--------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00008 Date: 05/16/96 From: DONNA RANSDELL Time: 06:52am \/To: RUTH LEBLANC (Read 3 times) Subj: School Uniforms > This was a surprise to me. All private schools that I > know of here in the metro Toronto, and beyond, have uniforms. Even the They don't here. > public schools have school T-shirts - mostly for sports or other > school functions. Oh, that's very common here too. Jennifer and Kristin each have two from Garden Road. Both have an old one from ECS that they could still wear, but don't. > How long ago was this, Donna? It reminds me of when I About 10 years ago. The school began their dress code in 1962 when it opened and they *never* wavered from it until I came along. BTW, I didn't change it singlehandedly...other teachers complained, too, about hurting feet. > odd exception). I > remember putting pants on under my skirts to combat > the cold winter and > having to remove them once I got to work. (I started Don't forget, this is Southern California I'm referring to. We don't get any Canadian winters! :) I remember having a dress code of "no pants" when I went to elementary school in the 60s. We, too, wore pants under our skirts and dresses and then took them off in the restroom before school. Waiting for 10 minutes at the bus-stop in the cold would freeze ones legs, if one didn't wear pants! > Most Catholic schools here are not private (but not I believe it's that way in England, too...Canada's English roots are showing again. :) :) :) -donna --- GEcho 1.00 * Origin: I touch the future; I teach. (1:202/211) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00009 Date: 05/17/96 From: MORT STERNHEIM Time: 08:39pm \/To: ARTHUR ABEL (Read 3 times) Subj: Re: Textbooks In a message of <16 May 96 08:37:00>, Arthur Abel (1:2613/380) writes: AA> You are probably right. However, I would be curious as to what AA>textbook AA>publishers are doing about the threat of competition from the Internet. AA>Textbooks are terribly expensive, and school budgets, in my experience, AA>seldom AA>allow for the purchase of the numbers and kinds of texts that teachers AA>would AA>like to use. I assume that most school districts have curriculum AA>outlines of AA>what should be covered in every course (in some cases, these are AA>provided even AA>by the state), and it may only be a matter of time before districts or AA>teachers can find excellent material on just about every course AA>objective and AA>so negate the need to purchase expensive texts. Are publishers taking AA>any AA>steps that anyone knows of to compete in this area? I seriously doubt you will find free replacements for standard texts on the internet. It costs a lot of money to develop course materials, and fancy multimedia etc does not come free either. Somebody has to pay for all this investment. I may be biased -- I wrote a college text book. I spent a good part of my life for five years on the project. Do you think I would have done that with no compensation? And do you think a publisher would have put that into a form suitable for dissemination by any medium without the likelihood of a profit. It's not obvious until you try to do it, but writing a quality text or its online equivalent is a huge task. The transformation of a teacher's class notes or handouts into a textbook is much more complex than you might think. I don't know much about what publishers are doing about electronic replacements for books. They seem to be very tentative to this point, and unsure of what to charge for the products they do have. I have tried to price online encyclopedias for our UMassK12 internet service for teachers and students. They are either incapable of generating a price or else come up with something totally unaffordable. One wanted us to pay $20,000 for our 2,000 users. Needless to say, we could not do that. --- msged 1.97S ZTC * Origin: PIONEER VALLEY PCUG #1 Amherst, MA (413)256-1037 (1:321/109) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00010 Date: 05/17/96 From: DAVE MAINWARING Time: 06:35pm \/To: RON MCDERMOTT (Read 3 times) Subj: NATIONAL CURRICULUM RM> then we can have exit exams which certify that a graduate has RM> attained certain skills or a certain base of knowledge. As RM> it is now, a graduate may, or may not, know much of ANYTHING! RM> ___ OK I'll buy it:-) This alone is cause enough to support the cause. --- Maximus 2.01wb * Origin: SpaceMet-Internet (telnet 128.119.50.48) Amherst, MA (1:321/120) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00011 Date: 05/17/96 From: DAVE MAINWARING Time: 06:41pm \/To: ARTHUR ABEL (Read 3 times) Subj: Re: Textbooks AA> You are probably right. However, I would be curious as to what textbook AA> publishers are doing about the threat of competition from the