There are 8 messages totalling 692 lines in this issue. Topics in this special issue:
1. K12> WEB: Butterfly and Moth Sites - 2 msgs 2. K12> Moonlit Road -- Network Nugget 3. UPDATED> TNC Times -- Volume 2, Issue 8 4. K12> Re: WEB: Sports Sites 5. K12> Cable in the Classroom advisors 6. K12> Re: online classes 7. K12> Plagiarism Article - A Local Plagiarism Situation 8. K12> Food Sales in Schools ***************************************** For individual postings, send the message: set net-happenings mail to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, click and send (no body or subject: required) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Net-happenings mailing list is a service of Classroom Connect - http://www.classroom.com Archives for Net-happenings can be found at: http://www.classroom.com/community/email/archives.jhtml?A0=NET-HAPPENINGS Newsgroups: news:comp.internet.net-happenings http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&GROUP;=comp.internet.net-happenings ******************************************* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:10:13 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: K12> WEB: Butterfly and Moth Sites - 2 msgs From: "Classroom Connect -- Connected Teacher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 12:58:52 -0700 Subject: WEB: Butterfly and Moth Sites Hi, We have just finished updating and adding to our butterfly and moth websites. They have live web cameras. Go to: http://www.dcboces.org/sufsd/nassau/vitek/butterfly/index.html http://www.dcboces.org/sufsd/nassau/vitek/moths/index.html Karen Vitek Resource Room Teacher Nassau Spackenkill School 7 Nassau Road Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 845-463-7844 Visit our websites: http://www.dcboces.org/sufsd/nassau/vitek/birds/index.html http://www.dcboces.org/sufsd/nassau/vitek/weather/index.html http://www.dcboces.org/sufsd/nassau/vitek/butterfly/index.html http://www.dcboces.org/sufsd/nassau/vitek/moths/index.html http://www.dcboces.org/sufsd/nassau/vitek/btrail/index.html ----- Karen, I've also looked at your weather and bird sites and have added them to my Birds and Weather pages. URLs are: http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/birds.html http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/web/weather.html Congratulations for integrating the Web into your curriculum! Cheers, Jerrie Jerrie S. Cheek Instructional Technology Specialist Educational Technology Center Kennesaw State University http://edtech.kennesaw.edu ______________________________________________________________________ To send a resource or project announcement to our list, please address your email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] A free service moderated by Classroom Connect's Teacher Community host, Paul Heller, this email list is archived at Connected Teacher: <http://www.classroom.com/community/email/archives.jhtml?A0=CRC> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:10:38 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: K12> Moonlit Road -- Network Nugget From: "nuggets ola" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 15:03:48 -0700 Subject: Moonlit Road -- Network Nugget *** [[[ THE MOONLIT ROAD ]]] *** http://themoonlitroad.com Haunted houses, ghosts and goblins. Each month, the Moonlit Road features ghost stories and Southern folktales, told by the region's best storytellers. Most stories are adaptations of folktales passed down through the oral tradition. You can choose to read the story on-line which comes with spooky graphics, or listen to the story. Along with vocals, the audio has music and sound effects. To my ears, it sounds quite professional. You will need to download RealPlayer to listen to the audio. After a month, stories are archived. To access the Moonlit Road archives, you must become a Moonlit Road member (it's free). Only the text versions of the stories are available, not the audio. While the stories are not specifically directed to kids, many stories would be suitable for upper elementary or junior high language arts classes. ---------------------- Network Nuggets is a free service of the Community Learning Network Website (http://www.cln.org/) and the Open Learning Agency of British Columbia (http://www.openschool.bc.ca/). We send these announcements to subscribers of CLN's Network Nuggets, to inform them about potentially useful educational resources on the Internet. To Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://www.cln.org/lists/nuggets/subscribe.html Christina Drabik, Moderator of Network Nuggets (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:16:48 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: UPDATED> TNC Times -- Volume 2, Issue 8 From: "John Raymond" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:05:19 -0700 ----------------------------------------------------- TNC Times Volume 2, Issue 8 ______________________________ All of the following features appear on the homepage -- www.newcurriculum.com. (unless otherwise marked) ============================== THE EDITOR'S COLUMN: "Laptop Programs: An Alternate View" by John Raymond "If you've been following trends in educational technology journals this year you may have picked up on the vogue for declaring the demise of school laptop programs (LPs). In recent pieces titled "After Laptop" and "Too Late for Laptops?" commentators Jamie McKenzie and William DeLamater were eager to demonstrate the failure of laptop programs as a model for student and faculty computing. As it turns out their arguments are largely