T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) articles from March 2008

T H E Journal (Technological Horizons In Education) archives from March 2008

Karl Fisch: creating lifelong learners.(What's ONLINE)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Many technology pioneers come from, well, technology backgrounds. Not Karl Fisch, a former math teacher whose role, over time, evolved into the director of technology at Arapahoe High School in Centennial, CO. During...

Web 2.0 in education: trends for 2008.(HOT TOPICS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... While the technologies collectively known as Web 2.0 have penetrated the consumer sector rapidly over the last four years or so, the process has been much slower and more measured in education. www.thejournal.com/articles/21839

Free internet filtering service launches.(HOT TOPICS)(OpenDNS )(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Free DNS service provider OpenDNS has launched its new, free web-filtering solution targeted toward education. The service taps into the expertise of IT professionals to create categories of websites that can be blocked by administrators with...

Social media: how to 'sell it' to your team.(HOT TOPICS)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Ask any colleague under the age of, say, 30, and it's fairly likely that he or she will have a profile on a social network like Facebook or MySpace. Business-facing social networks like Linkedln have also seen explosive growth from educators in...

Set it and forget it: Bedford County's in-house disc duplication.(CASE STUDY)(Bedford County Public Schools)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Victor Gosnell remembers what it used to be like whenever a compact disc duplication project would come up. In the early days--when Bedford County Public Schools in Virginia began buying computers that included CD burners--a teacher or media...

Bush budget cuts EETT.(NEWS)(George W. Bush)(Enhancing Education Through Technology)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... In the Bush administration's proposed budget, released Feb. 4, the Enhancing Education Through Technology initiative (EETT) was listed among the programs recommended for zero funding. EETT was designed to support the deployment and integration...

Homework or busywork? Attitudes soften, but quality still questioned.(RESEARCH)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... As recently as 2002, a vast 74 percent of secondary students described their homework as busywork. Now, however, that's down significantly, with just 30 percent holding that attitude, according to a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive,...

Tips for using chat as an instructional tool.(RESOURCES)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Chat software (text- or media-based) provides an excellent tool in supporting academic dialogue exchange, critical thinking, and knowledge building. The immediacy of the technology provides students with a direct connection to the instructor...

Hate the player, not the game: for new technologies to be successfully integrated into schools, we must first fix the users, not the tools.(our SPACE)(Viewpoint essay)
March 1, 2008... I'VE NEVER BEEN QUITE ABLE to get behind the argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people. It seems to me that guns do the climactic work. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the premise: Blame the user, not the instrument. Or in today's...

The road traveled: was becoming an educator the right career move for you? An old career-planning profiler indicates it was for me.(commentary)(Personal account)
March 1, 2008... "WHAT WOULD YOU BE if you had not gone into education?" I was asked to contemplate this very question prior to going on an organizational retreat years ago, and I imagined that my answer, along with the answers of all the other...

Keynotes.(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... "Just show me one district that ever got sued!" -Carol Simpson, former K-12 librarian, on the response she generally received from administrators when she urged them to follow copyright laws [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "They start with...

Point taken.(TECH WATCH)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... [arrow up] SIF: An open specification that allows disparate forms of data to talk to each other. What's a complex sequence of binary code like you doing in an inaccessible silo like this? [arrow up] STUDENT TECH PROCUREMENT: At one...

NASA, Sally Ride join up on science education mission.(Technology + Online + Industry + Partnership)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... SALLY RIDE SCIENCE (www.sallyridescience.com), a science education company founded by its namesake, the first American woman in space, has teamed up with NASA (www.nasa.gov) to explore the moon's anatomy and history and will share its findings...

UNESCO launches ICT standards effort: the international project sets the bar for tech-savvy teachers.(Technology + Online + Industry + Partnership)(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization )
March 1, 2008... THE UNITED NATIONS Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO; www.unesco.org) has joined with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE; www.iste.org) and a select group of partners to launch the first phase...

eChalk and Thinkronize team up.(Industry News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Thinkronize (www.thinkronize.com) and eChalk (www.echalk.com), developers of education technology products, have formalized a joint effort to offer schools around the country a safe and secure online learning environment with standards-based...

Jorneyed acquires CCV.(Industry News)(Journey Education Marketing and CCV Software )(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Online higher education reseller Journey Education Marketing (www.journeyed.com) has announced its acquisition of CCV Software (www.ccvsoftware.com), a K-12 education reseller. CCV will become the K-12 division within JourneyEd, expanding the...

Promethean and Vernier form partnership.(Industry News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Vernier Software & Technology (www.vernier.com), a leader in science data-collection technology, has entered into a partnership with interactive learning provider Promethean (www.prometheanworld.com) to converge Vernier Logger Pro and Logger...

