Views You Can
Use
Vol. V No.1
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Welcome to a new school year, our fifth year of Views You Can Use. This
fall semester will bring a continuation and expansion of our ongoing
research, in partnership with the Council of Chief State School
Officers, on “promising” and “proven” high schools. With the
help of a dozen national organizations, we have identified Learning
Criteria in four categories: Core Academic Learning, Stretch
Learning, Student Engagement, and Personal Skill Development. We
will keep you posted on our progress as we collect data over the
next five years. Please visit
Just Published on our Web site www.LeaderEd.com
for information on our newest resource kits and copies of my two
2005 Conference papers.
Sincerely, Bill
Daggett
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
Terrestrial Radio Goes
Digital Satellite digital radio has recently attracted investors,
subscribers, and media attention. But almost 500 conventional
analog-signal radio stations are now broadcasting in an emerging
medium called HD- (or digital-) AM and FM. HD radio technology
transmits low-power multiple streams of data over very narrow spaces
between frequencies on the AM and FM bands. The separate streams are
synchronized and merged by digital radio receivers, which currently
sell for about $400. The streamed signals can simultaneously
transmit data – such as information about a song or artist –
along with its audio stream. Digital AM has the quality of today’s
stereo analog FM; digital FM provides audio close to CD quality. Digital AM and FM are free to listeners, at least for now.
NPR, in fact, is offering five full-time music streams to its
affiliated stations for HD radio multicasting. Source:
“Revolution on the Radio,” New
York Times, July 28, 2005, and Broadcast Electronics at www.bdcast.com/HDRadio/IBOC_and_the Digital radio will increase the number of stations available
and allow programmers to target ever more specific tastes. Helping
students to make the right choices about how
to listen and what is worth listening to are the best ways to ensure
productive uses of media innovations.
Enter the Podcast A podcast is an audio file posted online that Apple iPod (or
other music player) users can access free and listen to at any time
– a kind of pre-packaged radio-on-demand. Thousands of podcasts
are available and cater to a wide range of tastes – some clearly
X-rated. Some podcasts are recorded files of, for example, popular
NPR and CNN radio programs. Others are the podcast equivalent of a
do-it-yourself garage band jam session. Anyone with a microphone and
the right software can produce a podcast and post it to the
Internet. “How-to” instructions are available at apple.com/podcasting
. Apple’s new (and free) podcast management software, iTunes 4.9
for Mac and Windows, now helps users to find podcasts, transfer them
to their iPods, and subscribe to their favorites. Source: http://www.apple.com/podcasting/
The Internet continues to expand our choices of entertainment
and information and to “free up” communications. Students who
can make informed and prudent evaluations about what to watch, hear,
and access will ensure that information technology works for the
common good. Wired
for School For parents of
college students, the list of back-to-school ”must-haves” raises
questions about which technologies to select, including desktop vs.
laptop computers, cell phone plans, printers, etc. Parents must
increasingly pay attention to operating system compatibility,
wireless connectivity, and which size of TV for video games will
most easily fit into a dorm room. In fact, most colleges now include
technology topics in orientation briefings for parent and student
orientation. Source: John Schwartz, “Packing for the ‘Net
Generation’,” New
York Times,
August 3, 2005. http://tech2.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/ Today’s students are increasingly digitally adept and
comfortable using technology. If we want to reach them, we must make
technology a standard part of their daily learning experiences. BIOTECHNOLOGY
Check
Out These Genes Genome
sequencing – decoding the structure of a genome by identifying the
exact order of its building block nucleotides –uses a process
invented in 1977. However, a new nanotechnology developed by 454
Life Sciences of Branford, Conn. recently sequenced the genome of a
small bacterium in just four hours, compared to four to six months
and 24,000 separate operations when the same bacterium was first
sequenced in 1995. The new nanotech process works at a capacity 100
times greater than current macro-scale technology and is being
marketed to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, biodefense, and
bioindustrial companies, researchers, and agencies. Source: 454
Life Sciences Web site at www.454lifesciences.com/index2.html For more
information about genes and genome sequencing, visit http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/ www.lexicon-biology.com/biology/definition Biotech and
nanotech offer great potential for medicine and the health sciences.
