How to Become an Active Parent at School

As an active parent in your child's education, you will receive many benefits from your child, his school and his teacher. You will be establishing yourself as a parent who is truly interested in the success of their child. Your involvement in school is more important then you think.
When you get involved in your child's school it will help you stay up to date on their progress in class. The teacher will also discuss his areas of need, where you as the parent can help. But the most important is, that it shows your child how much learning means to you. How can you as the parent establish a stable relationship with the school and your child's teacher? Here some things that you can do:
When able participate in the schools PTO or PTA.
Always come to your child's parent/teacher conferences: be prepared to listen, tell your teacher something about your child, don't be afraid to share with the teacher how the year is going, don't be afraid to ask more questions.
Be sure to tell the teacher about any special needs that your child might have.
Ask the teacher what is the easiest way to stay in touch with her, communication is King when dealing with teachers.
During conference let your child know that you and his teacher are in communication.
As you can see it doesn't take a lot of time to get involved in your child's school. Most of these activities can be accomplished during your first parent/teacher conference of the year. That is why missing this conference can greatly influence how the school year will go for you and your child.

Written by a veteran teacher of 32 years who hopes to give new teachers and parents tried and true strategies that work. Come join me at http://www.squidoo.com/resourcefulteacher and look for the education fairy.

Three Challenges to Education

We hear a lot about, "the knowledge economy." But unless we live in a part of the world where countries face hundreds of thousands of people unemployed, we may not have considered what this change in the fabric of our world means for education and the economy in the developing world. I put education and economy together, because they are so closely linked that policymakers consider them jointly. It is still true that education must be the answer to the extremely poor people everywhere learning, growing, and eventually fully participating in the world. These are modern countries where some people enjoy all the same luxuries and access that people in the West enjoy, but who are challenged by large percentages of their populations living in extreme poverty at the same time. We have to remember that the school, as we know it, developed under very similar circumstances during the early days of the Industrial Revolution. It is not uncommon in the world's history for education to be looked to, and eventually become successful at, helping the poorest of the poor understand the challenges and learn the tools that make them unemployable, therefore feeding the growth of the new economy. That is what is being looked for here.
This article is the first in a series on the challenges for education on an international scope for the next decade or more. Having just returned from a conference initiated by Crown Prince H.H. Shaikh Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, of the Kingdom of Bahrain, I have had the privilege of participating in discussions that make up the substance of these articles. My writing here is meant to be an overview, and to propel the interested reader to think deeper. Let's look first at three challenges that the dignitaries and policymakers agreed need to be addressed.
Challenge number one: students coming out of school are not prepared to take jobs
Employers in international settings, increasingly require what has been termed, "soft skills." These include: an ability to work in teams, communicate, speak up with challenges and new ideas, and participate fully in group design process. The school design that came out of the Industrial Revolution wanted something entirely different, the person getting a job in those days needed to sit down, passively take instruction, and do what they were told. We can see, therefore, that the student who sits, listens, and is able to repeat back the content given to them, is not well prepared to step into these new roles.
The modern well-paying job requires a higher degree of literacy and problem-solving as well. The skills that used to be relegated to academics and scientists are now required of teams of designers everywhere. Here we are talking about: an ability to search out information, write out a short synopsis of the details, use technology to disseminate it, and build an argument that is based upon facts and data, one which will stand up to debate. These are not management skills. They are what is required for entry-level positions.
Challenge number two: changing the culture to entrepreneurship
The figures in the Gulf alone are staggering. In the next 10 years 100,000 new jobs need to be created in order for the increasing population of young people to be well employed. Similar to the challenge that was experienced by the United States during the 1950s by the baby boomers, these countries need to prepare their young people to be able to create their own jobs. Her Majesty, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan has made this her main mission. Moving past the initial goal that every child in the world has an opportunity to go to school, educators now focus as well on changing curricular requirements to include problem solving, critical thinking, business economics, and other requirements that encourage entrepreneurial ideas.
This is a bigger challenge though than just teaching some new skills. In much of the world the goal of education from the student's point of view has been to prepare them to be able to get a job in government. That job would ensure that they and their family were taken care of, and that prosperity would be ensured. The economics of this no longer function. Modern governments cost a lot to run today and cannot be the main source of jobs. Modern governments require a diverse tax base on which to continue to increase services. Even the oil-producing countries are looking for a strong and varied range of companies to employ this growing population of young people.
Challenge number three: preparing teachers and reorganizing education to meet these needs
The last challenge, and the one that the rest of this series of articles will center on, is that education is not prepared to shift as quickly as needed to help the world meet these needs. Any person who has been taught to do a job a certain way has more difficulty retooling themselves to work under different conditions, than someone who is taught in the new way, right from the beginning. The world has seen this as a regular story for the last 15 or 20 years, as technology has changed the face of most work environments. It's a harder challenge still when you were taught to train people, because you first have to understand the new requirements and then completely redo almost everything about your job, and finally you are ready to roll out new work to new standards. Unfortunately education asks teachers to take this on while they are still teaching. It's a train wreck, or as a more apt analogy, a train trying to transform itself into a rocket wreck.
As I mentioned at the beginning, world leaders, great thinkers, problem solvers, policymakers and governments are focused on these three issues. The world needs to address how to retool our societies, but especially those in the developing world, so that students coming out of school are prepared to take jobs in the knowledge based world, looking to join that world rather than asking the government to take care of them, and that they will have been taught in educational systems set up to meet those needs. Throughout this series of articles, I will be looking into the ideas people are discussing and implementing to take on these challenges.