GlobalScholar.com acquires Excelsior.(Industry News)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... GlobalScholar.com, a member of the Knowledge Universe Education (www.knowledgeu.com) family of companies, has acquired Excelsior Software (www.excelsiorsofiware.com), a provider of assessment management solutions for the K-12 education market....

Districts reorganized for parent connections.(Awards)(Miami-Dade County Public Schools and Hamilton School District )(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... At the American Association of School Administrators (www.aasa.org) National Conference on Education in Tampa, FL, held Feb. 14, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (FL) and Hamilton School District (WI) were named corecipients of the 2008...

First woman Commissioner of Education in Texas honored.(Awards)(Shirley Neeley)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... Longtime educator Shirley Neeley, the first woman Texas Commissioner of Education, was honored at last month's Women of Educational Distinction Awards in Dallas for her commitment to impacting the achievement of all students across the state,...

Iowa research wins awards.(Awards)(Iowa Association of School Boards)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... The Iowa Lighthouse Research Team from the Iowa Association of School Boards (www.ia-sb.org) received the 2008 Thomas A. Shannon Award for Excellence in School Boards Association Leadership at the National School Board Association's...

A do-it-yourself 1-to-1 plan: a Baton Rouge prep school's technology initiative is of, by, and for the students.(hardware & software)
March 1, 2008... MOST SCHOOL DISTRICTS FOLLOW a standard hardware procurement process: submit a request for proposals (RFP), award the winning bid, take possession of the product, and, after some training for their users, distribute it to the field. Rarely are...

Do the (copy)right thing: educators' lack of attention to intellectual property law places their schools in legal jeopardy--and sends a terrible message to students.(digital content)
March 1, 2008... "HOW MANY do you want to know about?" [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Having been prompted for an anecdote that demonstrates the lack of regard school districts have for complying with copyright law, Carol Simpson makes it clear that she has an...

Setting new standards: changes are coming to the world of WiFi, where safer and speedier wins the race.(Networking)
March 1, 2008... WHILE WIRELESS SYSTEMS of all types (cellu-lar, Bluetooth, WiFi) have inveigled their way into many facets of everyone's life, WiFi in particular is still sometimes viewed askance by K-12 districts. Many technology officers worry that wireless...

Finding their voice: via an online debate program that models the use of technology to foster collaboration, special needs students are discovering a thing some doubted they had--potential.(e-learning)
March 1, 2008... Look to your teammates for answers. What do you think? Why do you think that? THESE ARE THE behind-the-scenes counsels of Cara Coffina, the social studies literacy coach for New York City's Special Education District 75, imploring her...

Mix master: the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF) has emerged as a cornerstone of K-12 data warehousing, enabling once-isolated information to be shared among diverse systems.(data warehousing)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITED] The Champaign Community School District Unit 4, based in East Central Illinois, is building a new database management system (DBMS). The district plans to first assemble a centralized data warehouse to store...

Five on five: a dialogue on professional development.(professional development)(Discussion)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] IN THE OLD DAYS, professional development didn't extend any further than the workshops teachers would attend to learn new applications. After the workshop, the teachers were on their own once they returned to school...

Point man: a district's IT efforts all revolve around the CIO, whose role and responsibilities have been transformed by the digital age.(chief information officer)
March 1, 2008... OB DYLAN ONCE SANG THAT THE TIMES WERE A-CHANGIN', but the shaggy crooner couldn't have had any idea how the line would one day resonate with the leaders of K-12 technology. Think back to the days of the first George Bush. Back then, few,...

Bretford.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)(UCS880 Multimedia Rack Mount Instructor Workstation )(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... BRETFORD has introduced the customizable UCS880 Multimedia Rack Mount Instructor Workstation to make it easier for teachers to incorporate technology into their lessons. The new workstation features a universal 19-inch rack system so that any...

Lexmark.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LEXMARK has added the color laser X560n to its lineup of multifunction printers, giving schools access to high-quality, professional color printing, copying, faxing, and scanning with one easy-to-use device. This MFP...

Promethean.(product FOCUS: The latest releases, services, and new product versions)(Activexpression)(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... PROMETHEAN has launched a new student response solution called Activexpression. The handheld device allows teachers to create activities, quizzes, and polls--even spontaneously-and students to express themselves through full phrases, symbols,...

Extracurricular: for technologists who do their homework.(Brief article)
March 1, 2008... How closely do the following two scenarios describe your district's experiences with 1-to-1 computing implementations? HIGHLIGHTS * NEARLY 75% OF DISTRICTS REPORT STRONG OR MEDIUM USE OF ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OBJECTIVES * GREATEST...