This article discusses how some schools of higher Ed are now handling email addresses for students. It’s worth noting that school system the size of NYC still don’t provide email addresses, though many schools do on their own:
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=61503

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Teachers have known this for sometime: state standards have been eased in the wake of NCLB to give the illusion of raised test scores.  The New York Times article lays it out, including this excerpt relating to New York teachers:
Some states raised standards in one subject but lowered them in another, including New York, [...]

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Arne Duncan’s work in Chicago schools has received criticism recently as the NY Times reports that a University of Chicago study says students benefited little.  While I’m skeptical about how data is gathered and interpreted, it’s worth considering whether the Secretary did or didn’t improve schools in Chicago.  I’m more interested, given Duncan’s recent speech [...]

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Later today I’m meeting a group of 8th grade students from New Haven who are visiting NYC.  Their stopping at Columbia as part of their trip and my friend asked if I’d present to them.  As I thought about what’s worth presenting on, I quickly came to the question of 21C learning and built a [...]

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Donald J. Leu recently posted this slide show from a presentation he did abroad.  Some of the interesting things to note include the lack of serious new literacies responses by any of the 50 states and the remaining questions comparing online and offline readers.
Leu Finland Pp Final2

View more presentations from djleu.

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Edutopia recently posted a piece called “Virtual Learning is an Antidote to School Closure”.  It raises an interesting point about how mixing virtual and actual days of school might be both sound economically and pedagogically sound.  When you add to your reading of this brief piece the meta-analysis put out by the USDOE recently, it [...]

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Arne Duncan’s speech yesterday at Teachers College might be seen as many in teacher preparation and graduate schools of education as a rally cry.  The NY Times wrote:

During a speech at Columbia University’s Teachers College, Mr. Duncan said that too often the schools of education were simply seen as a “cash cow” for universities, [...]

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Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke here today about the need to target teacher preparation programs in an effort to support school reform.  The USDOE’s site wrote the following:
More than half of the nation’s teachers graduate from a school of education. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that 220,000 students graduate from a teacher [...]

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I worry about articles like this one from eSchool News.  It makes the case–as many many others have made before–that this is an era of new learning in a globalized age.  We’ve heard this before, including the reference to the falling of the Berlin Wall.  Paragraphs like the following aren’t new:
We can start using [...]

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A recent NPR piece makes the case that adolescents regard Facebook as the social network for more affluent (and according to one teen, “white”) users.  Myspace is for “trashy” people:
MySpace pages do look busier than Facebook; on MySpace you can customize graphics and music while Facebook is limited to one spare blue-and-white design. The [...]

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Gartner Analyst David Clearley made it clear recently: The future of internet businesses is going to the clouds.  Cnet put it thus:
The general idea–shared computing services accessible over the Internet that can expand or contract on demand–topped Gartner’s list of the 10 top technologies that information technology personnel need to plan for. It’s complicated, [...]

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Hawaii has set a dangerous precedent here:

At a time when President Barack Obama is pushing for more time inthe classroom, his home state has created the nation’s shortest schoolyear under a new union contract that closes schools on most Fridays forthe remainder of the academic calendar.
The deal whacks 17 days from the [...]

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Ever curious about how the US compares to other countries in terms of broadband access?  It comes in 13th place.  See the picture below or read the whole study here:

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The first lady posted this piece in US News.  At one point, she draws attention to the role of universities and teacher preparation programs, as in this excerpt:
We need universities to double down on their efforts to prepareteachers and to improve and expand effective alternative routes tocertify teachers. We need to encourage more experienced [...]

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This fantastic NYTimes piece gives voice to several sides of the debate around reading and the influences of e-books.  For instance, Alan Liu of UC, Santa Barbara, writes:
Right now, networked digital media do a poor job of balancing focal and peripheral attention. We swing between two kinds of bad reading. We suffer tunnel vision, [...]

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Pediatrician Perri Klass has recently written a kind warning to adults who are quick to criticize young people for multi-tasking.  Adolescents might well be able to both IM and listen to music and blog and do their homework. While texting with their toes, of course.  Dr. Klass writes:

A recent and much-discussed study showed decreased [...]

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The LA Times reported that there is likely to be a ripple effect following the laying off of thousands of teachers this year.  The prediction is that many will either leave the state or the profession.  A study merits being done here: Why do the LA teachers who leave, leave? Why do the LA teachers [...]

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The NY Times recently reported about efforts Google and IBM are taking to work with universities to help students become more deft sifters of data:

It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies [...]

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Lisa Nielsen had this really practical and ready-to-go post about using SMS in teaching.  And Juliette Lamontagne posted this piece not too long ago (the comments, too, give you some sense of the other side of the texting argument).  Both worth checking out. 

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Education Week talks about “common-core standards” that are in process.  We might have a unique opportunity to inform these standards when you consider the “review” feature on the CCSSI’s web site.

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The federal government’s i3 grants are going to require much more than an open palm and a “please”:
The U.S. Department of Education is proposing high hurdles for school districts and nonprofit organizations that want a piece of the $650 million [...]

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This list from Lifehacker is excellent: smart, social, and mostly free.  Worth a look for any teacher wishing to bring online collaboration into the classroom.

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An interesting breakdown of the possibilities for Google Wave in the classroom.  I take issue with "revolutionize", but still worth a read.

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A recent NPR article NPR article questioning the efficacy of teacher education programs, which tend to emphasize more "traditional" approaches to teaching students.  (The page includes the original broadcast, as well.)  It makes some important questions, including what teaching and learning looks like in the new literacies age.

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