Would you like to learn more about how your voice can make a difference to the future of education? If you are a student, a parent, an educator or any other type of concerned party who may want to pursue the conversation or host strategy meetings with others, join the network by registering with http://www.futureofeducationproject.net and we will keep you in touch with the group as it grows. Dr. E. Alana James, writes on and facilitates participatory action research studies where people research their own particular dilemma is an effective way to address complex issues that otherwise can cause despair. Through PAR, local adaptations can be implemented and evaluated simultaneously. This strategy allows for a world of individuals to work together through the net to re-design education.

How Post-Industrialism May Affect the Global Economic Stage

The west enjoys its economic prosperity because of its dominance on the service and manufacturing sector. These first world nations can easily and more efficiently transform raw materials and manpower into useful goods, at a rate that tops every other place on the planet. We can say that today's developed world is largely industrial in nature and on the other hand, the poorer, less-developed nations of the world are still engaged in agricultural endeavors.
But then, globalization is now changing the face of the world economy, especially with the advent of the internet, which has enable the introduction of outsourcing on a massive scale, unparalleled by anything else in the past. Because of this, manufacturing jobs are moved from countries that have soaring labor costs to countries that offer cheaper labor of similar quality.
Western post-industrialism could be the best answer with respect to its problem arising from an aging population, because information and technology jobs are not very dependent on hard labor. Instead, it depends on knowledge and intellect; something that one can still have even past retirement age.
The East that is historically known as the poorer of the two, can have a better fighting chance in as far as improving social services, education, and virtually all other sectors of their local society. The issue of economic equality is something that concerns every person on Earth. In light of this economic paradigm shift brought about by the post-industrializing West and an industrializing east, then both will have an equally powerful bargaining chip in the international arena.
It is hoped that because of this, international laws will become fairer to all parties concerned. Because of a more equitable distribution of economic clout, each party will think of the other more than they did decades ago. After all, one needs something from the other, and strained relations will do nothing to ensure that. But then, this does not have to mean that they will be more predisposed into engaging in wars just because of this perceived economic pride. Actually, the reverse may be true.
Because of this dichotomy of economic roles, countries will become more interdependent on each other, so much so that waging a war will assure mutual destruction. But then, here lies the problem: what about those people who may get left behind? What about those ones who are not capable of developing or changing their current skill set so that they could adapt? That is a question that has perplexed everyone up to this point.

