-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Moodle driving jobs in education
,----[ Quote ]
| It's amazing, the opportunities a disruptive
| technology can offer to those who take the
| time to learn it. If you know your Moodle,
| there are more than 100 jobs available,
| right now, today -- and for some of them,
| you don't even need to change out of your
| pajamas.
|
| [...]
|
| Looking at some of the job descriptions
| gives immediate insights into why open
| source is so useful. Many of these job
| offers are for very specific modifications
| to Moodle. One can't help but wonder how
| effective Moodle is, as a community, in
| reintegrating these kinds of efforts -- but
| one thing is for certain: they've got a way
| better shot at it than Blackboard does.
`----
http://opensource.com/education/10/2/moodle-driving-jobs-education
Open Educational Resources: The Education Ecosystem Comes to Life
,----[ Quote ]
| One example of this is ISKMEâs OER Commons,
| an open education network that focuses on
| the curation and federation of open content
| from over 200 content partners (such as
| NASA, MIT OpenCourseware, WGBH, and many
| others). This has evolved into the
| networking and professional development of
| teachers worldwide who collaborate on
| improving and creating open content. A key
| component of this work has been to help
| educate the educators about copyright and
| content licensing as well as to introduce
| social collaboration environments that serve
| as catalysts to encourage teachers and
| learners to the shift from a consumer
| culture of education (where teachers deliver
| and students buy) to one in which teachers
| and learners gain leadership and support to
| share and build expertise from within.
`----
http://opensource.com/education/10/1/open-educational-resources-education-ecosystem-comes-life
Recent:
PPS and the philanthro-capitalists
,----[ Quote ]
| The free market approach to enrollment and
| funding is a demonstrable failure in
| Portland, when measured by access to
| educational opportunity. Unless the
| district is willing to significantly reduce
| opportunity for the white middle class,
| thereâs no way they can pay for equity of
| opportunity without balancing enrollment,
| that is, by curtailing school choice. This
| is a significant element of the high school
| plan. With it, the district appears to be
| forging a path independent of current
| trends pushed by Gates, at least for high
| schools.
|
| But the district appears unwilling to apply
| the same lesson to middle grades.
|
| Sara Allanâs contention that itâs not the
| structure of the school that matters, but
| what goes on in the classroom, also closely
| parrots the current line being sold by
| Phillips, now head of education for the
| Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
|
| Phillips was the keynote speaker at the
| Council of The Great City Schools
| conference held in Portland last month,
| attended by Allan and quite a few of her
| administrative colleagues. In her speech,
| Phillips promoted merit pay for teachers,
| the latest policy thrust of Gates.
|
| While superintendent in Portland, Philips
| was responsible for both the transition to
| K-8 schools and the âsmall schoolsâ
| initiative, funded largely by the Gates
| foundation, which dismantled every
| comprehensive high school in Portland
| serving majority non-white students, and
| split them into rigid âacademies.â These
| academies forced students to choose a
| narrow field of study as freshmen, and
| didnât allow students to take electives
| offered in other academies in the same
| building.
|
| [...]
|
| Gatesâ quiet partner
|
| The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has
| grown to be the dominant voice in the
| national education dialogue, heavily
| influencing the federal education policy of
| both George W. Bush and Barack Obama. But
| even as PPS appears to be taking a non-
| Gates path on high schools, the district
| continues to be enamored with Gatesâ
| biggest private-sector education policy
| ally: Eli Broadâs education foundation.
|
| [...]
|
| âStudent performance,â entirely measured by
| standardized test scores, correlates highly
| to poverty. Broadâs scheme would almost
| certainly assure that teachers in poor and
| minority communities would make less than
| their colleagues in wealthier schools, only
| worsening the achievement gap. This puts
| the lie to Broadâs (and Gatesâ) stated
| mission of closing that gap.
|
| [...]
|
| âStudent performance,â entirely measured by
| standardized test scores, correlates highly
| to poverty. Broadâs scheme would almost
| certainly assure that teachers in poor and
| minority communities would make less than
| their colleagues in wealthier schools, only
| worsening the achievement gap. This puts
| the lie to Broadâs (and Gatesâ) stated
| mission of closing that gap.
`----
http://ppsequity.org/2009/11/30/pps-and-the-philanthro-capitalists/
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux)
iEYEARECAAYFAktsACsACgkQU4xAY3RXLo5e3wCgil5Kl0DPHtogg1I4onSx2LfQ
nRIAnilhcvp4qJidVeG87VS2GGyXB/RK
=kpuP
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
|
|
