Schools and Tech

schools and tech: episode #30: College Admission Season Part 1



SaTP30.mp3
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Guests Ellen Masten Academic and College Counselor Pacific Collegiate School and Michele Radcliffe, Director of College Counseling at York School


News of the Week:

1) Thomas Friedman’s “Teaching For America” Op-Ed piece in Sunday’s NYT
Honoring teachers as professionals, preparing & compensating them accordingly; role of parents - The more we demand from teachers the more we have to demand from students and parents.

2) Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction NYTimes Magazine
“Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing,” said Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston. And the effects could linger: “The worry is we’re raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently.”

Allison Miller, 14, sends and receives 27,000 texts in a month, her fingers clicking at a blistering pace as she carries on as many as seven text conversations at a time. She texts between classes, at the moment soccer practice ends, while being driven to and from school

“The headline is: bring back boredom,” added Dr. Rich, who last month gave a speech to the American Academy of Pediatrics entitled, “Finding Huck Finn: Reclaiming Childhood from the River of Electronic Screens.”

3) Computers In Schools Are A Failure, Says Computer Pioneer Alan Kay [Apple in Educ]
Kay says the education system has squandered 30 years of technology in classrooms. He likens the modern factory educatory system to a monkey with a microscope. The monkey looks at its reflection in the microscope’s barrel but doesn’t look through the eyepiece — it utterly misses the point.

4) Project Red: Do 1:1 right or don't do it at all ZDNet Education
Last month, Project Red, an initiative to “Revolutionize Education” through technology, released findings on the utility and factors for success in 1:1 computing. Their research, which spanned almost 1000 schools using a comprehensive survey instrument over the 2009-2010 school year suggested that, when done correctly, 1:1 computing can have measurable and significant impacts on teaching and learning. When done poorly, 1:1 is just an added cost without any added educational value.

5) The Secret To Getting Every Student Excited About Writing Tech&Learning
“A lot of student writing is of little interest to anyone beyond the teacher.”


Main Topic:  College Admission: 2010: Part I (through submitting applications)

Guests Ellen Masten and Michele Radcliffe

  • 8 Big Changes to College Admission in 2010-2011 - Yahoo News
  • http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/steps/Pages/default.aspx .  This is a subsection of the NACAC website, the National Association of College Admissions Counselors.  The URL gives students and parents information about various topics in the college admission process.

    Questions on our minds:

    • When should students first start thinking actively about college admission and what should their initial steps entail?
    • What are your tips for helping high school students identify the best college/universities to match their interests & personalities?
    • How many schools should a student be applying to?  Is there a notion of applying to too many?
    • How important are college visits? interviews with reps? teacher evaluations? course rigor vs. SAT scores?
    • What are the trends now that admission offices with smaller staffs are inundated with more applications? (See “Application Inflation” from previous podcast)
    • How can an applicant make his or her application stand out from the crowd? Do DVDs and ePortfolios help showcase student work effectively or are they ignored for lack of time?
    • How has the role of private counselors evolved and are parents getting their money’s worth?
      • A new ethics code for college admissions counselors - EducationNews.Org & USA Today 6.7.10 - The number of families hiring private counselors to advise them on the college application process continues to grow, with one recent study estimating that 26% of "high achieving" students now make use of such counselors. The field is unregulated and includes many one- or two-person operations, as well as large, slick businesses that boast about their clients' track records.
      • Tim's Tech Tidbit:

        Facebook Connect (and what you give away by using it)

        Facebook Developer Documentation


        Endorsements:

        Cammy: VoiceThread - a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate slides and leave comments in 5 ways

        Kevin: 20 Things I learned about Browsers and the Web  by Google: http://www.20thingsilearned.com/

        Tim: My endorsement is the same as Kevin’s!

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        Schools and TechBy Kevin Brookhouser, Cammy Torgenrud, Tim Torgenrud, and Roger Luckenbach

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