Plugged In
Tags—They’re It?
Districts try tracking students via radio frequency.
When retail and government giants Wal-Mart and the U.S Department of Defense adopt a technology, chances are it is destined to become the industry standard. So when both required their suppliers to track goods using radio frequency identification (RFID) tags—small chips that are monitored by an electronic reader—by January 2005, it would be safe to expect the systems to become ubiquitous, despite the privacy concerns over their use.
But can RFID find a place in schools? While some privacy advocates such as the American Civil Liberties Union voice concerns, for some technology directors such as Darrell Walery, the answer is yes. He is looking into RFID for Consolidated High School District 230 in Orland Park, Illinois. The district now handles attendance via the Internet. If the schools gave out RFID tags to each student and installed receivers in every doorway, administrators would get a better handle on student movement. “It would eliminate our attendance and reporting system, which, for a normal-size school, involves one to three support staff,” says Walery. “Potentially, you'd see a quick return on investment.”
Only a handful of schools are currently using RFID to track students—the Enterprise Charter School in Buffalo, New York, and the Rikkyo Elementary School in Tokyo are two. But as more districts look for easier ways to keep track of students without adding staff, Walery believes RFID will become a viable option.
“We've gotten quite a few calls from schools around the world,” says David Straitiff, president of Intuitek, the Buffalo-based systems integrator that installed the Enterprise Charter School's RFID system. He says that some parents are concerned about the interception of student data stored on the tags. “RFID has raised flags because people think that personal information on the tags can be picked up from miles away.” But the technology isn't that sophisticated, he says, comparing the cards with the access cards that people use to get into their office buildings.
The Buffalo school, which spent about $25,000 for its installation, wants to expand the cards so that students can put money on them and use them as debit cards to purchase cafeteria food.
Jim Hirsch, associate superintendent for technology services at Plano (TX) Independent School District, also believes RFID holds great promise for schools. “In the next year to 18 months, RFID should become affordable. I think we'll see interest from schools and districts as they begin upgrading attendance and library systems and want to integrate them.”
Kathleen Conn is the K–12 curriculum supervisor of science and technology education in the West Chester (PA) Area School District. She is also a lawyer and member of the Pennsylvania bar. Her two recent books, The Internet and the Law: What Educators Need to Know (2002) and Bullying and Harassment: A Legal Guide for Educators (2004), both published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, address contemporary problems in K–12 education. Here she talks about some basic practices that can protect a district from legal action:
What should an administrator do if a student posts insulting or offensive comments about a teacher on a web site that was not created using school equipment?
Usually, the most effective action is to contact the student's parents and ask if they are aware of the web site and their child's involvement. If the parents cooperate and the web site is dismantled without causing disruption of school operations, you've resolved the issue. However, if the insulting or offensive site causes material and substantial disruption of school operations, or if it interferes with the students' abilities to learn, the situation is more serious.
Depending on the nature of the comments, e.g., if the student threatens other students or teachers, you might contact law enforcement.
Suppose a teacher creates a web site that includes grammatical errors, misstates the curriculum, or portrays students in a bad light. Can a principal take action?
Teachers do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech just because they become teachers. Both private and public school teachers still have the right to make grammatical errors.
When teachers misstate the curriculum, however, the principal must determine whether the teacher is acting purposefully or maliciously. If so, you'll need to discipline the teacher, but you must first give the teacher notice and an opportunity to be heard. If a teacher portrays a student in a bad light, the teacher may be committing a tort of privacy or may be guilty of violating the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, a federal law that guarantees confidentiality of student records.
Every school and school district should proactively adopt and implement policies that specify who monitors district-related web sites, and all teachers should be put on notice of the policies and their rights and responsibilities regarding creating and maintaining school-related web sites.
What if a teacher creates a web site using district technology and the principal finds the web site content or format inappropriate or objectionable?
Although several courts have said that public school principals cannot discipline teachers (or students) merely because they disagree with the content of their speech or expression, teachers who use district resources to create web sites that are educationally inappropriate are misusing district resources and can incur discipline.
Public school districts should have acceptable use policies that put both teachers and students on notice that district resources, including technology, are to be used for educational purposes. The policies should also specify the consequences of misuse of district resources. With such policies in place, the administrative response to inappropriate or objectionable web sites should be clear.
Curriculum Update
Science Probes, New Software, And More
SCIENCE In East Middle School in Binghamton, New York, students are studying the health of the local trout population. The students use Vernier LabPro probes to test and monitor water quality in a chilled aquarium filled with young trout. Then they compare the tank water with local stream samples.
“We've never had the materials that will allow our students to monitor all of the factors (dissolved oxygen, pH, ammonia) that allow trout to live—or not—in local streams,” says science teacher John Reese. “Being able to conduct outdoor labs indoors, with no travel necessary, is a fantastic opportunity. The only downside will occur when the ‘no fishing' sign gets posted above the tank.”
