NJ High School Adds New Recording Studio to Learning Spaces — from spaces4learning.com by Matt Jones

Excerpt:

A career and technical high school in New Jersey has added new professional recording gear to one of its teaching spaces. County Prep High School, part of Hudson County Schools of Technology, added hardware from Solid State Logic (SSL), a UK-based company that manufactures analog and digital audio consoles for music and audio production. Students in the music and audio technology program learn how to write their own songs and produce their own music. The senior project involves putting a label together and releasing songs.

 

The Studio at County Prep High School in New Jersey installed at the front of a teaching space with seating for about 16 students -- it overlooks a tracking room with a piano and two soundproof booths.

The new studio at County Prep High School features professional equipment from Solid State Logic.
Source: Solid State Logic

Also see:

A different view on the console at this New Jersey High School

Addendum on 4/1/21:

  • Control Room 42 ushers in the future of broadcasting — from derivative.ca
    Excerpt:
    Control Room 42 (CR42) a project from RTBF, public broadcaster for the French speaking part of Belgium, gives broadcasting’s traditionally hardware-based control room a radical makeover enabled by TouchDesigner in ways its designer Hugo Ortiz thought impossible a few years ago. Recipient of The European Broadcasting Union’s Technology and Innovation Award 2020, this new software-based control room prototype that also integrates Artisto for audio and Smode for real-time graphics brings game-changing innovation to the broadcasting industry.
 

Self-Assessment (emphasis DSC)

Turn each of your learning outcomes or objectives into a question. Then, ask each student to self-score how confident they feel about being able to demonstrate that outcome or task.

Example:
Learning outcome: Students will be able to compare bacteria vs. viruses.

Change it to a question:  How confident are you in comparing bacteria vs. viruses based on today’s lesson?

Now ask students to score their confidence or ability to do this outcome using a simple scale such as:  “1 = I’m not confident that I can do it” to “5 = I am very confident that I can do it.”

 

If equity is a priority, UDL is a must — from cultofpedagogy.com by Katie Novak

Once you identify the firm goal, ask yourself, “Based on the variability in my class, what barriers may prevent learners from working toward that goal and how can I eliminate those barriers through design?”

Excerpt:

When we design the same learning pathways for all learners, we might tell ourselves we are being fair, but in fact, single pathways are exclusionary.  Beverly Daniel Tatum, author of the critically acclaimed book, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, challenges us to focus on impact over intentions. It may not be our intent to exclude our learners, but the reality is that many students do not have opportunities to learn at high levels or to access curriculum and instruction that is accessible, engaging, culturally sustaining, and linguistically appropriate.

Luckily, there is a framework that rejects these one-size-fits-all solutions and empowers educators to proactively design learning experiences so all students can increase their brainpower and accelerate and own their learning. The framework is Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

UDL is a framework for designing learning experiences so students have options for how they learn, what materials they use, and how they demonstrate their learning. 

From DSC:
I put together this graphic as I’m working on a Module (for Canvas) to address the topic of accessibility:

An image of a barrier being torn down -- revealing a human mind behind it. This signifies the need to tear down any existing barriers that might hinder someone's learning experience.
By Daniel Christian March 2021
 

Chrome now instantly captions audio and video on the web — from theverge.com by Ian Carlos Campbell
The accessibility feature was previously exclusive to some Pixel and Samsung Galaxy phones

Excerpt:

Google is expanding its real-time caption feature, Live Captions, from Pixel phones to anyone using a Chrome browser, as first spotted by XDA Developers. Live Captions uses machine learning to spontaneously create captions for videos or audio where none existed before, and making the web that much more accessible for anyone who’s deaf or hard of hearing.

Chrome’s Live Captions worked on YouTube videos, Twitch streams, podcast players, and even music streaming services like SoundCloud in early tests run by a few of us here at The Verge. Google also says Live Captions will work with audio and video files stored on your hard drive if they’re opened in Chrome. However, Live Captions in Chrome only work in English, which is also the case on mobile.

 

Chrome now instantly captions audio and video on the web -- this is a screen capture showing the words being said in a digital audio-based file

 

Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene — from theatlantic.com by Caitlin Flanagan and was published online on March 11, 2021; with thanks to Ryan Craig for this resource.
Elite schools breed entitlement, entrench inequality—and then pretend to be engines of social change.

Picture of a golden chair. Links to an article entitled, Private Schools Have Become Truly Obscene -- from theatlantic.com and was published online on March 11, 2021.

Excerpts:

These schools surround kids who have every possible advantage with a literal embarrassment of riches—and then their graduates hoover up spots in the best colleges. Less than 2 percent of the nation’s students attend so-called independent schools. But 24 percent of Yale’s class of 2024 attended an independent school. At Princeton, that figure is 25 percent. At Brown and Dartmouth, it is higher still: 29 percent.

