She Snoops for Scoops: The Personal Side of the EdNET Community
She Snoops for Scoops: The Personal Side of the EdNET Community
Vicki Smith Bigham — Friday, November 04, 2011
Welcome to November and the end of another l-o-n-g week. But I see the weekend on the horizon, so all is well. I know it is a busy time for all of you too, but you know you must stop and catch up on this week's scoops, so here they are....
A new team member at SETDA....
Dr. Jennifer Fritschi has joined the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the principal association representing U.S. state and territorial as director of strategic partnerships. In this role, she will maintain and strengthen the association's relationships with emerging and established educational technology companies on behalf of the SETDA membership and in support of the association's mission. Jennifer's career has focused on the effective use of technology in education from the vantage point of an educator, state education agency educational technology leader and, most recently, the private sector. Prior to joining SETDA, she served as director of professional development and state education partnerships with the Verizon Foundation where she directed the development and ongoing operations of a national professional development program and oversaw state and national partnerships related to Verizon Foundation's flagship educational program, Thinkfinity.org. Prior to working with the Verizon Foundation, Jennifer served with the Alabama State Department of Education in the professional development and educational technology groups working with technology standards for teachers, Alabama's educator web portal, ALEX and as an assistive technology consultant. She also worked in numerous roles in the Jefferson and Shelby County School Districts, including as an elementary special education teacher. Join me in congratulating Jennifer on joining the talented SETDA team at jfritschi@setda.org!
Happy Anniversary to Headsprout!
Headsprout, now part of DYMO/Mimio, has announced that its adaptive online literacy education programs have helped develop more than 600,000 capable, confident readers in homes and classrooms in the U.S. and around the world since their initial availability 10 years ago this week. Headsprout continues to strive toward its goal of helping to eliminate childhood illiteracy through its two programs, Headsprout Early Reading and Headsprout Reading Comprehension. Each program is uniquely designed to provide individualized instruction that delivers proficiency in basic and advanced reading skills upon satisfactory completion of each program. In October 2001, Headsprout launched its initial research-based, user-tested program: Headsprout Early Reading, aimed at learners in grades K-2. The program was first introduced for home use, with classroom implementations following a year later. Headsprout Reading Comprehension-a breakthrough, first-of-its-kind analytical thinking program that teaches students in grades 3-5 to understand the text they read using four main reading strategies-was launched in schools in October 2009 and made available for home use in January 2010. Accolades garnered by the programs include a 2008-2009 Education.com A+ Award for Headsprout Early Reading and a 2010 CODiE Award for "Best Online Instructional Solution" for Headsprout Reading Comprehension. Both programs are now used in thousands of homes, as well as public, private and charter school classrooms and are successfully implemented across a broad spectrum of scenarios - including pre-school preparation and early reading acceleration, core curriculum for all students, and intervention for struggling readers and English Language Learners. While the programs have evolved and increased in length - with Headsprout Early Reading growing from 10 episodes to 80 and Headsprout Reading Comprehension doubling from 25 to 50 lessons - the focus on content that adjusts to individual learners' pace and performance remains the foundation of both programs. Headsprout also provides extensive technical and instructional support and professional development for teachers who use the programs. Join me in congratulating the Headsprout team on a decade of impressive accomplishments!
Free books by Moursund and Albrecht
Two pioneers in the field of computers in education, Dr. David Moursund, and Robert Albrecht, are pleased to announce that their co-authored math education book, Using Math Games and Word Problems to Increase the Math Maturity of K-8 Students, is now available free on the Web. This book is for preservice and inservice teachers who want to improve the informal and formal math education of preK-8 students. The authors emphasize using simple, inexpensive games to provide students with learning environments that help to increase their levels of math maturity. The focus is on learning for understanding that will last a lifetime. The book includes both underlying math education "theory" and a variety of games. There is considerable emphasis on learning to develop and test strategies to help increase one's effectiveness in dealing with recurring math-related problems and problem situations. Please feel free to download the Microsoft Word file or the PDF file now.
Dave and Bob are also offering a second free book, Becoming a Better Math Tutor, which also may be downloaded as a Word file or a PDF file. This book is part of a larger project designed to provide help to people who are interested in improving the math education of students. The project is just getting started, and one unifying goal is to encourage and help facilitate math tutors to interact with each other and share their accumulated experiences, wisdom and materials. If you know people who might be interested in participating in these no-cost activities, please contact Dave Moursund at moursund@uoregon.edu, and you can also review more details about the project.
And some sad news to share....
In my conversations with Dave Moursund this week, I learned that his wife, Sharon Yoder, passed away in September. I was so shocked and saddened by this news. Sharon had a brain aneurism and died three days later on September 15th, the day before her 69th birthday. Sharon was a pioneer in the field of computers in education with strong roots in working with a wide range of students as microcomputers were first becoming available. She was exposed to computers during her undergraduate degree work in Mathematics at Wooster College in Ohio. Further exposure occurred during her master's degree work in Math Education at Oberlin College in Ohio. While working in the Engineering Department for the City of Eugene, she contributed to the planning effort involved in converting her "by hand and calculator" work into software for the IBM 360 computer they were in the process of installing. Her first solid introduction to computer programming came through typing two computer book manuscripts for David Moursund when her former husband, Ted Burrowes, was a doctoral student at the University of Oregon in the early 1970s. By the time Sharon began her doctorate work at the University of Akron in Ohio, she had many years of experience in working with computers in her precollege teaching and in teaching teachers about computers. Her doctorate work included a substantial concentration in "straight" computer science, and her dissertation was on the use of Computer-Assisted Instruction with mathematically gifted 7th grade students. In addition, she was a prime mover in the development of textual materials to help support the implementation and spread of Logo. She worked for Logo Computer Systems, Inc. for a year. During this time she interacted extensively with Seymour Papert and other leaders in the Logo movement and gave talks and workshops across the country. She authored or co-authored 46 books and a large number of articles and made presentations at numerous conferences.
One of Sharon's passions was foster care of kittens and needy cats. She did volunteer work for Greenhill Humane Society in Eugene and for a number of other cat "rescue" organizations. For those choosing to do so, memorial contributions in her name may be made to: Greenhill Humane Society, 88530 Green Hill Rd., Eugene, OR 97402, 541-689-1503. And you may want to send a note of sympathy to her husband Dave at moursund@uoregon.edu. If you need a postal mailing address, just let me know at bighamv@aol.com. I am sorry for Dave and the many people Sharon touched in her life who are now feeling her loss.
Go enjoy a wonderful weekend with your family and friends. That's what I plan to do and to hit more of the wonderful fall holiday markets and festivals that can be found during this season. Till next week, friends....Vicki, the Snoop
