Virtual field trip will show students how Google doodles come to life

As part of the seventh annual Doodle 4 Google ^[1] competition, Discovery Education ^[2] and Google ^[3] are taking students from across the U.S. behind the scenes to meet the team of artists who create the doodles on Google’s home page.

Through a live virtual field trip, students nationwide will have a chance to hear from the Google illustrators and engineers behind the world-renowned doodles. “From Sketches to the Google Homepage” will broadcast live from Google headquarters on Wednesday, March 5, at 1 p.m. ET.

The virtual field trip will give students a first-hand look at how a doodle comes to life—including the brainstorming, design tools, and science behind the process. In addition, Sabrina Brady, the 2013 Doodle 4 Google competition winner, will discuss how she created her doodle and is pursuing her dreams in art school.

“Discovery Education is thrilled to work with Google to inspire students nationwide with real-world experiences that deepen engagement,” said Lori McFarling, chief marketing officer for Discovery Education, in a press release.

“Sparking student curiosity not only ignites innovative thinking, but also serves as a critical ingredient in creating the problem-solvers that will be so critical to the workforce of the future.”

The Doodle 4 Google competition invites K-12 students to use their artistic talents to think big, redesigning the Google home page logo for millions to see—with the chance to become an honorary Google doodler for a day.

“Each year, we are so impressed by the talents and ideas coming from these kids. This year’s theme about invention is especially close to our heart at Google, since throughout history, ideas big and small, practical and playful, have started out as doodles,” said Ryan Germick, Doodle Team leader. “I can’t wait to see what the students come up with this year.”

In addition to the virtual field trip, Discovery Education has teamed up with Google to develop classroom resources designed to kick-start creativity in K-12 classrooms, including free videos and corresponding activity packs.

To register for the virtual field trip or access the free materials, go to: http://www.discoveryeducation.com/doodle4google/ ^[4].

Some rural districts have found success in surprising places

Rural schools haven’t always had it easy. Lack of funding, geographical isolation, and technology challenges often prove nearly impossible to overcome. But because technology is absolutely essential in preparing today’s students for college and the workforce, many rural schools have found ways to leverage educational technologies to their advantage.

While many schools still face an uphill climb as they try to address economic challenges and technology struggles, best practices emerging from rural schools offer encouragement and hope that students in geographically isolated areas will be just as ready to compete in a global economy as their more urban peers.

“The primary ingredients for success are teacher initiative and leadership,” said Jon Kludt-Painter, director of instructional technology in Alaska’s Petersburg School District ^[5]. “Without that, we don’t have a viable program.”

(Next page: How two rural districts are making it work)

But because the 450-student rural district does have motivated teachers and strong leadership—with 46 certified staff and 37 support staff–it also has a robust technology program.

The district is one-to-one, with kindergartners through eighth graders having access to Macbook Pros during the school day, and high school students taking their devices home with them.

“We’ve given them the full set of tools for movie-making, podcasting, creating documents, and other software. If we don’t have it, and if it supports their learning, then it gets installed,” Kludt-Painter said.

“That empowers the students—knowing we’re there to support them in their learning. It’s a partnership; it’s not us saying, ‘No, you can’t,'” he added.

The district also offers robust internet access, and the small community is geographically close to the school and therefore can take advantage of that internet access.

If students don’t have home internet access, they are welcome to use the school’s internet at almost any time before or after school hours. A parks and recreation center is open on weekends and offers high-speed internet access.

“There’s lots of flexibility for sharing the network with students during those times, because that’s a concern of ours,” Kludt-Painter said. “The whole goal of the laptop program is to level the playing field.

Students frequently travel on local ferries, and those ferries are equipped with Wi-Fi hotspots so that rural students can study and complete homework.

The district funds its programs through local funding and partnerships, with an added boost from the federal eRate program. Enlisting community and stakeholder buy-in before and during the one-to-one implementation helped as well, Kludt-Painter said, because community support is essential when it comes to sustaining and funding projects such as this one.

The district uses Moodle ^[6] for distance learning, as well as digital textbooks, which Kludt-Painter said enables high school students to participate in online learning. Many high school students take online courses through the Virtual High School ^[7], expanding their opportunities to take advanced and varied classes.

The district recently launched a coding class, and students have started learning how to use a 3D printer that the district purchased several weeks ago.

All high school students and most middle school students submit language arts assignments online through Criterion ^[8], an online proofing tool, and teachers return those assignments digitally as well in order to maintain a virtual paperless environment.

“From the time of middle school, students are fluent in online environments,” Kludt-Painter said. “Their classroom really is a classroom without walls. What’s really fascinating is talking with graduated senior who leave, and pursue trade school or four-year programs, and hearing about how well they say they are prepared in the online environment.”

