K-12 access to internet: Securing the legal framework

While many people in government, education, and industry have lauded the potential educational value of Internet access for students in grades K-12, there is as yet no legal or regulatory framework within which this new medium is being offered to students. The Communications Policy Forum, a nonpartisan project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, recently convened a roundtable to discuss some of the legal issues that arise when K-12 schools provide Internet access to their students. Approximately 15 people, representing carriers who provide connections to the Internet, schools or school systems who are connected to the Internet, and legal experts with expertise in this and related areas, met to discuss questions of legal liability as this new medium enters an educational setting for minors. The following attempts to capture the major issues, suggestions, and directions for further collaborative efforts raised during the course of that discussion. In brief, the group identified statutory language aimed at other types of electronic communication that may offer some guidance; was briefed on a host of state laws that could be used to prosecute providers of certain materials found on the Internet; and concluded that there is no case law that clearly applies to this setting. The discussion revealed an interest in anticipating issues and developing responses before problems arose, and the need for shared approaches to allow carriers to move forward in serving and expanding this field. Members of the group offered to pursue these issues jointly and agreed upon a handful of concrete steps for further exploration and discussion.     

Career adaptability and entrepreneurial behaviour in the K-12 classroom

ABSTRACT

With data from 311 K-12 public school teachers working in the United States, we tested a predictive model of entrepreneurial behaviour that included demographic characteristics and career adaptability, and identified differences between highly and minimally entrepreneurial teachers on how and why they adapt their teaching practices. Statistical analysis identified education and career adaptability to predict entrepreneurial behaviour. Qualitative analysis revealed that highly entrepreneurial teachers considered their professional development and the broader school system, while teachers scoring low on entrepreneurial behaviour focused on behaviour management and coping with imposed regulations when adapting their practices. The discussion includes theoretical and practical implications.     

Language development in the K-3 classroom: Using the referential communication paradigm

The language environment of the early primary grades is examined with respect to the linguistic competencies possessed by five-, six-, and seven-year-old children. The referential communication paradigm is suggested as a useful instructional tool to simulate the functional demands of a communicative exchange and still control for speaker- and task-related variables. A kindergartner's referential communication protocol is examined with respect to such speaker-related variables as cognitive style, mental processing capacity, vocabulary repertoire, cognitive structures for describing stimuli, affective involvement, and task understanding, and to such task-related variables as nature of the topic, mode of stimulus presentation, and form of listener feedback.     

Archaeology in the classroom: An intra-university continuing education workshop for K-12 teachers

In this article the authors describe an innovative program in continuing education for teachers at the University of Georgia. The program, developed by the Museum of Natural History, the Georgia Center for Continuing Education, and the Department of Anthropology within the university and an independent research institute, offered teachers an opportunity to do archaeological field work as they learned about new discoveries in archaeology and Native American history and culture. The workshop design incorporated principles of adult and experiential learning. With the help of the workshop leaders, teachers developed their own materials for presenting integrated thematic units in their classrooms. Teachers responded enthusiastically to the workshops in a two-stage evaluation process. The authors conclude that intrauniversity cooperation is necessary if teachers are to benefit from all the resources of the university.Jacqueline J. Saindon obtained her M.A. in Anthropology at Hunter College, CUNY. She is Associate Director of the Multicultural Population and Resources Project at Georgia State University. Her special area of interest is in developing continuing education workshops and curriculum for teachers on anthropology, archaeology and ecology. Carol M. Downs obtained her M.A. and Ed.D. in Adult Education, and a Graduate Certificate in Gerontology, at the University of Georgia. She is Program Director of the Office of Continuing Education and Public Service at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her special area of interest includes continuing education in the arts, humanities, education and historic preservation.     

Political clarity and the limitations of humanistic violence in the U.S. K-12 classroom

I examine the development of my political clarity and its relation to the exercise of humanistic violence as a K-12 teacher in the United States. Reflecting upon my experiences as a classroom and community educator, I conclude that the mission of forging a new humanity is currently not possible from within the U.S. classroom. Presenting a series of testimonios with reflections regarding political clarity and humanistic violence, I make the case that K-12 institutions constrain our ability to truly explore and commit to more humanizing ways of knowing and being. I recommend that we be wary of the multicultural trap: utilizing the ways of knowing and being of diverse peoples in order to better teach them how to know and be Western.     

Using chipendale in the classroom

One of the most common complaints among criminal justice educators is that students have very poor writing and research skills. In particular, educators cite that students’ papers are poorly organized, are replete with grammar and spelling errors, are missing key elements in their discussions, and are often plagiarized. Despite the need for research and writing classes, very few social science faculty members teach writing‐intensive courses because of the amount of time such a course requires. Accordingly, this paper presents a model criminal justice writing class that outlines specific teaching methods to overcome the most common problems found in criminal justice writing and research.     

