Author: abendelow
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Market Forces in Chicago Public School's, part 2
It seems that CEO Ron Huberman recognizes economical bargains in electronic form as well, not just in flesh and blood humans. Even as he eliminates over 100 veteran mentor-teacher jobs and promotes charters, he finds online one-to-one learning modules for “credit recovery” a real savings, this article in THE journal . CPS manager of distance learning…
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CPS executes teacher-leader jobs, NKVD-style
Mike Vail’s coverage in Substance online outraged me today. What happened to more than 100 quality, veteran teachers yesterday in Chicago was a glaring instance of brute “market forces” where they don’t belong: in schools where we teach our most precious children. The bully kids are mostly dealt with. But somehow it’s OK when the…
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The night Microsoft took over my work computer
30 June is the end of the fiscal year, but this year it’s also the start of a new technological regime, at least in the relationship teachers in my district will have to their working computers. And when you think of it, almost all of a teacher’s official communication and an increasingly large percentage of his curriculum is…
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It's so easy to let people know what you're thinking now
Good or bad things happen to you? Let others know! The power of the crowd thereby grows, and we all benefit. This 21st century truth was brought home to me when, after having a bad experience with a Holiday Inn, I sought out the corporate owners so that I might send a complaint letter. This…
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Don't "reject" or "repair" the old curriculum, "remediate"
I read Kevin Leander’s “Composing with Old and New Media: Toward a Parallel Pedagogy” and appreciated his re-purposing of the word “remediate” to describe the sort of “parallel composition” that can happen in classrooms when you mix an essential rhetorical act (his example is memoir or autobiography), good questions, and 21st century digital communications media.…
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What ARE they learning, then?
One of the literacies the Survey course requires we teach is technical: students are supposed to emerge from the experience capable of using the suite of four Microsoft Office tools–Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Publisher. The premise is that these are worthy ends and I am not arguing against that. Instead, the way they’re learning is…
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Online learning in computer labs–what might the effect be?
OK, we’ve got them. My co-teacher and I have successfully got our classes of kids, whose classrooms essentially are computer labs, into their online modules. The sound of a classroom full of simultaneous keyboards takes me way back to typing class in the 70’s–but way quieter. A teacher can speak aloud over a classroom of…
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How is this night different from all others?
(photos courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times, the best source of local sports coverage.) For the first time in my life, the Chicago Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup, and the social environment on my placid suburban street explodes with yelps and screams of delight and release. It is because my apartment is located between two sports…
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What's inviting about Onlineexpert?
Looked at on the small platform of EDT 6040 “Visual Literacy in the Classroom” at CUChicago, how graphically well-designed is the website of LearnKey’s OnlineExpert.com.? An analysis:There are many effective design elements being used in this home page for the Excel 2007 training I am doing. Especially, according to my limited knowledge of the principles…
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It looks like the Republicans are harnessing the online social networks
Ironic, since in my very last post I wondered whether progressive political forces would use the “democratic dynamite” of social media. In their new website, www.americaspeakingout.com, the GOP, or Republicans are pulling out the TNT. According to this Wall Street Journal piece, the site will have online instant polling, “open mics” (podcasted too?), and faciliate…
The Wikiness 