We Will be on Stage!

An Autumn Morning

Trends in Ed, 10. 27. 09

Economy and Internet Trends

Mary Meeker delivered a presentation to Web 2.0 conference recently looking at the state of the economy and the Internet. This presentation quickly looks back over the last few years:
2004 – China Internet – Opportunity is Immense 2005 – Broadband – Becoming Pervasive, Driving Growth in Communications / UGC
2006 – Online Video – Building Momentum
2007 – Social Networks – Proliferating, Driving Platform Changes
2008 – Economic Recession – Creates Challenge + Opportunity for Web Companies
2009 – Mobile Internet – Is and Will be Bigger Than Most Think

It further forecasts the huge growth, and increased integration, of internet-connected devices (see the following slide). The iPhone and social media sites (Facebook, Twitter) figure prominently in her assessment.



The Theory of Connectivism in an Information Age

George Siemens recently presented “Roots of Connectivism” to an open graduate course named Social Media & Open Education, at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. Based on a basic understanding of various theories of knowledge & learning (e.g., behaviorism, cognitivism, social constructivism, constructionism, neuroscience), the presentation briefly introduces his theory of connectivism. Siemens and Stephen Downes have developed this theory which uses a network as the central metaphor for learning, focusing on knowledge as making connections.

Roots of Connectivism

View more presentations from gsiemens.

Getting tired of phone calls? – Try Google Voice

Yesterday Google announced that we can now use Google Voice with an existing phone number. Also notably, we can now add Google voicemail service to any of the mobile numbers linked to our account. It is a bit like Gmail for voicemail.

Trends in Ed, 10.20.09

ScribbleLive, is a free tool for live blogging with audio and video embeddings. This tool can be accessed via any of your accounts in Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, MSN, etc. The content of live blogging can be further embedded on multiple interfaces such as personal blog site.

Mobile Blogging in WordPress

Writing and viewing blogs have become even more convenient via mobile devices since WordPress just issued two new mobile themes. Check here for more details:

For smartphones with top notch mobile browsers, like the iPhone or Android devices, the theme will be a tweaked version of WPtouch, while other devices will sport a variation of the WordPress Mobile Edition.

Call for Session Proposals - 1st Annual Digital Media and Learning Conference: "DIVERSIFYING PARTICIPATION"

February 18-20, 2010

Submission Deadline: October 30, 2009

Details of the conference can be viewed here.

Henry Jenkins is the Chair of the Digital Media and Learning Conference and our Keynote Speakers will be Sonia Livingstone and S. Craig Watkins.

We encourage sessions that describe, document, and critically analyze different forms of participation and how they relate to various forms of social and cultural capital. We are interested in accounts of the challenges and obstacles which block or inhibit engagement to different forms of online participation. We also encourage session proposals that engage with successful intervention strategies and pedagogical processes enabling once marginalized groups to more fully exploit the opportunities for learning with digital media. Conversely, we are interested in hearing more about how marginal and subcultural communities find diverse uses of new and emerging technologies, pushing them in new directions and navigating a complicated relationship with "mainstream" forms of participation.

E-books and the Reading Debate

Check out this great NY Times piece which gives voice to several sides of the debate around reading and the influences of e-books:

Right now, networked digital media do a poor job of balancing focal and peripheral attention. We swing between two kinds of bad reading. We suffer tunnel vision, as when reading a single page, paragraph, or even “keyword in context” without an organized sense of the whole. Or we suffer marginal distraction, as when feeds or blogrolls in the margin (”sidebar”) of a blog let the whole blogosphere in. - Alan Liu, English Professor

Paper retains substantial advantages, though, for types of reading that require flipping back and forth between pages, such as articles with end notes or figures....The reading speed reported in academic studies does not include delays induced by clicking away from the text to see the new email that just arrived or check out what’s new on your favorite blog. In one study, workers switched tasks about every three minutes and took over 23 minutes on average to return to a task. - Sandra Aamodt, Editor

For my greatest concern is that the young brain will never have the time (in milliseconds or in hours or in years) to learn to go deeper into the text after the first decoding, but rather will be pulled by the medium to ever more distracting information, sidebars, and now,perhaps, videos (in the new vooks). - Maryanne Wolf, Child Development Professor

I assume that technology will soon start moving in the natural direction: integrating chips into books, not vice versa. I might like to make a book beep when I can’t find it, search its text online, download updates and keep an eye on reviews and discussion. This would all be easily handled by electronics worked into the binding. Such upgraded books acquire some of the bad traits of computer text — but at least, if the circuitry breaks or the battery runs out, I’ve still got a book...The tools (as usual) are neutral. It’s up to us to insist that onscreen reading enhance, not replace, traditional book reading. It’s up to us to remember that the medium is not the message; that the meaning and music of the words is what matters, not the glitzy vehicle they arrive in. - David Gelernter, Computer Science Professor

I wonder about young people, who do not know of a life before the Internet, and who, growing up “digitized,” might not prefer reading online where they are the pilots of their own information pathways. More and more, studies are showing how adept young people are at multitasking. But the extent to which they can deeply engage with the online material is a question for further research. - Gloria Mark, Informatics Professor

Does a class divide exist in online social networks?

