Turducken Cordon Bleu

Turducken Cordon Bleu

A traditional Turducken is a duck, stuck inside a chicken, stuck inside a turkey. There are complicated ways to de-bone the birds to get them to fit. In my version we will use Skinless, boneless breasts of chicken, turkey, and duck, rolled together Cordon Bleu style. Since it is holiday time I had no problem finding boneless chicken breasts, and turkey breasts in the grocery. They key was that I was able to find frozen duck breasts in te section where frozen ducks and geese were. Again, I think it was a holiday thing.

So, you take your breast meat. Put a breast on a cutting board, cover in plastic wrap. Take a rolling pin, and pound the breast down to about 1/4 inch thickness. You will need to make a couple of decisions here. because of the size of the breasts I had I decided to put chicken on teh outside and cut the larger turkey breast in half for layer 2. In retrospect, the turkey breasts were larger and I perhaps should have kept them whole and pounded the down large, and used them as outside. Be careful with your duck, it will be small and it will not take a lot of pounding.

When you have your meat pounded out you are ready to assemble. I chose to chop up a small amount of broccoli flowerettes and nuke them in the microwave. I used them and the traditional slice of swiss cheese and ham for the inside. I placed the chicken layer on a clean cutting board, put a layer of turkey breast, then duck, then swiss, then ham, then, broccoli. Roll it up carefully and pin the roll with tooth picks (I actually used some wooden shish-ka-bob sticks from summer barbecue). Season with salt and pepper to taste as you assemble.

Dredge your roll carefully in flour. Shake off excess. Dunk in an egg wash, finish with a roll in seasoned bread crumbs. Place rolled and breaded turducken in a pyrex baking dish tha has been coated in Pam. Place a generous ounce of butter on each roll. Place in 375 degree oven for 45 mins to an hour testing with a meat thermometer to 160 degrees.

I made a white sauce with chicken broth, white wine and cream, that I should have thickened with a roux of flour and butter, as it turned out a bit too thin. Upon plating the dish, pour over th white sauce garnishing with parsley flakes.

Reconciling Pink: The Bellweather for the Future?

So, I am glad to say that in my reading of Daniel Pink's, A Whole New Mind, he dealt rather quickly with my concerns posted last week. While I can identify myself as an ubber-left brain, concrete sequential step-by-step process geek, there does seem to be room in Pink's brave new world for me. In all seriousness, it took Pink about 10 pages to dispel my concerns. His central concept is that that moving forward we will need a whole mind, using both right and left halves. The "knowledge worker" economy dominated by left brain skills is eroding. As the economy changes and skills that traditionally require left brain organization and management are routinized and computerized, can moved anywhere in the globe, and done by a cheaper work force, we (as in the the western/USA dominated we) better be ready to capitalize on our right brain thinking skills.

A couple of thoughts come to mind. First, is not traditional teaching a pretty left brained dominated activity? Can traditional teaching be outsourced through the 'Net? I think so. Anybody have kids doing online enrichment Math through John's Hopkins or Stanford? I do. My biology teaching wife is looking hard at MIT Open Courseware and Yale Open Courseware for her advanced classes. Is Pink really radical? If you think hard, what parts of your job could be outsourced? Does Discovery Streaming, outsource a piece of the Library Media specialist's job w/ selecting and delivering video material? I am looking at purchasing Study Island for 3/4 grade testing remediation. I certainly can have my network and servers monitored from afar. Certainly someone smarter than me about networks can do patches and upgrades in the overnight hours? It is happening around the edges in education, but it is there.

Second, here is what I think could be a bellweather that Pink's ideas are gaining formal acceptance. My darling youngest daughter is just out the door to set up for her school's Winter Concert. She is a band weenie. In my kind and fatherly way I remind her often that all this band stuff won't help her hit a change up or understand the Vietnam War, and I can't believe it is ANOTHER night with the pep band at the basketball game. In truth I am awfully proud of her and deeply grateful to her young energetic band teacher who has given her gifts that I could not hope to do (although I could do without the 3 hour concert on this sunny winter Saturday afternoon).

So, here is the thing. At her school when calculating GPA (yes, save the comments, it IS an outdated, left brain notion) all of the art, Theater, and music classes carry less "weight" than advanced classes in the traditional academic areas. My kiddo works damn hard at her music. She is not great, but applies herself hard and puts in extra, extra time for that program. She gets less "credit" for her A's in band then she does for the B+ in history. Her left brained older sister (Ms. Honors, who can bang out an "A" paper faster than you can type Google, but over thinks anything practical into a pile of mush) figured it out during her time at the school. If you stayed in band, you faced the possibility that your GPA would slip or more correctly others in the top tier would edge by you as they took non-band courses to keep the GPA up. All the top kids dumped band after sophomore year and took. extra math so they could take AP Physics as they battled it out for the top three slots in class rank.

If Pink's proposition is to take hold for education would not the first sign be that all art/music/design courses carry the same weight as traditional left brain, read it, study it, spit it back academics?

More when I know it.

Left Brain vs Right Brain

Today I will "attend" a softball clinic. I get to sit upstairs in the parent gallery for 3-4 hours while my daughter squats and catches for some very high quality pitchers who aspire to go on to the major college level. She also aspires to a college softball career, and if she learns to hit rise ball and change up as well as she catches them her aspirations will move forward. It is winter in NewEngland. It is the season of softball improvement.

Besides playing on the free WiFi, I am bringing Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind, in anticipation of the DEN webinar later this week. While Pink is referred to as a seminal work for all things 2.0, I have not had the chance to read it, and really I should.

The proposition as I understand it is that with the Internet putting pure information at your fingertips, it is less important to have a vast reservoir of knowledge in your head, you can aways just get it from the 'Net. The critical skill is how you can creatively put the pieces together. Recall level thinking will sink into the background, giving way to folks who can think abstractly and creatively. Thus the left brain vs right brain split.

Right now as I await Mr. Pink's opportunity to educate me, I am having problems with this analysis. Perhaps it is that I am a successful left brain thinker. A product of the educational systems of 35 years ago, you could pound stuff into my head and it would stick. I have tons of arcane factoids tucked away in my head (and to my horror they seem to be leaking away slowly as I age). My family won't play Trivial Pursuit with me, I rarely lose. I recognize that it is just a type of knowledge that stays with me. Stuff that others forget especially in certain subjects, just sticks in my head. I am a left brain master.

I love history. When this whole technology thing fizzles out, I would love to return to teaching high school history. I would love a a class of really bright kids who were into it as much as me. We would read meaty textbooks, historical non-fiction and primary sources. We would write essays and papers and stuff information into our heads for the pure joy of stuffing information into our heads, and people would think we were smart.

OK, my bias is revealed. I hope that I will be able to do Daniel Pink justice with that mindset going in. In this rush to right brain dominance, is there not room for the left brain thinker? Does not a large reservoir of information in your head, rather than a few clicks away, allow for context in your thinking? If you have a broad liberal mind (in the educational sense of that term) doesn't it provide a knowledge base you can immediately to apply to the situation at hand? If you have a good information base in your head, it can help you provide context and meaning to new information. Is that not still valuable?

My understanding of the process of early reading tells me that a large lexicon of internal information helps young readers. Perhaps the most important thing that parents can do to increase reading skills for the very young is not to buy Hooked on Phonics, but to pull the kid onto your lap and read together, everyday. When you are searching for that unknown word, your ability to decode the word phonetically is important, but the more context you can bring the better. It is how close reading works.

In the classroom, it is the classic error of your kids seeing the word S-O-C-R-A-T-E-S and saying it, SO-crates, rather than SOCK-rah-tease. If you have information in your head about the Greeks, even with the incorrect phonetic pronunciation the rest of the text provides the context to get it right. You could read forever about old SO-crates (as I have had students do) and just think it was some old Greek guy without connecting the passage to that very special philosopher and teacher.

