This season's eastern US winter has been rough for everyone, especially schools that seemed to be closed more often than open. By law those days must be "made up" to the usual equivalent of 180 "days" of about 6 instructional hours. Traditional practice has been to simply tack them on at the end of the school year - or perhaps use up those "built in" days sprinkled like precious gemstones throughout the calendar.
But in favor of the almighty Assessment, staff PD days and built in days have quietly vanished and "balanced calendars" crept in. I, for one, am all for a more logical calendar seeing how American students are rarely needed on the summer farm anymore and brain research shows more frequent mini breaks keep us fresh compared to long breaks.
But "balanced" is a relative term in education - does it seem that the fall semester has more breaks than the painfully long period between the start of the spring semester and spring break? And it just happens to fall during the roughest weather season of all? We still need to work on that concept.
Cue in the Virtual Day! Probably one of the most innovative solutions American K-12 education has ever tried! With more schools going 1:1 and households having internet access nationwide, students can still do learning without being physically present in a brick-n-mortar school. And this can count as an official school day!
Oh the possibilities - less school traffic on the roads, less exhaust fumes, less school overhead costs, more sanitary interaction, flexible hours for students/staff to pursue other beneficial community activities, targeted and independent learning, dynamic and engaging material, time/responsibility learning.....I'm giddy.
I hope this trend continues and grows. Perhaps around-the-clock, around-the-calendar, anywhere-in-the-world schooling will become ubiquitous in American education. We should work smarter, not harder - surely we can't be any less efficient than before. :)
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Snow Days?
Saturday, August 15, 2009
"Network Deprivation"
This article by the NY Times really hit something on the head and I found myself amused and cringing.
The bottom line is most Americans jump online the second they wake up and spend a better part of the remaining day doing so until they crawl back into bed - accurately termed "network deprivation" - and even ordinary "chores" such as eating breakfast, walking the dog, and family time are now dismissed or severely limited in lieu of texting, Facebooking, and blogging ;)
I have to admit I am quilty, quilty, quilty.
I wake up, take care of necessary functions, pop some bread in the toaster and settle down with my laptop. Unless I have to go to work, I come up for air around lunchtime, settle back down and finally break myself by midafternoon. By then I am competing with someone else for computer time and I do realize there's more to life than whatever is online (even though that may be everything now!). Intermittent doses contine until my "network deprivation".
On the occasionally rare days where my "network deprivation" spans an entire day (wha, wha, what?!) I will usually squeeze in a 5 minute check up on email and Facebook. I know that's really disgusting; I could at least check the weather forecast or jobs ads.
Come to think of it, why are you even reading this right now? Go take a good ol' walk with your dog instead; you might even find a few seconds to verbally talk!
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Night Lights
This image is from NASA's Earth lights satellite composites. It's amazing that electricity was invented over 100 years ago (a blink in the span of time) and we've lit nearly every corner of the Earth (despite it being a sphere ;).
I wonder how big of a light it takes to show up on a satellite image? For instance, what is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, just east of the US? Other things to notice: Russia has built an extensive network to Siberia; the Nile is a solid bright line; Australia - not as bright as one would expect; and Canadians apparently live mostly on the US border, but who can blame them, right?
The question is: is this a positive achievement or some disasterous consequence of urbanization?
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