Are You a Podcaster?

Why are podcasts becoming so popular? Where ever you are you can see people of all ages listening to podcasts. The reasons for this are many and varied.
MP3 players are quite inexpensive. I own two and I bought them at Kmart for under $20. They hold hours of music or in my case news, commentary, or talk shows. My MP3 players are very small, about the size of a pack of gum.
The software is very easy to use. I use Ziepod on my computer. I open up Ziepod and click update my subscriptions and hours of listening are downloaded to my MP3 player. All of this takes less than 10 minutes.
I believe that it is more natural for people to listen to a story than read a book. With my MP3 player I can work, exercise, or drive a car and constantly listen to information. It’s pretty hard to read a book while doing these things. Believe me, I’ve tried.

More On Education, Less On Prisons

It’s a shame that Michigan spends so much more on prisons than on higher education. Our state spends about $1.19 for every dollar it spends on higher education. This is according to a study by the Pew Charitable Trusts. This amounts to about 2 billion dollars on prisons and about 1.6 billion on higher education. About one out of every 100 people in our state is in prison.

Perhaps if we spent more money on schools, we could keep more people out of prison. I would like to see a study linking the people in prison to the type of schools they attended. I feel that good quality schools with quality teachers would go a long way in reducing our huge prison population.

Newspapers Announce Big Changes

When my wife and I moved to Shepherd 4 years ago we signed up for home delivery of the Saginaw News and Morning Sun. Reading daily newspapers is one of my greatest leisure time activities. I took pride in the fact that I have subscribed to the Saginaw News for about 35 years.
Two weeks ago the Saginaw News called me and said they were suspending home delivery to the Mid-Michigan area. Then I heard the news that Booth Newspapers, a group of eight dailies owned by Advance Publications, of New York, will close The Ann Arbor News in July and cut daily publication to a three-day-a-week schedule at The Flint Journal, The Bay City Times and The Saginaw News in June.
This is another example of societal change. I grew up reading the daily newspaper. I remember such a feeling of accomplishment to be able to read the newspaper on my own in the second grade. I learned new words, concepts, and a deep understanding of local and world affairs. I believe that the newspaper will now disappear from our homes and people will turn even more to the world wide web for information.
As a classroom teacher I made studying the local newspaper a part of our curriculum. I believe that we face a future without newspapers. Newspapers will be replaced by online news articles. I feel this change will indirectly impact education. Newspapers and education have always gone together. Teachers will refer to newspapers in the same manner as record players, dial phones, and the telegraph.
Get my news online? I have no desire to want to read twitter feeds or sit through amateur video, laced with advertising at the beginning and end, to get the news. And I don't want a few paragraphs of blog about a council meeting. This form of "community journalism" will fail or become obsolete at some point.
I’m sure that there are many positives to this dilemma. I just don’t see it now. What do you think? Is there a positive slant that we can put on this?

Don't Let Students Fail

I just went back and reread an article about a new student grading policy entitled “Grand Rapids high school students cannot get failing grade under new policy. ” This was dated December 3, 2008. High School teachers in Grand Rapids, Michigan wanted to come up with a way to get students to pass their courses. Almost half of the high school students in Grand Rapids were failing their classes.

Failing students will receive an H instead of an E or F. The H means the grade is “held” while the student completes the course work. The rationale behind this new concept is that you are allowed to take your drivers test or lawyers take the bar exam an unlimited amount of time. Only in schools do most students only get one opportunity to earn a grade.

Is this a good idea or is it another fad? I think it is both good and a fad. If a student wants to learn and wants to work on his assignments until it is acceptable he should be allowed to do so. However, many classes are crowded with too many students. Teachers will find that they have too many students to closely supervise and keep track of these late assignments. This grading format will work if class sizes are kept small. I think that teachers will get burned out after a few years and return to their previous grading policy. What do you think?

One Possible Solution for School Budget Problems

In my last blog I pointed out some serious problems that schools are facing with their budgets. These problems are so serious that hundreds of our communities in Michigan will face severe cuts to educational programs. The schools of 2009 may not resemble the schools that survive in the next couple of years.

I have read hundreds of articles about school budget problems because I want the very best schools for our children. Let's face the fact that Bill Gates is not going to give Michigan a pot of gold to solve this problem. Will our state legislature increase taxes to dramatically impact our schools? No, this will not happen unless our schools are under danger of collapsing completely and any additional funding will only bring schools up to a survivable level.

I do have a suggestion but the best it can be is a partial solution. I have studied a few school budgets to get an idea of where school money goes. About 80% of a school budget goes to salaries. About 10% goes to busing, 5% to meals, and 5 to 6% goes to athletics. When faced with budget woes most school superintendents make an across the board cut to almost all the budget items. The result of this is to water down the programs. So class sizes get larger, salaries are cut, meals get smaller or poorer quality, and buses travel fewer routes. No programs ever get better and quality continues to fall.

My solution is to take everything out of the general budget except for education. The basic per pupil funding should only go to pay for what happens in the classroom and for administration, and school buildings. Superintendents would only be concerned with the educational programs and how to improve them.

I would have athletics, meals, and transportation be paid for by local milages. Let the community decide if they want athletics. If they do then the sky is the limit. I remember about 20 years ago a school system north of Bay City had a milage vote. This was before Proposal A. One proposal was to fund education and the other proposal was to fund athletics. The education proposal was voted down but athletics passed by a wide margin. Perhaps the community decides that their students should be car pooled or they need new buses. Maybe all the children brown bag their lunches.

I say protect education. Some say the "Golden Age" of public education has come and gone. I say this "Golden Age" is just over the horizon. Wouldn't it be great if every Michigan student had access to the best schools, with clean sparkling rooms, oodles of classroom supplies, and teachers who had adequate salaries to provide for their families?