The numbers are even more astonishing when you consider that they’re not distributed evenly across the country’s more than 1,600 independent schools but are concentrated in the most exclusive ones—and these are our focus here. In the past five years, Dalton has sent about a third of its graduates to the Ivy League. Ditto the Spence School. Harvard-Westlake, in Los Angeles, sent 45 kids to Harvard alone. Noble and Greenough School, in Massachusetts, did even better: 50 kids went on to Harvard.

However unintentionally, these schools pass on the values of our ruling class—chiefly, that a certain cutthroat approach to life is rewarded. 

But what makes these schools truly ludicrous is their recent insistence that they are engines of equity and even “inclusivity.” A $50,000-a-year school can’t be anything but a very expensive consumer product for the rich. If these schools really care about equity, all they need to do is get a chain and a padlock and close up shop.

“In practice, however, meritocracy now excludes everyone outside of a narrow elite.” This is a system that screws the poor, hollows out the middle class, and turns rich kids into exhausted, anxious, and maximally stressed-out adolescents who believe their future depends on getting into one of a very small group of colleges that routinely reject upwards of 90 percent of their applicants.

This is why wealthy parents think it’s life-and-death to get their kids into the right prep school—because they know that the winners keep winning.

From DSC:
Reading this article that was mainly about private secondary schools, I still can’t help but say that I feel this way about my alma mater — Northwestern University in Evanston, IL (even though it’s a university). They have lost their footing over the years. They’ve become unanchored from their motto — Philippians 4:8 — and they’ve long ago left the original faith-based intent of its founders when it was founded in 1851. 

As a Christian, I’m not happy at all with their direction. I notice that they pay lip service to equity and will sprinkle in an article or two here and there (in their alumni magazine for example) about how they are helping inner-city Chicago youth or some such topic.

But when the retail price that NU charges for ***one*** year of undergraduate work will cost you $79,342 (and thus $317,368+ for a degree), you’ve got to be kidding me!

The retail price of ONE YEAR at Northwestern University will cost you $79,342. Who is this accessible for other than the very wealthy these days!?!

 

And based upon my experience when I went there many years ago, courses were taught by:

  • Professors who had never been taught how to teach before
  • Professors who were not rewarded for their teaching, but rather they were awarded based upon their research
  • …and/or by graduate students who hadn’t been taught how to teach either

It must be all about the brand I guess. But I don’t think it’s worth it anymore — not at this kind of pricing!

Words are easy to say — but much harder to back up.


Addendums on 3/23/21:


Old Boys’ Clubs and Upward Mobility Among the Educational Elite — from nber.org by Valerie Michelman, Joseph Price & Seth D. Zimmerman; with thanks to Megan Zahneis at the Chronicle for this resource


Addendum on 4/11/21:


Calling all rich parents — from chronicle.com — which points to “We, the Privileged Parents That Matter, Applaud the Netflix College-Admissions Scandal Doc” — from chronicle.com by Eric Hoover

 

Video Captions Benefit Everyone — from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov by Morton Ann Gernsbacher

Excerpts:

Video captions, also known as same-language subtitles, benefit everyone who watches videos (children, adolescents, college students, and adults). More than 100 empirical studies document that captioning a video improves comprehension of, attention to, and memory for the video. Captions are particularly beneficial for persons watching videos in their non-native language, for children and adults learning to read, and for persons who are D/deaf or hard of hearing. However, despite U.S. laws, which require captioning in most workplace and educational contexts, many video audiences and video creators are naïve about the legal mandate to caption, much less the empirical benefit of captions.

More than 100 empirical studies, listed in the appendix, document the benefits of captions.

With so many studies documenting the benefits of captions, why does everyone not always turn on the captions every time they watch a video? Regrettably, the benefits of captions are not widely known. Some researchers are unaware of the wide-ranging benefits of captions because the empirical evidence is published across separate literatures (deaf education, second-language learning, adult literacy, and reading acquisition). Bringing together these separate literatures is the primary purpose of this article.

 

The excerpt below is from The 7 best online whiteboards in 2021 — from zapier.com by Maria Myre

  • Miro for turning ideas into tasks
  • Stormboard for creating multiple whiteboards in a single brainstorming session
  • MURAL for remote, multi-member team meetings
  • Limnu for teaching students remotely
  • InVision Freehand for annotating design files with a team
  • Conceptboard for turning a brainstorming session into a formal presentation
  • Explain Everything for creating whiteboard videos

From DSC:
Other potentially-relevant tools/vendors here include:

Woman using the Cisco Webex Desk Pro

 

Navigating website ADA compliance: ‘If you have videos that are not captioned, you’re a sitting duck’ — from abajournal.com by Matt Reynolds

Excerpts:

“If you have videos that are not captioned, you’re a sitting duck,” Goren said. “If you’re not encoding your pictures so that the blind person using a screen reader can understand what the picture is describing, that is a problem.”

