School in a Box

By Sean Scarpiello

Recently, there has been a push for global education. In attempt to bring education to people all over the world, a not-for-profit initiative has created the School in a Box. The name of this technology sums up what exactly the product is- a school in a box. In this box, there are solar panels, an I-Pad, portable speakers and a portable projector. The apparatus takes 5 hours of sunlight to fully charge every piece of equipment. This technology can then be set up to run a school.

This initiative is aimed at schools in Africa, particularly Zimbabwe, where many of the resources which are vital for schools are hard to access. Therefore, the solar panels make it great to use anywhere in the world. Also, the I-Pad is able to pick up an internet connection from 3G; so again, it is possible to use this School in a Box almost anywhere. The speakers and projector, in my opinion really make the product into a school. These components enable the I-Pad to display movies, applications, internet webpages and more to a large group of students.

School in a Box is bound to be successful because it will bring education at a low cost to people all over the world, not just in Zimbabwe. In fact, a School in a Box product in the United States would also be successful. Organizations like the boy scouts, religious educators, the military, and even the companies that need to educate workers would purchase this product. It is great because managers could teach their workers in the field about the task at hand. For example, a manager at a construction site would be able to show the workers exactly what needs to get done, and how to most efficiently work together on the construction project.

In general, Apple has some pretty amazing applications which allow students from kindergarten to graduate school to learn easily. Also, large amounts of data can be stored on the I-Pad as textbooks, interactive study materials, audiobooks, and more. There are even applications which take data and turn them into quizzes and note cards so students can test their knowledge. For younger students, there are applications that help students learn their numbers, letters, and reading skills. Since these applications are designed for children, they turn learning into a game. Students are introduced to animated characters and face challenges and obstacles to beat the games, all while learning.

More and more schools are investing in I-Pads because there are long term gains with the I-Pad. That is why the I-Pad is ideal for the School in a Box as well. At a low cost, I-Pads can easily update textbooks, and other materials for learning. As schools begin investing in these technologies, we will begin to see an improvement in education all over the world. I-Pads are quickly showing up in everywhere from hospitals to schools. They are an amazing resource for the education field and are leading the revolution in bringing low cost and quality education to more and more people.

Sources:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/19167/apples_school_box_plan_to_innovate_education

http://www.iadtschoolinabox.com/

Avoiding the Summer Slide

By Sean Scarpiello

As August quickly approaches, students are realizing that summer is slowly coming to an end. With only one month left in their summer vacation, many students and parents are beginning to prepare for the beginning of the new school year. The aisles of stores are crawling with parents buying everything from notebooks and binders to calculators and protractors. Even though students have their school supplies, are they really prepared to return to school? During the last two months, students have had little mental stimulation. They have not practiced math problems or read a book since the beginning of June. How does this affect students and teachers during the school year and what can school districts do to avoid this problem?

The fact that students’ brains are on standby during the summer really hurts both the student and the teacher. Today’s students are not keeping their brains stimulated during the summer by revising the material they learned during the previous school year. This causes students to forget a lot of structured material for future learning. Therefore, teachers are forced to review past material in class which wastes valuable class time. If students arrived to school in September ready to go, teachers would have a much easier time with teaching the curriculum at a reasonable pace. Statistics describe that about 2.6 months of math material can be lost over the summer for some students. When teachers need to reteach this information to students in the beginning of the school year, it makes it difficult to stay on track. Because teachers use September as a review period, it is a struggle to finsh up the required lessons in June.

This problem is sweeping schools across the country and it is hard to come up with a simple solution to this problem. Some schools assign a required summer reading book. This is a great idea and can keep students thinking during the summer, but it is hard to administer. Some students get lazy and do not read the book because it is long or too boring. Only a select group of parents will actually encourage students to read the book, while others do not. A parent’s role is crucial to the success of their children in schools all over the world. If parents are not involved, then there is a good chance that students will not be fully involved either.

One other method of keeping students studying during the summer would be assigning work to do daily in a workbook. My parents had always encouraged me to do a few pages of math problems each day during the summer. The math was material that I had already learned and it was just practice so that I would not forget math equations from the previous year. Schools could create a similar workbook that is required to be finished over the summer. However, there is still the possibility that parents will not enforce the school’s requirements at home. Therefore, students would arrive to school in September at different levels because half the class did the assigned work and half did not. Parents should have their children practice math or English during the summer. It does not have to be a huge amount of time each day, just about twenty or thirty minutes daily. This time quickly adds up and it will give students an advantage when they return to school in the fall.

