Wordless Wednesday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 10/22/2008 - 08:34
The Effect of Technology on Education Meetings
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 10/21/2008 - 09:41There is a lot of talk about the effect of technology on education, but not a lot of it focuses on the effect of technology on meetings about education. However, last night, I observed three different meetings about education that provided an interesting contrast of how technology is affecting these meetings.
The Woodbridge Board of Education met last night for their monthly meeting. Yet this meeting was different. It was the first time that they used a program called Emeeting from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education (CABE).
“CABE-Meeting is a user-friendly online service specifically designed to assist the board and superintendent, in preparing and running board of education meetings. “
At the beginning of the meeting, Nick Caruso from CABE, together with members of the technology staff at Beecher Road School assisted school board members get connected to Emeeting and learn their way around.
Superintendent Stella spoke about the importance of the board adopting new technology and modeling the appropriate use of technology for students, teachers and staff. He also discussed a committee being formed, headed up by Rick Wood, the technology educator at the school. The committee will include members of the Board of Education, and parents from the community and will address the three-year technology plan.
Dr. Stella also discussed the Connecticut Educators Computer Association (CECA). They are holding their 2008 CECA Conference today, “Surviving and Thriving in an e-Literate World”.
It was noted that Nancy White and James Crawford from Beecher Road School will be attending as 2008 CECA Award Winners for their work in Digital Storytelling.
This digital storytelling project involves a sixth grade class, a general education teacher and a special education teacher. This project integrates various elements of Language Arts, Social Studies and digital media to express the students’ thoughts and ideas on various subject matters. Students gain the necessary skills to produce their digital stories through a four-tiered approach in which the special education teacher is incorporating the teaching of successively sophisticated technical skills in a series of four mini projects. In this tiered approach the students learn how to take digital still photographs, create music soundtracks, record narration, use digital video cameras, and import these media into the iLife suite of software on their groups’ computers. Students then publish and/or present their work. Students are asked to evaluate their movies as they would for their writing for ideas, organization, voice, word (picture) choice, fluency and conventions. Digital Storytelling exemplifies a project that showcases how technology can be used to enhance learning for all students.
As part of the Superintendent’s report, there was also a discussion about the Connecticut Mastery Test and how the school is working on improving the already high results that BRS students receive.
I am not a big fan of standardized testing, the CMTs or No Child Left behind, and the presentation did not hold my interest. So, I checked on Twitter to see what some of my friends around cyberspace were doing.
This is how I observed a second meeting about technology in education. Christine, a woman I met through Twitter and Podcamp goes by the username of PurpleCar on Twitter. She was at some meeting where Katie Kessner was speaking. (For a brief bio of Ms. Kessner, check here.)
PurpleCar’s first Tweet about the talk said, “waiting for a 'the dangers of webkinz' talk to begin. If this woman has no facts and spreads panic, I'm politely gonna go BOOYAH on her.”
I noted that Fiona is working on her reading, writing, typing and math skills by using Webkinz. PurpleCar reported that the speaker talked about “the students denied access to college because of their facebook pages”. Another Twitter user, nazgul, noted “@dulceamargo got a scholarship to study motion picture arts at Interlochen because of an ad on Facebook. Life-changing.”
The discussion, both where PurpleCar was, and on Twitter, continued on and on, with many of us on Twitter coming to the conclusion that Ms. Kessner is an ill-informed fear monger.
The contrast between the Board of Education members, learning their way around a new system and talking about how technology is being used at BRS to improve education provided a sharp contrast to the meeting PurpleCar was at. It also provided an interesting insight into the standardized tests.
Standardized tests, like information technology can, and too often are, used to instill fear which thwarts education. However, they can also be a valuable tool to improve the educational process. It was clear from the presentation that the staff at Beecher Road School understood the benefits and dangers of standardized testing and were working hard to make sure they are used to the students best benefit.
The folks of Woodbridge should be proud of all the efforts that the teachers, staff and administration at Beecher Road School are doing to make sure that all tools, information technology, standardized tests, and so many other tools are being used in the best interests of students. I know I was.