K-12 Mathematics and the Web

Abstract

The Web offers numerous learning resources and opportunities for K-12 mathematics education. This paper discusses those resources and opportunities. Discussion includes (a) asynchronous and synchronous communication tools, (b) the use of data sets to make connections between mathematics concepts and real-world applications, and (c) interactive environments that promote active thinking by allowing students to manipulate mathematical systems, observe patterns, form conjectures, and validate findings.     

The Web in K-12 Education

Abstract

Growth in size and popularity of the Web over the last 10 years has been remarkable. There are now many calls to make the Web the center of K-12 schooling. However, there are many problems that must be solved before the Web can be fully integrated into curricula in public schools. Such problems can be categorized as practical or pedagogical in nature. Pedagogical problems include those barriers to Web integration that are caused by the nature of the education subculture and the culture at large. These are the most difficult problems to solve and would call for a nationwide commitment to true individualized education.     

Distance Education in the Rural K-12 Environment

Abstract

A small rural school in Idaho tried various forms of distance education to broaden the range of subjects offered to students. It gave up on satellite-based coursework because of high cost and synchronization problems. Correspondence courses solved the synchronization problem, but still required expensive adult supervision to keep students on task. IP-based videoconferencing appeared to promise lower costs and better synchronization, but in practice it proved to be difficult to implement and exhausting for course teachers. The school began to view videoconferencing in terms of its enrichment and collaboration values. The Internet, together with other distance education technologies, may one day erase the educational disadvantages of rural isolation. They also promise to make lifelong learning the expected norm.     

Preservice Teachers' Beliefs About Using Maker Activities in Formal K-12 Educational Settings: A Multi-Institutional Study

This qualitative study examined preservice teachers' beliefs about using maker activities in formal educational settings. Eighty-two preservice and early-career teachers at three different universities in the United States took part in one-time workshops designed to introduce them to various maker tools and activities applicable to K–12 educational environments. Data were collected from 16 focus groups conducted during the workshops in spring 2016. Researchers analyzed the data using the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1985, 1991) to better understand the teachers' attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control related to making activities, with the ultimate goal of using this information to assist teacher preparation programs in preparing their students to implement maker tools and strategies in their future classrooms. Participants expressed favorable attitudes toward implementing maker activities in their future classrooms and noted these tools and activities aligned with instructional strategies encouraged in their teacher preparation programs, including problem-based learning, inquiry learning, and hands-on learning activities, but noted several perceived barriers such as access to resources and working with reluctant peers and administrators.     

Bayesian statistics in the classroom: Introducing shrinkage with basketball statistics and the internet movie database

This article promotes Bayesian intuition by introducing the concept of shrinkage with some motivational examples involving basketball statistics of Rudy Gobert and movie rankings from the Internet Movie Database. Supplementary and fully automated R code is provided to allow students to explore shrinkage in this dataset on their own. The content is targeted at the first-year undergraduate level. Students with prior exposure to R would most benefit from the supplementary R code.     

Digital Citizenship in K-12: It Takes a Village

Digital citizenship encompasses a wide range of behaviors with varying degrees of risk and possible negative consequences. Lack of digital citizenship awareness and education can, and has, led to problematic, even dangerous student conduct. If our educational village does not address these issues, the digital culture establishes its own direction, potentially pushing a productive, long-term solution further out of reach. By tapping into the experience of various practitioners and experts in the field this article provides the reader with a number of suggestions that can help the professional to help their students become better digital citizens.     

One-to-one laptops in K-12 classrooms: voices of students

In planning educational technology initiatives, the concerns of many stakeholders are typically taken into account, including the concerns of administrators, teachers, parents, and employers. The perspective of students are recognized as valuable, but not often queried or considered. This paper explores the opinions of K-12 students about a one-to-one laptop programme implementation through content analysis of 362 blog postings made by these students expressing their thoughts on the topic at three time points in two years. Employing a bottom-up coding strategy, this paper identified seven themes that represented students’ opinion of technology use in schools: more efficient and productive learning, tools for better writing, access to information, engagement with new media, remaining relevant in a technological world, share and learn from peers, and individualized and differentiated instruction. This study suggested that, when new technology tools are used in schools, students should not only be viewed as learners but also be considered as real writers with valuable opinions. Students also should be provided the opportunity to write for an authentic purpose and audience using diverse forms of digital media.