New grant program seeks solutions to toughest classroom challenges
The U.S. Department of Education has partnered with the nation’s largest teachers union and its charitable foundation to launch a grant program encouraging public school educators to identify and solve K-12 education’s most pressing classroom challenges.
Students object to attendance-taking technology
Officials at Northern Arizona University are reminding students that faculty members have the choice to use new electronic scanners that track attendance at the campus’s largest lecture halls, but some students continue their vocal opposition to the technology as the fall semester gets underway.
Keep after-school events safe
The start of a new high school football season is a reason to celebrate–but it also is a time for administrators to be on guard against those who find the…
Job forecasts point to importance of higher education
Whenever companies start hiring freely again, job seekers with specialized skills and education will have plenty of good opportunities. Others will face a choice: Take a job with low pay—or none at all. Job creation likely will remain weak for months or even years. But once employers do step up hiring, some economists expect job openings to fall mainly into two categories of roughly equal numbers.
After nearly a decade, laptops changed learning in Henrico County
Henrico County, Va., is entering the 10th year of its novel program to provide a laptop computer to every middle and high school student. Now ubiquitous, the laptops have become central to Henrico’s instructional curriculum—and school officials say their use has expanded the possibilities for learning, engaged students in the learning process, and prepared them better for college and the workforce, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
iPad competitors lining up
Starting this fall and stretching into early next year, big-name gadget and PC makers are readying their own touch-screen tablets to compete with Apple’s iPad, CNET reports. The big players in the developing tablet race will be familiar: They’re many of the same people who are tussling for consumers’ dollars and attention in the smart-phone realm.
In a new role, teachers move to run schools
At a school in Newark, N.J., the teaching staff is the administration, reports the New York Times—raising teacher morale but potentially blurring educators’ focus. Dominique D. Lee and five other teachers—all veterans of Teach for America, a corps of college graduates who undergo five weeks of training and make a two-year commitment to teaching—are running a public school called Brick Avon Academy, with 650 children from kindergarten through eighth grade.
Forget what you know about good study habits
Psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong, reports the New York Times. Traditional studying advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries.
A strong password isn’t the strongest security
Elaborate requirements for account passwords might sound invincible, but experts say Americans aren’t paying enough attention to other online security threats, reports the New York Times. Make your password strong, with a unique jumble of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. But memorize it—never write it down.
Teens sue Facebook over ‘like’ button
Two Los Angeles County teenagers are suing Facebook, claiming the social networking giant effectively sold their names and images to advertisers without parental permission.