There are others beside Pink who have the right brain perspective. I have had the chance to hear Will Richardson speak twice in recent months. His remarks challenged me to think more about these ideas and where I stand. I thank him. I still feel very half-baked in my thinking on so many School 2.0 ideas and topics. Pink and Richardson make me uncomfortable, and that is good. These days I feel that I do not know what I know, but I sure know more than before they challenged me. And as always, I get to write and podcast more when I know it.

Let's see what Daniel Pink brings to the conversation. Have a good week everybody.

Testing for the Coolcatteacher.

This a new post for Vicki Davis (coolcatteacher) who asked via Twitter for folks to tag the FEED from their blogs in twitter. I think I did that correctly. However, I thought that if I posted, she would know for sure.

Hello from NH!

Quick post between sessions from the Blogger Cafe at NH Reach for Stars Conference. Great fun to be here to do this. Able to put some names to faces of folks in the Bloggasphere. No disasters at home w/ wireless techs (yet). Go Jaime GO! Fix that thing finally!

Good Discovery Streaming presentatation, so so Senteo, going to Virtual Field trips next.

Blogger Cafe is cool!

More on the D Word and Freedom to Blog About Your School

A couple of posts back I was posting on the student who got suspended and banned from running for class secretary for calling her administrators douchebags in her blog. This month's Connecticut Magazine (connecticutmag.com- but don't bother there is little current content online) has a column by long time Connecticut journalist Larry Bloom the sheds more light on the circumstances. Pardon me as I summarize (and really Larry & Company - let folks read you online).

Last spring Avery Doninger, was class secretary of her junior class at Mills High in Burlington CT, and active in extracurricular activities. According to Bloom, one of the activities was Jamfest, an annual competition of student bands. The students wanted to hold the Jamfest on April 28 in the auditorium, but the faculty member required to run the equipment was not available. The administration told the kids to change the date, or hold it in the cafeteria, not an ideal spot. The students countered with a proposal that an outside professional be hired to run the equipment. Four students sent out an email to many local homes urging citizens to lobby the Supt. on behalf of their plan. The Principal met with Avery and expressed her displeasure. As Bloom puts it, proper ways to address conflict resolution did not include urging taxpayers to pester the administration. In the local press it was reported that at that point the Principal canceled the Jamfest. Bloom reports that she did not and quotes Avery's answer in the subsequent court hearing that the Principal left open that the Jamfest might happen but not on April 28 and the fact that the Jamfest was held on June 8. Nevertheless that evening Avery in her Livejournal wrote that the concert was "canceled by the douchebags in the central office" and urged her readers to complain to the Supt to "piss her off more".

When the Principal learned of the post she told Avery she had to do three things - apologize to the Superintendent, show her mother what she wrote and drop out of the election for class secretary for the senior year. Avery agreed to the first two, but refused to comply with the the third. The Principal following school policy that all candidates had to be endorsed by the administration, removed Avery's name from the ballot, and we are off to the lawyers. Avery became a cause celeb with T-shirts supporting her being banned and of course she was the landslide write in candidate, but those votes were not allowed. The kid gets it, she know she was rude but she feels she was unfairly punished.

And now it is all about the legal principals and Internet rights, and free speech, and the impact of student speech on schools and ACLU and pro bono, and fund raising dinners. But I think I like Bloom's conclusion that for all their experience in dealing with kid issues far more troublesome than this the administrators have allowed this to turn into an expensive public pissing match.

The Stupidest Guy In The Room of 140Characters

This my response to Jen Wagner's post on Friendship and 140 Characters

Fascinating conversation. My reaction? OK, once again, I venture into the realm where people write sonnets and I am going to sound all - blah, bub-blah, bub-blah, me-too, bub-blah, me-too.

How do I sort through all the thoughts posted, reconcile the conflicting themes in my heart and head, and tease from the conversation the nuggets of brilliance that resonate with me and mold them into coherent response? Here goes:

1) Sorting The Constant Flow. That is an idea that resonates. Since I started blogging socially 3 years ago and professionally 2 years ago, I think that is a large a part of what has been happening to me. My attention has turned outward to a bigger wider world of ideas that I would not be a part of unless I had taken those steps. It is a cascade of new ideas that I am finding difficult to keep up with, never mind choosing the pieces I need to weave into my professional practice. Recently (maybe in the WoW2 chat room) somebody referred to “gulping from the fire hose of ideas”. Going from reading blogs to actively participating in Twitter is like going from the garden hose to the firehose. In reading blogs I could pick up an idea here, and idea there. With Twitter, it is a constant flow, in real time. Really smart people, talking in real time to other really smart people and posting links about what they are checking out. The pace of new ideas has grown exponentially. I found I had to rethink and redesign my delicious tagging system to help keep track.

2) People Like Me / The Stupidest Guy in the Room. Twitter has provided a view into other professional’s lives. They all do not do exactly the same job as me but as others have tweeted I have found that lots of other tech educators are like me. They have their computers on beyond work hours. They work hard at their jobs in the hours beyond work. They try to balance family and technology. I am not nuts to do what I do. There are people like me out there. Lots of folks are puzzled, confused and trying to make sense of all of this stuff, and working hard outside of school to try new things and work it all out. They are thoughtful, wise, kind, and funny.

In my pond, I am often seen (with respect to technology), as the “guru wizard” who reveals the “magic things” that happen inside the box and out on the web. I am not smarter than anybody else, I am just a teacher who has chosen to get paid for paying closer attention to technology. And yet the blogoshpere and twitterverse have shown me that there is so much more happening with people who are sharper than me, who have wrapped their brains tighter around the salient ideas, and are moving in directions that I never could have imagined. It is as if I have gone from swimming in my pond to stepping into the water at a large lakeside beach. I am in just up to my ankles in the cold water, and there are people doing backflips off the raft. I am standing there wondering how, and if I should walk in up to my waist. I know I am at an exciting place to swim, but will I ever be able to get to the raft? Sometimes it is an exciting, challenging, anxiety provoking thought to realize that you are the stupidest guy in the room.

3) Twitter Manners / Friendship. This is the most intriguing part of Jen’s discussion and replies. It is a social give and take that makes a lot of Web 2.0 all work. It is like a virtual staff room as some have said. That is hard for me. I am terminally shy in real life and perhaps more so in a virtual environment. In my real staff rooms I am the quiet guy reading the paper. I am a listener and lurker in SL and in live chat areas. I read blogs but comment only if I have something really unique to say. I am flattered when folks follow me on Twitter, and I always add folks as followers (on a recent This Week in Tech podcast – Jason Calacanis (Mahalo.com) talked about the value added of web geek, Robert Scoble w/ a following of 6500+ twitters, and who always allows folks to follow him and follows all people who follow him, by saying that he could parlay that into value for anybody who hires him. He has a social roladex he can exploit easily by tweeting about a site he likes and driving web traffic. Essentially saying that social network contacts like Twitter can be monetized).

However after you are following somebody, and a bunch of folks are following you what is the correct behavior for tweeting? Miguel Guhlin said that he looks at Twitter as the ebb and flow of human contact and enjoys the casual updates. He looks to the person’s blog as a way to understand more about them and what they are into. He tends to do the follower/followee by checking to see if the person is an educational blogger to help narrow his focus. That seems reasonable (however, it is cool to follow people like Veronica Belmont, and there are people I only know by tweet that I have come to respect).

Should I then limit my tweets to educational matters? Do you tweet at the personal level, and then blog at an intellectual level? Am I the ultimate bore when I tweet all weekend long about football, or my running, or doing my chores? Is this just my poor social skills that I am throwing myself out there saying – look at me? Look at what I am doing? Anybody?