CROSS CURRICULUM Discovery Education, a digital video/multimedia company in Silver Spring, Maryland, that acquired AIMS Multimedia and Rainbow Educational Media in August 2004, announced that 1,000 of 2,600 videos from unitedstreaming are now copyright-friendly for teachers and students to edit its digital content and use in projects. Grades K–12. Cost: $995 and up for a school-site license. 800-323-9084; www.unitedstreaming.com
LANGUAGE ARTS, WRITING Princeton, New Jersey–based educational testing and measurement organization ETS released Criterion 3.0, an updated version of its online writing-evaluation tool that uses automated scoring technologies to evaluate student essays. Grades 4–11. 866-387-5327; www.ets.org/criterion
MATH TinkerPlots from Key Curriculum Press, which publishes math books and software out of Emeryville, California, is a new program that teaches students to make graphs from data, create reports, and more. Grades 4–8. Cost: $89.95 and up. 800-995-MATH; www.keypress.com
SCIENCE, MATH, LANGUAGE ARTS NovaNET, the online courseware system from Mesa, Arizona–based Pearson Digital Learning, got 129 new and enhanced multimedia lessons. Pearson Digital is the maker of comprehensive technologies for PreK–12. Grades 6–12. 888-977-7900; www.pearsondigital.com
SOCIAL STUDIES BrainPOP, which produces educational animated K–12 movies out of Mt. Kisco, New York, released a new series of movies about ancient civilizations—Egypt, Rome, and Greece—to complete its social studies library. Grades 5–12. District pricing starts at $1.44 per student. 212-689-9923; www.brainpop.com
CROSS CURRICULUM Educational software company PLATO Learning (www.plato.com) of Bloomington, Minnesota, was awarded $695,000 to enhance offerings for White Hat Management's 23 Life Skills Centers in Ohio, Arizona, Michigan, and Colorado. Under the guidance of teachers, alternative high school students learn at their own pace using PLATO's computer-based instruction.
3 Ways to Improve Grant Proposals
By Tony Calega
As the 2005 funding season begins in earnest, finding grant opportunities might not be a problem, but getting them can be difficult if your proposal isn't up to par. Grace Stopani, senior grant specialist for Pearson Digital Learning, shares tips on ensuring an error-free application.
CRUNCH THE NUMBERS.
Reviewers say that an ill-conceived or erratic budget is perhaps the worst offense. They will usually flip to the budget section first and compare it with everything else in the application to make sure that all components are included. Make sure the numbers add up, include all necessary information, and never leave anything in the budget that isn't mentioned in the grant.
READ IT AGAIN. AND AGAIN .
Remember that reviewers are looking at several applications that are supposed to be following the same requirements, so something as minor as the wrong margin size can cause a rejection. Have someone review the application before submitting; a fresh pair of eyes may find overlooked errors. Reviewers look for anything that tells them the program will be successful. You must appear informed about the project you're seeking to fund. If that knowledge doesn't come across, the reviewer will assume that the project implementation will also be sloppy. Use charts or graphs to augment subject matter. Keep an eye on the little things (like current fonts and due dates).
STAY RELEVANT .
Sometimes an applicant is so desperate for funding that he or she sets unrealistic goals. Be as grounded as possible by quoting recent research. Reviewers are also looking for previous success in a similar grant or community partnership.
Get more tips from The Grantsmanship Center's Program Planning and Proposal Writing ($4; www.tgci.com/publications/puborder.htm ). For a complete overview of grant opportunities, visit the U.S. Department of Education at www.ed.gov/fund.
Getting To A Win-Win Decision
How to negotiate so that everyone walks away happy
By Douglas Stoner
Perhaps this year you've resolved to perfect your negotiating skills. In their seminal book Getting to Yes, Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton set out the most important concept in negotiation—the difference between position and interest. A position is a demand. An interest is the actual concern that lies underneath the demand or in other words, the answer to the question: “Why do I want what I want?”
As administrators, you may be so busy that you overlook ways to meet the interests of both sides. Imagine that you are having trouble persuading certain teachers to learn new software. Their real interest might not be the software itself, just the time it takes to master it. Perhaps they're worried about having to stay late or come in on weekends for training. That's a lot easier to work with than a simple no.
Here are a couple of key skills that every administrator should possess.
Generate options to meet the interests of both sides . Once you know the underlying interests beneath the positions, you can generate options to solve the problem. By working with the other person to brainstorm a number of possibilities, you increase the chances of finding something new that works.
In the case of learning software, you and your teachers might develop a list of alternate training times or, better yet, different ways for teachers to master the technology. Pick the most promising new ideas and fine-tune them.
Use external criteria to choose what's fair . It is not always possible to find solutions that meet all the interests of both parties. Rather than haggling about the outcome, seek measures you can use to decide what is fair. The measures should be external to the will of either party.
Administrators and teachers with their technology question might look at the amount of training other districts require, award comp time, or consider a system where teachers who help others master the technology get first pick of training times.
When the next set of issues comes down the pike, you and others will be better able to handle them.
Douglas Stone is a lecturer on law at Harvard Law School and co-author of Real College: The Essential Guide to Student Life (Penguin, 2004).
