Today is Earth Day and I continue to wonder where the world will be and how will things be different in say 20 years. More importantly, what part are you playing in the digital revolution? In the last few days there has been a lot of discussion (read blogging) about "being here for the learning revolution."
I have been involved in technology for many years but only recently has it seemed as if the world has suddenly opened up to me about the power of what I sit in front of, my laptop. After the last two weeks, I can no longer refer to this piece of equipment as merely a tool. I can no longer say that I am alone in Dallas, TX., writing for myself, I can no longer ignore the fact that we are all called to make a difference, and yet I am almost at a point of not knowing what direction to go.
Last week we met with a Sister of St. Mary of Namur by the name of Immaculee Mukabugabo from Rwanda. She was visiting the school for several reasons but the biggest was to make connection with us as we try to put together what we refer to as a "Global Partnership" with another SSMN school in Rwanda. We asked many questions and were having a wonderful discussion when the question of the 1994 genocide came up and how this had affected the children who are at the school.
Sister talked at length about how at certain times of the year the students struggled with just getting out of bed because of the memories of that period, or the loss of family members. Then Sister took the chance of trusting and being comfortable enough with us on only the second day of her visit to tell her story of what they went through trying to protect innocent people as well as save their own lives from the horrible destruction. I truly felt as if I were standing on Sacred Ground while listening to Sister tell her story.
With the help of Wes Fryer's posts about the Celebrate Oklahoma Voices Project, we decided we needed to start our own voices project. In the next few days we hope to have posted to our school site a section called "Voices." This will be voices of people that have spoken to the students on different subjects with Sister's being the first one. We also hope to include many others who have stories to tell. The power of the voice will truly be something for us to be a part of, continuing to take us further down the road of revolution.
Our next hope is to help bring the revolution to our global partner in Kibuye, Rwanda. They exist in a situation where they hope to get equipment to bring not only TV to their school but also Internet service as well. I continue to look for ways to help make that happen.
So many voices to listen to and so little time.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Earth Day - Celebrate it
Over the weekend many places were holding Earth Day activities. As I watched some of the traffic on Twitter, I saw a couple of post saying that solar energy is not as good what many people seem to think it is. With that in mind I did a search for an old reliable book that I used many years ago trying to teach students about the need to conserve, reduce, reuse and recycle. The book 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth was easy enough to find on the web and I had to go digging through my stored boxes of books to find my original version of the book.
The new version has been updated. One of the things that it says it to simply pick one thing, one item from the book that truly interests you and work on that, get that word out, help others to understand what that means to you and maybe, that one item will become someone else's and the ripple effect will start anew.
I recently changed the majority (about 80%) of the bulbs in my house to compact fluorescent bulbs. While I realize there is still a bit of a problem with disposal, I have decided that it is necessary to begin making a change in some way. I have also decided I will hang on to those bulbs that burn out until I can find somewhere that will properly dispose of them.
When we first moved in to the house we now live in, we added insulation in the attic, we installed new, energy efficient refrigerator, washer, dryer and central ac/heating system as well as installing a programmable thermostat. Just recently I replaced one of my water heaters with a new high efficiency water heater. The affect of all these changes was that my utility bill has dropped.
Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day. Celebrate it, embrace it, do something to help keep the Earth green.
50 simple things to help sustain the Earth, which one to lock in on!!
The new version has been updated. One of the things that it says it to simply pick one thing, one item from the book that truly interests you and work on that, get that word out, help others to understand what that means to you and maybe, that one item will become someone else's and the ripple effect will start anew.
I recently changed the majority (about 80%) of the bulbs in my house to compact fluorescent bulbs. While I realize there is still a bit of a problem with disposal, I have decided that it is necessary to begin making a change in some way. I have also decided I will hang on to those bulbs that burn out until I can find somewhere that will properly dispose of them.
When we first moved in to the house we now live in, we added insulation in the attic, we installed new, energy efficient refrigerator, washer, dryer and central ac/heating system as well as installing a programmable thermostat. Just recently I replaced one of my water heaters with a new high efficiency water heater. The affect of all these changes was that my utility bill has dropped.
Tuesday, April 22, is Earth Day. Celebrate it, embrace it, do something to help keep the Earth green.