Will today’s students have the science, math, technology, and
higher-order thinking skills they need to succeed and compete in
these rapidly growing global industries? Biotech
engineers from Purdue University and University of Georgia are using
genetically modified plants and trees to absorb dangerous chemicals
such as mercury and selenium from the soil at contaminated
industrial sites in Danbury, CT and California’s Central Valley.
The scientists alter the botanical genes in lab samples of
cottonwood trees and Indian mustard plants to trick them into
accepting the soaked up contaminants, which would normally poison
such plants. Although plantings would need to be on a large scale to
be effective, the process could reduce clean-up costs using an
enviro-friendly soil treatment. Source:
“Scientists begin to grow pollution-eating plants,” The
Associated Press, July 4, 2005. Despite
its promise, biotech solutions worry even some environmentalists. We
need to engage students in such debates to ensure that technological
know-how is supported by insightful decision making.
Watering
Down Trees Speaking
of plants, the World Commission on Water and other agencies are
apparently rethinking how well trees preserve the environment. Trees
lose water through evaporation (called transpiration in plants)
twice as quickly as do grasslands. In arid and semi-arid regions,
trees consume far more water than they trap. Moreover, trees do not
store carbon (from carbon dioxide) for as long as was previously
assumed – only about five years. Scientists are seeking ways to
bring water to poor rural areas worldwide. Some estimate that demand
for water will increase by over half in the first three decades of
this century. Source:
“Down with Trees,” The Economist, July 28, 2005, and the United Nations’ Water for
Life program at http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/reference.html Challenge
assumptions, collect new data, weigh the evidence, draw informed
conclusions, update as needed. That spirit of scientific inquiry is
at the heart of rigorous and relevant instruction and learning, as
well as a pathway to school improvement. Nanotechnology
Dot,
Dot, Dot Quantum dots
are nano-engineered “tags” that can be attached to molecules.
Once affixed, each ultra-small crystal dot emits fluorescent light
when exposed to light waves. Biotech scientists use them to track
cells and study biological patterns. Nanocrystal dots, however, are
made from cadmium, selenium, and other heavy metals, which can be
harmful to humans; their use is already restricted in Japan and
Europe. Recent developments – at Cornell University and elsewhere
– in the creation of a new generation of quantum dots that do not
use heavy metals are promising. Quantum dots may also be useful in
the creation of solar cells and electronics, as well as in lighting
and energy. Source: Candace
Stuart, “Making Dots Less Toxic Broadens Users’ Options,” Small Times, August 2, 2005 In the same way
that ensuring a healthy, safe, and secure school environment enables
learning, the search for safe applications will drive emerging
technologies. EDUCATION TRENDS
Graduation
Counts The National
Governors Association (NGA) and several other national organizations
have established for the first time a set of criteria and processes
for calculating state graduation rates. The governors have also
agreed to set in motion a plan to begin systematically collecting
and posting apples-to-apples graduation rate data as a measure of
state, district, and institutional performance. Visit www.nga.org
for a copy of the complete report Graduation
Counts: A Report of the NGA Task Force on State High School
Graduation Data. We applaud the
governors’ efforts. Common metrics for determining the numbers of
students who fail to graduate from high school will be an important
way to measure school success using data-based decision making.
And
Speaking of Graduation Rates Take 100 of
this year’s entering ninth graders: 68 of them will eventually
graduate from high school, and 40 of those students will enter
college immediately. Of those, only 27 will continue as college
sophomores, and only 18 will graduate from college within six years.
Source: White House Office of Communications, Sept. 2004, as quoted in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Aug. 15, 2005. Three for Me Three for Me is
a program sponsored by the National PTA through which parents
promise, on behalf of their children, to devote three volunteer
hours to their school. Adopting the program helps schools to tap
into the time and talents that many parents are willing to offer.
Parents benefit from learning new skills, meeting new people, and
gaining insights into education. This is important because schools across the country are
experiencing a drop in parental involvement. Membership in the
National PTA has declined from more than 12 million in 1962 to 6.5
million in 2000. Sources: The
Indianapolis Star, July 28, 2005 and National PTA at www.three4me.com/theprogram.htm Parental and
community involvement is a key element in school improvement.
Volunteerism also helps ensure a strong base of community support
for school improvement. Moreover, engaging parents in their
students’ learning boosts student performance.
Source:
NCES,
U.S. Department of Education, “Student Reports of Bullying,”
July 2005.
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