Blog Juice for Educational Technology

Education leaders gathered at the Eaglewood Conference Center Resort in Itasca, Illinois for an action-packed day of professional development sessions and networking at Technology and Robert Runcie, CIO of Chicago Public Schools, who spoke about maximizi

The Journal of American Medical Association reports on the dangers of pesticide exposure at schools and from neighboring farms, and recommends “implementation of integrated pest management programs in schools, practices to reduce pesticide drift, and adoption of pesticide spray buffer zones around schools.”

Competing activists said the numbers in the report were either alarmist and too high, or an undercount of the problem. In May, about 600 students and staff members were evacuated from an Edinburg, Texas elementary school after pesticides sprayed on a cotton field drifted into the school’s air conditioning system, reports AP. About 30 students and nine staff members developed mild symptoms, including nausea and headaches.

Pesticide regulations for educational and day-care facilities were enacted in Texas in 1991, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Since 1995, the state has required school districts and day-care centers to:

• Notify parents by mail at the beginning of each academic year that pesticides will be used at schools.

• Post signs at least 48 hours before spraying.
• Use the least-toxic form and application of required pesticides.
  School districts must also adopt the state’s Integrated Pest Management policies, hiring a trained coordinator.

Texas school districts must also adopt the state’s Integrated Pest Management policies, hiring a trained coordinator, the Star-Telegram reports. “We review about 200 district programs each year and try to get to each school district every five years,” a state official told the paper. “The vast number of school districts in Texas are trying very hard to comply.” But is all of that enough? What about “drift” of toxic substances in the air from nearby farms? All pesticides used in the United States are regulated by federal and state law. Would school districts welcome more schools-specific regulation here? Tell us what you think.

Here are some new looks at summer school adding to BoardBuzz’s recent coverage. In New Jersey, summer is the only time for many children of migrant workers to explore the Internet or practice their English. About 1,000 migrant children whose parents pick blueberries in the nearby fields are served by the nine-county New Jersey program that provides a free, state-of-the-art summer school. According to this Associated Press article, “Many of the children speak little English, and come from a hodgepodge of cultures and disjointed educational backgrounds. Some have never seen an eye doctor or dentist. Older children may prefer to be earning money in the fields. And the staff knows it has only six weeks to work with. Many of the families swiftly move on, heading to late-summer jobs in Maine or Michigan, then returning to Mexico or Florida for the winter before starting a northward trek again in the spring - their children experiencing school in short, disrupted spurts.”

And a summer school of quite a different nature is popping up nearly everywhere as more students take their remedial or enrichment classes online, avoiding the trek to stifling classrooms in the dog days of summer. Reports Education Week, “‘Students don’t have to go to school, they don’t have to put on [school] clothes, and the teacher can sit with a cup of coffee or with a baby on her knee while [she teaches],’ said Charlene Becker, the director of instruction for the Hamilton County, Tennessee, school district.” And Ed Week reports that the Orlando-based Florida Virtual School is on track to triple its student enrollment, from about 4,000 last summer to 12,000 this summer.

Of course, many students are returning to school right about now to begin their year-round schedules. The Indianapolis Star reports that some kids will be returning to school to hit the books earlier in a new year-round schedule that will hopefully boost test scores and move several schools off a state warning list. Enticing the students to return early is the promise of fully air-conditioned schools, some thing that more Indianapolis schools say they need before they contemplate a change to a year-round schedule. According to the Star, “Indiana law requires the state’s 293 school districts to consider year-round calendars as an alternative to new school construction or additions. But the state’s schools have been slow to sign on.” However, the National Association for Year-Round Education says that more states across the country are making the switch to alternative calendars.

Before getting to today’s post, let me comment on yesterday’s post on recording voice and transcribing it in MS Word at the same time. I got a few emails that didn’t realize I was showing the verbatim output from Word without further revision f…

Students with disabilities have made significant progress in their transition to adulthood during the past 25 years with lower dropout rates, an increase in postsecondary enrollment and a higher rate of gainful employment after leaving high school, according to a new ED report.

President Bush announced his intention to nominate Mark S. Schneider to serve as Commissioner of Education Statistics.

The Recording Industry Association of America’s lawsuit campaign against song-swapping suspects keeps chugging along. The industry group announced today that 765 people were named in its latest batch of monthly lawsuits, filed across the country. During the summer, though, the…

For college students, Thefacebook.com is invaluable for learning about classmates and socializing with friends. For unscrupulous reporters, though, the site can be an invitation to laziness. A pair of writers for the Reidsville Review, a small newspaper in North Carolina,…

File-swapping skeptics have argued that Napster and its ilk won’t catch on at colleges until the services let students move songs from their computers to their portable music players. But for legal download services that cater to colleges, setting up…

Educators who have yet to do so might have to re-evaluate their current instructional strategies in light of a new survey compiled for the Pew Internet & American Life Project; it indicates internet use is nearly ubiquit…

I just got home from an exhilarating two-day workshop in suburban Chicago, the Downers Grove Summit. We called it a summit, because the ultimate goal was not necessarily to teach new skills to Downers Grove educators (and education leaders from other area districts), but to help them to negotiate an intersection between the new […]

So says Thomas Friedman in his compelling book by the same title. If you haven’t yet read the book, do so. Whether or not you completely agree with all of the mostly positive elements of his vision of an interconnected, technologically determined world, he paints a compelling picture of the…