50 simple things to help sustain the Earth, which one to lock in on!!
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The Cost of Not Getting an Education
Tonight I had the opportunity to listen to the Honorable Craig Watkins, District Attorney of Dallas, TX. He spoke at the school as part of our Geo-Tech Lecture Series. The lecture series was started to bring speakers of influence in to speak about social justice and human rights issues.
Mr. Watkins is the first African American District Attorney in the U.S. He is also part of a program that has helped 16 incarcerated individuals to be released from prison through the use of DNA testing. The national program that is in place is called The Innocence Project. Today the 16th person was released. Mr. Watkins has been instrumental in the program here in Dallas.
So what is the cost of not getting an education? According to the statistics I heard tonight, 75% of those incarcerated did not graduate high school. Add that statistic with the latest statistics concerning the number of students that drop out and we are in for some serious prison building if we don't reverse the trend. Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people that don't get a high school degree and are great citizens, but if we continue to cause our students to "power down" when they walk in to our buildings, then we aren't helping the cause.
Another statistic thrown out this evening was the amount of money given to a school to educate a child in Dallas, was $8 a day. The amount of money given to the prison system for a person that is incarcerated is $34 per day. How does that happen? Four times as much money given per person to the prison system than to the education system?
I look forward to Mr. Watson coming back to the school to speak to our seniors in a smaller setting, and I applaud him for the tremendous work he has done, but maybe we need to rattle the cages down in the capital to help them get the funding priorities straight.
More research to do.
Mr. Watkins is the first African American District Attorney in the U.S. He is also part of a program that has helped 16 incarcerated individuals to be released from prison through the use of DNA testing. The national program that is in place is called The Innocence Project. Today the 16th person was released. Mr. Watkins has been instrumental in the program here in Dallas.
So what is the cost of not getting an education? According to the statistics I heard tonight, 75% of those incarcerated did not graduate high school. Add that statistic with the latest statistics concerning the number of students that drop out and we are in for some serious prison building if we don't reverse the trend. Now don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people that don't get a high school degree and are great citizens, but if we continue to cause our students to "power down" when they walk in to our buildings, then we aren't helping the cause.
Another statistic thrown out this evening was the amount of money given to a school to educate a child in Dallas, was $8 a day. The amount of money given to the prison system for a person that is incarcerated is $34 per day. How does that happen? Four times as much money given per person to the prison system than to the education system?
I look forward to Mr. Watson coming back to the school to speak to our seniors in a smaller setting, and I applaud him for the tremendous work he has done, but maybe we need to rattle the cages down in the capital to help them get the funding priorities straight.
More research to do.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Rwanda on the Horizon
This week at the school we will be visited by a Sister of St. Mary of Namur who was the principal of Sainte Marie School in Kibuye, Rwanda. The information received from Sr. Immaculee Mukabugabo was very interesting. They are primarily a boarding school with 303 students, 301 girls and 2 boys. 293 of the students are boarders living on campus and 10 come in each day from the town. The students range in age from 12 - 19.
At each level of the educational process the students must take a National Exam and this determines whether or not the student progresses to the next level. The 6th year of Primary results in the National Exam and if a student does not pass they may take 6th grade for up to 4 times. She did not say what happened if they did not pass after that time. The students then move to the secondary school cycle which has two levels a basic studies and a senior cycle of high school. Each of these also ends with aNational Exam to see if the student progresses to the next level.
Tuition at this school is $163 for older students and first year students pay $195. They take 7 to 8 hours of classes a day and also help with the care of the classrooms and the campus before classes begin. When Sr. Immaculee was asked about needs of the school, the first thing mentioned was more classrooms to accomodate the children that want to come to school. They just don't have enough rooms. The second thing mentioned was the lack of Internet access. They have no telephone connection at the school because of the expense of getting the line to the school. Her third item was a parabolic antenna for being able to access television so that students could at least know what was going on elsewhere in the world.
As I reflected on all the things we have available to our students, I thought there has to be a way to make some of these things happen. I am currently part of a team that hopes to journey to Rwanda in December to make connection with the school and the teachers there. My hope is to also help begin to bridge the gap that they are experiencing. The one thing that Sister mentioned was that the poverty of the students and the families they come from is so incredible and then for them to try and pay $160-$195. If we can get them on the web the need for a better vehicle to take the students on educational field trips is lessened to some degree because then the world is open to them.