Green Jobs and Hiring From the Smart Grid

America's Smart Grid is set to change our lives and the lives of our children. Today's energy grid is 'dumb' - it essentially has remained stagnant for the past hundred years. It doesn't adapt to the needs of homeowners and businesses based on their demand for energy; it simply pumps out a standardized amount of electricity, much of it going to waste. Our current energy grid doesn't make use of new eco-friendly technologies like solar and wind - it still relies on harmful and waste producing coal and oil.
The Federal Government has pumped billions of dollars into the new Smart Grid to turn things around on a number of levels. The grid will be intelligent for one: fluctuating the amount of energy sent to various corners of the country based on the current demand while also integrating new sources of energy from solar and wind power. This new system of energy distribution will not only conserve valuable electricity, but also will save our country billions of dollars in wasted energy costs over the next ten years.
There's another huge benefit to the smart grid as well - green jobs. Analysts have forecasted the Grid's job producing effect due to the large amount of federal stimulus money is going towards training a new generation of workers who are proficient in utilizing the technology.
Just like how a previous generation of workers became invaluable due to their expertise in nuclear and chemical engineering, this new generation of smart grid technologists will be equally as important. Today, one of the highest paying jobs in the country is a chemical engineer - within the next decade it will certainly be an engineer who specializes in some niche within the vast array of grid technologies.
There also will certainly be a plethora of small and medium-sized businesses that evolve and revolve around the smart grid ecosystem; providing services and products that make the grid even more effective in each local environment. For these businesses, adept grid technologists will be in high demand, creating a healthy and competitive market for talent in the sector.
Finding and hiring this valuable new generation of green talent will be another challenge for the government and businesses alike. Competition will be fierce for the brightest minds in the field, and companies and projects will succeed or fail based on their ability to secure the best. Not only will higher pay grades, perks and benefits provide ammunition to hire talent, but also a company's ability to use cutting-edge technology to make hires. Smart Grid organizations that utilize applicant tracking and hiring programs that are able to intelligently seek and attract workers in specific sectors will be able to gain an edge in the field. These will be the individuals and companies that shape the future of energy.

The Controlling Force of Our Society

Have we gone to the extreme or have we simply forgotten children require nurturing, love, and discipline? Discipline for the development of well-rounded, educationally sound individuals to go forth in society and become an asset to the community and family. What happened? Where did we go wrong? Was it caused by a bureaucracy that created a nightmare of fear in parents, fear so all encompassing it has made the children the controlling force of our society. Parents who now allow their children to do as they please. A society that is now complacent in providing discipline to a generation of children who have little or no respect for themselves, peers, parents, teachers, and other associates.
Parents live in fear of children seeking revenge by informing authorities they physically abused them. They fear being guilty by association; fear the child is more believable and not always truthful in providing the facts. Teachers, administrators, hospital personnel, and child welfare advocates assume the parent is at fault. The parent is tasked with the responsibility of proving they did no do harm to their children. Parents who fear a bruise from a child's everyday rough play may cost them their reputation and freedom.
Where crime is at an all time high and will continue to climb. Where civil disobedience is the norm that often escalates to more serious crime. Where a victim has fewer rights than the accused and prison is no longer a deterrent to crime. The question remains: Who is the controlling force of our society?

Diversity Within a Preschool - Children With Asperger's Syndrome

Asperger's syndrome also known as A.S is a form of autism. Autism is a disorder of development that affects social and communication skills. Autism is not just one specific disorder but occurs in a variety of forms and degrees. The term Autistic Spectrum Disorder is often used to describe the whole range. On this spectrum comes the condition A.S. A.S is found among all races, nationalities and social classes; the name comes from a man named Hans Asperger who was an Austrian physician who first described the syndrome in 1944.
A.S has a pattern that includes:

• Lack of empathy not understanding social cures and others feelings
• Little ability to form friendship
• One sided conversations
• Intense absorption in a special interest, which may leave no space for more an age appropriate, common interests
• "clumsy" movements in both their articulation and gross motor behaviour
• A love of routine, unexpected change in routine can be upsetting
• Repetitive activities, children with A.S may spin and watch spinning objects for long periods of time
• Sensitive to sensory touch, light and noise