Internet. AA> Textbooks are terribly expensive, and school budgets, AA> in my experience, seldom competition? Where are there any text book writers offereing to write and publish on the Net? AA> by the state), and it may only be a matter of time before districts or AA> teachers can find excellent material on just about There is excellent material, however can it presented and used as a replacement for a text? AA> every course objective and AA> so negate the need to purchase expensive texts. Are publishers taking any AA> steps that anyone knows of to compete in this area? AA> --Art-- Publishers are taking steps to keep Internet browsers from accessing their materials until someway is found to pay the royalties. writers usually have placed the publishers under obligation to pay them for their writing nomater how the book is distributed. One of the difficulties is the use of caches by internet services to hold materials frequently read by their users. This means that the web site that holds the "text" records only one hit, read, by the service. In fact there may be hundreds of users reading the "text" once it is located in the cache while the original provider shows only one reader. If a classroom of fifty kids reads a "text" the writer is entitled to compensation based on the fifty hard copy books that would have been sold. More and more internet access is being shut off to the public until this royalty issue is resolved. Until publishers find away to get paid so they can pay their authors don't look for a major text publisher to offer texts on the NET. --- Maximus 2.01wb * Origin: SpaceMet-Internet (telnet 128.119.50.48) Amherst, MA (1:321/120) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00012 Date: 05/17/96 From: MICHAEL BOWEN Time: 09:25pm \/To: RON MCDERMOTT (Read 3 times) Subj: MAINFRAMES??? Give the man a silver dollar!!!!!!!!! The place where I use to work had a mini tower as well as a pc network (also called a LAN for Local Area Network) which was linked to the tower (The tower had the manufacturing, purchasing, accounting stuff on it and the lan was for product development) as well as individual pc's in various offices. Almost all of the pc's were capable of using various communications programs to link to the tower. When you're using a pc in a communications program (sometimes also called terminal mode) you're essentially "dumming down" the pc. The advantage is that if you want to capture something off the tower, you can use a capture mode that most communications programs have, and literally capture information from the host system. There the distinction between pc and main frame was really starting to blur. At my former place of employment they were going towards using the tower to take care of the "corporate stuff", and the pc's allowed various departments and personnel to do a much better job of developing and tracking items. I was using Microsoft Word and Excell extensively. I was even starting to pull records off the tower and archive them off my pc so we could delete records off the tower. Does that help? Mike --- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 * Origin: Enviro-Link BBS, Rochester NY (716) 359-0008 (1:2613/208.0) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00013 Date: 05/18/96 From: MATT SMITH Time: 06:17pm \/To: DAVE MAINWARING (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: NATIONAL CURRICULUM DM> RM> then we can have exit exams which certify that a graduate has DM> RM> attained certain skills or a certain base of knowledge. As DM> RM> it is now, a graduate may, or may not, know much of ANYTHING! DM> RM> ___ DM> OK I'll buy it:-) This alone is cause enough to support the cause. You'll "buy" the idea that an exit exam will insure that the HS grad will be knowledgable? North Carolina has had for at least 10 years a HS competency test required for graduation. Do you think that means all North Carolina HS grads are functionally literate, able to do 7th-8th grade prealgebra, and able to handle work or college? --- Simplex BBS (v1.07.00Beta [DOS]) * Origin: NighthawkBBS, Burlington NC 910-228-7002 HST Dual (1:3644/6) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00014 Date: 05/18/96 From: MATT SMITH Time: 06:21pm \/To: MORT STERNHEIM (Read 4 times) Subj: Re: Textbooks MS> I seriously doubt you will find free replacements for standard texts MS> on the MS> internet. It costs a lot of money to develop course materials, and MS> fancy MS> multimedia etc does not come free either. Somebody has to pay for MS> all MS> this investment MS> I may be biased -- I wrote a college text book. I spent a good part MS> of my MS> life for five years on the project. Do you think I would have done MS> that MS> with no compensation? There's a lot of excellent shareware on