Illinois

Many educators push for more inclusion of technology such as Steve Dembo (click here for his blog entry on students taking technology underground because schools won’t let them use it). There are others who would like education to take a step back to rethink how we are using it (New York School repeals laptop program).

While the pros and cons of technology are being debated, Illinois is in the process of piloting a one to one laptop program. The results are obviously not in as the program has just begun, but it will be interesting to see what comes of this program. Evaluating these programs can be difficult. We often want to evaluate these programs on the merits of test scores. Is this the only determiner of the success or failure?

David Warlick wrote an interesting article that describes one district’s success because of a laptop program regardless of their test scores. Keep an eye on Illinois’ test pilot program as this could bring about some major changes in Illinois.

Where do you stand on technology programs like this?

I can’t believe we are beginning our fourth week of school
tomorrow. It has been an exciting and interesting start to my school year. I
broke my foot two days before school started but I was stubborn enough to start
along with my first graders. I couldn’t stand the thought of handing them over
to someone else for the first few days. Hopefully, your year is going great!

We would like to welcome two new Start Discovery Educators
this month. Welcome aboard to Sara Lasica of Wood Dale and Tom Jackson of Crystal Lake.

Along with a new year Discovery has a new look. I think you
will find it very user friendly as well as a great layout. You can now use this
address to link to any Discovery/United Streaming subscriptions your school
has: www.discoveryeducation.com

Just log in with
your username and password and you are set to go. You will find a bar at the top
which shows the different areas of discovery to which you have access. This way
you can link to United Streaming as well as the Educator Network all from the
same homepage.

Discovery is hosting a Webinar on Thursday, September 13^th
with Danny Forster host of Build It Bigger. Check out the details and see how
to sign your class up to participate here: http://www.blog.discoveryeducation.com/discovery_educator_networ/2007/09/discovery-conne.html

Our Illinois DEN is planning a get together at the Illinois
Education and Technology Conference in

Springfield

in November. The event will take place on Thursday evening November 15^th.
Watch for more details to follow. If you are planning to attend the conference
drop me a note. I hope to meet many of you there!

I know that many of you are using Discovery and United
Streaming in varied and unique ways in your classrooms. If you know of someone
or you have an idea to share, PLEASE forward them to me so we can include them
in future newsletters.

Have a great September!

Melanie Corn

“Internet Safety and Ethical Use of Technology” is a very hot
topic in education. Education is really on the front line of this
issue as there are challenges on all sides. Where are we in Illinois on this issue?

What are Illinois schools doing to help promote Internet Saftey? Do we really need to teach this issue? When do we begin teaching on these issues if they are important? What do we teach them? What programs are people using? Is Internet Safety an important issue or is it overblown in importance?

Sound off and let us know where you stand on this issue yourself, what you or your district is doing, and how we can all help each out on this topic!