I look forward to the trip and I look forward to any and all input for ways to help make some of these things happen. More information will be forthcoming when Sr. Immaculee Mukabugabo visits on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
So many gifts and so many to share.
At each level of the educational process the students must take a National Exam and this determines whether or not the student progresses to the next level. The 6th year of Primary results in the National Exam and if a student does not pass they may take 6th grade for up to 4 times. She did not say what happened if they did not pass after that time. The students then move to the secondary school cycle which has two levels a basic studies and a senior cycle of high school. Each of these also ends with aNational Exam to see if the student progresses to the next level.
Tuition at this school is $163 for older students and first year students pay $195. They take 7 to 8 hours of classes a day and also help with the care of the classrooms and the campus before classes begin. When Sr. Immaculee was asked about needs of the school, the first thing mentioned was more classrooms to accomodate the children that want to come to school. They just don't have enough rooms. The second thing mentioned was the lack of Internet access. They have no telephone connection at the school because of the expense of getting the line to the school. Her third item was a parabolic antenna for being able to access television so that students could at least know what was going on elsewhere in the world.
As I reflected on all the things we have available to our students, I thought there has to be a way to make some of these things happen. I am currently part of a team that hopes to journey to Rwanda in December to make connection with the school and the teachers there. My hope is to also help begin to bridge the gap that they are experiencing. The one thing that Sister mentioned was that the poverty of the students and the families they come from is so incredible and then for them to try and pay $160-$195. If we can get them on the web the need for a better vehicle to take the students on educational field trips is lessened to some degree because then the world is open to them.
I look forward to the trip and I look forward to any and all input for ways to help make some of these things happen. More information will be forthcoming when Sr. Immaculee Mukabugabo visits on Wednesday and Thursday of this week.
So many gifts and so many to share.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
It's not about the hardware
Today I received a call from a company that works for Edline, our online portal for parents, students and teachers. The gist of the call was that they had a local station that wanted to come out and do a story on how we were using different ed-tech tools, especially Edline for the benefit of students.
I spoke with the principal, a couple of teachers and several students to give them a heads up about what was going to take place and we wanted them to talk about it on camera. On arrival, the reporter, a graduate of Incarnate Word High School in San Antonio, was asking me questions about some of our programs. We are currently in the 2nd year of an iPod initiative with our incoming freshmen as well as many other things to hopefully help encourage our students to become life long learners.
As we progressed through the discussion and the interview it seemed to focus more on the hardware than education. As I watched and listened to the questions and the direction of the interviews I began thinking how many people feel the same way? How many people feel that as long as we have a lot of equipment we are doing well? Or how many people feel that because we don't have certain equipment then we can't do what we need to so maybe we shouldn't try? I may be jumping too hard on the interview process as I have not seen the final product, bad storms in the area have taken much of the news time this evening.
After reading Miguel's entry on "What Is Your Stop Doing List" I think maybe looking at what we do in that manner may open some new mental doors.
So many wonderful reads out there and so few hours in the day.
I spoke with the principal, a couple of teachers and several students to give them a heads up about what was going to take place and we wanted them to talk about it on camera. On arrival, the reporter, a graduate of Incarnate Word High School in San Antonio, was asking me questions about some of our programs. We are currently in the 2nd year of an iPod initiative with our incoming freshmen as well as many other things to hopefully help encourage our students to become life long learners.
As we progressed through the discussion and the interview it seemed to focus more on the hardware than education. As I watched and listened to the questions and the direction of the interviews I began thinking how many people feel the same way? How many people feel that as long as we have a lot of equipment we are doing well? Or how many people feel that because we don't have certain equipment then we can't do what we need to so maybe we shouldn't try? I may be jumping too hard on the interview process as I have not seen the final product, bad storms in the area have taken much of the news time this evening.
After reading Miguel's entry on "What Is Your Stop Doing List" I think maybe looking at what we do in that manner may open some new mental doors.
So many wonderful reads out there and so few hours in the day.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)