Save Our Schools

It really saddens me to see so many schools having budget problems. We are seeing many families leave their local school districts and move to other states in search of jobs. We read about many schools looking for ways to cut millions of dollars out of their budgets. On March 11, 2009 the Pontiac School District gave pink slip notices to all 622 teachers in their district because of a 11.6 million dollar deficit. Almost every school district in Michigan is facing looming budget deficits.

I hate to see our children getting a second class education because of these budget problems. Will we start to see private schools springing up for those wealthier families that can afford it? Who's to blame?

Proposal A was only a stop-gap measure. It helped out the educational budget for a short time and I must admit that it wasn't fun to always try to get a local millage vote passed. I believe that in time Proposal A will be changed but will our state representatives get it right?

“Some parents, worried about the quality of their children's educations being threatened by the looming cuts, sometimes blame hard-working teachers and their union contracts, which usually guarantee the enviable health care benefits and pension packages all working people deserve. There's the source of our financial troubles, the parents say. Teachers point at the fat salaries and benefits of administrators and say that is where the cuts should come from.”http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5342/1/264/

What can be done to help schools provide a good educational program for our students? For years I have mulled over possible solutions. Any solutions will not be simple and it will be hard to get a majority of voters to agree on a plan. What do you think? What should be done?

96 Crayons In A Box

I was browsing through a store the other day and saw a 96 count box of crayons on sale. I was tempted to buy them because I still think that it is fun to color and I don’t think I ever owned such a large box. A lot of my early memories of school are associated with crayons.

I remember being envious of other students whose parents bought them the large box of crayons. Some students were very protective of their crayons and they wouldn’t let you borrow them. Other students would throw any used crayons out but many students treasured even the small stubs.

I went to the Crayola web site (http://www.crayola.com/) and learned that there are now 153 colors. The names were so creative and interesting. Trying to read the names helped me to read but it also caused me to try to imagine how the names came to be. Wisteria, Wild Blue Yonder, Vivid Tangerine, Tumbleweed, Teal Blue, Sea Green, Indigo,
Fuchsia, and Cerulean were exotic and enticing names.

There are many songs about crayons. This is just one that would be fun to teach to some youngsters:
Ode to Crayola - Lemon Demon
Outrageous Orange, Laser Lemon, and Jungle Green.That’s what I said.Wild Watermelon, Midnight Blue, Atomic Tangerine…Radical Red, Sky Blue, and Shamrock too,and Gold so true it glows.I love the Razzmatazz, and Purple Pizazz,and Razzle Dazzle Rose.Every color’s like an old friend.Hot Magenta is a godsend.I took the factory tour.It really opened the door, and I at once became transfixed.I know they’re pieces of wax,but I can never relax without my box of 96. Crayola, Crayola’s all that I know.The colors, delicious, making a rainbow.Crayola, I love you so.
http://www.hpana.com/forums/topic_view.cfm?tid=49864&p=37

Four Day School Week

Many schools are thinking about switching to a 4 day per week schedule. School leaders say it would save money along with cutting down on student absenteeism. This idea would add at least one extra hour to the school day. Most of the students and teachers love this idea but will it benefit learning in the long run?

As far as I can tell there has been no studies looking at student achievement with a four day per week schedule. “...nearly 1 in 7 school boards nationwide is considering whether to drop a day, according to a recent survey by the American Association of School Administrators.” *

Most experts believe that the school year should be extended with students spending more hours in class. The class day may already be too long for the younger students.

This brings up some questions that should be asked: Can families afford to hire babysitters for that one day a week that students are off? Can young students attend after school activities after an extra long school day? Would it give older students more time to get in trouble without a day of supervision?

I believe that this idea will catch on across the nation. However, this educational format might just be another idea that is appealing at first but over time might be instructionally weak. Remember the open-classrooms and block scheduling? Teachers be prepared for change but it might be short-lived.


*Time Magazine, August 14,2008
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1832864,00.html

Myth Three: Multitasking, Forte of the Young

Is multitasking a strong strength of the young and can they learn more effectively with multitasking? Good question but this needs to be looked at more closely.

The Institute for the Future of the Mind did a controlled study with two age groups. One group was 18 to 21 year olds and the second group was 35 to 39 year olds. Both groups were tested on their multitasking skills. The younger group tested at 10% better at multitasking when there were no interruptions. A second test was conducted under a realistic situation with many interruptions such as a phone ringing or a knock at the door. With this test both groups tested out at the same ability.

In summary the appeal of multitasking is so irresistible. Megan Santosus writes in an article, "Multitasking Wastes Time and Money" that multitasking just raises false hopes. "Unfortunately, even in the face of the mounting scientific and anecdotal evidence that multitasking doesn't work, companies cling to it like shipwrecked survivors to flotsam."

This ends my surmmary of the recent findings of multitasking. It was taken from the article "You Say Multitasking Like It's a Good Thing" found in NeaToday, March/April 2009. I like research about education that is new and up-to-date. Every little idea that promotes good teaching will eventually help children learn.

Myth Two: Multitask Is As Good As Single Task Learning

There is a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Karin Foerde, Barbara J. Knowlton, and Russell Poldrack which has found that multitask learning is less efficient and useful than uninterrupted learning.

This study found that the brain learns in two different manners. Higher level learning involves the hippocampus area of the brain. This area of the brain retrieves information quickly and the brain can apply this information to new situations. Procedural learning happens in the brain's striatum and this learning is very limited.

The researchers found that single task learning takes place in the hippocampus area and multitasking learning basically goes to the striatum area in the brain. Much of multitasking is taking place in the brain's striatum and this learning is very limited. When a person is distracted procedural learning takes place and this learning is not easily manipulated, organized, or applied to new situations.