MultiliteracyRevolution!!!

Okay, guys.  I am officially a nerd.  I have been more excited about my group project for grad school lately than anything else in my entire life!  In all of my online classes, the final project has been a group project.  They are all different.


In the first class which was titled, "Globalization and Education Policy", our group project was to be in groups of 4 people and to write a 30-35 page paper and do a  to the class on the transformation of education policy in any country of our choosing.  My group chose Chile.  It was a LONG and boring, tedious, tiring project.  But I learned a lot about research.  And how to communicate with 5 other people that you will never meet about something that you have to be intimately involved with.  That was a process.


In my second class titled "Global Issues in Learning" (I know, what a vague title), our group/final project was just a presentation to our class.  It could literally be on anything as long as it involved education, globalization, and culture to some degree.  My group chose to do a presentation on University Rankings Systems.  You know, the US News and World Report "US Best Colleges of 2010"?  I actually really enjoyed this project.  I learned a lot and liked the topic, so it worked out.  It was a lot of work, but not as much as the first class.


The project that I am currently working on is the one I have spent the most time on... by far.  But I am enjoying it so much that it doesn't even matter!  Hey teacher friends, have you heard of "multiliteracies"?  That's what my project is on.  The class is called "Technology and Education Reform".  "The final project for this class is a team activity in which you will cooperate to produce a technology-based, multimedia project (a video, a web site, etc) that addresses one of the central themes of the course."... according to my professor.  My group decided to write a blog as a resource for teachers and students on the topic of multiliteracies.  Are you interested?  Well, I am not going to give it all away.  But I am very proud of the progress.  By the way, the project isn't due for another two weeks...  Here it is:

multiliteracyrevolution

Let me know what you think!

Book Club and Book Store

I am sitting in Barnes and Noble at the coffee shop.  Josh and I ditched our house for the day so our air conditioner didn't have to kill itself trying to keep the house cool.  The heat index today is 117.  Seriously!

So, I am doing some grad school work here.  And I am currently taking a break.  It is about 65 degrees in here, which is cold.  But I really don't want to complain considering I could be outside having a heat stroke right now. I have been doing a very large amount of work on our group project for school and I am excited to share it soon!

In other news, I was invited by some ladies at my school to be in their book club.  I am really, really, really excited!  I love stuff like that and I have never been a part of a book club before!  The closest I have ever come is being in a bible study group and it was awesome.  I really enjoy having a goal and then having meaningful and thoughtful discussions with other adults... especially when it doesn't have to do with work or education... I get enough of that at school.  They are currently reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I have been wanting to read this book for a while and now I have a good reason to do it:

Have you read it?  What did you think?

Another development has recently taken place.  We had a meeting at school this week to discuss our upcoming school year.  A lot of changes have been going on at my school and in my county lately.  First of all, our school didn't make AYP this year.  If you don't know what that is, Google it.  I would tell you, but it makes me too frustrated to talk about it.  By the way, we lost it because of two students and six total questions on a test.  Second of all, we are no longer a Title I school.  This is very bad.  For many reasons.  The main ones being that because of this, we will lose a number of services, a ton of finances and financial resources, and a lot of personnel.  Google Title I if you don't know about it.  Because of this, my principal is forcing me to spend 45 minutes per day in 4th or 5th grade classrooms working with small groups to teach reading and math.  This is something that Title I teachers or assistants would typically do, but since we no longer have them...  it's up to the music and P.E. teachers.  Seriously.  

I understand that our kids now need these services, so I am a little torn about the whole situation.  I feel bad complaining about it, but if we ever want to meet AYP, I might need to help in this area.  But, it's definitely not my job, I'm definitely not qualified for it, and it's taking away time from my schedule to teach our 650 kids some awesome music.  Also, and most importantly, I DON'T WANT TO DO IT!  It's sad that I have to do this just so we can "pass a test".  Having their music teacher teach them music would be way more beneficial for them, but that's the way of the education world lately.  It's very sad.

On a happy note, G is coming in the morning and I am super excited to see her and do some cool Ocean City stuff.  Have a great (and cool) weekend!

Perspective

If you ever have 55 minutes and 34 seconds free, it will be worth your while to watch this video.  I had to watch it today for one of my grad school classes and something as arbitrary as a really long YouTube video turned into one of the most passionate online experiences I have ever been a part of.  An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube:

Changing Education Paradigms

If you are at all interested in education, watch this video.  This was introduced to me by my professor, we viewed it in its entirety in class.