It is a curious mix in the twitterverse. I agree with most of the folks on friendship. I have been socially blogging long enough to know that electronic “friendships” do come and go. People that I got to “know” a little bit at a personal level stop blogging or stop commenting on my blog (my social blog revolves mostly around cycling and sports).
Is this different at a professional level?

Most likely I will see you at a conference and we will introduce ourselves, or we will have an exchange online that will lead to another exchange, kind of like in real life. If that blossoms, it blossoms. I do not need intimacy to feel that what I learn from you in Twitter/Ning/Blogs/SL is valuable. And maybe that is my social shyness talking. I am not going to Skype/contact you unless I have a reason, and it is ok if you blow me off.

4) Addiction/Distraction. This is bothersome to me as is the whole wired 24/7/365 nature of where we are going. Part of the power of Twitter is its addictive nature. I am not sure of how it is much different than IM, except for this sweet spot in time there is this group of tech ed folks who have gravitated here. Is it just trendy like mySpace giving way to Live Journal to Facebook to Ning? Will it be Twitter to Pounce, to Jaiku to back to Twitter for the edtech community? It was for Leo Laporte’s This Week in Tech Folks.

In the same way my 16 year old has to have her AIM up when she works, I now find that Twitter is up on my laptop all the time when I am at home. Somehow I “need” to see what everybody is saying, is doing. Why is that? Two months ago I did not “need” that. I have had a Twitter account for a while. I did not use it until I caught some of the buzz.

It is a distraction. It is funny as I sit here writing away on this Sunday the “tweets” are flying by about the post and replies. No less than 6 times have I stopped to checkout what others are saying about 140 characters. A couple of times I have almost stopped because I thought somebody had already said what I was currently writing about much better than me. I could never open up Twitter if I had “real” work to get done.

I could never connect to it at work. I have enough trouble keeping up with incoming emails disrupting my workflow. There is an organizational guru who says that you should only check your work email twice a day. Once about 10AM, and another about an hour before you go home. I am seriously thinking that I will adopt that rule for December and just concentrate on the to do list for the day. I can’t imagine if I had Twitter popping up all day.

So I get to the end, without the profundity I desired and probably saying everything that others have said in different words. But, the conversation struck chords in my mind and it is now out of my head and on a page. I believe the writing helped me to put some form to my thoughts and I think I will return to this conversation in my head soon, now with some type of frame to hang it on. Thanks for listening.

Cross Posted in Life in the Fast Lane

School Board to Use Local Blog to Share Information

This morning's Norwich Bulletin contains an article about a local school board submitting information to a local blog to share information with the community. I am in a nearby town and I share some of the frustrations about trying to understand the issues and decisions of local elected officials when living in a rural area with sparse local media coverage. Part of my involvement in local politics in an earlier period in my life was based on my perception that in small towns, with limited media coverage it is a hard to find out what is happening in your government, without the government making extraordinary efforts to "get the word out".

Decision making becomes a closed loop between people who only talk to themselves. Does the Internet and Blogosphere democratize the process by providing current, up to date information or just place the spotlight on those with an ax to grind? The town in question is not without political and budget controversy in recent years (as it is with most towns in our area) so parts of the blog have a clear political edge. Yet some of it seems to be pure information, and it is easy to navigate back and forth to pick up on the flavor of local politics, as I am doing this Sunday morning from the comfort of my easy chair.

I remember two signature conversations in my political career. One where a member of the opposition party told me that he was voting for me because he noted that the leaders of the town council and the school board were all close friends and he did not want decisions about his town "being made by a bunch of guys sitting around a Friday night poker table, drinking beer". A second conversation concerned the nature of business on the Planning and Zoning Commission where it was noted that in the old days "most of the (land use) decisions were made on the steps of church after services on Sunday". Do blogs contribute to an open flow of information or do they provide a easy platform for extreme views that fracture consensus and hinder decision making?

A Contrarian View of Education 2.0

There are times in the headlong rush to pronounce that the world flat and our kids are round, that I have a disquieting feeling in the pit of my stomach. We pick up the pace as teachers to engage in all the new tools because the kids are there, and we are behind, and we are sending them into a world of global competition, and if they are not willing to view the world as a 24 hour market place where some kid on the other side of the planet can beat them out of their profit margin if they don’t move at the hyper warp speed, they won't be ready.

In the vanguard of Education 2.0 are the cries to embrace whole cloth anything that connects, to get our kids there, drop the filters, just teach them responsible practice, advanced practitioners vs. the IT department, rage against the machine, bring down the walls, the world is flat for heaven’s sake!

It gives me great pause. And every once in a while that pause, that disquiet in the pit of my stomach gets a little validation from the people I read and respect. I sense that somewhere lurking back here is a bit of reservation. Can it be that they like me think that we have to introduce our kids to this brave new world, but with a great deal of wonder at where it is all taking us?

Let me explain further by way of a story. I went to my dentist. In catching up with news he and I and the assistant began talking about my job, and kids and Internet safety. He allowed that the was very strict with his kids. To control their access to the computer and the Internet he had some type of lock box device where you literally had to have a parent with a key to allow the kids to use the computer.

Now I know him, and his kids. He and his wife (his partner in the practice) are the absolute salt of the earth. They are the parents you always see volunteering at the school, in the booth, at the concession stand. They have a dental practice in a old mill town. They, for the longest time, held their rates and bent to the insurance company whims to keep with the guidelines so folks with dental insurance would not have to pay out of pocket.

When I coached their kid in Little League they went out of their way to thank me at the end of the season, and a couple of days later there was a card in the mail with two tickets to the local minor league team’s game. I knew them as parents long before I ever knew that they were local dentists.

Their kid was “pulled up” to play major league at age 8 because we were short and my head coach saw her play and wanted to “grab her” so she would be on his team for the next three years (without having to go through the league draft). She was a great kid, tough as nails, but in over her head against 12 year olds. She had such passion. I can still see her in the catcher gear, three sizes too big going behind the plate because nobody else would do it. And I remember when she came back to the bench in tears, because she was so mad at herself that she struck out. I tried my best to tell her what a great player she was that all she had to do was grow up into it. It was with little effect. She did not like striking out, and it upset her that she was not better. She was not being a baby, she was mad, that she could not perform at the level required to succeed.

This child gets little or no Internet access because her father wants it that way. And you know what, I think that’s OK. In fact I think that is great. Far from being fearful that this child will get beat out in the flat world, I am fearful that she will go out and become part of it. I don’t want her out here flitting from one job to the next, and pulling out her Blackberry and iPhone to stay connected to the stock market in Uzbekistan. I want her and her passion and her drive to stay right here in my community. I want her and other kids like her to be just like her Mom and Dad serving the community, filling places on local boards and commissions, or the church council, or running the hospital charity softball tournament. When I am 80, I want to be looking up at her at the other end of the mask and drill, owning her parents practice, replacing the fillings her mother put in and admiring her father’s work in making my crowns 30 years past.

I wonder that if we chase the flat world, we will never be deep with roots that anchor us and our families to the RL community (rather than a virtual community like SL)?

I am reminded of a story I heard about the life of Henry David Thoreau. In his time in New England, to be considered to be a “polished” young gentleman, you had to have traveled to Europe for study and culture. If you didn’t you were looked down upon. When at a party, the poor Thoreau was asked if he had yet “done the continent”, Thoreau supposedly replied, “No, but I have traveled widely in Concord.”

And then I am reminded of an old Stan Rogers song about the demise of Canadian Maritime fishermen and the Atlantic fishing industry –

“So, what’s now this romantic boy,

Who laments what’s done and gone!

There was no romance on cold winter ocean,

And the gales sang an awful song,

But my father’s ship knew of wind and tide

And my blood is Maritime,

I heard an old song on Fisherman’s Wharf,

Can I sing it just one time?

Can I sing it just one time?”

Cross posted in Life in the Fast Lane

A third of this a third of that....

Does anybody else divide the school year into thirds? It is easy for me as we have three semesters and report cards just went out Friday. Next week we have 1/2 days as classroom teachers conduct parent conferences, and then we are off for US Thanksgiving. As a school district it feels like we are all taking one deep breath and saying "Phew". It is catch up time for me. Nobody is starting anything new, and I can look at my to do list and support tickets and clear the decks. Doing my special holiday backups that get archived off site, and generally pausing and taking that look back, and that look ahead.

I will do that look back and look ahead more formally at school, but in a general sense, the year with all of its frustrations feels good so far. Things that have not moved for years are moving ahead under our new IT structure (with lots more things to settle) but at least we are moving. Our new voice and video conferencing has great promise. My small steps that are introducing Web 2.0 tools are out there but not yet finding traction, but that will improve. The things that have not gone well are fixable, and with round one done in the new Progress Report system, we can attack the serious problems there in the next two months. The good thing is that some things went bad, very bad, so that the rumblings that came out my mouth months ago, are now all very clear and upfront in the minds of the people who should have been listening. Even though the last few weeks have been painful and stressful and could have been avoided with better planning and tighter management attention, the fiasco certainly seems to have focused folks attention. While we do not seem to do well at planning and thinking through problems, we are very familiar with crisis management and picking up the pieces after calamities. It seems to be a preferred management style, that I hope we can get away from.

This is my first attempt...

This is my first attempt to post a blog entry from my Jott account. listen

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The Dropout Factories

A analysis of US Dept of Education data by researchers Johns Hopkins for the Associated Press, has caught attention by labeling schools with very high dropout rates as "dropout factories". Media hype aside (one wonders if the study had not been done FOR Associated Press if the pejorative term would have used) the web posting on te local NBC affiliates site had this telling quote -

"Education researchers said specialized programs such as the ninth-grade academies at Hartford's high schools have shown promise in reversing dropout rates.

Other initiatives getting good marks include strong mentoring programs, after-school community programs and alternative schools that focus on special topics or practical skills that interest students and make them want to stay enrolled. Several schools also are bolstering their elementary-school reading programs, saying that students who fall behind as preteens may become so frustrated by their freshman year that they give up in disgust and leave.

"One of the indicators we ask schools to look at is the reading level of every third-grader, and to look at that statistic hard and fast," said Jay Smink, executive director of the National Dropout Prevention Center at Clemson University.

"For every kid that's not at grade level, you'd better initiate an intervention immediately or you'll be writing a dropout ticket for them, come ninth grade," he said.

Here is the link - http://www.nbc30.com/news/14452864/detail.html?dl=headlineclick

Cross posted in Life in the Fast Lane

The Times They Are a Changing

Today after school I ran errands, one of which was to stop and get a hair cut. One of the gals in the shop I frequent had a baby that day (a little earlier than was expected), and the buzz was all about the baby. Of course it took me back to that exciting, happy time in my life when my first was born. One of the things I was proud of was that I made sure I knew where the closest one hour photo place was. I had the camera primed and by the time both Grandma's left I had shot a roll of film with each, dashed out to the drug store and both left with a set of glossy pictures of their grandchild suitable for showing. Tonight my cutter remarked about the Dad (who was a cousin), "Yeah I waited until 5 to text him and he should be emailing pictures to my phone any time now.....


Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

A disappointing CECA/CEMA Conference in Hartford

Caution, rant ahead

My brethren and sisteran of CECA/CEMA, I cannot tell you how angry I am after attending your conference at the Hartford Convention Center today. I have to vent it all here tonight. Now let me begin by stating that I get it. It is an all volunteer effort. It is in a new venue and it was a marriage of money between the techies and the librarians to get the new Connecticut Convention Center. I did my time on the CECA Board way back, I did my time when CECA did two conferences (Fall in the western half of the state, Spring in the east). This year was a hard one. And yet, when on earth will you get it!

I am sorry. The conference was filled with lots of talk (but very little actual classroom practice) on Web 2.0. Where were the Web 2.0 tools for this conference? Where was the wiki set up? Where were the google docs? What was the common tagging format for the conference? Where were the Flickr photos being uploaded? Your keynote last year was David Warlick for God’s sake! He showed us how to use these tools in his presentation 12 months ago. Did it all fall on deaf ears? Here you have a couple of thousand people in a perfect place to collaborate on line - it was the POINT of your keynote in 2006!

What would have happened if there was a preset open wiki with each presentation having a page? Could we not have all edited and combined our notes into one big wiki that would have been there for everyone? Did anybody put the conference on Warlick’s Hitchhikr? Did the K12 Online conference running these two weeks ever get a mention (except by the one presenter who said it was over)? Nothing on the revised NETS adopted in June 2007? Did anybody Twitter? We are ostensibly the educational technology leaders for the state of Connecticut and you are the leaders of those leaders.

You chose as your keynote, Dr. Henry Lee (more about Henry later) and you put Kathy Schrock in a room that held 30 which crammed into 60, and others walked away because there was no room. You put Will Richardson on for closing remarks in the Ballroom at 4PM. Will Richardson, the godfather of educational blogging and the person everyone on a national level points to as a seminal voice in the educational Web 2.0 movement. Will Richardson delivered his thunder at 4PM before a couple of hundred people slowly dwindling as the hour went by as folks moved out to beat the 5PM traffic jams in Hartford. Henry Lee made snide remarks about tragic deaths in front of 3000.

I am sorry. Dr. Henry is a famous CT celebrity and has a national reputation in forensics. He does nothing that informs my practice, or gives me insight. He speaks with a thick accent that I find very hard to understand. He did attempt to be humorous in speaking about he cases he has been involved with. However, if I were the family of Vincent Foster or Shondra Levy I would have been disgusted to know that my relative’s tragic death was being used in a cavalier way in front of a audience of thousands. I tell you truly, I walked out. I know that there were many others who left upset with the graphic photos of the murder scenes. Henry Lee was the wrong choice.

Thank you Kathy for your grace in moving from the theory to practice and the sheer breadth of your knowledge. No matter when I hear you I cannot get over the font of resources you are. I hope to join you in Second Life on Thursday (Estaban Zenovka)
Thank you, Will for your impassioned clarity. You said in your blog a few weeks ago that you were wondering if it was all worth it. Please do not stop with your thunderous message. Judging from what I saw today, there are too many still living with their heads in the sand.

We must change. The world is changing around us. The kids are there, they are not waiting. The tools exist, they are free for the taking. When will CECA and the librarians in CEMA stop talking the talk and start walking the walk?

The clueless question of the day, after sitting through 35 minutes of a 45 minute presentation - “So, I am not sure I know where to find this Web 2.0. I don’t know how to connect to it. When I find it, will all these things you have talked about be listed on one page?”

Heaven help us…….

One Thing You Can Do...

I am posting this late on Sunday night because I have a n early and long day tomorrow. I have just a short message. Get involved in something that can make a difference. I am a tree hugger of the first rank and have been for a long time. From the very first Earthday through Silent Spring, through Nuclear Freeze, the Bottle Bills and Global Warming, I grew up with the environmental era. I decided long ago that I could march, I could protest, I could give money, I could support candidates and I could write letters. I was not sure that all of that was making more than a marginal difference. It seemed to me that it made the most sense to go where the power is. For me that was politics and land use issues, at the local level. What will eat up the pretty green valley where I live is farm land and forest land moving through subdivision and into suburbs and industrial parks. Sitting on local planning, zoning , and inland wetland commissions is not sexy work. It is long term, it requires a view that can deal with individual actions in the context of a larger town wide and regional picture. It is a minutiae driven work requiring an understanding of regulations, law and its applications. To do it well takes time, takes effort, and takes patience to bring an environmental perspective to and economic venue. And yet, that is where the power is, and made it all worth it. The preservation of habitat or at least the smartest destruction of habitat is one of the things that you can have a role in.

Act locally with a global commitment, you will make a difference.

Blog Action Day is Monday October 15 - The Topic is the Environment

Can a Student Call the Superintendent a "douche-bag" in Her Personal Blog?

Judge Rules On Student's Slur -- Courant.com

This case from my state was percolating in the news at the end of last school year. I will direct you to the article from the Hartford Courant for the current state of affairs. The short version is that the student was active in school affairs and a  popular spring activity was canceled because of some kind of screw up by the adults at the district level. The girl reacted in her blog and wrote the above slur about her  Supt. School found out, she had to have her mother come in, had to apologize, had to pull down the post(s) and was not allowed to run for class secretary. Banning her from running from office was the last straw. She protested and went to court. Case raised all kinds of on campus /off campus free speech issues that the judge has to sort through.

My take? As I wrote last spring, adults have to step up and not be thin skinned. It was an educational opportunity that the student certainly seized and is learning from. And I hereby declare that as a teacher I have at times been a douche-bag, the principals I work for at times have been douche-bags, and my central office staff have been douche-bags. And we will be again. I only hope the folks in her school district learn as much as she will from this case.

 

Back to the Wired World

I purposefully stayed away from the keys over the late summer. I wanted a break and I wanted to see if after a couple of years of social and professional blogging what would happen if I stopped. Would I want to continue? Would I miss the daily checking of others blogs and posting my ill formed and half baked thoughts.

Obviously, I am back. I found that the structure of the school year settled my daily routine and I was again curling up with the laptop in as part of my evening routine. I still don't know if what i have to say is professionally y relevant to anybody, but I enjoy reading the more powerful voices and I like pointing out some things of professional to me interest here.

I have some goals for incorporating Web 2.0 this year that are already being crowded out by the drumbeat of daily demands. I hope to have more here as I go along. Last week looked sooooo, promising, for implementing new ideaS and then all of a sudden, this week exploded.

However, I will get back to visiting Second Life and I am determined to continue my fledging work with Classroom Blogs and Wikis. More when I know it....

Counting Down to September not June

Scot McLeod wrote about the countdown mentality and what it means for schools. kids, teachers and learning.

(Dangerously Irrelevant: The countdown mentality). I too have been always struck by this phenomenon. It has been a curiosity from my earliest days of teaching where my colleague literally had a calendar by her desk and "X'ed" off each day starting with our first day inSeptember, to now where I work in a school system that has "added" extra days and hours to the school calendar (183 days for kids/186 for teachers) so that with an average set of school closings because of New England snow my last official day is Monday June 25 (one of several reasons I will not be at NECC07 in Atlanta). One of the interesting quirks is that we have our last professional development day on the last teacher day. So, our kids leave on Friday, and we all get to come back for one more day - Monday.  Quality PD time - you bet!



Now I am also one of the chosen few who have extra days added to my calendar and I work 10 days during the summer. Let's make that - I get paid for 10 summer days, the work is often longer than that. And it is all valuable work for teachers and kids. I will coordinate several new initiatives that will come on line in September.  A bunch of Smartboard classrooms, wireless in new places, a piece of the town wide VOIP phone system,  a new Filemaker and web available report card and student info system, plus our normal summer computer purchases and set up. The VOIP will require that I have a much tighter map of the physical data network in three buildings. Did I mention that my colleague and buddy took the job of Town -wide IT director job and  has the charge of molding us all into a new department, and step one is to hire his replacement by early July?  As other folks "X" off the days and talk about heading to the beach, or the mountains, I just look at work and rather than counting down to June, I start  counting down to August 27.

One of the things that I have noticed as this crowded summer schedule has grown, is that my body, my family life, and my spiritual being is much better when I have time to stop, let the batteries drain to zero, and recharge. Last July I was greatly energized by NECC06 and all the things I did in San Diego, however the most important part of the trip was the week after in the high desert of eastern Oregon, where I allowed myself to do nothing. To visit my friends, to wake early, read at dawn, run, take a hike, sightsee, and unplug. Making my mind think about things not normally part of its daily existence, taking time to read novels and the local papers rather than blogs and manuals did wonders for my spirit and energy. I do not know if this is just a by-product of running too hard, or if this type of break makes me better in my job, but I do know that it feels good. When I carve out these chunks where I disengage from my so called life and force myself to "be away" for a while, I gain perspective, ideas bubble up from somewhere deeper in my brain, and I am better for it.

That is one of the reasons I try to be objective and hold the wired world of Web 2.0 and blogging after work, and Skyping around the globe, and Twittering and heading off to Second Life after a full day in Real Life a full arm's length away. Being always available and always connected and always participating is at variance with what I have found necessary for my best efforts, and mental and physical health.

I do enjoy being unplugged and more and more I design time where I need to be far enough away from the people I work for so that they cannot find me for a while, and more importantly i cannot find them. I wonder if the new Nextel  Crackberry on my belt will get Push-To-Talk service in Hell's Canyon?

Sustitute Teacher Porn Case - Rick Green, Hartford Courant

Rick Green's take in today's Courant

Connecticut News from The Hartford Courant ::: State, Regions, & Towns On courant.com

Lesson In Justice `False Information,' `Erroneous' Testimony Cited As Judge Throws Out Teacher's Conviction June 7, 2007Sure I want to believe that the railroading of Norwich s

Norwich Substitute Teacher Porn Pop-up Case Granted New Trial

Yesterday, a judge ruled that the police "expert" who looked at the hard drive did not perform adequate checks for adware and spyware, and that an expert for the defense had not been afforded enough of a chance to present his evidence. Thus the jury did not have the correct evidence to make a judgement, and she should be afforded a new trial. A victory for the army of internet bloggers who took up the cause, and the dozen or so computer experts at our local colleges who took out ads in local papers (at their own expense) saying the original verdict was flawed. It is uncertain if the State will proceed with second trial or drop charges.

In a kind of bizzare side note, Amero's new lawyer for this phase of the case is William Dow, who defended disgraced ex-Connecticut governor John Rowland.

Norwich Bulletin - www.norwichbulletin.com - Norwich, Conn.

Amero gets new trial in porn case By GREG SMITH Norwich BulletinNEW LONDON -- Flawed testimony by a state expert witness led a Superior Court judge Wednesday to order a new trial for

Sex and Violence in Second Life

I ran across this Washington Post (via Hartford Courant) article on virtual sex, and disturbing child sex simulations in Second Life, that runs afoul of laws in Germany.  I am like many folks I read. Excited by the open nature of Second Life but there is this small voice in the back of my head that says, be cautious, be careful. I know that these stories often grab media attention and statistics suggest that reality is at variance with the headlines, but if you are a parent of a child there is only one statistical sample that matters to you, and that sample size is one. I have a good principal mentor who has said, "Most folks run for school board because of one or two kids.."

 

courant.com | Virtual Sex, Violence Pose Problem For Law

 

Sentencing in Norwich Teacher Porn Case Postponed for Fourth Time

Just an update on this case. Rick Green, writing in the Hartford Courant seemed to hit the nail on th ehead with his opinion piece.

 

Connecticut News from The Hartford Courant ::: State, Regions, & Towns On courant.com

http://www.courant.com/news/local/columnists/hc-rgreen0518.artmay18,0,418792.column?coll=hc-utility-home

 

 

Wait a minute, it stopped raining....

A funny thing happened on my way to my week in Second Life. After a cold, wet and miserable spring in New England, the sun came out and spring was sprung. All of a sudden SL could not compete with spring in RL in all its glory.