Latest research suggests yes to the above question asked by CNN.

Check out this article regarding the specific statistics.

• Almost 23 percent of Facebook users earn more than $100,000 a year, compared to slightly more than 16 percent of MySpace users.
• 37 percent of MySpace members earn less than $50,000 annually, compared with about 28 percent of Facebook users.
• MySpace users tend to be "in middle-class, blue-collar neighborhoods," said Mike Mancini, vice president of data product management for Nielsen.
• Even more affluent are users of Twitter, the microblogging site, and LinkedIn, a networking site geared to white-collar professionals.
• Almost 38 percent of LinkedIn users earn more than $100,000 a year.

The Revolution of Email is Coming?

Google Wave (see a previous post) released an updated version with photo and video embedding functions at the end of last month.

The new open-source Google application -- open to 100,000 users for testing on a wider scale -- which a Googler describes as "magical" in the video below -- promises to offer a new way for people to interact and work on the web.

Google Wave blends e-mail, instant messaging, social networks, and workplace collaboration. by CNET.

Google is granting access to the Wave to 100,000 users, although more than 1 million people clamored to be in the test group.

Interesting Update: A Google Wave invite was found for sale on eBay, and had attracted 19 bids, pushing the price up to $70, according to Mashable. If you want to try this new version, please feel free to let me know. =)

Trends in Ed, 10.13.09

Solar Powered E-book Developed by LG
After the release of the world's first solar powered cell phone (by Sharp), LG has recently unveiled the world's first solar powered e-book reader.


Parallel Archive - A Place for Digital Scholarship

Parallel Archive is a space where scholars and students in the humanities and social sciences can upload, store, study, and share their digitized archival sources. It is designed to facilitate individual scholarly research and publication; cross-border and cross-disciplinary collaboration; and a critical approach to documents. Compared with Mendeley which helps to store and share academic references, Parallel Archive is not only an academic networking site but also envisioned as an alternative space where scholars can store online and make public their digitized copies of material from archives (at this point similar to PocketKnowledge).

Weebly - The Creation of More Personalized Blog Entries

Weebly has recently become the new favorites of a large number of bloggers. One salient feature of it is that users can freely design their interface during blogging without any technical skills required. It also offers a few interesting user-friendly design functions. The following video will give you more details:

The Release of New ELA & Math Standards

The new standards for English language arts (ELA) and mathematics were announced last week:

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a joint effort by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in partnership with Achieve, ACT and the College Board. Governors and state commissioners of education from across the country committed to joining a state-led process to develop a common core of state standards in English-language arts and mathematics for grades K-12.

I had a glance at the ELA standards which are further divided into categories of reading, writing, and speaking & listening. In general, I feel the standards are specific, practical, and well written, from a pedagogical standpoint, trying to promote more scientific/logical thinking and argument skills in language arts. I cited the following standards which seemed interesting and “controversial” to me and began with some questions:

Reading:

Support or challenge assertions about the text by citing evidence in the text explicitly and accurately.

Q: What evidence is determined to be “explicit and accurate”?

Discern the most important ideas, events, or information, and summarize them accurately and concisely.

Q: What content in a fiction book is determined to be the “most important ideas”? Is it test-oriented content? How can the “standard content” be set for every book/reading?

Writing:

Use technology as a tool to produce, edit, and distribute writing.

Q: What types of technology will be included? The traditional WORD or ways of online publishing?

Speaking & Listening

Make strategic use of multimedia elements and visual displays of data to gain audience attention and enhance understanding.

Feedback on the standards is welcome until October 21st.

DE Announces Student Video Contest

To get students invested in their education, President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have announced a new video contest, asking students to "inspire" them with their stories. Advocates for educational technology say the contest is a great way to reach the digital generation and help students develop key 21st-century skills.

Check here for more details.

Leveraging Online Professional Development

The recent issue of the Teacher Professional Development Sourcebook: Leveraging Online Professional Development is now available on Education Week. This issue looks at the potential of digital technology to enhance teacher learning options and increase collaboration and knowledge-sharing.

Here are some interesting highlights:

• MetLife Inc.'s 25th annual survey of educators found that the proportion of teachers saying they are “very satisfied” with their careers increased from 40 percent in 1984 to 62 percent in 2008, while more teachers today (66 percent) feel respected by society than their counterparts did back then (47 percent).
  
