http://www.villageearthpress.comThis RSS feed is all about Village Earth Press.We at Village Earth Press are proud that The Mom's Choice Awards® has given its gold award to the 13-book series, The Kids' Guides to Disease and Wellness: Why People Get Sick and How They Can Stay Well, published by Village Earth Press. Written by author Rae Simons with Elise DeVore Berlan, MD, MPH, FAAP, these books empower young readers with ways to safeguard their own health. The Mom's Choice Awards® (MCA) is an awards program that recognizes authors, inventors, companies, parents, and others for their efforts in creating quality family-friendly media, products, and services. Parents, educators, librarians, and retailers rely on MCA evaluations when selecting quality materials for children and families. The Mom's Choice Awards® seal helps families and educators navigate the vast array of products and services, and make informed decisions. An esteemed panel of judges includes education, media, and other experts, including Dr. Twila C. Liggett, ten-time Emmy-winner, professor, and founder of PBS's Reading Rainbow; Julie Aigner-Clark, Creator of Baby Einstein and The Safe Side Project; Jodee Blanco, New York Times best-selling author, Priscilla Dunstan, creator of the Dunstan Baby Language; Patricia Rossi, host of NBC's Manners Minute; Dr. Letitia S. Wright, D.C., host of the Wright Place™ TV Show; and Catherine Witcher, M.Ed., special needs expert and founder of Precision Education, Inc. MCA judges are bound by a strict code of ethics that ensures expert and objective analysis free from any manufacturer association. Judges perform a thorough analysis and submit a detailed assessment. The end result is a list of the best in family-friendly media, products, and services that parents and educators can feel confident using. Child Health News reports that 55 percent of all children between 9 and 13 "worry almost all the time" about illness. They worry about AIDS and cancer, about allergies and the "super-germs" that resist medication. Most 9- to 11–year–olds, the study found, get their information about diseases like AIDS from friends and television; only 20 percent of the children interviewed based their understanding of illness on facts they had learned at school. "Too often, kids believe urban legends, schoolyard folktales, and exaggerated movie plots," says Village Earth executive editor Ellyn Sanna, herself a certified teacher. "The Kids' Guides series sets kids straight with the real facts. We put color pictures on every page so visual learners have opportunities to see a virus or an antibody, for example, or take an up-close look at environmental hazards. We want kids to not only understand what makes them sick—but also what they can do to stay as healthy as possible." To learn more about The Kids' Guides to Disease and Wellness or order a copy of the book, click here. Each book in the series is also available in our online catalog. In the fall 2010 issue of Digital Directions, Kevin Bushweller wrote an article about the changing perspectives in educational technology. Increasingly, administrators are warming to the use of mobile devices and e-learning in school. Bushweller points out that this perspective shift is evident in recent policy changes at the federal level, as well as in the results of a survey of 400 high school principals. According to Bushweller, the Federal Communications Commission recently "approved revisions to the E-rate that would allow select schools in a pilot program to compete for funds to support learning initiatives that use school-issued mobile devices, such as cellphones and netbooks, in school and at home." The survey noted by Bushweller in the article was conducted by Babson College. While a majority of the respondents had reservations about online instruction, they also felt that online learning had a place in their schools. Most felt that online learning could be used effectively for credit-recovery, Advanced Placement, and college elective courses. Additionally, a majority of respondents expressed interest in "broadening their online offerings." Clearly, interest in online learning is growing. And with the federal government beginning to support such initiatives, it seems like the tide is shifting. Bushweller points out that the next step must be to identify with more accuracy how these emerging technologies can help student achievement. Find out more: http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2010/10/20/01editorsnote.h04.htmlIn the world of education, there's no doubt that personalization is an emerging trend. Theorists and on-the-ground teachers alike are sounding the call for a "personalization revolution" in the classroom. And for many, that revolution begins in the virtual classroom. A few months ago, Michelle Davis wrote an article for Education Week that compared personalization in both the virtual and brick-and-mortar classroom. The article makes what is for many a surprising point: that virtual classrooms, though they separate student from teacher geographically, actually allow teachers to give students more one-on-one attention. In the virtual classroom, teachers quickly assess a student's needs; every mouse click and assignment is monitored and analyzed automatically. In addition, online classrooms give students various ways to achieve educational goals. It's quite easy for the teacher in a virtual classroom to tailor assignments to a student's unique learning style. Carol Ann Tomlinson, an education professor at the University of Virginia, says that a good teacher can do the same thing in a face-to-face classroom. In fact, she says they can do it better. Not only will a good teacher monitor each student individually, but he will also differentiate his course material to suit the changing needs of his students. Tomlinson argues that some cues are missed in the virtual classroom. "Sometimes, students will say they understand, but when I look at their faces I can see they don't," she says. "I can see that light that comes on in somebody's eyes, that dawn of understanding." Personalization is where education is headed--keeping pace with the same trend in society at large. Whether that will increasingly take place in face-to-face classrooms or in virtual classrooms is yet to be seen. Find out more: http://www.edweek.org/dd/articles/2010/02/03/02e-customization.h03.htmlIf you are in the midst of a Pollution Unit with your students, you may find the Environmental Kids Clubs to be a fantastic resource. This website is set up to be used with K-12 students with a wide array of differentiated activities. Although the picture on the website's homepage may lean a bit closer to younger students, high school students can quickly tap into layers of resources by selecting the "High School" sign. There is no doubt that the youth of today will be solving our environmental issues of tomorrow. Wherevere we live in the world, each of us has a common connection to the Village Earth. As educators, there are a plethora of available websites and Just Right books in our reach. To check out educational books about keeping our planet green, visit the Village Earth Press Catalog Page.Another nice thing about Moodle is that since it is web-based, you can link your students to anyone that has an Internet connection, anywhere in the world. My students' forum posts can be accessed and read by anyone that has access to the site. All I need to do is make contact with someone, and we have global perspectives being exchanged. Imagine linking your classroom to classrooms in Japan or India, for nothing more than the cost of the Internet connection that you already have! Exciting, I know. The truth is: the possibilities are pretty much endless because of the open source nature of the whole software package. If you want a specific plug-in, contact someone on the community site for Moodle, and I would put money on your getting what you want, and for free to boot. That really is incredible if you think about it. Moodle allows for real-time chatting too, if you can find a chat partner. This is often limited by time zone issues, but around here there are some excellent resources as far as universities that can be leveraged to help connect the students