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Doug McCaughan
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Math Plus Science Equals Presidential Priority
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Started this discussion. Last reply by Vic Spencer 1 day ago.
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Absolutely OUTSTANDING! I was waiting for this, and glad it is happening! Thanks Doug.
I am excited to read in The New York Times that The White House is putting an emphasis on math and science education.
This push for math and science education is outside of the classroom. For instance, afternoon commercial free programming on cabl...
Purdue University has introduced an application called Hotseat into its lectures. Hotseat integrates Facebook, Twitter, and text messaging to help students "backchannel"during class. That is, the students who are either too numerous or too inhibit...
One of the biggest attendance incentive programs is Knox County's attendance policy with its "take the parents to court" ramifications. Will this be suspended? See, when a student has had a number of unexcused absences (5 I believe), the parents c...
Misty Dawn Lamb, You were warned in email that the continued posting of the H1N1 post were borderline spam like behavior and not in line with the mission of Knox School Matters.
Your H1N1 articles have inaccuracies, manipulations and misinformatio...
The Internet is wealth of information and misinformation. It is real time and now. As a child of the 70s, I relied upon a set of 1958 encyclopedias for many of the papers I had to write in my pre-college years. I chuckled every time I came across ...
Barnes and Noble has entered the e-book arena to compete against the Kindle with the Nook.
Reading Screen
E Ink® Vizplex™ electronic paper display
6" Diagonal display size
Good contrast with 16 level grayscale
Adjustable text size...
Many children spent part of Fall break at Knoxville Zoo's Boo at the Zoo event which is always happening next Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
I would think the legal issues would be similar to a daycare.
Sorry, I just don't like the idea of the cameras at all - I think they are like giving a person with a brain tumor an aspirin and telling them it will be all better in the morning. It is not the solution and it spends a lot of money that could be ...
The schools with cameras in classrooms, hallways, etc. do not broadcast or show parents the videos. They record it for administration to review on an as needed basis.
They are lying.
I get where you're coming from Bob. There has been a Supreme Court ruling stating that there is no privacy in public schools, that when you are there it is considered a public place. I cannot cite it but if you really wanted to see it maybe I coul...
It is not just a privacy issue for the teacher but the other students as well. I have to deal with the privacy issue daily in my job and considering the limitations we have I don't see any way this could be feasible legally. I am not saying I don'...
Thank you, Debi, for making that point better than I. I understand the slippery slope of having cameras "just so we can see what the teacher is doing." That's not what I'm wishing would happen. I wrote about a particular nasty teacher and the stud...
Every time we had an incident on the bus and requested the video tape, we were told "the cameras don't work" "there wasn't a tape in the recorder" or some other excuse. Either they didn't want us to see the tape or the cameras are ineffective. One...
I heard bus drivers saying the cameras were a Godsend for them. The reason is when they would report the kids' behaviors to their parents, the parents would not believe them & the kids would lie. When they could start pulling out the video, sudden...
I don't think it's about trust. I know there have been times my child has had behavior problems and I've had to guess & try to figure out what the problem is because my being physically in the classroom would be even more upsetting to her. Having ...
When I first read this I thought - hmmmm maybe has some potential. The I thought about what it really meant and I have to admmit it scares me. Do we really have so little trust on the teachers and staff that we want to watch their every move? And ...
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Doug McCaughan's Blog
First Day Festival
On the first day of school, Knoxville has a half day and then has a festival called First Day Festival. In years past this has been at the Knoxville Expo Center. Today it is being held at the Knoxville Convention Center. For details, see the Knox County Mayor's site for First Day Festival
… ContinueThursday August 9th
NEW EXTENDED HOURS!
1:00pm to 7:00pm
Downtown Knoxville C
Posted on August 9, 2007 at 11:39am — 1 Comment
Comment Wall (5 comments)
- At 3:05pm on June 24, 2009,
Courtney Harrison said… - Since I do not work in Knox County schools I'm sure I do not have the same insight as some of you. However, I would like to make a couple of comments:
I am now working in my second school system in my career and they all seem to have these exact same problems. They do not anticipate growth of student population, the growth needed in staff and buildings and also the amount of technological growth from year to year. I agree with Doug, I do not think that cell phones are "bad". We, as teachers need to learn how to include them in our lessons. Who among you has had a trivia game in which books are closed, but answers are text to the teacher's phone? The first correct answer gets the point. Or, how about this? On a Friday afternoon the teacher texts a bonus question to the whole class. The student who brings the question correctly answered (by whatever means necessary, even Google
) gets bonus points. Cell phones can and should be used as learning tools if the students are interested in them. How many of us are willing to play a Jeopardy or Baseball, or Football type game during a lesson just to keep their interest levels up--I do not see a cell phone as any different.
In fact, I read an article recently that touts the usefulness in communicating with teenagers through text. Even child psychologists are sitting in their offices, across the room from a teenager, and texting every bit of the conversation. It helps students to open up at a very vulnerable age. That can't be bad.
Speaking from a special education perspective many of the new technological advances have become almost essential for anyone with challenges. When typing a text, how many of you can use the word predictor on you phone to type? (You push in "sc" and the words pop up to choose from school, scooter, scout, etc) Many, many students who cannot spell could use this to function more typically, thereby fitting in better with other students. Just the development of the Blackberry has moved hearing impaired people decades ahead of where they were just 5 or 6 years ago. They can now communicate with just about anyone without having to find a phone, connect through a relay service, type what they want to say, the relay person reads it to the hearing person and back and forth it goes. What if they are calling their Dr? Do you think they should lose rights to confidentiality because they can't hear?
Who among us remembers when calculators were considered cheating? Now, the TCAP rules say they CAN use calculators...its just a sign of the times.
I think the challenge here is to the educators to find appropriate ways of including new technology in their education, not keep new technology out of it.
- At 12:54pm on August 21, 2007,
Doug McCaughan said…
- Just a little slammed at the moment. I'll make my voice heard soon.
- At 11:14pm on August 20, 2007,
Lisa Starbuck said…
- Yeah, what up Doug?
- At 7:20pm on August 20, 2007,
Cathy McCaughan said…
- For somebody with so many opinions, you sure are quiet here.
- At 7:49pm on August 15, 2007,
diane said…
- oh i have a friend!!!!
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