• the percentage of teachers agreeing that they can earn a “decent salary” has nearly doubled since 1984, to 66 percent, and far more teachers today (75 percent, compared with 45 percent in 1984) say they would recommend a career in teaching to a young person.
• two-thirds of today’s teachers affirm that they were well prepared for the profession, compared with 46 percent in 1984.
  Some other survey results:
• Have you ever taken an online course for degree or professional credit?

Recommended Teacher Groups on Ning:
Classroom 2.0
The English Companion Ning
3-D Fieldtrips

A Recent MIT Report on Tech-integrated Instruction

A recent report (Klopfer, Osterwil, Groff, & Haas, 2009) issued by the Educational Arcade at MIT presents very interesting (teaching) examples regarding the utilization of video games, social networking, and simulations in classroom. The full report can be viewed here which includes:

• the background and affordances of Simulations, Digital Games, and Social Networking;

• the cognitive implications of these technologies;

• specific challenges with using these tools in the classroom, as well as strategies for overcoming these challenges in order to achieve successful learning experiences; and

• the future of these technologies and their impact and learning and teaching.

Here are a few highlights:

Video Games

(e.g., Civilization, World of Warcraft, Lure of the Labyrinth)

In addition to developing new cognitive abilities, it solves traditional classroom teaching challenges:

• the skill of negotiation
• solve problems collaboratively
• be mindful of their actions/impact on others
• “Games don’t teach the content… it teaches [students] the conceptual knowledge and sets the environment for you to teach what you want.” (p. 8)

Simulation

(e.g., StarLogo TNG)

The report mentions an interesting 3D programming software oriented at K-12 students. StarLogo TNG is an open-ended tool that allows the user to create simulations, developed by MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program. As a 3D modeling and simulation software, StarLogo TNG is a user-friendly programming language represented by colored blocks that fit together like puzzle pieces.

Social Networking

• The heart of social networking technologies -- social cognition.
• “almost all involve social skills developed through collaboration and networking. These skills build on the foundation of traditional literacy, research skills, technical skills, and critical analysis skills taught in the classroom” (Jenkins et al., 2006, p. 19).

Digital Storytelling Update

Digital Storytelling Webinars

Free Digital Storytelling Webinars will be offered by TechSoup as follows:

Event Schedule:
9/30: Event Day 1 – TechSoup forums event discussions and expert webinars

10/1: Event Day 2 – TechSoup forums event discussions and “How to Create a Digital Story” webinar

10/1: Digital Storytelling Challenge kickoff webinar

10/1-10/16: Digital Storytelling Challenge submission period.

10/19-10/20: Challenge submissions judging

10/21: Winners announced and movie screening party in the virtual world of Second Life and live from San Francisco at the TechSoup headquarters

Storybird is “collaborative storytelling for family and friends.” From further investigation, I found some interesting features. In addition to a number of extraordinary online story books, Storybird helps you create a tale with an intuitive book-like interface and a selection of artwork, which are high-quality images from some of the most talented but less well-known children’s illustrators today, like Irisz Agocs and Victoria Usova. The whole story creating process only involves picture selection and text making, which is suitable to younger children to start a trial of digital storytelling.

Based on previous exploration of this topic, I have created the following "glog" to map low-cost tools which can be used in classroom:

21st-Century Literacy Teaching: Multimodal Texts and Meaning Making

The recent reading of Hall (2003) and Hammerberg (2001) let me think about the requirements and challenges of literacy teaching in the 21^st century.

While Hall (2003) from the perspective of teaching focuses on reviewing elements of effective teaching and perceptions held by effective literacy teachers, Hammerberg (2001) weaves three perspectives (i.e., the changing relationships between texts and images brought by media changes, the changing children’s literature, and the teaching of writing) together to discuss how to include multiple perspectives into the teaching of multiple texts with children. From Hall’s (2003) review, echoed with the Hallidayan Theory – “meaning is the driving force in literacy growth” (p. 320), effective literacy teaching should embrace: (1) reading as the priority of teaching (with all literacy activities connected to reading); (2) small group differentiated teaching (with an appropriate common evaluation system); (3) a culturally responsive curriculum; and (4) literacy skills applied to everyday life with authentic meaning making. The above requirements for effectiveness pose challenges for our teachers today. First, the first national study of elementary classrooms after NCLB tells us that unbalanced classroom instructional times have been observed in thousands of elementary classrooms in the U.S.: English literacy takes up a big amount of the instructional time while math and science take much smaller percentages. How to balance the instructional content/time across subjects and better weave reading into daily science and math instruction is something that needs to be considered by teachers. Second, differentiated teaching might be easily realized in a classroom with less than 25 students and a teacher aid. However, in many less privileged classrooms, such as some schools in Harlem with class sizes of 30-40 and most classrooms in China with common class sizes of 40-50, the strategy of differentiated teaching might need to be adjusted, from individuals to small groups, with a carefully crafted evaluation system. Finally, the culturally responsive approach and the increasing diverse student population further pushes teachers to reach out to families, knowing more about students’ family and ethnic cultures, which further poses lingual and cultural challenges for teachers today. Furthermore, Hall (2003) gives interesting summarization of effective teachers’ perceptions: (1) high expectation for students; (2) continuity of theory and practice in classroom teaching; (3) strong self assurance/confidence; and (4) optimistic view towards students’ growth. Some of the perceptions seem to be not only about believes, but also about personalities.