to real world problems. The possibilities really are endless if you've got the motivation to make it work. With some direction, students might even be able to get involved in outreach programs that have global impact. Educator's buzzword alert: community service! How many schools have community service as a part of the graduation requirements now? Students often struggle to find the confidence to engage in real community service, but doing so through the Internet will be far easier for them. They live in the Digital Age. Doing things without seeing the other person is completely normal for them. They start and end romantic relationships with text messages; why can't we as educators use that willingness to use technology to our advantage? Seems like a no-brainer to me. Students adapt to and use new technologies more quickly than adults, it is a fact. Their minds are simply more agile than ours in these things. It has been reported that Moodle serves nearly 50,000 registered sites, with a total of about 37 million users enrolled in close to 4 million courses worldwide (210 countries, to be exact). That's a pretty wide net it casts. If a teacher can't find willing partners for outreach in this environment, then they simply are not looking hard enough. The truth is that there are so many opportunities it might actually be hard to decide where to start! That is a good problem to have, if you ask me. How can you hook up with someone else? Well, a good place to start is the Moodle's own website. Here, you will find a huge community of users, many of whom are more than willing to help out and probably a bunch that are in the same boat as you are. There is nothing better than having a group of people just like yourself who all want basically the same thing: support. An interesting feature of Moodle: plug-ins and the expansion that they give Moodle. I've used (extensively) a plug-in that allows students to do peer review of the work of other students. Here's how it works: students complete an assignment and submit it for review. Students at our partner schools can log in and review the work, making comments and offering feedback. The student whose work this is can then see these comments and make changes or offer rebuttals. Isn't that how we learn? I might be wrong, but it seems to me that this kind of peer interaction is both positive and exciting for our students. When they teach others, they learn. It’s a fact. Another really neat plug-in I like is the WebConference plug-in. This one is really useful, especially if you have webcams on your computers, because you can do face-to-face interactions between groups of students at different schools at the same time! This one is probably the most interesting, especially for me, because I teach at a very insulated rural school. My students get very little exposure to the varied ethnic groups of the world. This plug-in allows us to really show what school is like for students around the world. It is fantastic. In addition to all this, Moodle has been adapted to just about every operating system in the world. It runs well on Windows, Linux, and Mac. It also has a plug-in for mobile systems, including Windows Mobile, Palm, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, as well as Android based phones. This is a very exciting development for teachers whose students have access to these tiny wonders. With access to these systems, there are really very few places in the world that cannot access your site. The functionality is slightly different in each mobile operating system, but with new advances in technology, you can be sure that most students will be able to complete activities very effectively on these small devices. The ability to use mobile devices is perhaps the single most effective enhancement to Moodle because in most districts (at least those that I know of) pretty much every student has an Internet capable phone or iPod touch. Yes, I know, they are spoiled. So what? Why not leverage that and make use of it? Honestly, if you spend a little time, you can turn a time-waster into a time saver. Why not use that to our advantage?One of the most basic uses of Moodle is a great time-saver for educators: automatically scored assessments! Yes, the software allows you to design and administer tests and quizzes to your students. Questions that are automatically graded include multiple choice, fill in the blank (yes, it reads the answers, but you may need to work a little with it to get the software to recognize misspellings), matching, true/false, and more. Essay-type questions and short answer can also be used, though the software cannot automatically grade these for you. You'll still have some reading to do if you use these sorts of questions. Oh well, can't win 'em all, right? Moodle is even able to import question sets from many popular test-making software packages like ExamView Pro, so if you have these, upload away, and you can use the pre-made questions, which is also a huge time-saver. Don't think for a moment that this is the only useful function of this software, though. Moodle allows you to do so much more, as you will see. Moodle's designers have approached this project in a very organized and well-thought-out fashion. There are 5 principles that have been used as guidelines, each well researched and supported. 1. We are all potential teachers as well as learners. 2. We learn well by creating and expressing for others. 3. We learn a lot by watching others. 4. Understanding others transforms us. 5. We learn well when the learning environment is flexible and adaptable to suit our needs. The software comes prepackaged with a good number of plug-ins (software add-ons that enhance the usefulness of the package) that allow you to create activities for your students, each designed with these 5 principles in mind. Among these, the ones I've found most useful have been the forum plug-in, the wiki plug-in, and the lesson plug-in. In addition, there are plug-ins for assignments, blogging, chat, choice, database, glossary, SCORM, survey, and workshop. Each plug-in has its own merits, obviously, and each gives you just a little more flexibility, which is always good. The key to using Moodle in a classroom is to keep it fresh, and these plug-ins really help with this. Teachers should also appreciate the ability to design extremely varied courses that use the entire gamut of educational schemes. Talk about differentiated instruction, and you get your administrator's attention. It's win-win, really. Moodle also allows a teacher to develop and deploy simple web pages and link libraries within the software structure, a handy feature that lets you put some information on your site for student use. What's nice about this is that it is simple and easy to use. Students don't have to hunt around for the information they need, nor for any assignments you wish to post on the site. It's all right in front of them. There will always be issues with forgotten passwords and the like, but Moodle allows the administrator to edit student profiles, so you can quickly and easily remedy any issues you may have with forgetful students. I've had to use this particular feature plenty; I'm now an expert on resetting passwords. Once they get used to the interface, students can hop right on and get to work. Another wonderful aspect of the software: self-paced learning. In my experience, Moodle, if used properly, can really enhance learning and retention in a classroom because it allows you to deliver subject matter in diverse ways. Students learn the material because you can expose them to it several times, assessing and getting feedback in a very flexible and open-ended environment. If you set it up right, students can actually get their feedback instantly for every question you ask them. How great is that?The Pearson Foundation recently teamed up with The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) to tackle the issue of incorporating technology into teaching practices. They've created a series of public service announcements that bring together a wide range of voices on the topic. Superintendents, CEOs, teachers, school directors and other education-thinkers express the need for a new approach to technology in schools.