Drop-down boxes on websites are “horrible for accessibility,” the attorney added, and it can be difficult for people with disabilities to navigate CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test) technology to verify they are human.

“Trying to get people with voice dictation or even screen readers to figure out how to certify that they’re not a robot can be very complicated,” Goren said.

Also see:

Relevant Laws

Information re: Lawsuits

 

From DSC:
More changes to the learning ecosystems in the U.S.


Microschools Can Lead to Macro Change — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark and Rebecca Midles

Excerpts:

However, around the edges, the growth of pods and microschools has benefited thousands of learners. New tools and strategies have made it easier to create microschools of 15 to 150 students as a short-term pilot or long-term learning option.

Given their small size, microschools can be opened quickly in alternative spaces. Microschools quickly create new community-connected learning options (themes, careers, and experiences) for students. They can also be used to quickly address underserved student populations (preschool, dropout recovery, and career education).

Microschools make learning personal. With unique themes, links to community, and porous walls, they can ignite learning for students and innovation for districts.

Also see:

The Highly Competitive, Hypocritical, and Altogether Essential World of Pandemic Pods — from by Julia Beck
During the most stressful school year on record, learning bubbles are the one thing saving working parents’ sanity—so long as no one dares to break the rules.

Still, pod life isn’t all good grades and living by the golden rule. Pods have also been the source of criticism and conflict in the Boston area. They have been at the root of strained relationships in some suburban communities, and criticized for accelerating achievement gaps between the podded and the podless. 

 

Improving Accessibility for Students and Faculty with Disabilities — from edtechmagazine.com by Alexander Huls
Here’s a look at different approaches higher ed IT teams can take to improve accessibility.

Excerpt:

While it may not always be possible to achieve 100 percent accessibility, here are some approaches higher education IT teams can take — even with limited resources — to improve learning experiences for students with disabilities.

 

From DSC:
Below are some great questions and reflections from Mr. Andrew Thorburn:

“I’d like to suggest not only the tools to learn and adapt, but marry that with — and to the learning model of — forgiveness and growth from not getting it right the first time. Perhaps a reflection or question from an instructor, a friend, and/or a mentor asking:

  • What did you expect to gain from engaging this learning?
  • What was the outcome? Was it what you expected?
  • If you were to do it over, what would you do differently, expect, or hope the outcome to be?
  • What would you want yourself to be like?  Why?”

We need to change how we feel about learning and appreciate the process of personal growth. 

 
 

Coronavirus has taught Colorado school kids one key lesson: resilience — from coloradosun.com by Erica Breunlin
They have faced continued uncertainty, lost out on sporting events and missed time with friends. Through it all, kids have learned how to cope.

And as much as schooling has been disrupted in the past year, Colorado students have also grasped lessons beyond their years — the kinds of lessons that are often learned best outside the classroom: a sense of resilience, how to deal with disappointment and the ability to navigate waves of uncertainty from week to week. For all the classroom moments they’ve missed since last March, they’ve also gained a set of coping skills to steer them through whatever trying times come after the pandemic.

From DSC:
And perhaps this kind of learning is what our kids will need to survive and thrive in a rapidly-changing world.

 

Free Resources to Help with Remote Learning in 2021 — from thejournal.com by Dian Schaffhauser

Excerpt:

As the pandemic continues wreaking havoc in education through the current school year, districts, schools, teachers and parents are being more selective about the technology they choose for instructing and engaging students. While hundreds of education companies, nonprofits and other organizations made their software and services free during the immediate switch to remote learning, many have become more thoughtful about how they help educators master online and blended instruction. We’ve winnowed through our original collection and sprinkled additions throughout, to bring you this updated set of free resources to help with remote learning in 2021.

 

Asynchronous Video Conversations: 11 Tips and Best Practices — from er.educause.edu by Rob Gibson

Excerpt (first 4 of 11):

1. Closely align video conversations with the stated module, course, and/or program learning objectives. Clearly indicate those alignments in the course outline.

2. Use the syllabus, an introductory course video, or a sample student video recording to prepare students in advance for this type of activity. Since many students will use their smartphones to record, provide information about best practices for creating quality video using a phone.

3. Some students are uncomfortable recording themselves. Depending on the product, consider offering alternatives such as an audio/mic-only mode, a text-only mode, or using a proxy image or avatar in the video.

4. Consider using threaded video conversations for course introductions to build a sense of humanizing the course. Michelle Pacansky-Brock supports the use of video conversations as an alternative to text. In her book How to Humanize Your Online Class with VoiceThread, she indicates that video tools maximize presence, a dimension of online connectivity to fellow students, the faculty, and the content. Research in her own courses found an increase from 25 percent to 75 percent in voluntary voice-video comments.Footnote5 This also helps form common goals and dispositions among students—dispositions are affective learning dimensions, such as motivation, attitude, persistence, empathy, and problem solving.Footnote6

 

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian