Saturday mornings are turning into a ritualled time in our household. I’m accustomed to getting up at 5:30 a.m. on normal school days, and since my body can't make distinctions, 5:30 on the weekends it is! Our typical breakfast fare is pancakes. My goal is to get up and get the process going before our two girls wake up and come down to “help.”
As part of the morning breakfast preparation, I indulge myself with a little talk radio from a local FM talk station called 97.1 FM Talk. Most all of the commentators are politically conservative (I by nature am politically conservative. When I was growing up, I remember handing out President Reagan door hangers and campaign flyers with my dad! To give you some ideas as to my upbringing, my dad thought President Reagan was a moderate). But I digress…..
The 7:00 to 10:00 a.m. time slot on 97.1 is dominated by Dr. Randy Tobler. I will say at the outset that my own views are almost always in harmony with Dr. Tobler, politically speaking. The only real issue I have had with Randy, causing a rather passionate response from myself, wasn’t actually political but rather educational. Educational technology to be exact. He proposed that the Internet was not a viable tool for and held no educational value for children before the age of fifteen years of age. As matter of fact, the use of the Internet was detrimental to child development (cognitive, social, and emotional). He sighted the current Megan Meier Case.
Now many of you who read ed tech blogs on a regular basis recognize the absurdity in the reality of this opinion (maybe "absurdity" is a strong word?). I respect Dr. Tobler immensely, except when it comes to this opinion.
Before I go into a more specific argument, I’d first like to apologize to Randy. I’ll admit that I was a bit too passionate on the phone that morning (not "I" over "E"). I am always nervous when I call, and then feeling a bit “hot under the collar” didn’t help matters any. Another caveat is that talk radio is not a good forum to discuss such a broad topic as “educational technology.” During the course of our brief conversation about five different topics where raised and each one is uniquely important to the total conversation of ed tech. When he took my phone call I stated that I wasn’t likely to change his mind because he didn’t have a full grasp on the intricacies of the ed tech conversation and I meant it. It's hard to have a "sound-bit" conversation without time to dive in.
So, what I’d like to do is write a series of blog posts to lay out my arguments for engaging ECC, Elementary, and Middle School students with the Internet and utilize the web as an effective learning tool. Hopefully Dr. Tobler will be able to "tune-in" to my future blog posts!
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Media Advisory for Immediate Release
May 23, 2008
Contacts:
Jocelyn Webster, Strong American Schools
(202) 870-9820 – Cell
Jocelyn Webster@strongamericanschools.org
Krista Zaharias, Strong American Schools
(202) 870-1097 – Cell
Krista.Zaharias@strongamericanschools.org
NATIONAL EDUCATION REFORM CAMPAIGN, ED IN ’08, LAUNCHES IN THE SHOW-ME STATE
Over 300 Students Join County Exec. Charlie Dooley, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, Former Governor Bob Holden, ED in ’08 Chairman Roy Romer And Other Missouri Leaders To Challenge Presidential Candidates To Address America’s Education Crisis
St. Louis, MO - As students prepare to graduate this spring, nearly 20,000 students in Missouri, and 1.2 million nationally, will not receive their diplomas with their peers, indicating that schools in Missouri and across the nation are failing to prepare students for college, work and life.
In Missouri, according to Alliance for Excellent Education, a ninth grader attending school in one of the two largest school districts has less than a 40 percent chance of graduating from high school within four years. Specifically in St. Louis City, the state’s largest school district, only 37 percent of ninth graders receive their diplomas with their peers; in Kansas City, the state’s second largest school district, the outlook is worse with merely 31 percent of ninth graders graduating on time.
To address this crisis, a group of bipartisan leaders, including County Exec. Charlie Dooley, Lt. Governor Peter Kinder, Former Governor Bob Holden and Chairman Roy Romer, will join with Strong American Schools’ ED in ’08 campaign and students from across St. Louis to challenge presidential candidates to put forth real solutions to fix America’s education system and ensure that every student is prepared to compete in a global marketplace.
The campaign, which is an unprecedented effort, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations and The Eli and Edythe Broad foundation, calls on all presidential candidates to improve America’s public schools.
Date: Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Time: 12:00pm CT
Location: Saint Louis Science Center
5050 Oakland Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63110
Note: Media are encouraged to RSVP
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