The video's creators are hoping to reawaken our collective imagination. The Pearson Foundation and CoSN accept it as a given that technology must enter the classroom -- the only question now is, how can the transition best be accomplished?

Find the video, and a more in-depth description of the project and its supporters here.
E-learning is a term that is tossed about these days, usually referring to any of a number of electronic course management systems available to educators. Many schools provide these tools to their teachers, and given a little time and elbow-grease, anyone can develop and deploy a very useful and educational website for their students to use and learn from. School curriculum programs can vary widely, but one thing is pretty much universal in schools: a desire for an increase in the use of technology. E-learning can be a great way to help achieve that particular goal. Let's take a look at one of the best E-learning solutions out there (in my humble opinion):

Moodle is hands-down my personal favorite. I've built and deployed a Moodle site for my high school science class, and I've found it to be incredibly flexible and easy to learn (for the most part). It has tons of features, which could be daunting to some educators, but there are also some fantastic tutorials out there that can really make things easier for site design and implementation. Here is a link to the Moodle community site, where literally hundreds of thousands of educators and web developers have registered, offering an impressive array of expertise and know-how to help the new user learn the software. Moodle is open source, meaning it is free, a definite boon to educators in this time of tight budgets. No need to pinch pennies here!



Why do I prefer Moodle over other solutions? Mainly it has to do with availability, but there are other reasons as well. I love the flexibility of the software, and the fact that it is open source means that community members can (and do) write plug-ins for it that can really expand the potential of it. In addition, it is incredibly easy to use and has a relatively small learning curve, something that any teacher just has to love (point me to one that likes to learn frustrating software; I dare you!). Moodle's administration pages are very user friendly, and setting up your courses is a breeze. “What's a course,” you ask? Well, you set one up for any group of students that you want to use your site. For me, that means one course for New York State Living Environment and one for Grade 7 Science. Once you've set up your courses and established the calendar within each, you can begin making activities for your students. This took me a grand total of about 15 minutes the very first time I used the software. No big deal there. The next thing you need to figure out is how to get your students registered. Moodle has a variety of options for this, but I opted for administrator-created student accounts. This works around the possible issue of students not having email addresses or not being able to access them from school (firewalls can be a pain, can't they?). Once you've gotten them all set up, you are in business. Let the learning begin!

