Category: Education

Read Finding phrases that match the syllable stress pattern of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Matt Maldre (Spudart)
Have you seen this tool that makes any phrase into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles logo? GEEEEEEEE! Just type any words in, and MAGICALLY your words transform into the TMNT logo. It’s incredible. I love it love it love it. Here’s Super Duper Fun Potatoes. Why does this incredible tool exist? This tool came about …
Why is the ancient art of meter seemingly so lost in our language now? Apparently we need to bring back the trivium and quadrivium into our educational system.

Can’t wait to play with this generator…

Read Why We Ended Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins by Ron Daniels (The Atlantic)
Eliminating an unfair tradition made our university more accessible to all talented students.
I remember hearing about discussions of this, but I’m glad they’ve made an official announcement and are moving in this direction. The Atlantic is such a great venue for writing about it too!
Replied to Jennifer Hall Lee: In Pasadena, the Fund-Raising for Schools Reflects the Income Inequality in Society by Diane RavitchDiane Ravitch (Diane Ravitch's blog)
Jennifer Hall Lee is a parent activist in Pasadena, California. She wrote this article about the different amounts of money available to different types of schools in Pasadena. Remember that one of…
It’s probably also worth noting that the Pasadena School district was one of the first in the country to begin busing in the early 70’s. This caused a dramatic split in the community and created a dramatic rise in the number of private schools here.

Private schools were not included in this new plan [busing], and because of that, people who didn’t agree with the plan — and could afford it — sent their kids to affluent private schools. This lead to around 30 private schools (currently 53) being present in the city of Pasadena.

—Roxanne Elhachem, Colorado Boulevard.net

To my knowledge there are easily about 20 private elementary schools within Pasadena with tuitions beginning at $15,000 per year and going up as high as $40,000+/year. The wealth disparities within Pasadena are pulling so many students out of public schools and into private schools has also caused the city to begin significantly cutting back on budgets and closing/consolidating schools to stay solvent.

Read Income Inequality Is Reflected in Local School Districts by Jennifer Hall Lee (ColoradoBoulevard.net)

I have written before about my volunteerism as chair of the annual fund in my local public junior high school. That experience gives a unique perspective on the income inequality issues we face today.

Let’s look at a few of the current annual fund goals for schools in the Pasadena area.

  • $75,000 is the annual fund goal for Eliot Arts Magnet Academy (a PUSD school).
  • $500,000 is the annual fund goal for an Altadena charter school.
  • $4.3 million is the annual fund goal for a Pasadena private school.

These annual fund numbers reflect the income levels of parents because when you set a goal for an annual fund you must reasonably expect that the goal can be reached. Annual funds in public schools derive monies primarily through parents and alumni.

Read "You Don't Look Like a Professor!" ("You don't look like a professor!")
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: “You Don’t Look Like a Professor:” Insights into Effective Teaching & Learning from Women, Marginalized, and Underrepresented Faculty. A new anthology of evidence-based inspiration and practical pedagogy, edited by Jessamyn Neuhaus.
Read Two States. Eight Textbooks. Two American Stories. (nytimes.com)
We analyzed some of the most popular social studies textbooks used in California and Texas. Here’s how political divides shape what students learn about the nation’s history.

📑 Highlights and Annotations

Conservatives have fought for schools to promote patriotism, highlight the influence of Christianity and celebrate the founding fathers. In a September speech, President Trump warned against a “radical left” that wants to “erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate our students with left-wing ideology.” ❧

I can’t help but think here about a recent “On The Media” episode A Civilization As Great As Ours which highlighted changes in how history is taught in India. This issue obviously isn’t just relegated to populist India.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:22AM

Pearson, the publisher whose Texas textbook raises questions about the quality of Harlem Renaissance literature, said such language “adds more depth and nuance.” ❧

If they wanted to add more “depth and nuance” wouldn’t they actually go into greater depth on the topic by adding pages instead of subtly painting it such a discouraging light?

But Texas students will read that some critics “dismissed the quality of literature produced.”

Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:27AM

Publishers are eager to please state policymakers of both parties, during a challenging time for the business. Schools are transitioning to digital materials. And with the ease of internet research, many teachers say they prefer to curate their own primary-source materials online. ❧

Here’s where OER textbooks might help to make some change. If free materials with less input from politicians and more input from educators were available. But then this pushes the onus down to a different level with different political aspirations. I have to think that taking the politicization of these decisions at a state level would have to help.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:30AM

How Textbooks are Produced

  1. Authors, often academics, write a national version of each text.
  2. Publishers customize the books for states and large districts to meet local standards, often without input from the original authors.
  3. State or district textbook reviewers go over each book and ask publishers for further changes.
  4. Publishers revise their books and sell them to districts and schools. ❧

This is an abominable process for history textbooks to be produced, particularly at mass scale. I get the need for broad standards, but for textbook companies to revise their books without the original authors is atrocious. Here again, individual teachers and schools should be able to pick their own texts if they’re not going to–ideally–allow their students to pick their own books.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:33AM

“The textbook companies are not gearing their textbooks toward teachers; they’re gearing their textbooks toward states,” she said. ❧

And even at this they should be gearing them honestly and truthfully toward the students.
Annotated on January 12, 2020 at 11:39AM

Read Code of Conduct (OpenETC)
A draft of the proposed OpenETC code of conduct, posted for community feedback. If you have any feedback or questions on this code, please leave a comment using Hypothesis.

📑 Highlights and Annotations

draft of the proposed OpenETC code of conduct ❧

When making a CoC, it’s always nice to spend some time researching others.

Here’s a copy of the IndieWeb’s CoC, which I’ve liked. They also documented a list of other CoC’s for other communities that might be worth looking at as well. Most of them have licenses for ease of cutting/pasting for reuse.

I don’t see a license on this draft, but it would be nice if you provided a CC0 license for it.
Annotated on January 10, 2020 at 08:47PM

Temporary access ❧

Large portions of the material below this read more like a Terms of Service than a Code of Conduct. It might be more useful to split these into two pages to better delineate the two ideas.
Annotated on January 10, 2020 at 08:55PM

Guidelines ❧

These are some generally useful guidelines, but it would be nice to have a section on where to go or who to contact for help and conflict resolution. What should someone who notices a violation do? Where should they turn for help?
Annotated on January 10, 2020 at 08:57PM

use the services of the OpenETC ❧

What would constitute a full list of the services of OpenETC? Is it just this website, or does it include email lists, chat rooms, a Slack room, other services? The CoC should apply to all these areas listed.
Annotated on January 10, 2020 at 09:02PM

Read Looking for community feedback on Code of Conduct by Clint Lalonde (opened.ca)

Two goals the OpenETC stewardship team are working towards in 2020 is to begin formalizing some processes and guidelines for educators and students interested in using the services of the OpenETC community, and to provide more pathways of engagement with the openETC for community members. High on our to-do list for this year are the development of governance documents, like privacy policies and a code of conduct.

Liked a tweet by Karen TongsonKaren Tongson (Twitter)
Replied to a tweet by Hungry Bread ElevatorHungry Bread Elevator (Twitter)
Some of the off-label uses of Hypothes.is have been enumerated lately, including some I’ve mentioned.

I’ve tinkered a bit with CROWDLAAERS, but it’s always seemed to me geared toward a very niche audience including teachers potentially using it for grading? Perhaps I’m missing some more of its flexibility? Remi Kalir might be able to help elucidate it or indicate if he’s noticed anyone using it for off-label usage.

I might see it being more useful if one could analyze site-wide annotations on a domain with a wild-card search of this sort: https://tomcritchlow.com/*.

I have to imagine that it would be cool to see all the annotations and conversations across something like the New York Times with a data visualization tool like this.

Jon Udell and gang are aware of Webmention, but haven’t pulled the trigger (yet) on making the decision to build them in. I’ve outlined some methods for making their platform a bit more IndieWeb friendly by adding markup and some additional HTML to allow people to force the system to be able to send webmentions. I do frequently use Jon’s facet tool to check highlighting and annotation activity on my website.

I have found Crowdlaaers useful several times in that I’m aware that some pages are annotated, but they’re either not public or are part of other groups for which I’m not a member. An example of this is this page on my website which has one annotation which I can’t see, but by using Crowdlaaers, I can. Another example is viewing annotations on sites that have subsequently blocked Hypothes.is like this example. Of course, sometimes you’ll do this and find odd bugs floating around in the system.