Hammerberg (2001) initiates the discussion of new formats of children’ literature brought by changing media. For example, some unconventional books discussed by Hammerberg embed children’s kinesthetic involvement and extra meaning making in book reading. I would love to read Black and White and Meanwhile when I get a chance. The media changes bring technologies (e.g., web, mobile, animation, etc.) and new interfaces of reading, including “handheld hypertext” (p. 208). Children’s literature in the 21^st century will give them more ways of interpreting texts, more ways of seeking for meanings, more ways of looking at authentic texts, as well more ways of communication and self expression. They learn reading and writing in social, cultural, media contexts together with instinct cognitive processes. The teaching of writing with younger children, according to Hammerberg (2001), should consider children’s multiple perspectives and voices, through specific approaches such as shared writing and interactive writing, help them on “the technique of filtering many voices into a planned and systematic product” (p. 212).

From 2001 to the current year of 2009, there have been further changes/innovations in children’s literature. School students today are familiar with computers and mobile devices. They have access to multiple reading resources, including comic books, video/mobile games, and animated online/video stories. While consciously noticing the changing literature, we need to catch up with the digital age, be open to new possibilities, and cater to students’ 21-century literacy needs.

Future Publishing: E-Book Builder Trials

I have been trying several e-book building tools at the EdLab this week, including formal online publishing tools and informal personalized tools.

I want to pull them out here to initiate some comparisons.

MagCloud -- The above four-page trial magazine was created via MagCloud, incorporating partial material from the TC Assets Project. It is actually an online magazine converter, via directly uploading your PDF documents to the website. The PDFs must be created according to certain page formats it requires (e.g., templates in Adobe InDesign). It costs nothing to publish a magazine on the website. It only charges for printing and delivery. It is a nice website to publish and promote a magazine. Potential readers/buyers can see a preview of the magazine on the website.

formatpixel -- It is a formal online publishing tool which enables users to design the book online from scratch compared with MagCloud. However, it only offers 512k to free users, so I am not able to further try it out after uploading two pictures.

Sophie -- As said in a previous post, it is a promising tool for publishing multimedia book, with the function of embedding audio and video files. Originally developed by the Institute for the Future of the Book, the development of Sophie has been continued by University of Southern California which owns an avant-garde digital academic journal named VECTORS. Sophie currently is used by Carnegie-Mellon University’s ETC Press and the Computers and Composition Digital Press at Utah State University. Sophie is not easy to use during my trial, because it is a relatively complex and professional tool which needs the devotion of time to get familiar with, like the Adobe design series. It is a free open software and Sophie 2.0 will be issued in mid-October! Currently, I am exploring how it can be embedded online.

SmileBox -- It is a popular tool suitable for informal personalized publishing. Its products include photo albums, crapbooks, calendars, and e-cards, with hundreds of templates. A lot of schools use it with lower graders to design school-life books with simple pictures and texts. This software is also completely free and can be posted online.

ComicLife -- It is also a popular tool, with users such as teachers and students. Compared with SmileBox, it is more like a book builder and it involves more design work without temples provided. Its focus is comic book. See here if interested in knowing more about what a comic book via ComicLife might look like. This tool is not free. It offers a one-month free trial.

Adobe InDesign -- This is probably the most commonly used book design tool known to the publishing field. Its functions are definitely more refined than any of the above tools. MagCloud, formatpixel, and Sophie all have the online publishing function. It seems to me so far that a book/magazine designed via InDesign can only be published via MagCloud.

About the Writing of Qualitative Dissertation Proposal

Kilbourn's (2006) publication on Teachers College Record helps me better organize my understandings of the writing of a dissertation proposal. As a graduate student interested in English literacy, I am relatively familiar with various teaching methods and writing styles in English. However, I need to be conscious of the style of academic writing: straightforward, succinct, and coherent. Qualitative dissertation requires very high-quality writing skills, which is the main reason I want to keep my written inquiry going here. This blog site will witness my reflective writing journey. It will also record my on-going growth in understanding the education field in the U.S., the teaching and learning in English literacy, as well as my "joyous and tortured" journey of doctoral dissertation.

President Obama's Speech to Students

The white house has released president obama's prepared remarks that he will deliver to school children today.

Overall it seems very much in line with Obama's campaign speeches and recent statements on education, in which he urges individual responsibility and innovation. But there are a few interesting points which should be pointed out here, like the reference to media and culture artifacts:

"I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox."

and

"Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class."

He also tells his expectation for the children, including thinking skills and fields they need to fight for in the future:

"You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy."

He weaves his personal story into the address to make it more vivid, trying to deliver his messages in an illuminating way. I think it is a great opportunity for schools to share his speech with teachers and students on different formal or informal forums (e.g., Twitter, classroom blog, wiki, etc.) to engage discussions, and to decide what need to be further improved in their educational concepts, rationales, and practices.

My colleague at the EdLab passed me the following 4th grader's video response to the speech, which is quite interesting:

Latest New Yorker Issue

Enlightened by today's EdLab seminar on digital publishing and Prof. Siegel's class about Teaching Literacy in the Early Years, I explored the digital (beta) edition of the latest The New Yorker. Currently, the online registration is free and every newly-registered online viewer is given four issues (the latest September issue and the next three to come) for free, as one of the magazine's promotion strategies.

The magazine's web version also offers multimedia content supplementary to its hard copies. For example, the following is additional multimedia content of the current issue:

Audio: The Texas execution that may change the death penalty debate.
Video: David Grann discusses the flaws of the Cameron Todd Willingham investigation.


The cover presents a compelling cartoon image about a child teaching a class of grandpas and grandmas "new literacy". How many words on the blackboard do you know? The types of literacy in the contemporary world just keeps updating. Teaching of literacy shifts from the elder generation to its younger counterpart. What's the next step? The blackboard in the image looks traditional, but a lot of public schools in New York are installed with SmartBoard. Would it be possible that in the near future our younger children are going to produce a multimedia story on their own and show us what meanings they want to convey?

As teachers and educators, let's just turn our lifelong learning on, communicating with avant gardes in our field and constantly learning from peers and also from our students.

Digital Storytelling Tools

The following is a "glog" about potential tools for a DST trial at a local elementary school in the fall.
Click each tool for details.

Book Trailers: Moving toward the Future of Digital Publishing

Have you ever seen a book trailer? Nowadays, the traditional book selling activities such as book talks in multiple cities are not very attractive. Instead, with the advances in technology and the belt-tightening economy, publishers and authors are actively looking for web alternatives to promote their books.

Especially in the world of children's literature, things are changing fast.

Award-winning storyteller Dianne de Las Casas has created a Ning community for sharing and discussing kidlit book trailers. Authors can post their trailers and other videos (such as activities with children during school visits). Bibliophiles can discover great reads by watching those videos.

Here’s a gorgeous one from the site: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by author/illustrator Grace Lin.

Newly Issued Pearson Film Series: Visionaries in 21st-Century Education

The film series newly issued by the Person Foundation, named "A 21st Century Education," highlights twelve innovative and compelling school-reform leaders from around the world and cases they presented in the field of education. The series was produced by the Mobile Learning Institute, a co-funded effort by Nokia and the Pearson Foundation.

All movie series are black and white. They are downloadable, each lasting for 10-15 minutes.

The first set of films profile and explore the following:
· Steve Barr and the Takeover of Locke High School in Watts
· James Dierke and Leadership Models for Urban Middle Schools
· David “T.C.” Ellis and Essential Learning at Hip Hop High
· Randall Fielding and Designing Schools for 21st Century Learning
· Stephen Heppell and Empowering Young Learners
· Jean Johnson, Notschool.net and Online Learning for Disaffected Youth
· Doug McCurry and the Success of Achievement First
· George McKenna and Personalizing Public Education
· Alan November and the Myths and Opportunities of Technology
· Larry Rosenstock and Project-based Learning at High Tech High
· Elliot Soloway/Cathie Norris and Educating the Mobile Generation
· Yong Zhao: No Child Left Behind and Global Competitiveness

I just had a brief look at two of them and got very impressed:

Disaffected youth’s experiences with multimedia
NCLB and global competition from a Chinese professor’s perspective

Textbooks Go Digital in California

As reported by eSchool News, California State has approved a new initiative on digital textbooks, which aims at encouraging all public schools in California to use free, open digital textbooks.

The recent state report tells that the main subjects covered in this initiative are math and science (e.g., geometry, biology, chemistry, earth science, etc.) for high school students. The main publishers selected include CK-12 Foundation, Pearson Education, Curriki, Connexions, Dr. H. Jerome Keisler, etc.