based on outdated data and the missteps of fledgling programs. And in some respects the alternatives presented by these critics, discussed later, are actually a step backwards. While the some of their criticisms of LPs - overselling of laptops by vendors, inadequate professional development for teachers, unanticipated classroom management problems - are legitimate, their underlying prescription, abandonment of LPs, is short sighted for those schools with LPs and regrettable for those without..." ============================== TNC GUEST COLUMN: It's a tired cliché but it fits: We built it and they didn't always come. Teacher training remains one of the trickiest parts of integrating technology into schools. In this week's guest column, Joy Hogg describes her tech team's responses to the challenge of training teachers. Click here for more: http://newcurriculum.com/SP/twc520.htm ============================== TNC POLL: "Summer Technology Plans?" "Do you have plans to work on your technology skills this summer?" Please add your response on the homepage: www.newcurriculum.com ============================== BEST OF THE WEB: "Summer Technology Workshops and Conferences" The Connecticut Association of Independent Schools (CAIS) is hosting its first technology conference for teachers this June. It is open to all teachers and includes Workshops in English, history, science, math, foreign language and web design, and a special workshop for elementary school teachers. http://www.caisct.org/events/teaching.htm Trevor Day School is sponsoring an Institute for Teachers during the week of June 17-20, 2002, in New York City. LaptopTeacher, a curriculum-rich course for teachers of students with laptops, is one of three courses available to all interested teachers and administrators during that week. http://www.trevor.org/institute/institute_for_teachers The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) Academy for Professional Development is offering 16 Institutes for Summer 2002, available for various grade bands, focusing on geometry and algebra. http://www.nctm.org/academy ============================== NEW FEATURES AT TNC: A technology tutorial section has been added to the TNC Teacher Utility page. http://www.newcurriculum.com/SP/TRTUS.htm ============================== TNC EDUCATORS' FORUM: Try out our new user-friendly discussion board, designed to facilitate discussions on issues in educational technology that we all care about. Here's the URL (http://www.newcurriculum.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl), or visit the homepage and click the "TNC Forum" link in the left hand column. Hope to see you there. _____________________________ John Raymond Editor, www.newcurriculum.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:17:10 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: K12> Re: WEB: Sports Sites From: "Classroom Connect -- Connected Teacher" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:13:35 -0700 Subject: Re: WEB: Sports Sites A sports site that I've found useful is www.myteam.com. It's tailored for kids and has the rules and regs of a lot of sports. Jo Beth Dempsey Sacred Heart Elementary School East Grand Forks, MN [EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ To send a resource or project announcement to our list, please address your email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] A free service moderated by Classroom Connect's Teacher Community host, Paul Heller, this email list is archived at Connected Teacher: <http://www.classroom.com/community/email/archives.jhtml?A0=CRC> ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:17:27 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: K12> Cable in the Classroom advisors From: "Rena Deutsch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:27:39 -0400 Subject: Cable in the Classroom advisors This was forwarded to me from another listserv: Cable in the Classroom is a 501(c)(3) educational non-profit organization that represents the cable telecommunications industry's commitment to education -- to improve teaching and learning for children in schools, at home, and in their communities. Cable in the Classroom and its members are looking for the 10 most excellent, media and technology savvy educators in the country to work with them in an ongoing way as advisors, mentors, and project consultants. Cable in the Classroom's teacher advisors will be paid a $4,000 annual stipend. In addition, their schools will each receive $1,000. Application deadline: July 1, 2002. http://www.ciconline.org/section.cfm/2/183 Rena Deutsch, Librarian High School for the Humanities New York, NY [EMAIL PROTECTED] =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-= All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law. To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST, etc.) send email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST 4) SET LM_NET MAIL * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv. For LM_NET Help see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/ Archives: http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/LM_NET.shtml See also EL-Announce for announcements from library media vendors: http://www.mindspring.com/~el-announce/ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-= ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:18:02 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: K12> Re: online classes From: "EDTECH Editor-Beil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:43:55 -0400 Subject: Re: online classes From: Georgeanne Kestner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Here is what I have http://www.hotlinks.com/members/georgeanne/PBL/ >X-From: Barb Bodley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I am looking for online classes that deal with Project Based Learning and >Technology or Technology and Higher Level Thinking Skills. Does anyone >have any suggestions of where to look? -- Teach the kids, don't teach the lesson plans. Georgeanne Kestner K-8 Computer Teacher Divernon, IL We've Got Your Name http://www.angelfire.com/biz/wevegotyourname --- Edtech Archives, posting guidelines and other information are at: http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~edweb Please include your name, email address, and school or professional affiliation in each posting. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:19:03 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: K12> Plagiarism Article - A Local Plagiarism Situation Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:30:09 -0700 Subject: Plagiarism Article From: "P. Tierney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: k12.chat.teacher A Local Plagiarism Situation ------------------------------------- BARDSTOWN, Ky. -- A cheating scandal at Bardstown High School -- where more than a quarter of the senior class plagiarized short stories or text pulled from the Internet -- illustrates a widespread national problem, educators say. Donald McCabe, a professor at Rutgers University in New Jersey who surveyed 4,500 students at 25 high schools last year, said more than half of those surveyed acknowledged downloading a paper from the Internet or copying text from the Web without proper attribution. ''The surprise for me is just how easily students dismiss cheating,'' he said. ''They think it's just not a big deal.'' Earlier this month, administrators and teachers at Bardstown High discovered that 34 of 118 seniors culled sentences, paragraphs and other text verbatim from Web sites and used them, without attribution, in their writing portfolios, part of the statewide testing system known as CATS. The school launched an investigation after two seniors turned in the same short stories, copied from the same Web site, for their portfolios, principal Tom Hamilton said. Officials discovered that the cheating extended to all segments of the senior class -- including one of three valedictorians, nine members of the National Honor Society and relatives of school board members. The revelation stunned parents and administrators, who agree with McCabe that it highlights the relative ease with which students can copy work from the World Wide Web. ''It surprised all of us,'' said Roger Smotherman, superintendent of Bardstown Independent Schools. ''I guess as we look back there's a lot of powerful things out there that make this sort of cheating much easier to do and much more tempting. . . . I think all our schools need to take a close look at what's going on.'' Penalties for such cases are left to individual schools, but typically, students who plagiarize writing portfolio assignments are given a zero, said Jim Jackson, director of the Kentucky Education Department's Division of Management Assistance. All 34 students caught cheating at Bardstown will be allowed to graduate, pending completion of a punishment set by the school's decisionmaking council. The students had to rewrite the essays -- but will receive a zero for the work, Hamilton said. They also must write an essay reflecting on their plagiarism. And next week, the students will participate in a 12-hour, after-school ethics seminar. They'll also help clean the school, Hamilton said. The honor society students, whose memberships have been suspended, have even more work. They will be paired with local attorneys to research the legal ramifications of plagiarism, then will write a case study. Once that assignment -- and the other requirements of all students involved -- are complete, their membership will be reinstated, pursuant to National Honor Society bylaws, Hamilton said. The valedictorian will be allowed to remain a valedictorian, Hamilton said, if the student maintains a perfect grade-point average through the end of the year. Reactions mixed Hamilton said some parents and Bardstown residents have complained that the district was too lenient, while others complained that the punishment was too harsh. ''We did what we thought was right,'' he said. ''We'll probably go to our grave talking about if we did the right thing.'' Three of five school board members contacted yesterday -- William Christensen, James Roby and Franklin Hibbs -- praised school leaders for their handling of the situation. Hibbs said he believes the punishment was just and ''students need to be taught to learn from their mistakes.'' And it's been a lesson for all students in Bardstown, he said. A couple of students interviewed yesterday after school agreed. Jamie Cotton and Teryn Claypool, both 17-year-old juniors, said the scandal has made all students take notice. Jamie said the punishment is just, while Teryn said she thinks the students deserved harsher treatment, such as suspension. And Teryn said it has taught her that she shouldn't cheat: Because ''I want to graduate.'' One parent, Arlene Durbin, said her daughter is a senior at Bardstown High but not among those caught cheating. She knows all or most of the 34 students and thinks the situation has been ''blown out of proportion,'' although she thinks the punishment is appropriate. Schools 'on alert' The Department of Education has informed school leaders statewide about the