“With the consistency of having educators who are here for the length of their careers, and also the freedom from the administration to do what’s best for the kids, that really lends itself to us being successful,” he said.

Infrastructure challenges

“The challenge, of course, is the wireless,” said Mike Saenz, a language arts and music history teacher at Falls Career High School, a non-traditional alternative high school in the Marble Falls Independent School District in Texas. “Infrastructure can be a challenge for small schools.”

The 4,000-student Marble Falls ISD operates four elementary schools, one middle school, and one traditional high school in addition to Falls Career High School.

Falls Career High School students check out laptops for use during the school day, and some laptops are loaned out if students live in particularly outlying areas or have special circumstances.

“We have wireless capability, but when the wireless breaks down we have to have a network drop,” said Peggy Little, principal at Falls Career High School. “It’s certainly not idea. We have 50 kids on laptops, but those 50 kids also have 50 cell phones. While we have enough infrastructure to support the laptops, that doesn’t account for the Kindles, iPads, and smartphones.”

But though wireless is sometimes a challenge even in the school, teachers and students are determined to make it work. Some teachers come in early and other stay late with students who need to use their laptops or take advantage of the internet during non-school hours. High school libraries have extended hours and are open until 8 p.m. four days a week.

The rural district is currently in the middle of raising its community’s awareness about the need for technology funding, as a vote around that issue is scheduled for May 2014.

“We want to get the message out that this is vital, and it’s important that you support your kids in this rural community,” Little said. “These are your neighbors and this is your town. These are the future contributors to your community, and we need them to be contributors with 21st century knowledge.”

Some community members might hesitate to put money into technology programs due to technology’s fast-evolving nature, claiming devices will be obsolete in five years, but the bigger issue is being able to support rural technology.

“We have to continue to improve the technology program, but the infrastructure is the biggest issue,” said Susan Maughan, the district’s executive director of special services. “The smaller devices, we can manage. It’s having the power to keep it going and running that’s most important, and that is not going to obsolete in five years.”

Transportation is another challenge for rural Marble Falls, which encompasses 268 square miles. Due to the district’s vast size, some students take public transportation to their designated school bus pick-up area and are often out the door before 6 a.m. Those students often take advantage of extended school hours to complete their work before the lengthy trip home.

Using Odysseyware ^[9], the district’s online curriculum provider, some students with special scheduling circumstances—those with extended traveling times due to a rural location, parents without reliable childcare, or those who work 40 hours a week–are able to keep up with their courses online and stay on track to graduate.

“We look outside the box,” said Maughan. “We think about what’s best for the kids. If you have a staff working that way together, it’s a definite benefit for our students.”

 

New guide aims to positively impact teaching quality through targeted efforts

A new policy guide from seven educational groups aims to help state leaders improve teaching quality with examples of models that, through research and actual implementation, have proven successful in states across the country.

“Excellent Teachers for Each and Every Child,” is broken into six major sections: Recruitment, Preparation, Professional Learning and Development, Evaluation Systems, Equitable Teaching and Learning Conditions, and Funding. Each part of the guide presents examples, sample legislation, and more.

The blueprint aims to help policymakers implement effective policy changes and improve teaching quality “by pulling from research, state, and global models for ensuring a talented, diverse, and sustainable teaching force that prepares all students for college, career, and life.”

(Next page: State models for teaching success)

“This guide shows us how state policies around teacher recruitment strategies, clinical partnerships between educator preparation programs and PK-12 school districts, and righteous exit measures…will help us ensure that every learner is taught by an effective teacher,” said Sharon P. Robinson, president and CEO of the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE), one of the authoring groups.

One such instance of successful state policy is found in the Recruiting section of the guide. The state case comes from Illinois, which has legislation called the Grow Your Own Teacher Act. It focuses on preparing “highly skilled teachers who will teach in high-need, hard-to-staff schools and remain in those schools for a substantial period of time.”

Another comes from the Preparation category. In Oregon, legislation created a state strategy known as the Network of Quality Teaching and Learning, which supports new teachers by providing funding for “strategic investments intended to rapidly improve student performance, close achievement gaps, and raise levels of educational attainment and employability.”

The other sections feature similar examples from other states.

The guide also draws from the practices of academically advanced nations like Singapore and Finland, and includes a range of different resources. This includes recommendations for steps to support policymaking and agenda setting, examples of model legislation and research-proven state policies, and tips for professional development, evaluation, and more.

“This guide provides comprehensive and practical tools for state, district, school, and classroom decision makers who aim to support all students to succeed,” according to a press release. The guide can be downloaded for free here ^[10], where related resources are also available.