People with A.S perceive the world differently from everybody else. They find the rest of us strange and baffling.
The way children with A.S perceive the world makes sense to them and they cannot change the way they think or act. They can however find help to adapt in ways they won't cause conflict and confusion with others, who may not understand or tolerate A.S behaviours. Children with A.S look normal and often have average or above average intelligence, but for some reason are not able to understand and relate to other people at a level one would expect for their age. It can be hard for parents, teachers and peers to understand why these children have a lack of desire to interact with peers or inability to understand simple or social cues. They can be assumed to be selfish, where as they are actually would just rather play by themselves with a special interest of their own. Children with A.S do not take much notice of the reaction of the people listening to them and may talk on regardless of the listener's interest and may appear insensitive to their feelings. When A.S children are listening to others, jokes, exaggerated language and metaphors can cause confusion: for example a person with A.S may be frightened at statements like "she bit my head off" and take it quite literally.
The child with A.S does not see themselves as a member of a particular group; they follow their own interest rather than that of the other children in the class or playground which can lead to total social isolation.
The causes of Aspergers syndrome are still being investigated. It is believed that not one single cause can affect the pattern of behaviours that children with A.S present with. But there is strong evidence to suggest that A.S can be caused by a variety of physical factors, all of which affect the brain development. A.S sometimes can be assumed to be due to an emotional deprivation because of their social inadequacies, but this is untrue. A.S is a developmentally disability affecting the brain and there is no cure, but with appropriate education and support children affected with A.S develop into competent adults who can overcome social situations and expectations of others.

To find the ideal preschool service and great information on good childcare check out the section on child care centres and kindercare at our website.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Roland_Ihms

Teaching Reading to Children With Down Syndrome Is a Sight to Behold

Phonics is the ONLY way to teach reading.
Or so I thought.
When I began my life as a homeschool mom, I KNEW phonics was the best way to teach reading.
It made the best sense. Letters have sounds, which combine to make words. If you know the sounds, you can decode and read words.
Besides, after having grown up through the "Dick and Jane" look-say era, I knew the whole-language approach was lacking. Although I was a good student, I didn't enjoy reading as much as I could have. And I was only an above average speller.
When my firstborn was reaching school age, I found the very best phonics program I could find. He learned to read phonetically, as did his younger siblings. We changed programs over the years, but still focused on phonics, because phonics was the ONLY way.
But then my eighth student arrived.
With Down syndrome.
Faced with a child who could not talk well, whom the therapists had written off as "only getting more delayed," I wondered how I would help her succeed.
But then I found the solution: Sight reading!
Although it went against my homeschool grain, on the advice of my daughter's neurodevelopmentalist, I began teaching her to read with flashcards when she was 3.
I will never forget the night we started. She was sitting in her high chair after supper, and I flashed about 10 words to her. I went through the card stack three or four times in a minute.
Then I put three words in front of her, and asked her to show me a particular word.
Without hesitation, she pointed to the correct word! I asked her to show me three or four words, and she identified them all!
In just a minute, my non-verbal toddler with Down syndrome was reading!
Sight reading is the most efficient way to teach a child who is non-verbal to read. In fact, it's the primary way to teach babies and toddlers to read. (If you've ever seen videos of babies reading, chances are their parents used a flash cards and signs.)
Sight reading is especially good to teach reading to children with Down syndrome because these children tend to learn visually.
The process is easy. All you need are index cards, a black marker, and a word list. Some sight-reading programs use the Dolch word list, others use words that they consider more meaningful to little children. The Dolch list is available all over the internet. To these words be sure to add words that you know are meaningful to your child, including the names of siblings and pets.
The size of the index cards will vary with the age of your child. Toddlers do better with larger cards and larger letters. By school age, normal 3" x 5" cards with moderately large type (30 to 42 pt.) will work well.
Write a pile of cards in one sitting. This way your handwriting will be consistent, and you'll have the flash cards finished. Use lowercase letters unless the word requires a capital.
Begin teaching with 10 cards. If you turn the cards toward you with the words upside down, you can flash them faster. (I struggled for months until I figured this out.) As you read the word, pick the card up and put it down in front so the child sees it. Don't linger--the eyes and the brain go faster than your hand and mouth. If you can flash the cards one per second, that's a good speed. If you can go faster, do.
Go through the stack quickly. Reshuffle, and do it again. You should be able to go through 10 cards four or five times in a minute.
After a minute, you can offer your child a choice of three cards and ask him to point to the word you give him.
If he doesn't get the right response immediately, don't worry. Some children don't pick up on this the first time for many reasons. For example, if a child is not hearing or seeing well, more repetition may be required. If after several weeks your child isn't responding well, you may want to have the eyes, ears and visual processing assessed.
For many children, sight reading is a quick and dirty way to read.
For my daughter with Down syndrome it was much more than that. Sight reading gave her success in an academic area and earned her the esteem of her peers. At three, she couldn't walk and she didn't talk much, but she could demonstrate that she could read. With sight reading, she was reading larger words than her typical peers.
Eventually, phonics will be added to my daughter's reading curriculum. And when it is, she'll understand it better, because she'll be able to see how the sounds fit together.