The report doesn’t mention how the state will apply those textbooks in public classrooms, in the aspects of available devices, technologies or web resources involved, teaching methods, and curriculum development. In my opinion, this initiative will first of all demand “one desktop/laptop per child” in the classroom, which will definitely cost a lot.

I also wonder how the state will expect teachers to use “static” digital textbooks in various grades. I have a few questions in mind:

• Can students manage the readings on a computer screen?
• Is it appropriate to demand teachers use textbooks to teach math and science instead of showing students hands-on examples/experiments in classroom teaching?
• Will those textbooks be accessible to other states?
• How can teachers track students’ readings of digital textbooks?
• How can students make notes of their readings?
• Will the digital textbooks bring a radical change (see the picture above) to the physical environment of classroom?
• ...
  

The books will be issued in the coming months and the state officials are also going to review potential digital textbooks in other subjects (e.g., English literacy?) as reported.

Under the current information age, it is a good strategy for schools to keep updated with technology. However, as for digital textbooks, is the current technology mature enough to bring the engaging literacy experience, activities, and processes of thinking that teachers and educators expect?

About Chinese Valentine's Day

Tomorrow is the Chinese Valentine’s Day which is also called Qi Xi or Qi Qiao Jie. It happens on the seventh day of the seventh month in the Chinese lunar calendar. So the date varies every year in the lunar time zone:

Year 2010 is on August 16, 2010
Year 2011 is on August 6, 2011
Year 2012 is on August 23, 2012

According to Chinese folklore, when you look up in the sky on this special day, you can see the Vega Star crossing the Milky Way to meet the Altair Star. Chinese believe that the girl (weaver) will cross the Heavenly River to meet her lover (cowherd) over a bridge physically built up by magpies on this Valentine's Day once a year.

There are two legends around the origin of this day.

The first legend is about the freedom of love.

It is a love story about the seventh daughter of the Heavenly Father and an orphaned cowherd. The Father separated them. She was forced to move to the star Vega and the cowherd moved to the star Altair. They are allowed to meet only once a year on the day of seventh day of seventh lunar month. The story began from the good-looking poor orphaned boy living with his elder brother and sister-in-law. After his parents past away, his brother inherited the house and the land. The boy only owned an old ox. He needed to work on the farm's field with the ox everyday. So he was called a cowherd. His daily life was just like in a Cinderella story…

The second legend is about love and responsibility.

On the east bank of the Heavenly River lived a weaving maiden. The Heavenly Mother made her work day and night weaving cloth for gods and goddesses. Since the weaver lived all alone, the Heavenly Mother took pity on her and allowed her to marry a cowherd boy who lived on the west bank of the Heavenly River. The weaver enjoyed her marriage so much that she stopped weaving. This angered the Heavenly Mother, so she kidnapped the weaver, took her back across the river, and allowed her to see the cowherd only once a year over a bridge formed by magpies.

One of the most famous poems about the legend was written by Qin Guan in the Song Dynasty (960-1279).

FAIRY OF THE MAGPIE BRIDGE

Translation by Kylie Hsu

Among the beautiful clouds,

Over the heavenly river,

Crosses the weaving maiden.

A night of rendezvous,

Across the autumn sky,

Surpasses joy on earth.

Moments of tender love and dream,

So sad to leave the magpie bridge.

Eternal love between us two,

Shall withstand the time apart.

Compared with love stories in Western stories, such as Romeo and Juliet, the story of this Chinese couple seems not as intense and passionate. Love doesn't kill or end up by breaking up the barrier between them. They just wait patiently on each side of the Milky Way, believing that their love can fight against their time apart. It is faith and emotional liaison instead of physical attraction and desire that are emphasized and appreciated in the story as well as in many other Chinese folk stories about love.

Both unmarried and married lovers can celebrate this Qi Qiao Jie. It is a great occasion to show love and care to your beloved or your significant other. Traditionally, for unmarried girls, they will gather together and pray for a better personal skill and good luck in finding their lovers. A noble lady’s praying words usually would look like: 1) wish her country great prosperity, 2) wish her parents good heath, and finally 3) wish herself a good husband. The last is the most important.

Wish everyone a happy happy Qi Qiao Jie tomorrow!

New Development of "Green Programs" in the U.S.

As reported by Technical Education, five states -- Georgia, Illinois, New Jersey, Ohio, and Oregon-- have committed to developing green career and technical education initiatives. In collaboration with the United States Department of Education, the states will create secondary and post-secondary programs that will lead to certificates and associate and bachelor degrees.

"Green means healthier learning environments for students and adults, plus lower energy costs and a stronger economy," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, also in a statement released this week. "Green programs of study support the administration's goal of expanding a green workforce by preparing students for high-skill, high-wage jobs in a clean energy economy.