In addition to AACTE, the National Opportunity to Learn Campaign, Opportunity Actions, the National Education Association, The American Federation of Teachers, the Center for Teaching Quality, and the Stanford Center for Opportunity in Public Education also contributed to the blueprint.

Carly Buchanan is an eSchool News Editorial Intern.

Comprehensive report details state progress (or lack of) in teaching finance and economics in K-12

In the midst of the country’s slow climb to economic recovery, there’s been an outpouring of support from communities to teach today’s students the one subject that could perhaps prevent future economic woes: personal finance and economics. However, though states are making progress, there’s still work to be done.

“The number one problem in today’s generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy,” said Alan Greenspan, economist and former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

And the Council for Economic Education (CEE) agrees. The CEE’s report, “Survey of the States: Economic and Personal Finance Education in Our Nation’s Schools 2014 ^[11],” conducted every two years by the CEE and collects data from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, highlights the best and worst states for teaching personal finance literacy. It also reveals some startling facts about student struggling with finance.

For example, a majority of the public school students in the U.S. still are not exposed to economics or personal finance education despite the lessons of the recent recession. Only 22 of the 50 states require high school students to take an economics course and only 16 states require testing of economics concepts, the survey found. Two years ago when a similar survey was taken, the totals were the same ^[12].

Also, 30 percent of college students with loans drop out without having completed their degree, found the CEE, yet only 17 states require a high school course in personal finance.

While only 17 states require high school students to take a personal finance course and only six require testing of personal finance concepts, there has been some growth since 2011 when the totals were 13 and six ^[12], notes the report.

“The Great Recession put a spotlight on the dangers of a financially illiterate society, demonstrating the importance of a basic understanding of economic and financial concepts,” said Nan Morrison, the president and CEO of the CEE, in a statement. “We’ve got to do a better job of helping our policy makers and educators ensure that students nearing adulthood gain that understanding.”

(Next page: The best and worst states for finance education)

The best and worst states for finance education

“Students with some exposure to economic thinking will be more likely to conceptualize their spending on postsecondary education as an investment in their own human capital,” said Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, at the August teacher town hall.

Understanding the importance of finance literacy, especially considering the report found that “students from states where a financial education course was required were more likely to display positive financial behaviors and dispositions,” many states require student testing in personal finance education. These states include: Texas, Georgia, Missouri, Michigan, Colorado, and the District of Columbia.

All six states (includes D.C.)  include personal finance education in their K-12 standards and these standards are then implemented throughout all school districts. All states require student testing in this subject as well.

Georgia, Missouri, and Texas are especially noteworthy, as these three states also require a high school course to be offered and require all students to complete this course.

However, California, Illinois, New York, Rhode Island, and Alaska not only do not require testing on personal finance, no courses are offered and no standards on personal finance literacy are currently implemented.

 

Snapshot of the best and worst states for personal finance literacy. See the full map here ^[13].

“The 17 states that require a personal finance course today represent only about 40 percent of the U.S. population,” said Morrison. “That’s a huge gap and we need to close it. We must expand our high school curricula and then provide our teachers with the tools they need to help students develop these essential real-world skills.”

(Next page: Recommendations and teacher confidence)

According to the report, one of the biggest reasons why personal finance courses aren’t implemented is due to teacher hesitancy.

The CEE notes that “fewer than 20 percent of teachers report feeling competent to teach personal finance topics.”

To help students reach financial literacy goals, CEE promotes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) “5 Essential Strategies for Advancing Financial Education for Young Americans”:

1. Introduce key financial education concepts early and continue to build on that foundation consistently through the K-12 school years. In addition, states should make a stand-along financial education course a graduation requirement for high school students.

2. Include personal financial management questions in standardized tests.

3. Provide opportunities throughout the K-12 years to practice money management through innovative, hands-on learning opportunities.

4. Create consistent opportunities and incentives for teachers to take financial education training with the express intention of teaching financial management to their students.

5. Encourage parents and guardians to discuss money management topics at home and provide them with the tools necessary to have money conversations with their children.

“The day-to-day relevance of economic concepts and financial responsibility will only continue to increase as the world is rapidly transformed by science and technology,” explained Richard Fairbank, founder, chairman, and CEO of Capital One Financial Corporation. “Providing students with the practical tools they need to apply that knowledge will help them succeed financially by creating businesses, driving innovation and achieving personal dreams. Working together, we can infuse our classrooms with the necessary foundational capabilities and make financial education a centerpiece of our public and private agenda.”

For more information on individual states and financial and economic curriculum, as well as resources for teachers (lesson plans, online games, and national competitions) and for policy makers (advocacy toolkit, policy roadmap, and state contacts), visit the report’s home page and read the report ^[11].