cheating, an effort to ''put people on alert,'' said spokeswoman Lisa Gross, adding that she hopes it's not indicative of broader cheating in Kentucky schools. ''I think the fact that these students were caught and quickly received punishment ought to be a warning to other students,'' Gross said. Jackson said yesterday that his agency has been investigating violations on CATS tests statewide since 1997, and allegations of cheating have remained steady. >From the round of testing earlier this year, his office is investigating 154 alleged incidents -- roughly the same as in each of the last four years, he said. That doesn't include the Bardstown cases. Typically, only 5 percent of the cases each year are found to involve intentional cheating, he said, and only four or five individuals each year are alleged to have plagiarized writing portfolios. ''There's no trend toward rapidly growing cases of plagiarism on these tests,'' Jackson said. That's true nationally, said Krista Kafer, senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a policy group in Washington, D.C. She said initial fears that high-stakes testing, like Kentucky's CATS test, would lead to increased cheating nationally haven't come to pass. But experts said the advent of the Internet has created a tempting cutand-paste plagiarism tool for secondary and college students. McCabe, the Rutgers professor, said his research has shown that Internet plagiarizing is more prevalent in high schools than in colleges. And in a random nationwide survey of 1,008 public high school students conducted last fall by the policy and advocacy organization Public Agenda, 43 percent said their school had a ''serious'' problem with students cheating on tests and assignments. Money in danger Jackson, of the state Education Department, said the Bardstown cases will be investigated fully. ''We've never had something like this before,'' he said. ''Clearly, we are going to find out what happened.'' Jackson praised the school for uncovering the extent of the situation -- especially since the ultimate loser is the school, which could lose funding because of lower CATS scores -- and not the students, who graduate despite their CATS scores. In 2000, Bardstown High received $36,000 in rewards from the state for good test scores. When the latest round of rewards is announced later this year, Bardstown High might not get as much -- or any -- because of the cheating, superintendent Smotherman said. Suzanne McGurk, associate director of admissions at the University of Kentucky, said cheating offenses typically affect college entrance if graduation is denied, or the student's grade-point average is sharply cut. Otherwise, university officials aren't likely to hear about such incidents, and even if they did they probably wouldn't deny admission on that basis alone, she said. ''If the high school didn't think it was serious enough to penalize them in a serious way, then we probably wouldn't either,'' she said. Catching cheating A number of companies have sprung up in recent years to help teachers sniff out plagiarists, including Turnitin.com. That company's vice president, Melissa Lipscomb, said subscribers include several thousand high schools and colleges -- among them some large school districts, such as the 300school Houston system. Of the thousands of papers the company analyzes each day, she said, about 33 percent have been copied in whole or in part. ''It's a totally different environment today,'' she said. ''There's a wealth of resources and it's very tempting, but it needs to be tempered by education about what's appropriate.'' Some local educators say they believe such cheating is less widespread than Lipscomb's numbers would indicate. Charles Miller, principal of Jefferson County's Pleasure Ridge Park High for 24 years, said his school has not experienced a rise in plagiarism, despite increasing numbers of computers in school and use of them at home by students. Individual incidents tend to be ''blown out of proportion,'' he said. Assistant principal Sharon Collard said PRP teachers aren't widely using Internet paper-checking devices because they aren't necessary. Cheating is rare, and most teachers can tell if their students' work isn't their own, she said. Jefferson County doesn't track the number of cases of general student cheating. Bob Rodosky, director of accountability, research and planning for the district, said plagiarized writing portfolios have not been a prob-lem that officials are aware of, al-though educators are increasingly vigilant. ''Teachers are having to be more careful,'' Rodosky said. ''There are just a huge amount of data sources out there.'' In Indiana, which has had statewide achievement tests since 1988, education officials are investigating cheating allegations at Wallace, West and Roosevelt high schools, all in Gary. Wallace and West are being scrutinized for irregularities that officials said involved unusually similar essays on the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress exams, administered last fall. Earlier this month officials with the Indiana Department of Education announced that Wallace and Roosevelt were being investigated because of questions about the spring ISTEP test, which was given to seniors who had not yet passed the exam. Students must pass the test, or get a waiver, to graduate. Education officials said 14 seniors at Roosevelt, 15 at Wallace and seven at West might not graduate because of the ongoing investigation. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 07:20:02 -0500 From: Gleason Sackmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: K12> Food Sales in Schools Sent: Tue, 21 May 2002 20:33:06 -0700 Subject: Food Sales in Schools From: "P. Tierney" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: k12.chat.teacher An article on food sales in schools -- I'd be curious to know any opinions or local perspectives on this issue. P. Tierney ----------------------------- FRANKFORT, Ky. -- After lobbying by school officials and soft-drink bottlers, the Senate is poised to kill an effort to limit the sale of sodas, candy and other snacks from school vending machines and canteens. Senate Republican Floor Leader Dan Kelly yesterday filed a floor amendment to have each school district study such sales, hold public hearings and adopt a plan to comply with federal recommendations for addressing the problem of overweight students. But Kelly's amendment to House Bill 553 sets no standards or enforcement provisions, and he acknowledged that local plans could be as little as posting signs on drink and snack machines asking students not to use them until after lunch. Last night, Kelly said he ''got that amendment out to get discussion going.'' Asked if something similar was the most likely outcome, he said, ''not necessarily.'' Earlier in the day, Kelly said Senate Republicans, who have a narrow 20-18 majority, prefer local control to a ''top down'' approach from the state level. ''I would expect school boards would be responsive to their constituents and do the job,'' he said in an interview. The amendment would be a bitter pill for Lt. Gov. Steve Henry, a surgeon who has made the bill his legislative priority and promoted it heavily around the state as he prepares to seek next year's Democratic nomination for governor. ''It's a sad day when large lobbying groups have that much influence over our children's health,'' Henry said. ''I wish they would have looked at this as though these children were their children.'' Kelly replied, ''I'm a father. I've got children in the schools. We presume the local school boards, presented with the right information, will do the right thing.'' Kelly, a Springfield lawyer, said Senate Republicans want to do something to prevent obesity in children, but didn't like the bill's statewide approach and its specific references, such as percentage figures to define candy and set a minimum amount of real juice required in a juice product. ''We'd have to have an act of the General Assembly to respond to a new product that might be offered,'' he said. Kelly said he didn't know of any lobbyists ''who have influenced us on this,'' but lobbyists for the Kentucky Soft Drink Association and the Kentucky School Boards Association acknowledged they voiced concerns about the bill, even after a Senate committee weakened it to allow softdrink sales in middle schools after lunch. As it had emerged from committee, the bill would generally ban the sale during school hours of soft drinks, candy, chewing gum, juices with less than 35 percent real juice, and other items, except seeds and nuts, that contain more than 8 grams of fat per serving. High schools and middle schools could sell soft drinks more than 30 minutes after the end of the last lunch period. Marty Bell, deputy to Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Steven Daeschner, said the district favored the middle school change because ''if kids could make that decision in high school, they could make it in middle school. Kids are maturing at an earlier age.'' But Bell said the district did not work to change the bill after it left the committee. Libby Marshall, lobbyist for the state school board group, said it ''worked to protect local decisionmaking rather than pass a state law and force everyone into a mode that we think destroys creativity at the local level.'' Vending machine revenue is important for many schools, but Marshall said that had nothing to do with school boards' feelings about the bill. ''We know sales are going to rebound, regardless of what's in the machines,'' she said. She said vendors would replace prohibited items with permitted ones. A University of Kentucky study found that canteens and vending machines provide an average of $17,400 a year to high schools, $19,100 to middle schools and about $9,000 to elementary schools. Also, vendors often give schools scoreboards, ice machines and other incentives. Henry, who has said it is shameful for anyone to make money at the expense of children's health, put most of the blame for the proposal's demise on the soft-drink lobby. Its lobbyist, Ray Gillespie, acknowledged working on the issue but disclaimed responsibility for Kelly's amendment. The amendment would require each school district's food service director to report to the school board and individual school councils on the availability of items that aren't eligible for federally funded school meal programs. The report would have to include a plan for meeting the recommendations of the surgeon general for addressing the problem of overweight students and would have to be presented at publicly advertised meetings of the school board and the school councils by Dec. 1. Republican Rep. Tim Feeley of Crestwood, a co-sponsor of the original bill, said Kelly's amendment ''waters it down to the point where I don't believe it does any good at all.'' Feeley said he thought the bill would pass the Senate even if the amendment were not added. ------------------------------ End of NET-HAPPENINGS Digest - 21 May 2002 to 22 May 2002 - Special issue (#2002-335) *************************************************************************************
