom.  Indeed, according to the study, many schools are too entrenched in the Industrial Age structure of concrete walls, rows of desks, rigid time schedules and unconnected classrooms.  As the report notes, these are preconditions which will hurt American students if they are not reformed quickly.

The report notes that the term ‘learning environment’ has traditionally suggested a concrete place (schools, classrooms, libraries, etc.), but in today’s interconnected and technology-driven world, a learning environment can be virtual, online and remote. In addition, physical learning structures must be designed to suit the immediate and future requirements of a community and should enable collaboration, interaction and information sharing among community members.

Although reform of classrooms will be costly, the report notes these changes must occur at some point in order for our students to remain competitive.

Rather than condemning the use of cell phones, teachers, according to this Education Week article, are asking their students to become even more involved with their coursework through them.

A growing number of teachers, carefully navigating district policies and addressing their own concerns, are having students use their personal cellphones to make podcasts, take field notes, and organize their schedules and homework.

This Business Week article propounds similar arguments as well:

The good news is that at long last, change is a-comin’ to K-12. Recently, the call for teaching 21st century skills and content in K-12 has gained considerable momentum and acceptance. Problem-solving, communication, and teamwork are examples of 21st century skills; a deep, integrated model of key science processes, for example, is 21st century content. To learn such 21st century content and skills, students must use 21st century information and communication technology.

As business and education leaders continue this march toward greater integration of computers, technology, online curriculum and multimedia demonstrations, there will be one clear winner: the students.

As the Obama administration begins in earnest and the new Department of Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, settle in, many questions remain as to how our nation’s education policy will change (if at all) and what level technology will play in the classroom as we move forward.  Secretary Duncan’s confirmation hearings gave a glimpse of answers to both questions:

Appropriately supporting students with disabilities, making sure that they are assessed
fairly, and making real and necessary learning gains to meet their full potential;
- Helping English language learners to be successful, not only in learning our common
language, but in gaining the knowledge and skills they need for success;
- Promoting innovation that accelerates student learning; and
- Aligning our education system not only to prepare students for the jobs of the future, but
also for the responsibilities of active citizenship in our democratic society.

The challenges facing our K-12 schools are vast if we are to compete on a global scale.  Best of luck to Secretary Duncan as he leads the nation through that challenge.

A U.S. House of Representatives’ committee has included $3 billion for internet and broadband initiatives across the country expanding access to rural areas.  As this Yahoo article notes, another $3 billion could be pushed as well in another committee.

The Democratically-controlled committee on Thursday cleared the provisions aimed at expanding high-speed Internet and wireless service in rural and hard-to-serve areas over objections from several Republican members.

Another $3 billion sought for broadband expansion in rural areas will be considered by the House Agriculture Committee.

All of this is contingent upon passing the full House, Senate and signature by President Obama, but this could be a huge success for rural schools struggling with accessing the internet.

You have to hand it to Bill Gates and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation: They put their money where their mouths are.  In a truly generous gift to education writ large, and technology in the classrooms specifically, Gates’ foundation donated $22 million to improve data sharing and technology that assists in that regard.

The grants, which were announced Jan. 22, are intended to help schools, districts, and state education departments gather and use data effectively to improve teaching and learning.

Although this is a huge sum of money with a worthy cause on the face of it, there is more to be happy about here.  For decades schools have struggled with the sharing of data for transfer students.  Computerized records assist in this effort and, like the digitizing of medical records, can quickly streamline a student’s immersion into a new school.

Daniel Craig’s newest film, Defiance, released this weekend in theatres is a Holocaust film depicting revolt by persecuted Jews.  To demonstrate this trying era in our world history, teachers are incorporating scenes from the movie into their online curriculum to teach about the Holocaust’s horrors.

The Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation urged schools to use the movie as part of the online curriculum.

“Very often students, when studying this history, think of Jews as being very passive,” Contactmusic quoted teacher Alice Braziller, at Manhattans Satellite Academy High School, as telling the New York Daily News.

In another interesting addition to the online learning movement, many teachers in Texas (and around the country to be sure) are adding their lesson plans to Teacher Tube, a version of the popular You Tube for teachers.  The obvious benefit to students is greater access to courses and lesson plans that they might have missed or want to return to for remediation.  The casualty might be good note taking skills, however.

Thousands of teachers are sharing videos on a Web site called Teacher Tube, started in March 2007 by Jason Smith, 39, the superintendent of Melissa ISD in rural Collin County, and his brother Adam, 29, an engineer.

As the article notes, this phenomenon is assisting teachers throughout the world who might be able to pick up hints or class ideas from their counterparts from throughout the world.  Technology obviously makes this easier and for more enriching for the student!

US House Democrats released the details of their $800 billion plus stimulus package and, within it, is a considerable amount of money for education.

Some $20 billion for school modernization and $1 billion for educational technology are among nearly $150 billion in funding targeted toward education in the House version of the new economic stimulus package, which lawmakers introduced Jan. 15.

This, of course, answers many of the previous blog’s requests for more education funding.