For people who work for school districts or government-run departments, the process of purchasing items and services you need can sometimes be a bit of a hassle. There are all kinds of requirements and policies put in place, not to mention you now have to try and place your trust into a single company out of the many that are bidding for your attention. To those unskilled in Governmentese, this could all be very overwhelming, often complicating things way beyond the normal amount of complication. You may not have known this, but LearnKey is now a TCPN (The Cooperative Purchasing Network) vendor, making the purchasing process that much simpler!

Continue reading “LearnKey: A TCPN Vendor”

This morning I read an article titled New research just released on “School Principals and Social Networking in Education: Practices, Policies, and Realities in 2010”. The article is about research results regarding what principals thought about social networking in their school communities. To gather information researchers used a survey of school principals and an online discussion group of principals who were already using social networking. The results were surprising to me, most principals found value in using social networking in education listing the following as specific examples of benefits.

What is the value of social networking in education?

• Improve school wide communications
• A channel to communicate to an extended network of educators
• Students view learning as more collaborative
• Students see it as a connection to real-life learning
• Improves students motivation, engagement, and /or active involvement

With all of these benefits, what’s the hold up?

Schools are noted as some of the last hold outs to implement the use of social networking. Among the discussion group none of the principals had school or district policies in place for social networking that were sufficient. There are also concerns about safety, privacy, confidentiality, and a lack of information about how to make sure these sites are used appropriately at school.

I know this topic is controversial and people have their opinions on this subject, so let’s hear them. Let us know what you think about social networing in schools!

I read an article today by Erick W. Robelen called “Race to Top Winners Embed STEM Projects in Plans” in Education Week and also looked up some information about this program on the U.S. Department of Education website ed.gov, here are some of the things I found very interesting.

Many educators are waiting to hear wether  a third phase in the federal Race to the Top competition will be approved for an additional $1.35 billion, over $4 billion in federal funding has already been awarded to 11 states and the District of Columbia. 

Phase 2 winners were announced recently and this phase of the competition was pretty tough with many states scoring within a few points of each other. One of the distinguishing factors was the presence of STEM Projects embedded throughout states plans for reform. STEM- science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – education was a priority factor  when making the decisions of which states would be awarded the funds. There was a total of 500 points possible for applications and STEM plans could earn states 15 points if they addressed all three of the following areas throughout their applications;

• Offer a rigorous course of study in the STEM fields;
• Cooperate with industry experts, research centers, community partners, and others to “prepare and assist teachers in integrating STEM content across grades and disciplines, in promoting effective and relevant instruction, and in offering applied learning opportunities for students”; and
• Prepare more students for advanced study and careers in STEM, including by addressing the needs of traditionally underrepresented groups in those fields.

The states all came up with different ideas on how to incorporate STEM education into their schools and according to the U.S. Department of Education website ed.gov they plan on bringing all of the states together to implement reforms. To read all of the states applications, Peer Reviewers Comments, and scores visit the U.S. Department of Education website.

To read Erik W. Robelen’s full article in Education Week click here.