Technology & Learning - October 2008 - (Page 12)

news trends All That Glitters Isn’t Sold Open-Source Reading-Literacy Resources In a March 2007 study of 191,000 4th graders and 160,700 8th graders, researchers found that 67% of 4th graders perform at just the Basic level, while only 33% perform at or above Proficient (National Assessment of Educational Progress, 2007, p. 9). In 8th grade, 74% of students perform at just the Basic level (p. 27). Reading skill is not innate, but it is critically important in an informationage economy. The following free resources can help. FreeReading (www.freereading.net) A 40-week open-source literacy intervention curriculum to help teachers teach early elementary students phonics and phonological awareness. Resources at this site include literacy activities, lessons, and ideas, plus a full-blown integrated program for teaching K-1 reading intervention. To edit existing content in a Wiki-like way, you must register (free) at the site to create an account. Annenberg Media Workshops and Courses (www.learner.org) Free professional development training opportunities that teachers can access as individuals or in groups. Training resources include: video, print, and Web materials suitable for preservice and inservice groups of teachers in grades K4, 5-8, and 9-12. Teacher Workshops: Literacy (www.t2web.us) Sponsored by the Federal government and made available at no charge, this collection of literacy resources provides instructional strategies for a host of subject areas. Particular reading sessions of interest include: Building Fluency, Decoding to Encoding, and Implementing Reading Intervention in Secondary Schools. Curriki: K-12 Language Arts (www.curriki. org/) Finally, there’s our open-source standby Curriki with its bonanza of partner-created and teacher-generated curriculum materials for K-12 language arts. Carol S. Holzberg, PhD, works as district technology coordinator for Greenfield Public Schools. Sites We Like: www.abc-clio.com/ ElectionReference What are the Benefits of Virtualization? Server virtualization is catching on in the world of K-12. How can your school save by virtualizing? 1. Reduce the number of physical servers, increasing physical space. for data, and reduce costs and energy consumption. 2. Reduce costs by reducing the need to power and cool physical servers. 3. Simplify and enhance disaster recovery readiness. Systems and data centers and prevent costs due to replacing physical data centers destroyed in a disaster. 4. Easy to manage from an IT standpoint. Simplify server management and provisioning of new servers. 5. Enables mobile application. Increase local application availability and uptime. Jeff White is a CDW-G storage specialist, now working with VMware (www.VMware.com), maker virtualization solutions. “Presidential Elections: In History & Today” features historical background on elections paired with classroom activities and research project ideas that will help put Campaign 2008 into historical context for students. of 12 | TECH & LEARNING http://www.learner.org http://www.freereading.net http://www.curriki.org/ http://www.t2web.us http://www.abc-clio.com/ElectionReference http://www.VMware.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Technology & Learning - October 2008

Technology & Learning - October 2008 Contents Editor’s Desk News & Trends We All Stream for Video Put to the Test Special Needs Guide to Tech Products The New Rules of Copyright Picture Perfect What’s New Leader of the Year Profile

Technology & Learning - October 2008

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