This is the first part of a three-part article on e-learning. In Part 2, Bill Hunter discusses using Moodle in the classroom.

(photo courtesy of r-z (Flickr.com)Tamim Ansary, a former schoolbook editor, recently wrote an exposé of sorts for Edutopia.org on the inherent flaws in the massive textbook publishing industry today.

Ansary has some pretty harsh criticisms of the corporate giants that create the textbooks for most of America’s schools:

“In fact, most of these books fall far short of their important role in the educational scheme of things. They are processed into existence using the pulp of what already exists, rising like swamp things from the compost of the past. The mulch is turned and tended by many layers of editors who scrub it of anything possibly objectionable before it is fed into a government-run "adoption" system that provides mediocre material to students of all ages.”

The current system has become too rigid; information and ideas are recycled and made increasingly bland to fit the guidelines of massive big-ticket states like Texas and California. More coherent narratives, written by one or two authors, are passed over for the multitudinous authorship of the big textbook companies. The process is entirely industrialized—information is collected, processed, synthesized, and shaped to fit the guidelines of whichever U.S. state has the biggest education budget.

Ansary goes on to imagine a more robust system, in which core curriculum would be supplemented by texts written by a host of smaller publishers.

For the full story: http://www.edutopia.org/muddle-machineIn modern high school classrooms, one of the major challenges for teachers is the constant battle with technology. Students have devices small enough to fit in their pockets, and they’re not afraid to use them in the middle of a lesson, sending text message after text message to friends or family. This problem will not go away anytime soon, but it shows the sort of minds students have these days. Students are agile, capable of learning while being diverted (though, admittedly, not as well as if they had a longer attention span), and are eager to use technology to “better” their lives. The allure of these little technological devices to high school students is simply amazing. Ask any 10th grader if he has an iPod and phone and, most likely, he will say yes. The truth is, to many, these devices are seen as status symbols. Watch your students when the newest, hottest phone rolls out—they drool over the release notes. This is not something that’s going to end.
 
“What's your point?” you ask. Hang in there; I’ll get to it, I promise.
 
Since students are already aware of the new marvels of modern technology, the teachers and parents of these young tech whizzes need to stay current, as well. Students that know more than their parents and teachers can get themselves in pretty deep, pretty fast. In addition, if we learn to use these same devices, we can reach the student more effectively. I've found that students really enjoy (despite their complaining to the contrary) producing and publishing audio and video of themselves. If you doubt this, check out YouTube sometime. The willingness of young adults (aka: students) to make fools of themselves is stunning.
 
Why not use that willingness in classrooms? Is it out of fear of learning something new, teachers? Don't be afraid! Podcasting is super easy, especially if you happen to own a Mac. Garageband makes it so simple. Windows users, you are not far behind, honestly. Audacity, a free program, is very simple and intuitive to use as well, though not as graphically exciting as Garageband. I think you can get over that if you try. All you really need is a decent microphone, like this one from Blue (my personal favorite is the Snowball). If you’re lucky, like I am, your regional BOCES (or whatever your state has as an educational support facility) will provide you with these free of charge. It pays to ask.
 

 
Once you've got your set-up, it's time to monkey around and get familiar with the way things work. This part is always my favorite, because I love to goof around with new technology. I found that Garageband was so much fun that I actually incorporated it into playing with my own children at home, and have even started using it to write music.
 
If you’re just starting out, there are some really great tutorials out there, like this one. My home district actually paid to send me, along with another teacher, to a training seminar about podcasting. That really helped get the ball rolling. I now use this in my classroom almost every day. The quality of material you can get from students is truly impressive. Once you get them to buy into it, they might surprise you.
 

 
“But why podcasting?” you ask. Well, to be honest, it’s only one part of a good curriculum. You can't just do one thing and expect all students to get it equally. Differentiated instruction is the key to reaching all the students, as any educational theorist will tell you. Here is an article from The Guardian that gives a good look at the benefits of podcasting in educational settings. Incorporate this as a segment of your routine, and you will see that it works really well to reinforce material you have taught. It gives students an opportunity to flex their creative muscles, engaging them in ways that traditional lecture simply cannot. Students love to create things that are “theirs,” and podcasts can be just that. They can use the creative tools in the software to really spiff up their recording, all the while learning the content inside and out as they repeat it over and over. It’s really quite elegant and powerful. And sneaky, too. That part is the fun part for me. I am letting the students think they’re having fun (and they are). What's really happening, though, is that they’re learning on a deeper level than a simple (sometimes boring) lecture can provide. How great is that?