BBSs, and it tends to be freeware in practice. (I wonder how many of the users ever pay?) Since a lot of college students are writing theses for which they'll never get direct monetary pay, I think you'll eventually see a lot of text-quality items on the Internet. --- Simplex BBS (v1.07.00Beta [DOS]) * Origin: NighthawkBBS, Burlington NC 910-228-7002 HST Dual (1:3644/6) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00015 Date: 05/18/96 From: MATT SMITH Time: 10:13pm \/To: ALL (Read 4 times) Subj: SCHOOL PHYSICALS SCHOOL HEALTH EXAM ??? Numerous parents in East Stroudsberg, Pennsylvania are irate over their public school system having done gynecological exams on their 6th-grade daughters at school without parental permission or even telling parents such exams were being done as part of a state policy of requiring all 6th grade students to have physicals. According to accounts on other echoes, the girls were not allowed to call their parents before the exam...nor to refuse it. Such accounts also said the girls were physically blocked from leaving the group waiting to be examined. They also say that a school-provided advance explanation to parents never mentioned that the physical would include a gynecological exam, and that the explanation said that parents' permission was "assumed" if they did not object in writing in advance. (Some posts quote articles from a Pocono, PA newspaper.) Is anyone familiar with the incident? Does anyone have any opinion on: 1) Was "informed consent" obtained? A kid can't go on a field trip to the museum without the school getting a signed permission slip, signed by the parent in advance. 2) In schools doing at-school physicals, are students normally prohibited from calling their parents? 3) Should the students have been simply given a form for their doctors to complete, and told they would be suspended if they didn't return it...like with vaccinations? 4) Are gynecological exams a normal part of at-school physicals? --- Simplex BBS (v1.07.00Beta [DOS]) * Origin: NighthawkBBS, Burlington NC 910-228-7002 HST Dual (1:3644/6) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00016 Date: 05/18/96 From: AMY BALLANTYNE Time: 02:19pm \/To: DONNA RANSDELL (Read 3 times) Subj: groups:hetro vs. homo -> I was involved in this situation when whole language started coming -> in, in the late 80s. I was told to use whole language, but not given -> any manuals or training in it beforehand. It was all OJT. I felt -> inadequate...fortunately I usually went back to my original way of -> doing things, until I understood what I was doing. As soon as I -> understood what I was doing, I still didn't use it. (I am NOT a -> proponent of whole language.) I didn't know anything about whole language until a few months ago. I signed up for a class at the University of Utah entitled Literacy In The Classroom. I have been taught the benefits of the so-called whole language movement. I found out that I've been using it all along. So, when I'm out job hunting now, I tell them I favor a whole language and phonics approach to reading and writing. --- WILDMAIL!/WC v4.12 * Origin: Praise OutReach BBS (1:311/57.0) --------------- FIDO MESSAGE AREA==> TOPIC: 265 EDUCATOR Ref: D5P00017 Date: 05/19/96 From: TOM COTTON Time: 12:00am \/To: CHARLES BEAMS (Read 3 times) Subj: Textbooks CB>SK>Because there may be advantages? As has been mentioned in this thread, >SK>for certain types of books in subject areas where information is being >SK>accumulated at a rapid pace, CD-ROM publication allows for less >SK>expensive and more rapid update of published materials. Not to mention >SK>the savings in publication costs. However, for classic works of >SK>literature, I don't see any advantage. CB>My point exactly. Paul has been predicting an end to the use of >textbooks, but I do not see computers and textbooks as mutually >exclusive. No reason why we can't continue using textbooks and start >using computers as a secondary resource. Just as television did not >bring an end to the use of the radio, I do not see computers killing off >textbooks. More likely the eventual case will be the computer networks will be primary and the text book secondary if in extant at all. Public schools will be the last to make the change but IMO the eventuality, good or bad or somewhere in between will be thrust upon many education systems early in the next century. Young educators would do well to be as proficient with the use of computerized materials as they possibly can. Traditional education may be in jeopardy in the interim as people realize much of what they learn will not transfer to earning an income in their future. ___ X QMPro 1.53 X All rising to a great place is by a winding stair. --- Maximus 2.02 * Origin: North East Texas Datalink (1:3819/128)