How to Ensure A Good Education for Your Deaf Child

Having a child with disabilities isn't easy. If you're the parent of a deaf child, then you know this as well as anyone. Whether it's a physical, mental, emotional or psychological disability, the fact is that the world isn't really built for people who are different, so chances are you've already ruled out the notion of keeping your child in the public school system and you're looking at deaf school options or possibly home schooling.
Home Schooling for Deaf Children
There are a lot of arguments for and against home schooling for deaf children. The fact is that your child may well wind up learning more through staying home and being taught by people he or she loves and trusts than by going to a special school to learn. The downside is that this can have an adverse effect on a child's developing social skills. By simply staying home, within their comfort zone, they may not learn how to deal with others until their early adulthood.
On the other hand, you may well be able to find a home schooling community for hearing impaired children, but i you don't live in a big city, this may be much easier said than done.
Deaf School Options
At a school for the hearing impaired, children may have some difficulty adjusting, at first, to being surrounded by new people. However, over time, the benefits do seem to outweigh this. A child who goes to a school for the deaf will, first and foremost, realize that perhaps they're not so different after all. By being surrounded by those who understand hearing impairment and those who suffer from hearing impairment themselves, a deaf child may feel much more comfortable and be much more willing to simply learn and stay focused in a more comfortable environment than that which public schooling provides.
Another benefit is that you're likely to meet other parents of deaf children through the school, other parents who know how difficult it can be and who understand that behind the disability is a unique individual. At a school for the deaf, and within the surrounding community, your child isn't a "deaf kid", but a person who may be exceptionally intelligent or creative, who may be athletic or have a great sense of humor. In being around other deaf people and those who see your child as a person, not as a disability, your child may really bloom as an individual and learn to take pride in who he or she is.
Financing Education
As you're probably looking into private schools, if you haven't already, you should look into charitable organizations and grants specifically for the families of deaf or disabled children, as well as government programs like SSI designed to help finance the extra costs associated with the disabled.
In any event, there's no shame in accepting a little help in paying for private schooling for a deaf child. In time, as your child grows into adulthood and comes to fully understand the responsibilities therein, they should grow to appreciate that you gave them the best education that you possibly could.

Studying Physics With Toys By Lucien H Lester

If you are a physics teacher, thinking that it is difficult to make your student like the subject, we suggest that you use toys during the class. These toys will make them enjoy the class more as they are playing and studying at the same time.
As the first and simple toy we would suggest for you, marble becomes a good idea to teach your students physics. Tell them about the concept of marbles game, that every action gives an equal and opposite reaction.
You can explain them that when the shooter collides with another marble, the shooter actually makes the marble move to the same direction the shooter was going to, even though the shooter has stopped running. It seems like the marble continues the shooter's track. From the collision, the smaller marble will absorb the energy of the shooter as the larger marble. The energy pushes the marbles to move forward in the same direction.
Another toy, a yo-yo can lead your students into understanding on kinetic energy, angular momentum, and force. These scientific concepts are gained when the yo-yos descend and move in spiral. Let them examine how the toys work while playing them.
Talking about motion, you can also use Matchbox cars to explain the concept of inertia. You can place something small on top of the matchbox car roof, such as a match stick. Push the car until the stick falls from the roof. With this toy car you can also teach them another physical scientific concept. In this case, you need another toy car with different size. They will see how things with more mass will make larger impact as they gather momentum more quickly.
If you want to teach your students aerodynamics and gravity, you can firstly have them to make airplanes from origami (folding papers). These paper airplanes show how the shape and the balance between the body and the wings influence the ability to fly. In this case, they also learn how the actual plane flies. Those are some toys that you can use to teach physics. Teachers are supposed to be more active and creative to make the students interested in studying any subject, including physics.

