a Web 2.0 pandemic in the making

Ryan wrote about a rising fever of Web 2.0 in education. Now the Seattle Times has caught the bug with its Digital Democracy project:

We asked Seattle public school students to submit, on video, the questions they think are most important to the district's future. We selected five of those questions, and asked each Seattle School board candidate to respond in kind. Now it's your turn to watch the results. Click play on the question to hear what the student asked. Listen to the answers from each candidate by doing the same.

A sample clip from candidate Harium Martin-Morris is provided below. Kudos to the Times and the candidates for reaching out to voters.

Seattle likes to L3RN

They never use the word "blogging" to describe their activity, but it fits:

Similar to YouTube, the popular Internet video-sharing Web site, L3RN (pronounced simply "learn") is touted as a tool for professional development of teachers, allowing teachers in different schools to discuss ideas and upload lesson plans and other information.

But for students, it means they can comment on their peers' work and also show off their projects to their parents. According to Hale's Advanced Placement students, it also has proved to be a lot of fun....

This fall, the district plans to add to L3RN by introducing another online system called Medley, a social-networking site comparable to MySpace.

Medley will allow students to have personal home pages. They can create online journals and send messages to their friends and teachers.

Should be fun to manage, as well. Ambitious. Let's hope it works.

Seattle school payroll to join 20th century

It took this...

Last fall, district officials discovered a Nova Alternative High School teacher allegedly adding overtime to her signed time sheets — something she had been doing since 1992, according to the district. Of the $179,000 the district believes she stole, $120,000 was in the past five years.

...to make this happen...

This fall, the district will launch a new computer system that links its payroll and financial systems, and it is hiring an internal auditor, reorganizing its human resources and payroll departments and training managers to better monitor their budgets.

...despite this.

The state auditor recommended in 2001 that the district cut off employees' access to their signed time sheets, records show. The state made the same recommendation in 2002. And in 2003, 2004 and 2005, audits continued to warn that the district's shoddy payroll system put funds at risk. Auditors pointed out smaller losses: $1,800 in 2003-04, $12,000 in 2004-05.

To be fair:

Despite the findings, Spencer said the district is in good financial shape. She pointed to an audit of the district's financial statements over the same time period. For the second year in a row, that report found no problems. Standard & Poor's and Moody's both recently raised the district's bond ratings — another sign of the district's financial stability, Spencer said.

Still, you have to be amazed that, in 2007, the district is just now linking its payroll and financial systems via computer. And I thought my district was slacking.

Update: Ryan points out how modernization has foundered in the LA Unified School District.

school board candidate hits the blog

In Washington we could use more school board candidates like Seattle's Lisa Steubing, who's taking advantage of the new/old media to share her thoughts, unfiltered-like, on the P-I's blog. A sample:

I believe in defining what professional teachers should accomplish--then giving them the academic freedom, the support and the tools to achieve those goals.

It is terrible that the WASL has such weight because it is tied to NCLB. Teachers have practically been reduced to technicians in preparing their students. The more we script and restrict instruction the less time we have for creative, in-depth and higher-order learning.

As part of a local union effort, I'll be interviewing Olympia's upcoming candidates, and will be sure to publish their thoughts on my other blog.

Update: Incumbent Darlene Flynn joins the fun. Commentators complain about a lack of communication; maybe blogging begins the healing process?