Work also picked up to a whole new level of intensity as projects that were in planning and formation stages have started to come together, and now are requiring extra effort. It is always a rush from April to June, but we undertook some network up grades to accommodate a new phone system and other system wide changes will take up time and energy beyond the usual duties of the day. My end of year is always intense. Others wind down. I am already looking at next year. Setting up summer work, planning for September, all that happens now. It is always busy and these special projects have are taking there time on top of the normal hustle. It is all good, there is change in the air that will cut some Gordian knots and unlock some logjams that will help my teachers and students down the road.

And I will admit, softball games, running, riding my bike, cruising on the motorcycle, and getting down to the river the fly rod have seemed better choices after work than curling up with a cup of tea and a wireless laptop. The only the better than spring in New England? Summer in New England!

Day 2 - The SL Vacation of Estaban Zenovka

The RL Blog of the Sl Vacation of Estaban Zenovka

Day 2 - 4/15/07 7:00-8:00 AM

I had a little time to play this AM. I was able to modify my appearance and learned how to thicken my body into a hunkier, muscular SL me rather the relatively skinny “city-hip” avatar that I began with. I liked the shocking green hairdo that I developed. From one of the tips I learned, I “forced” daylight so that I could see more things around me. I had entered and found myself in SL night, which would have been cool, but I had to head off to work this AM and I wanted to play a little. I also began teaching myself how to make things using shapes and tools. I stretched a donut shaped cylinder into a large tube, and painted it with a large orange tinted American flag paint job. I was able to edit the script’s welcome message and “touch message”. And then I had to go to school to be on call at my level for the central core network switch out/upgrade happening this weekend.

Nobody around SL at this time of day, at least where I was.

The Spring Break of Estaban Zenovka - A RL Blog of a SL Experience

A RL Blog of a SL experience

The Spring Break of Estaban Zenovka

I have now been in SL 3 times. I joined last weekend. Made an avatar and wandered pretty clueless for a while. I completed the orientation island sequence and wandered around aimlessly. I realized here I have no skills, little knowledge, and currently no skills and no way to make money. Like a FOB (fresh off the boat) immigrant, I ran to ISTE headquarters to find people like me. It really is like an immigration experience. I am struck by all the parallels that my ancestors would have encountered as they came from Europe to the USA a hundred years ago. You need friends that can help. It would be great to have family in place. A place like ISTE is what the Polish Falcon Club or the Knights of Lithuania, or a church of your faith and language must have been for my grandparents. One powerful difference. I can read and speak the language of most of the people here. And I do not have to pay money to eat and survive.

Day 1 – 4/12/07 9-10PM

Enjoyed the chat at the ISTE Headquarters. Made two new friends Ceni and Indrid. All of us are new and traded info on how to do stuff. Indrid is from Bangkok and Ceni is from the West Coast.

My Take on Imus

My take on Chris Lehman's Imus post in: Practical Theory

My Take on Imus.

A little disclosure.

1) I grew up in western CT. I turned in my teenage years to New York radio to follow sports (Mets, Rangers, Knicks, and Giants). In that capacity I ran across Imus in his early years of shock jockism when he was local and just NY market.

2) Trust me, if you think he is racist and misogynistic in his latest comments, he was far beyond his more polished national presence of today. You do not hear him playing “the aerobics lady” with sexual grunts in the background of a female guest these days or asking a female caller to “sit on the radio while I kiss the mic”. And in full disclosure, as a less refined youth, I was right there with that kind of humor. However, even in recent years (and I hardly listen because of geography, and schedule) his crudeness has worn on me and his attempts to excuse his bad taste with the cover of charitable works, and the patina of respect because national politicians need his New York based drive time audience, have left me cold.

3) I am a long time UCONN Women’s basketball fan. Season ticket holder, alumni giver, from away back before the rise to national power. Back in the days where you could go on a Sunday afternoon and sit wherever you wanted in Gampel and take your 4 year old daughter down to see her face in the tubas (the same daughter who will graduate magna um laude in three weeks from UCONN), and when the Big East had their tournaments at Gampel you could go at 10 AM on a Saturday and see six games in a row and walk over to the Syracuse coach or the kids on St. Johns and chat about their upcoming or just game just past, and where when sitting courtside I saw the young Rebecca Lobo rip a rebound down and without hesitation power right back up to the rim and put it back, I knew the game had changed forever, because this woman finally played the game like the men.

4) Because I bleed Husky Blue, of course I hate Rutgers, and I hate Tennessee. Yet, I respect their athletes, I respect their coaches, and I respect how hard they work, how well they perform, and I love the equity of game at high levels. I do not get caught up in the media story lines. Pat versus Geno, Rutgers mouth vs. Geno’s mouth. It always about the game the adjustments, the match ups and play. I knew when LSU sagged and dared UCONN to shoot 3’s and Mel Thomas couldn’t bomb, it was over. Great game plan. Geno got out coached, and had no tools to go to. Good job LSU, great job Rutgers to shut down Sylvia Fowles in the next game.

OK, I’ll stop, but I needed to put my next comments in context. It is not only WFAN that as Chris Lehman says should be contacted but also MSNBC. He should be fired, but maybe even better than that he should be suspended for 2 weeks. Bring a whole ton of attention to his show and let him live through the consequences when he comes back. And every politician (from my two Senators Lieberman and Dodd, to John McCain, to Tim Russert, to Bill Clinton and every suck up presidential wanna be has refuse to go on, and publicly say why. Suck the very oxygen he lives on away from him and enjoy it as he dies a slow agonizing public demise.

Imus Comments Offensive

Fire Don Imus

From: Practical Theory

By chris@practicaltheory.org (Chris Lehmann) on Sports / Coaching

Long time "shock jock" Don Imus went too far this time when he was talking about the women's college basketball final between Tennessee and Rutgers. From ESPN.com:I

mus was speaking with producer Bernard McGurk when the NCAA title game between Rutgers and Tennessee came up.



            "That's some rough girls from Rutgers," Imus said. "Man, they got tattoos ... "

            "Some hardcore hos," said McGurk.

            "That's some nappy headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said.



Imus has long made a career off of pushing the envelope, but this crosses a line into such vile racist, sexist language against a group of young women who's only "crime" was being athletes at the top of their game. This hateful language should not be allowed to be explained away with "Whoops, just a joke folks..." There are some things that are just hateful and wrong, no matter how many hastily written PR apologies are made.



This is offensive on so many levels. One, the obvious racism is horrific. But even beyond the racism, there's a sexism that, after ten years of coaching high school girls basketball, that pains me. I am sick of seeing this. It's vile, it's hateful, it's disgusting, and it really has no place on our airwaves.



So Monday morning, at the opening of business hours, I'm calling WFAN and registering my displeasure that Imus is allowed to say such things on the air, and I will be adding my voice to the chorus of those calling for Imus to be taken off the air.



Should you be so inclined:



WFAN-AM

34-12 36th Street

Astoria, NY 11106

718 706 7690

No Child Left w/out an iPod

From the Detroit News (online) via Stumble Upon

An iPod for every kid? Are they !#$!ing idiots?

We have come to the conclusion that the crisis Michigan faces is not a shortage of revenue, but an excess of idiocy. Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child in Michigan.

No cost estimate was attached to their hare-brained idea to "invest" in education. Details, we are promised, will follow.

The Healthy Media Diet - No More No TV Weeks

I wanted to write about “No TV Week”. We do a lot of that in my district. We have for years. It is that time of year again. Last year I attended a PTO talk by a parent/grad student who was doing some research in the effect of TV and other images on behavior. At the level of the “Principal’s Coffee Hour” type talk it was fairly light. And in some senses it ended up being a “preaching to the choir” type talk. The group that gathered were limiting TV time and it kind of became a parental one-upmanship to declare how much you were limiting your kids and how many classic pieces of literature they had read. It was not my show. I was just being there to help with the set up and make sure the technology worked for the parent/guest speaker.

Toward the end I offered a few timid comments that it really was not TV, it was all the media that the children could access these days. I even offered that perhaps in contrast to the parents who were declaring to the choir that they had a 8 inch black & white TV’s that only get turned on during an eclipse that TiVO style services where you can pick and choose the content, the time you want to see things and when you want to consume it might be a good thing. Silence and cold stares.

I have thought a lot about that over the year and more as we have come up on that season again. I am pleased to say that in that school the theme is switched from “No TV Week” to “Fitness Week” which I think does a good job of switching a negative denial type focus to a positive focus.

What I could not articulate to that group of parents is that the entire media landscape is caving in. It is no longer the villain “boob tube”. It is the boob computer, the boob PS2, the boob gameboy, the boob iPod, the boob Internet radio, the IM’s, the Direct TV’s the expansion of cable delivered choices, the home delivery of Blockbuster and Netfix, Apple TV and on, and on.

We in CT are concerned about childhood obesity and healthy child life styles. We have a state initiative called No Child Left Inside. I wonder if we in school should sponsor a “No Fast Food” or a “No Refined Sugar” week. That wouldn’t work, because kids would substitute and cheat (like my daughter who gave up chocolate for Lent and so had to get coffee ice cream because that was not in violation of her promise to herself and God.). I think that parents would rightly stop and say – why are we denying a certain type of food for a week? What good will that do? Isn’t the idea to provide a healthy diet with healthy choices all the time? Sure you can have candy, just in moderation and at the correct time. You should eat a healthy breakfast to start and sustain you through the day. You should have adequate veggies, but a bag of chips is OK once in a while.

Is it not the same with media? Is it not case of creating a healthy media diet? Are the choices these days so rich and varied, is the ability to time shift and consume it on your terms the same as making good choices about choosing food? If you are going to sit in front of the refrigerator and pig out, you will get a certain result. If you make good choices about what, where, how, and how much you consume you will get another. Can we get to the point as teachers and parents to see that information is information, no matter what the medium of delivery. That words on paper are valuable, but that a short film is just as important. The media can contribute to the power, clarity and impact of the message. Which is better, reading the text of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” or listening to him say it, or watching him deliver it?

So for me, maybe there should no longer be “No TV Weeks” there should be “Creating a Healthy Media Diet Week”, where we explore the ever expanding media delivery choices and ways to make balanced and healthy media choices that fit into a balanced life style of working and playing.

halsdfhas

Teacher tube test

test

Famundo

Free Online Calendar - Families, Schools, Church and more

New Group calendaring site, from the Women of the Web 2.0  podcast.

 

Norwich Bulletin Opinion 3/18/07 - Porn was Amero's burden - Failure to protect children is the crime

Norwich Bulletin - www.norwichbulletin.com - Norwich, Conn.

Our view: Porn was Amero's burden

Failure to protect children is the crime

Julie Amero is scheduled to be sentenced March 29 in Norwich Superior Court. It is a sentencing and a case that has received international attention.

Amero could receive up to 40 years, if she gets the maximum sentence allowable for each of her four convictions of risk of injury to a minor, and the judge orders them to be served consecutively. It's an unlikely sentence, even though children were exposed to six hours of Internet pornography under Amero's watch. We think Amero is likely to receive some sort of community service, and it would be a fair sentence.

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Amero has many supporters, which should not sway the court, as most of them have formed opinions based on limited knowledge of the facts of the case, or simple hearsay. At the heart of this international debate is whether Amero was responsible for causing the pornography to be on the computer screen for an entire school day, when seventh-grade students were able to view it. Many in the technology field have suggested she was the victim of a "porn storm," which were frequent problems in 2004, when the incident occurred. Some suggested the computer was overtaken by malware or spyware, technical parasites that will plant unwanted images, pop-ups, etc., onto a computer. Some have suggested Amero was the victim of a conspiracy by students.

Read the transcripts of the case and many of these arguments become moot. Read Amero's own words. Yes, there were victims: the children in the classroom who saw the graphic images. Six of them testified to the events of Oct. 19, 2004. Whether Amero was purposefully exploring pornographic Web sites, or was the victim of a technological assault, is irrelevant. She was the adult entrusted with the safety of those children, and she failed.

However, Amero is not the only one to blame. Pornographic sites should never have been able to appear on that school computer. The fact the school's protection against these sites was outdated falls firmly in the lap of the school district. Whoever did not do their job to ensure the proper fees were paid and the licensing was up-to-date deserves to be fired. Based on information the district has shared with the community, we believe the district has done its due diligence to ensure this kind of problem never occurs again.

The school district did have protection for the computers and should expect its teachers to have a smidgen of sensibility if an issue arose. That didn't happen Oct. 19, 2004.

Testimony tells the story

Let's look at the facts.

Amero testified the pornography was popping up all day. She said she tried to stop it but could not. She admitted leaving the classroom door open during her break. She said it never occurred to her to turn off the monitor, or unplug the computer. She did tell others she was having a problem with pop-ups, but she never explained they were pornographic -- a significant detail. She admitted it was possible students had seen the pop-ups. She even discussed the problem with students. Amero never went to the main office and did not discuss the issue with the principal until the next day, when she was questioned.

Somehow, after Amero left the school for the day, the pop-ups stopped. There is no record of them appearing before or after Amero was on that computer, or of there being pop-ups on any other computer at the school.

Different scenario

Let's assume for a moment that Amero was, in fact, the victim of a technical problem. What if the issue wasn't a technical problem? What if the problem was a racy magazine? Would she leave it open all day on her desk and push students away if they came to take a look, or would she close the magazine and put it away?

What if the problem was a fire in a trash can she did not start? Would Amero have done nothing, just as she did with the pop-ups? Would the excuse have been that she was not allowed to touch anything? What if the problem had been a fight in the class between students? Would Amero have run to the lounge and said, "I have misbehaving students," and not explained fully what the problem was?

Julie Amero does not deserve to teach in a classroom. She is incapable of ensuring the safety of children. We base this on Amero's testimony. She is an educated woman with more than minimal substitute teaching experience, yet she was unable -- or, worse, refused -- to solve the pop-up issue. Couldn't she, for example, have taped some paper over the screen? There were many avenues Amero could have explored, but did not, to rectify the problem.

Amero's conviction ensures she will not teach children again. That, not prison time, is the critical issue. If she never serves a day in prison, justice will have been served.

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	The State of Connecticut, the city of Norwich and the Norwich School System have rightly become laughingstocks in the eyes of the world. The Norwich Bulletin has disgraced itself every step of the way -- from Greg Smith's reporting, to Dan Axelrod's now whitewashed blog, to the editorial positions that you have taken. You have now capped it off. You will deserve every bit of the abuse you now receive. Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 7:15 am
	Thank you to your editors for finally making sense about this case. As someone who has worked in education for years, including as a substitute teacher, this case is a joke. The evidence that has been released shows what you said - that there was no porn before or after she left the class. This implies that it was visited while she was in room. If the sites were all popups, wouldn't they popup before and after she was there too? She is also guilty of doing nothing - and as someone who was an "experienced educator" she should have done something. A larger issue though, is why she was even on the computer in the first place. As a substitute, I never even turn on the classroom computer. There are private records and other important, confidential data stored on classroom computers - and a substitute has no business using the computer. Besides, as any teacher will attest, you don't have time to sit on the computer all day when you are supervising students correctly. She is guilty of being a poor substitute and not doing enough to protect her students. I'm glad to see that people are starting to stop making her look like the victim in this case. Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 6:29 am

From Peter Reilly's- Ed tech Journeys

Ed Tech Journeys

Education’s Hidden Messages March 16th, 2007 by preillyHidden messages are being delivered by our educational system to our students each and every day.



Peter asks and discusses what are these hidden messages?



