I attended meet the teacher night a couple of weeks ago, and then last night I attended the ceremonial Chromebook distribution exercise at Pelham Middle School. Here's what's reeeaaaalllly going on in the affluent suburban schools these days.
My daughters' school experience is aggregated within four on-line theaters:
1. Castle Learning: On-line testing aligned with New York Common Core Learning Standards for every subject, evenBasica gym. Cover a topic, take the "Castle Learning." Exam cram.
2. Infinite Campus: This is the one they call "The Portal". This is the core SIS (Student Information System) of the school. Parents and students both have their own access levels. I've never logged in, but the kids do, constantly. "I need to check the Portal...." This is serious business, and of course, aligned to state standard for reporting purposes. Gradebook, official stuff goes here.
3. GoogleApps for Education: Document sharing for the class assignments. New this year, if you've used GoogleApps, or Office365, you know what this is. Good for doing labs in science class, etc.
4. E-Chalk: This one seems to be related to actual teaching and learning. Assignments and presentations are posted here.
To make it extra convenient to access all that on-line educational administration, each eighth grader has now been given their own Google Chromebook. Mind you, 97% of those kids already have access to a computer at home, nevertheless thanks to the Pelham Education Foundation and a grant secured by State Senator Jeff Klein, Pelham's 13 year olds are now toting school issued mobile devices.
Full disclosure, I sell computer network infrastructure for a living, including some to schools. I'm happy to see more mobile devices being unwrapped. It's good for the economy segment that I work in everyday.
Basically, the technology arms race is going full bore in our schools. These tools don't seem to help teachers impart knowledge more efficiently. The application infrastructure I've described above is good as a distribution system for educational metadata, but I'm unconvinced it makes teaching and learning more efficient.
For example, last year, night after night, my daughter downloaded page after page of math questions from E-Chalk. She had a hard time with the subject matter. I constantly asked her, "Do you have a textbook?" "No, Daddy, you download the assignment and there's an example there." The teacher was capable, and available for help, but it would have been better to have a BOOK that explains how to do the problems.
Each portal has a set of usage guidelines, access rights, instructions and navigation. The district purchases user licenses and annual subscriptions. There are web pages to explain it all in mind numbing detail. We think we need all that stuff to make our kids ready for contemporary work, but does it make them read better or understand math to a greater degree? I'm unconvinced.
My daughters' school experience is aggregated within four on-line theaters:
1. Castle Learning: On-line testing aligned with New York Common Core Learning Standards for every subject, evenBasica gym. Cover a topic, take the "Castle Learning." Exam cram.
2. Infinite Campus: This is the one they call "The Portal". This is the core SIS (Student Information System) of the school. Parents and students both have their own access levels. I've never logged in, but the kids do, constantly. "I need to check the Portal...." This is serious business, and of course, aligned to state standard for reporting purposes. Gradebook, official stuff goes here.
3. GoogleApps for Education: Document sharing for the class assignments. New this year, if you've used GoogleApps, or Office365, you know what this is. Good for doing labs in science class, etc.
4. E-Chalk: This one seems to be related to actual teaching and learning. Assignments and presentations are posted here.
To make it extra convenient to access all that on-line educational administration, each eighth grader has now been given their own Google Chromebook. Mind you, 97% of those kids already have access to a computer at home, nevertheless thanks to the Pelham Education Foundation and a grant secured by State Senator Jeff Klein, Pelham's 13 year olds are now toting school issued mobile devices.
Full disclosure, I sell computer network infrastructure for a living, including some to schools. I'm happy to see more mobile devices being unwrapped. It's good for the economy segment that I work in everyday.
Basically, the technology arms race is going full bore in our schools. These tools don't seem to help teachers impart knowledge more efficiently. The application infrastructure I've described above is good as a distribution system for educational metadata, but I'm unconvinced it makes teaching and learning more efficient.
For example, last year, night after night, my daughter downloaded page after page of math questions from E-Chalk. She had a hard time with the subject matter. I constantly asked her, "Do you have a textbook?" "No, Daddy, you download the assignment and there's an example there." The teacher was capable, and available for help, but it would have been better to have a BOOK that explains how to do the problems.
Each portal has a set of usage guidelines, access rights, instructions and navigation. The district purchases user licenses and annual subscriptions. There are web pages to explain it all in mind numbing detail. We think we need all that stuff to make our kids ready for contemporary work, but does it make them read better or understand math to a greater degree? I'm unconvinced.
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