Woodbridge BOE Enters the 21st century
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 10/20/2008 - 18:45
The Woodbridge BOE starts using laptops for viewing the agenda and documents for the meeting
Random Personal Stuff
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Mon, 10/20/2008 - 17:50I’ve spent much of the day working on projects for a few clients and have been away from the computer. I’m home briefly before heading over to the Woodbridge Board of Education meeting. The last Board of Ed meeting went pretty long, so I’m not sure when I’ll be back, or if I’ll have much of a chance to write anything then.
I have uploaded a bunch of pictures to my Flickr page from the weekend. We also talked about this a little bit on Fiona’s Radio Show.
Meanwhile, I’ve found a little time to play more with IPv6, I’ve spent more time following the attacks on ACORN, I’ve kicked around some other comment systems and watched my inbox start to get cluttered again.
More soon.
The Long Blue Tail Christ-of-the-Ohio
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 10/19/2008 - 13:37Last week was the Cannelton Heritage Festival in Cannelton, IN. On my way to finding out about Cannelton, I spent a little time reading up about the Christ-of-the-Ohio statue. William Least Heat-Moon mentions Christ-of-the-Ohio Catholic Church in passing in Blue Highways, but completely passes by the fascinating story of how the statue came to be.
The first story I read was Christ of the Ohio: A Narrative. It is written from the viewpoint of “Herb Jogust”, a German Prisoner of War who was held in Kentucky during World War II and how came to create the nine foot sculpture of Christ on a hill overlooking the Ohio river. From this, I started looking around to find more about the sculpture. The narrative starts off:
I remember the many lonely nights I spent lying in a cold, damp cell where the stench of my own body odor mixed with urine was almost more that I could stand. The horrible coughing echoed through the halls serving as a dim reminder that tomorrow our lungs would again be filled with coal dust.
I had been captured as a prisoner. The U.S. Army was most displeased that a German, like myself, was free and alone traveling through North America, especially when Americans were dying every day in a war with my country. Honestly, I meant no harm. I was an artist, a sculptor who longed to see the world, but war changes everything.
The story just didn’t sound quite right. It was not attributed and had a different spelling of the sculptor’s name.
This led me to Ruth Cook’s blog, Geneva POW, which is about “German POWs in America during World War II”. She has two posts about Herbert Jogerst. The first is Herbert Jogerst POW Sculptor in which she talks about the sculptor and his history. It paints a different picture, and a different spelling of the name than the narrative on the Perry County website.
During his time in Camp Breckenridge, Jogerst was given a barracks to use as a studio and instructed other POWs in calligraphy and figure drawing. When a music pavilion was built by the POWs for their concerts, he built a fountain for it. While others played chess in the evenings, he worked with piles of stone to built the fountain.
It goes on to talk about about Jogerst being interviewed by Alfred Eisenstett for an article for Life Magazine.
Among the responses to this article, Life received letters from more than 2,000 readers who wanted to help this German POW preserve his work. As a result, Life placed six overseas trunks at Jogerst's disposal. He was able to send more than 300 of his paintings and carvings home to his mother for safe keeping.
Later, Ms Cook wrote a blog post about being contacted by Jogerst’s cousin. Earlier this year, Bruce and Nyla Jogerst were travelling in the United States and wanted to see some of the material that Ms. Cook had collected.
Some of Mr. Jogerst’s other work includes interior decorations for Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Haubstadt, IN. In addition, Mr. Jogerst created sculptures for St Meinrad’s Archabbey in St. Meinrad, In.
On the facade are statues of the Virgin Mary, St. Benedict (whose Rule Benedictine outlines the lifestyles of monks and nuns) and St. Scholastica, St. Benedict's twin sister. The statues were carved from Tennessee marble by German sculptor Herbert Jogerst.
Mr. Jogerst died in 1993, so I’ve only been able to meet him indirectly through the writings about his art work. Yet it is his stories and stories of people like him that dot the American landscape and make these explorations, virtually though they may be, interesting.