Among the five, Oregon has been pioneering in its industrial construction and development in this field. It has developed a pilot solar-powered high way, the first of its kind in the nation, installed with a 104kW system comprised of 594 panels.

Its annual production is about 128 megawatt-hours – enough to power about 10 typical homes for a year. However, The Oregon Dept of Transportation (ODOT) is using it to power the lights at the I-5 & I-205 exchange.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Austin announced its pilot program called Sunflowers, An Electric Garden.

Designed by public art team Harries/Heder, the installation consists of 15 flower-like solar photovoltaic panels located on a pedestrian and bike path between the village of Mueller and Austin’s highway I-35.

Global warming and decreased non-renewable energy resources have become the most crucial issues faced by human beings. While, secondary and post-secondary schools have started to pay attention to bring "green" to their program design, mainly focusing on cultivating future "green" engineers/technologists, however, "green" ideas are missed in most of the K-12 curricula. Additional content orientations in arts and aesthetics are mentioned a lot in the educational field, but the idea of applying "green" in daily life are not integrated into K-12 curricula as well as most teacher education programs. While we want our children to be knowledgeable, artistic, creative, critical, and thoughtful as individuals, we also want them to be aware of global and social issues: we really need to work hard to make our living places better, for ourselves and for the next generations.

July School Visit

I got a chance to visit a school in New Jersey with my colleagues at the EdLab in July. The school was reconstructed from a chocolate factory. The new space is featured with a roof garden and its "green" utilization of the old resources. How to work "greenly", eat "greenly", and design "greenly" is one of main focuses of the school curriculum.









An Integrated School Curriculum on History, Ecology, and Space

One of the main questions we brought with us during the visit was: How do environments/spaces influence teaching and learning at St. Philip's? As introduced by Ralph, the main designer and member of the school board, the school believes in a school curriculum built on student-centered real-life experiences. The redesigned space and the “green roof” extend the school’s options in its curricular development. It integrates the following curricular focuses (from space redesign) into teaching and learning:

History

The display of new interior design and elements of old building (i.e., an old chocolate factory) gives teachers a curricular focus on the history of Newark as a major industrial zone in the East Coast. Students will be able to reflect on the history through their daily hands-on experiences in the space.

Ecology and Sustainability
The new space lets students learn about how to utilize old buildings and how to work “green”. The design utilizes as many old resources as possible, including ceilings, walls (of the stairways), and old desks and chairs. It also pays attention to energy saving devices. Every classroom is installed with sensored lights and there is a solar-energy panel on top of the school which provides a small portion of energy for the building.

“Green Roof” Integration
“Green roof”, the school’s roof garden, is integrated to most of the academic subjects, including math, science, literacy, and social studies. Every class has got a spot on the roof and they do seeding, planting, and harvesting there. Lower-grade students use the garden to learn counting and recording numbers, while higher-grade students can learn and write about biological life cycles and geographical origins of the plants.

Nutrition
Meals served by the school’s dinning room are connected to the “green roof”, too. During the harvest season, students eat food from the garden and learn about nutrition as well as how to eat “green”. The nutrition program has a big impact on students’ lives, as told by Charity, students take “green” ideas home and “teach” their parents how to eat healthy.

Aesthetics, Design and Engineering
The color scheme of the school is “From Earth to Sky”, with each floor assigned with a main different color ranging from light yellow (earth) to light blue (sky). The redesigned space (with all the details in colors, interior display, and ecological devices) gives students a great opportunity to learn about aesthetics, design, as well as engineering from the angel of how to work “green” -- How to design a new space from an old building, how to do “green” interior design, how to match colors, how to design and put energy saving devices within the building?

***********

More School Information

History of Newark Schools
As introduced by Ralph, Newark is a traditional industrial zone. Almost 85% of the products of the East Coast are produced from this city. However, the public school system failed in the last 40 years, thus a huge number of private and charter schools have been established. The neighborhood of St. Philips is close to Hispanic town. The neighborhood is also one of the roughest areas in western New Jersey. It gets high racial attention and a high need for new schools. The new St. Philips is located close to three higher education institutions (e.g., Rutgers and NJIT) for the purpose of getting the resources of those institutions’ secondary-school support. The location of St. Philips housed a chocolate factory and the school design started about three years ago.

School Information
St. Philips was established in 1988 with a first-grade class. In the recent 20 years, it has relocated three times from downtown area to a small piece of land close to Newark Museum before moving to the current “warehouse”. “It has tripled the size where we came from”, as introduced by Ralph. Currently it is a private k-8 school, with two classes per grade and 18 students per class. Though as a private school, it grants scholarships/financial aid to about 60% of its student population. The school’s ethnic information shows that 96% of the students are African American students, while Asian, Hispanic, and Caucasian American students constitute the rest of the student group. Most students are from lower or lower-middle socioeconomic classes.

