Outsourcing Education!?

http://www.edutopia.org/node/35235?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Online Learning: The Next Great Debate is an article written by Dr. Katie Klinger on edutopia.com. I thought this was very interesting for two reasons. First of all I thought it was so cool that there actually is something called Open University (OU), which is an online school for students all over the world. Secondly I thought is was very interesting, because evidently the teachers are being "outsourced" from India. The tutors from India are willing to do the work for half the cost of the UK teachers so they are getting the jobs.

I guess with the excitement of the possibilities of online learning, I never considered that fact that it will create more competition for jobs and the lowest bidder will get the work! Kind of scary when we are talking about education.

Are teacher Salaries "Too High?"

http://detnews.com/article/20101118/METRO/11180420/High-teacher-salaries-under-scrutiny-in-Michigan

Once again there is an article in the newspaper, the Detroit News this time, about how it is our turn as teachers to take the big cuts. Honestly I understand that we are state employees and if we have to make some concessions, that is fine. I get upset when there are people quoted in articles like this saying that what we make is "Way over the top" as one Troy resident put it. There was also state senator Mike Bishop who thinks we should take huge cuts as teachers because as he puts it "Teaching is an awfully nice job for that kind of pay".

I am tired of feeling disrespected by the general public because form their perspective our jobs are fun and easy and we get three months off and all of these vacations. Very few of them have any idea about the pressures we face everyday and the fact that many of us spend our vacations working in one way or another. Little do they know that after my retirement, union dues, TSA, etc etc, I get about half of what I make every two weeks in my paycheck. If I have to take a 10 -20 percent paycut, the job just wouldn't be worth it to me anymore. I would miss teaching, but the pressure would not be worth the salary I am making as a person holding a masters degree.

What are your thoughts?

Real Education Reform

We all believe that there are some things that need to be done to improve our schools. I believe that many of our schools are great, but a lot of them are in trouble and there are also a lot of them that need to join the 21st century. With all the talk of charter schools and merit pay and putting parents in jail if they don't come to conferences I think it is time to take a look at schools that are being innovative and successful. In an article written by Kathy Baron titled "Academies: School Within a School"she introduces us to a school that is trying some real reform. They have created high school classes that actually go into DEPTH into a subject. Students sign up for a class that lasts three to four years and they work as a cohort collaboratively to create, communicate, learn and succeed together. Some examples are a green (environmental) class and a physics class. What I like about it is that students are engaged and they are learning and they are using all of the skills that we coin as 21st century learning. This is the direction that I believe we should all be heading in for school reform. Not longer days....just better ones! Please check out this article because it was hard for me to do it justice in a short blog.

"How to Stay Caught Up With the Curriculum"

An article on Edutopia is a great look into the one thing that stresses most of us teachers out! The battle between keeping up with the curriculum and actually teaching our kids and making sure they are learning. The fact is that most kids don't learn according to a pacing guide. Some learn faster and some learn slower. One of the biggest problems I have is that we have way too much bredth and no depth to curriculum anymore and this article gives some good advice on how to handle this pressure. It also does a good job of warning against believing you are a good teacher just because you are farther ahead in the curriculum. The real question should not be how far are you? It should be how much have your students learned?

Teachers and Students friends on Facebook?

This is not based on any reading, but rather on stories I hear on TV and the radio. It seems to be a growing trend that teachers are becoming friends with their students on facebook. I am just wondering what other people think about this. I believe that it is giving the students too much of a look inside my personal life. I am able to control what I post, but not what my friends post and I don't think it is my place to expose my students to whatever someone else feels is appropriate. I also believe you are setting yourself up for possible trouble down the road if a student wants to accuse you of saying or doing something that you didn't do or say! What do you think?

Using Facebook in the Classroom?

Has anyone tried this yet? I teach 5th grade so I probably will never attempt it and I never thought it was a good idea until I read an article on the website emergingedtech.com. This article is told from a high schooler's perspective. The student was reflecting on how he liked that his teacher used facebook as a reader's response log. The students would join the group and then post their responses to the reading on facebook. My first thought was that the teacher could use blackboard or moodle in the same way so why use facebook. This was also brought up in the article and the student felt that students were more engaged because they love being on facebook anyway and they already know how to use it so well! Since it was a group created for the class there was a "wall" between this class and the social aspect of facebook. I liked this article last night, because I was just thinking that someone should create a facebook for schools so teachers can use it in their classrooms. I think that kids would love it.

New Educational Website

I found a new educational website that I find really interesting and helpful. It is called Emerging ed tech. It can be found at emergingedtech.com. the reason I really like it is because it is a combination of articles and blogs written be people from the educational field. There are also a lot of links within articles. For example if you are reading an article about twitter, within the article there are links that lead you to "how to" videos on using twitter.