I understand if people think that I have gotten a little lazy this summer with my blog posts, relying upon the work of others and just passing it on to you rather than writing my own. And yes, to an extent, that is true. However, I have been writing on a number of topics so that I have at least all of my first semester articles ready before school starts next month. For this one, I am falling back to Tim Elmore again and am sharing three articles he posted in the past couple of weeks about social media. Elmore has conducted a number of focus groups as part of his research and shares about what he learned about social media. There are three articles that will basically give you the pro’s and con’s of social media. After reading them myself, all of these observations are true about students at North Fayette Valley High School. I believe that we have taken a very reasonable approach that has evolved over the years in terms of access to phones and media, but in the past year we have had conversation that perhaps we need to tighten things up. This fall there will be at least a few teachers that will not allow student to have possession of their phone in their classroom. I think after reading these articles you will understand why.
Monday, July 18, 2016
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Iowa, Did You Know?
Five years ago this August I was in attendance at the School Administrators of Iowa Conference in Des Moines when this video was shown for the first time. I had not watched it again until one of our teachers sent it to me recently. To truly digest it all a person needs to watch it two or three times and then reflect a bit upon some of the statistical information that is presented. I can hear people saying “change is tough” and others “why do we have to change?” Rarely do I have conversation of any length with people when some reference to the past isn’t made, often nostalgic. But the reality is that change happens and things are not the same as they once were, and they are not going back. Iowans are bright, hard-working people, and despite what critics say, we are still providing a top-notch education for our students thanks to dedicated and committed educators. Can that be sustained? Not unless changes are made. Can Iowa compete in the global economy? Only if changes are made. Take a little time to watch this video.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)