Reaching Out to Others to Save Money

By Sean Scarpiello

As the government continues to cut education funding, schools are forced to come up with new ways to save money. School administrators in Waco, Texas have reached out to the parents of students, as well as the rest of the community for ideas to save money. People could submit their suggestions online which were then categorized and counted. There ended up being 115 different suggestions; both good and bad ones. Currently, the school district’s financial advisors are reviewing this list to see whether or not any of the ideas could be implemented in schools.

In general, I feel that this is a great idea. It is a very wise move for administrators to reach out to parents and the community for a number of reasons. First off, some parents may have good ideas for cutting costs but simply cannot have their ideas heard at the district’s board meetings. The school district really has nothing to lose because of the 115 suggestions a few of the ideas should be able to save money. It also takes some pressure off of the administrators because parents will then realize just how difficult it is to come up with creative ways to save money. This process gives everyone a voice, so there really is no excuse for parents whining how they cannot make a difference when they have good ideas. In reality, most of the ideas are probably useless because they are either impractical or simply cannot be executed without a decrease in the quality of education. It is vital that the district has the ideas reviewed by its financial advisors because most of the good ideas that seem to work still may be unable to be implemented due to several reasons.

More school districts across the country should also try this technique to gather ideas for cutting costs. They may be surprised to discover that there are some good suggestions out there for saving money. One other way districts could look for crafty ways to reduce costs would be to look at the ways other school districts all over the country are finding ways to save. Schools all across America have faced cuts in federal funding and if school districts can learn from each other, then they can get more bang for their buck.

It will be interesting to see if any of the 115 suggestions can actually be used in the school district. I feel that the results will be promising. At college, professors and courses would always be graded at the end of each semester in order to make changes for the next year. The college used the feedback given by students and courses would be restructured then every few years to ensure a high quality of learning. It is good to see how other institutions are adopting the same technique of reaching out to others for ideas to improve. This should definitely be practiced more in the education field and schools all over should by saying, “Help us to help you.”

Source: http://www.kxxv.com/story/14680592/parents-list-their-ideas-to-save-waco-isd-money

Restructuring the School Year for Success

By Sean Scarpiello

Over past years, the United States has slowly begun to drop in the ranks of the best educated students around the world. As students from all across the globe take standardized tests, it is becoming clear that one of the world’s superpowers is not doing so well among its peers. Countries like Japan, China (particularly in Shanghai), are proving to have some of the highest test scores in math and science. As the United States struggles among other emerging countries, many people are wondering exactly what is the United States’ educational system doing wrong. What can we learn from other countries’ educational system in order to improve that of the United States?

One initial solution to the problem that is constantly argued by critics is to increase the number of days students go to school. Japanese students attend more than 60 extra days of schools when compared to students in the United States. The Japanese also did much better on tests in comparison to the United States. There is definitely a correlation between the number of days at school and test score, but I do not see the benefits of adding 60 more school days to American students. Increasing the school year by 60 days in the United States would cause more harm than good. It would increase the length of the school year by 33% and thus all the teachers’ paychecks would need to be increased by 33% as well. This would just cause too much of an increase in taxes that Americans would be paying. Plus, it would increase costs for school districts in many other areas, such as transportation and cafeteria costs.

There could still be a bit of an increase in the number days students go to school, but I do not think any more than 20 extra days would be beneficial. Just a small increase in the number of school days would allow teachers to move at a bit of a slower pace so that students can take their time to learn the information more fully. It would also alleviate a lot of the stress for teachers so that there is not anything in the curriculum that needs to be crammed into the last week of school. A few weeks extension would also increase the pay of the teachers, but not to a huge or unmanageable extent.

Another option is to have a school year that goes through the summer. I know that it is an unpopular idea but it would definitely raise test scores. The lack of a long summer break in countries like Japan and China are more beneficial than their extra school days. In the US, the first two to three months of the school year are a review of the material learned the previous year. If there was just a constant flow of learning, material would not have to be relearned each year and more would get done. There is too much wasted time that goes towards relearning material in schools and to win that time back would allow a lot more new material to be taught. The transformation to a year round school year would not be difficult. Winter and spring breaks could be made longer and summer break could be made shorter in order to implement this year round learning. If the United States education system adopted a year round regimen, there wouldn’t be a need for lengthening the school year because time will be saved by simply not reviewing the previous year’s material.

Ultimately, either option could help out the United States greatly in the international ranks. However, each would take a lot of time and collaboration to design a schedule that is both practical and efficient.

Sources:

http://blog.brainstormusa.com/?p=158

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2010/December/International-Test-Scores-US-Not-in-Top-10-/