This Couldn't Have Come at a Better Time...

I italicized in bold what I believe to be the most significant parts of this article... whether I agree with them or not ;-)


From the Washington Post about a month ago:

International test score data show U.S. firmly mid-pack

By Nick Anderson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 7, 2010; 6:00 AM

After a decade of intensive efforts to improve its schools, the United States posted these results in a new global survey of 15-year-old student achievement: average in reading, average in science and slightly below average in math.

Those middling scores lagged significantly behind results from several countries in Europe and Asia in the report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to be made public Tuesday.

South Korea is an emerging academic powerhouse. Finland and Singapore continue to flex their muscles. And the Chinese city of Shanghai, participating for the first time in the Program for International Student Assessment, topped the 2009 rankings of dozens of countries and a handful of sub-national regions.

U.S. officials said the results show that the nation is slipping further behind its competitors despite years spent seeking to raise performance in reading and math through the 2002 No Child Left Behind law and a host of other reforms.

"For me, it's a massive wake-up call," Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday. "Have we ever been satisfied as Americans being average in anything? Is that our aspiration? Our goal should be absolutely to lead the world in education."

The Obama administration is likely to use the results to press Congress next year to rewrite the federal education law to prod states to do more to help the lowest-performing schools. The District and dozens of states -- including Maryland but not Virginia -- have also approved new national academic standards that are meant to make U.S. schools more competitive.

On Monday in North Carolina, President Obama warned that the United States faces a "Sputnik moment," needing innovations akin to the effort to put a man on the moon after the Soviet Union launched the first satellite into orbit in 1957.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is a 34-nation organization, based in Paris, that seeks to promote sustainable growth, world trade and higher living standards. Its testing program tracks the knowledge and problem-solving abilities of 15-year-olds every three years.

The report released Tuesday focused on reading ability and found that more than a dozen countries, from Korea to Poland, performed significantly better than the organization's statistical average in that area. The United States did not.

The U.S. scores of 500 in reading and 502 in science, on a 1,000-point scale, were about the organization's average, according to the report. The U.S. math score of 487 was below the average of 496.

Education experts cautioned that the strong marks for Shanghai, as well as those reported for Hong Kong, were not representative of education trends in China as a whole because the testing program did not canvass the entire country.

Still, Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the the testing program, called the results from Shanghai "stunning." He said it has been especially adept at moving talented educators into the most challenging assignments through career and pay incentives.

Susan Fuhrman, president of Teachers College at Columbia University, said several of the Pacific Rim nations that excelled in the testing have strong academic standards and a culture of high expectations, with particular emphasis on math and science. She added that the teaching profession is often more prestigious in such countries.

"We are not drawing from the top group of college graduates for teaching" in the United States, Fuhrman said, "and some other countries are."

Among the other key findings of the study:

-- Girls outperform boys in reading in every participating country. The gender reading gap, among the organization's members, was equivalent to about 39 points on the testing scale, or a year of schooling.

"In the United States, we're quite used to this" gender gap, said Tom Loveless, an education scholar at the Brookings Institution, "but it turns out that it's a worldwide phenomenon."

-- Countries with similar levels of economic prosperity can yield widely varying academic results. Korea, the strongest performer among the group's member nations, has a lower gross domestic product per capita than the organization's average. So does Shanghai.

-- U.S. math results were up since 2006 but not measurably different than scores in 2003, the earliest year in which comparisons were possible. U.S. science scores were up since 2006, a bright spot in the results.

Testing was conducted in the United States from September to November 2009, including 5,233 students from 165 public and private schools, randomly selected.

Oprah, Michelle Rhee, The Today Show, & Waiting for Superman

It would take me forever to describe what happened this week on Oprah.  It was absolutely life-changing. Check it out for yourself:

Oprah's Education Page

Things I Want You to Know:

1. Go see the movie, Waiting for Superman, the movie.  It IS the most important movie of the year.
2. Read Oprah's Lessons in Education page and watch the videos.
3. Learn about The Shocking State of Our Schools and find out what Michelle Rhee is doing about it.

NBC's Today Show visited Josh's School last week!  Ann Curry came to visit and do a special taping of a school that is "Doing What Works".  It will be featured next week on the Today Show's Education Nation Week.  Here are some articles from Worcester County Public Schools and Delmarva Now, our local newspaper, highlighting Ann Curry's trip to the eastern shore!

Ann Curry with a few of Josh's students

 

Watch the Today Show on Wednesday to see Josh's School, Pocomoke Middle!