Archive - Apr 27, 2010
Understanding Public Information
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/27/2010 - 14:49Whatever else people might say about Susan Bysiewicz’s campaign for Attorney General here in Connecticut, it certainly is raising some interesting questions. First and foremost in many people’s minds are questions about the qualifications to become Attorney General. On the one hand, there are the legal requirements and on the other there are the requirements of the voters. The courts are currently considering the first, and depending on their decision, the voters may or may not get a chance to express their own opinions at the polls.
The other question is about what information is public information and how that information can or should be used. The Friends of Susan 2010 campaign filed a Freedom of Information request with the Secretary of State’s office to retrieve her contact management database and allegedly used that information for emailing potential supporters. This is also being investigated and much has been written about it.
Woodbridge Board of Education Shows Leadership in Technology and World Languages
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 04/27/2010 - 08:46Shortly after Apple released its new iPad, Woodbridge Board of Education member Steven Fleischman attended the National School Boards Association annual conference in Chicago. The new iPad that he carried with him attracted attention from many other school board members in attendance.
At the April meeting of the Woodbridge Board of Education he hooked up his iPad to a projector to give a report about the annual conference, perhaps making the Woodbridge Board of Education the first board of education to use an iPad for a presentation to the board.
Dr. Fleischman’s presentation covered many important topics, including how technology can be better integrated into the curriculum, and the importance of school boards, administrations and teachers working together on a shared vision. He spoke about how all of this needed to focus on twenty-first century skills.
Yet many of these ideas are not new to members of the Woodbridge Board of Education. Before Dr. Fleischman spoke, two Woodbridge students used some of the schools technology, including a smartboard and iPhoto to present to the board information about what they were learning from the school’s world languages program. The board also approved Woodbridge’s participation in the Cooperative Educational Services’ Title II grant ‘to create a 21st century learning environment for World Language students’.
This grant will use technology including ‘interactive whiteboards, Flip video cameras, iPods, multi-user virtual learning environments, Google Earth, Skype, and others’ to provide a rich opportunity for students to learn Spanish and Chinese. The program will include Beecher Road School, the Six to Six Interdistrict Magnet School and Southern Connecticut State University. Besides the technology, an important focus will be placed on professional development.
The Woodbridge Board of Education, together with the teachers and administration of Beecher Road School continue to work together to find ways to use technology to make learning world languages and other twenty first century skills more exciting.
(Cross posted at the Woodbridge Citizen.)