Admission
The admissions are considered for families in need, as given by Ralph, the school believes that the admissions should consider more about students who can take the ability to learn rather than students with parents have the ability to pay. Besides, potential students need to go through a testing process. For younger students, the test is relatively subjective, while for older students, there are entrance tests prepared for them. As further introduced, most of the St. Philip’s graduates have been doing well in their high schools. For example, 80% of them take advanced math courses in the first year of high school.

School Redesign
The process of school redesign has involved Ralph and the main administrators of the school since January 2007.

Technology
Every classroom has a projector, a desktop computer, a SmartBoard, and a stereo radio/CD player. However, there is no separate media lab or computer lab at the school.

A Tour with a Group of High School Students
We were touring around the school with a group of 11 local high school students. We noticed that though students asked limited questions, but the garden and the gym were the places where students frequently talked to each other and raised the most questions (to Ralph). The following may reflect the part of school redesign that interests them most:

• “Did you get a good pay as a designer?”
• “How much is the project?”
• “Can the building be fully solar powered?”
• “What is the cost for electronic coil?”
• “Does every floor have a restroom?”
• “What is the cost of the grass?”
• …

Students seemed very interested in Ralph’s job, they asked several repeated questions about it at different places. However, when Ralph asked them about their future job plans, most students said they were not certain and only 1-2 of them answered that they would be interested in getting a job related to sustainability and environment. This observation indicates that students are interested/concerned about getting jobs, and education of design, sustainability and ecology at local high schools is to a large degree ignored.

First National Study on American Elementary Classrooms after NCLB

In today's keynote, Stephanie also introduced this article published in Science about the quantity and quality of instruction and the relationship between teachers and students in American elementary classrooms. It is the first national study of its kind after the implementation of NCLB.


Here are a few highlights important to look at:

• The study is based on direct observations of first, third, and fifth grades in 1000 elementary schools and 400 school districts.
• In fifth grade, children spent most of their time (91.2%) working in whole-group or individual-seatwork settings. Students spent little time (7%) in small-group instruction (two to five students).
• In fifth grade, 37% of instruction was in literacy and 25% was in math; in first and third grade, more than 50% of instruction was in literacy and less than 10% was in math.
• Very little instruction or classroom activity was given in technology.
• Few opportunities were provided to learn in small groups, to improve analytic cal skills, or to interact extensively with teachers.
• Typically, over the course of a 20-minute period, instruction involved only one method or mode (e.g., vocabulary worksheet or watching the teacher do math problems).
• Teachers most of the time gave generic feedback on correctness rather than encouraging extension of student performance or discussing alternative solutions.
• Classroom dynamics were not related to teachers’ degree status or experience.

The most surprising finding for me is the ineffective elementary-level teacher education in the U.S. Being at an educational institution as prestigious and progressive as TC let me ignore an important fact that not only that no child should be left behind but also no teacher should be left behind. On one hand, the national DOE and a number of professors in higher educational institutions keep proposing that all K-12 teachers should have master's degrees. However, on the other hand, the quality of teacher education programs is doubtful. The spread of higher educational degrees doesn't mean a spread of high-quality teaching. The findings of this article imply that the quality of teaching, the allocation of instructional periods across subjects, and the classroom climates created by the U.S. teachers are not satisfactory at all.

The unbalanced instructional periods across subjects imply that our elementary teachers either ignore or are lack of confidence in teaching subjects such as science, math, and technology. Even within the relatively larger trunk of literacy instructional, teachers spend too much time in drill and basic teaching such as asking students to fill in blanks and doing multiple choices instead of helping students look for meanings within texts.

Prof. Calkins mentioned in the first-day keynote: "the access to a good teacher is the most likelihood that can increase children’s success." It seems that our teacher education and professional development are not influential and in-depth enough. I wonder how many schools are actually applying TC's literacy teaching approaches? what are the percentages in NYC and the nation at large? How to make this project be more widely accessed and how to revolutionize the teacher education programs in a large number of universities?

Furthermore, under this new digital age, to cater to students' needs for 21st-century skills, our literacy teaching should not be limited to traditional static texts. As Prof. Calkins argued, today's children are growing up in an age of blogs, wikis, videos, games, etc. We as teachers should keep ourselves updated to the changing outside world. Literacy teaching can happen with comic books (e.g., The Comic Book Project), Twitter (e.g., community writing contributed by thousands of children around the world), videos (e.g., use video conversation tool VoiceThread to make textual/video/audio/visual comments to a video story), classroom blogs and wikis, etc. We should know how to appropriately use technologies to bridge children's literacy learning and their 21st-century skills.