Schools explore campus tours 2.0
Visiting American University’s lecture halls, dorm rooms, and sports facilities with a few mouse clicks swayed David Shapiro to enroll at the Washington, D.C., campus. Colleges and universities are turning to the interactivity of web 2.0 technology in the annual bid to lure new students by showing the best of campus services and facilities. American University and Penn State University are two schools heading the trend toward virtual campus tours, and higher education officials expect more schools to follow. Key words: virtual tour, campus tour, American University, Penn State, school web site, education, technology
Justices hear arguments over school strip search
A lawyer for a 13-year-old Arizona girl strip-searched by school officials looking for prescription-strength ibuprofen pills has told the Supreme Court that the administrators needed better information than what they had before doing such a humiliating search.
Key words: school security, student strip-search, Fourth Amendment
Ed-tech guru shares his expertise
Ray Schroeder was blogging before it was cool. And as one of the top technology officials at the University of Illinois at Springfield, Schroeder hasn’t slowed down, writing more than 25,000 entries on 49 blogs since 2001. Key words: University of Illinois, education, technology, blogging, recession, online tools
Arne Duncan’s Washington Post interview on NCLB
In an interview with the Washington Post, new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explains his plans to improve No Child Left Behind, enhance teacher quality and how he’ll spend the $100 billion in stimulus money to improve public schools.
NCTI’s “What’s Next for Learning and Assistive Technologies?”
Mary Furlong, Mary Furlong & Associates; Tracy Gray, National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI) (Moderator); Larry Grossman, Digital Promise Project; Noel Gunther, WETA-TV-FM; Marshall Raskind, Schwab Learning & International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities; Jeff Zimman, Posit Science. These panelists discussed how the demographic shifts and other business pressures are changing their perceptions of the disability market and offered advice on how to take advantage of the changes to maximize opportunities.
Teen sues over stimulus funds
A South Carolina high school student on Thursday asked the state’s highest court to quickly clear the way for millions of federal stimulus dollars to flow to schools by ending Gov. Mark Sanford’s ability to decline the money.
Key words: school stimulus funding, education stimulus money, education funding
Arne Duncan’s Washington Post interview on NCLB
In an interview with the Washington Post, new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explains his plans to improve No Child Left Behind, enhance teacher quality and how he’ll spend the $100 billion in stimulus money to improve public schools.
San Diego schools sell first U.S. tax credit debt
Reuters reports that California’s San Diego school system on Tuesday sold the nation’s first new bonds that pay investors a tax credit but no interest, one of its financial advisers said.
Demand for charter schools is high, seats are few
The waiting lists for charter schools, already notoriously long, look like they are about to get longer. President Barack Obama and Arne Duncan, his new education secretary, are trying to entice states into opening more of the alternative schools. But despite brisk enrollment growth and long waiting lines for many existing charter schools, states appear to be in no hurry to oblige, reports The Wall Street Journal.
Court debates strip search of student
The United States Supreme Court spent an hour on Tuesday debating what middle school students are apt to put in their underwear and what should be done about it, reports The New York Times.