Talking about physics, you are probably interested in any discussions on ray spectrum and any devices dealing with this subject. Thus you can read other articles of Lucien Lester on diode array spectrophotometer and raman spectrometers. Within those articles you can also find reviews on such spectrometers which you can take into consideration before you purchase one.

What Type of Technology Should I Use?

One of the tricky things I am finding at the moment is that there seems to be too many types of technology that I can use in my classroom. I am lucky enough to work at a school that promotes risk taking in using technology in the classroom, as well as the resources to support this. Last weekend I spent 3-4 hours looking at the different options available, and how I would use these options.

However, that was what was what made it so confusing. I want to use technology in the classroom, however I want to use it effectively. I want it to be a tool to enhance both student learning and my teaching. I want to use it to develop rich and rewarding tasks and activities. What I don't want it to be is an add-on. A GLAT (gosh, look at that) use of technology with no real outcome at the end. And this is why I did need to spend so much time looking at the use of technology in my teaching.

I eventually decided to work a little bit with trial and error, as well as limit the applications to one at a time. I designed a blog for all my classes, as this allows me to provide an overview of each lesson, add links and it also allows students to add comments. Each of my classes will work to create a class wiki and this will become our main resource for reference and revision. (The school does not use textbooks). And finally, I will definitely be using applications such as Keynote, iMovie, ComicLife and mapping applications (Google Earth, Google Maps and possibly other software) in each of my lessons. My classroom blog can be accessed by clicking the following link - Bec's Classes.














If any of this becomes confusing or is not helping my students learning I will be the first to know. As stated by David Nettelbeck in Computers, Thinking and Learning, "the best ideas get nowhere unless they can be applied, and our most critical audience is always our students".

Something we must remember as teachers is that change is happening all the time, and we must attempt to keep up. This may require a little bit of effort (for me, most of last weekend), however the rewards will be in my teaching. The You Tube below is called 'Shift Happens' and provides an excellent explanation for us all on the exponential nature of change or 'shift' that is currently occurring. This in itself should be a clear indication that any use of technology, however small but effective, is better than nothing.



I wonder if things were this tricky when technology went from chalk and a slate board to pencil and paper....

Image taken from rutty on flickr.

How Google Is Making Us Smarter...

I found this article 'How Google is Making Us Smarter' from the DISCOVER Magazine on Metafilter (a great site by the way), and had a read. It is interesting as in the first two paragraphs it tackles the debate that technology (mobile phones, internet etc) is making us 'more stoopid'. I have always struggled with this argument as I believe our students are much more street smart when it comes to finding and using relevant information, as well as utilising technology and particularly the internet for their needs. In particular, the article looks at the 'extended mind', and the argument that our environment is often an extension of our mind. We need both to be successful, and the internet, and indeed technology is part of our environment.

Rather than arguing that too much technology in the classroom is 'dumbing down' our students, maybe we should be more worried about the school environment as an extension of student minds. Maybe we should also consider that we need to prepare students to utilise this ideal more and more in the future.

To end this post, something quite poignant at the end of the article....

Socrates worried that writing would make people forgetful and unwise. Sure enough, writing did rob us of some gifts, such as the ability to recite epic poems like The Iliad from memory. But it also created a much larger pool of knowledge from which people could draw, a pool that has continued to expand.

Imagine the world without writing... That is definitely something for us to all think about....