Everytime I read Peter Reilly, my jaw drops and my brain hurts. Thank you, Pete.

For Fran - an aspiring Math teacher

Via Cool Cat Teacher

7math » home: "Welcome to the Seventh Grade Math Page!
Thanks for stopping by. Please feel free to share any ideas or resources you use for teaching any of the topics listed below.

Alabama Course of Study - 7th Grade Math
1 - Integers
2 – Order of Operations
3 – Rational Numbers
4 – Patterns as Algebraic Equation
5 – Translate Algebraic Expressions
6 – Equations
7 – Transformations
8 – Geometric Relationships, 2D-3D
9 – Circles
10 – Perimeter and Area
11 – Proportional Reasoning
12 – Measures of Central Tendency
13 – Probability of Compound Events

The Alabama State Department of Education published a Curriculum Guide to be used with special education students. It contains useful information concerning prerequisite skills for each objective."

Latest Article in Local Paper on Sub Teacher Porn Case

Latest Article in Local Paper on Sub Teacher Porn Case

http://norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/NEWS01/703090344

Experts rebuke Amero ruling
By GREG SMITH
Norwich Bulletin

The president of a Florida computer protection software company, skeptical of the conviction of a Norwich substitute teacher in a computer porn case, says computer experts are joining to aid in her defense.

Alex Eckelberry, owner of Sunbelt Software, said he and a "forensic team of A-list players across the country" are performing a forensic technical review of the computer hard drive used in the January conviction of Julie Amero.

Amero was convicted by a jury of exposing seventh-graders at Kelly Middle School to pornographic images on her classroom computer. The case has spawned a firestorm of debate and sympathy for many who see Amero as a victim of adware, or pop-up Internet advertisements. Evidence proving the claims, however, has not been presented in a court of law.

Eckelberry, who is among many to lambaste the conviction, said he is still analyzing evidence, but remains skeptical of the prosecution. He declined to mention names of other people involved.

"In this case, what we see is a preponderance of evidence showing pop-ups were occurring," he said.

Convicted on four counts of risk of injury to a minor, Amero faces the possibility of up to 40 years in jail when she is sentenced March 29 in Norwich Superior Court.

She is soliciting funds for her appeal on a blog site and her defense attorney had the sentencing postponed while other attorneys join the case.

Recently, a group of Connecticut professors signed their names to an advertisement asking State's Attorney Kevin Kane to perform an independent investigation. Kane declined comment on the matter.

Two University of Connecticut computer professors, whose names appear in the ad, said they read about Amero and think it's plausible she inadvertently accessed pornography, though they have not examined evidence in the case.

"I think the whole thing was blown out of proportion," said UConn computer professor Dong-Guk Shin. "Whether it was inadvertent or intentional, I think one of the bigger issues is the penalty going to fit the crime? Was there intent to harm a child? Was it criminal or carelessness? I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt."

Thomas Peters, a professor of computer science and engineering at UConn, said, "There's a lot of plausibility that this could have happened inadvertently. I don't question the judicial process. I think it doesn't seem there was a complete investigation in the case."

He said it only seems reasonable to do a full forensic investigation.

"It may exonerate her or it may convict her," Peterson said.

Both men said they became aware of the case through e-mails circulated at the school.

Norwich police Det. Mark Lounsbury, who performed the investigation in the case, presented evidence pornographic sites were accessed continuously for nearly two hours on the morning of Oct. 19, 2004. Ten male students admitted seeing images of nude men and women.

Lounsbury, who has come under fire by columnists and bloggers, stands by the evidence.

"What we're talking about is Web pages, clearly distinguishable between unwanted ads," Lounsbury said. "Clearly pages were accessed."

Lounsbury said he has no doubt adware was downloaded on the computer as certain sites were accessed, but he said people are drawing conclusions without the evidence at hand.

"I've seen a lot of talk, with nothing to substantiate that," Lounsbury said. "This isn't a guessing game. If you're going to blame a particular piece of software for doing something, you should be able to find that software."

Some people blame a lack of filtering protection on the school computers.

Robert Hartz, information services director for the Norwich School system, testified the content filtering, or firewall, remained in place, but had not been updated correctly during the previous months because the license had not been activated. The filtering system didn't regularly add newly discovered pornographic sites to its restricted Web sites database on the school's 2,000 computers.

"If the school had adequate protection, this would never had happened, certainly not to the degree that it did," Eckelberry contended. "The jury's out whether it would have blocked all these things, but this would have made a significant difference. The machine was basically unprotected."

Hartz contends, however, Norwich's filtering software failed to stop school computer users from accessing inappropriate Web sites just six times since 1998.

Under rules of the Federal Communication Commission's Children's Internet Protection Act, schools receiving federal funds must have an Internet safety program which includes measures "to filter Internet access" to obscene material.

Amero, despite having been reprimanded in the past for computer use at the school, claimed to be computer illiterate and hesitant to shut off the machine.

"It's blindly clear to me a half-day seminar of computer security and we would not be having this problem," Eckelberry said.

Reach Greg Smith at 425-4219 or gasmith@norwichbulletin.com

MySpace.com in CT

Several of the local TV news stations gave the story below a bit more detail including the fact that if you were under 18 along w/ the age verification the parent would have to be given access to their child's site. I have not seen any details on how this would be done but in his news conference, Blumenthal declared that "there is no excuse, the technology exists".

More to come as the legislature has hearings scheduled on the proposed law today.

A series six of well publicized MySpace sexual predator cases in CT has kept the issue and MySpace in the general public eye and in the educational world over the past year or so. One case had a 31 year old posing as a teenager using MySpace to arrange meetings. He raped at least 7 underage users (the youngest known was 14). Blumenthal who has a good rep as an AG with a activist bent for using his office in consumer protection, child welfare, etc. He is not afraid to use his office and get involved on the legal side of issues in the public eye.

In some ways he may be right in his anger at MySpace in particular. I checked in at MySpace after they announced they had put increased safety measures in place after an earlier case about 2 years ago. I was not so impressed. I thought that another service - Xanga had developed more visible and more intuitive controls for their entries especially their "footprints" feature that lets you see info about who is looking at your site, the ability to require a person to be signed in to Xanga as a user to view your site, and the ability for the user to rate their content as adult, where only people who choose to verify their age (via a credit card check, I think) can read it. I have seen some 3rd party stuff that works w/ MySpace to see who is looking at your site, but I saw nothing really clear on their site last time I looked.

From courant.com
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Blumenthal, Lawmakers Want Age Verification Rules For Myspace.com
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By SUSAN HAIGH
Associated Press Writer

March 7, 2007, 12:33 PM EST

HARTFORD -- Connecticut officials unveiled legislation Wednesday that would require MySpace.com and other social networking web sites to verify users' ages and obtain parental consent before minors post profiles online.

The bill comes a day after a man was sentenced to 14 years in prison for using MySpace.com to set up a sexual encounter with an 11-year-old Connecticut girl. It was one of the first federal sex cases involving the popular networking site.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who met with other attorneys general on Tuesday, said 10 to 20 other states are considering similar legislation.

"The technology is available. The solution is financially feasible, practically doable," he said. "If we can put a man on the moon, we can check ages of people on these web sites."

Under the proposal, any networking site that fails to verify ages and obtain parental permission from parents to post profiles of users under 18 would face civil fines up to $5,000 per violation. Sites would have to check information about parents to make sure it is legitimate. Parents would be contacted directly when necessary.

A call seeking comment was left with a MySpace.com spokeswoman.

The bill, which is scheduled for a public hearing on Thursday, would apply to any organized online networking organization, including chat rooms.

MySpace.com, which has become a lightning rod for warnings about online sexual predators, purports to be the largest social networking Web site, with more than 100 million registered users. The site lets users post photos, blogs and journals. There have been scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors they met through the site.