Spending For Technology Training Lags
Market Data Retrieval's annual survey of school technology
use finds that just 17% of overall technology spending goes to teacher
training. MDR estimates that public schools spent $5.67 billion on
technology in 1999-2000, with the bulk going toward buying new hardware
and software. This flies in the face of recommendations from leading ed
tech policy and advocacy groups. The National Education Association
recommends that schools devote 40 percent of their technology budgets to
teacher training. Mario Morino, a philanthropist and the chairman of the
Morino Institute suggests that 70 percent of educational technology
budgets should be dedicated to organizational development, including
teacher preparation.
Source: The
New York Times(Requires registration)
Teaching Students To Repair Computers
Arkansas has teamed up with the ExplorNet Technology
Learning Project to create a program to teach students how to build,
upgrade and repair computers for their schools. The Arkansas Department of
Workforce Education will coordinate the state's pilot initiative, which
will be based on ExplorNet's flagship Computer Recycling Program (CPR).
CPR provides computer hardware and training for teachers to teach students
to refurbish older computers donated by private businesses. The repaired
computers are deployed to classrooms throughout participating schools. CPR
students will be able to troubleshoot and solve computer-related problems
that arise within their school. This not only saves money, but students
also gain valuable job skills. Students who successfully complete the CPR
program are prepared to take the A+ Certification exam, the industry
standard for computer service technicians.
ExplorNet
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Did You Say Dot Info?
ICANN, the organization that oversees the Internet's
addressing system, added seven new domain suffixes to the current roster
of .com, .org, .gov, .net or .edu. While vastly expanding the potential
for creating simple, easy-to-remember Web addresses, the move complicates
the search for a vaguely remembered address. ICANN authorized adding
general use names .info for anyone, .biz for businesses, .name for
individuals and targeted names .pro for professionals, .museum for
museums, .coop for business cooperatives and .aero for airlines. Proposals
that failed to win enough support included .web, .kids, .xxx, .union,
.health, .travel and .geo. ICANN was especially skeptical about .kids,
noting that it would be hard to determine what sites belonged in this
category. The new domains will not be put to use until next spring at the
earliest.
Source: San
Jose Mercury News
AudioMining for Sound Clips
Imagine searching a string of audio files as easily as
using "Find" to search for a specific word in a series of text
files. Until now there has been no easy way to search for a particular
spoken phrase. Lernout & Hauspie, the speech-recognition software
maker, has a solution to this problem. Called AudioMining, the software
analyzes digitized audio recordings and maps each recognized word to a
particular time-coded spot in the recording. Users can go directly to the
spot without having to listen to the entire recording. Lernout &
Hauspie expects that Audio Mining will appeal to schools, corporations and
the news media.
Source: The
New York Times (Requires registration)
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