School Family

We’re thrilled that Bill Harley will be adding his unique voice to the SchoolFamily.com blog!

A two-time Grammy award-winning artist and recipient of the Magic Penny Award from the Children’s Music Network, Bill uses song and story to paint a vibrant and hilarious picture of growing up, schooling and family life. His work spans the generation gap, reminds us of our common humanity and challenges us to be our very best selves. A prolific author and recording artist, Bill is also a regular commentator for NPR’s “All Things Considered” and featured on PBS. He joined the National Storytelling Network’s Circle of Excellence in 2001 and tours nationwide as an author, performing artist and keynote speaker.

Bill has a unique sense of humor and we’re looking forward to having his “wit and wisdom” on this blog. I asked Bill for a sneak preview of the types of things he’ll be sharing with SchoolFamily.com readers, here’s what he had to say…

“I’ve spent thirty years singing songs, telling stories, and writing books about children and the world they live in (including the two my wife and I have raised) I’ll share my thoughts on what I’ve seen in schools, families, and children’s lives. From playground rules to unfinished homework to moldy growths in the backpack – that’s my area of expertise. If you think your kid is the only one who would ever do what they just did, I’ll be there to remind you we’re all in the same boat.”

Bill has some great video and audio clips of his work on his website - www.billharley.com. My favorite is “Grownups Are Strange”.

Bill will be posting his first blog post in the next couple of days. Hope you’ll check back often and add your own thoughts and comments!

Very happy to let you know about the launch of two brand new sections on the site today!

Community – Thinking about how to keep your kids safe online? Wondering how to keep up your kids learning over the summer? Looking for book ideas? Share and learn with other parents of school-aged kids in our brand new community section. You can jump in and add your 2 cents to existing discussions or start a brand new topic. Hope you’ll jump in and start connecting and sharing!

Q&A – It’s really part of the new community but it’s such a useful feature (at least we think so!) that it deserves a special mention. A very simple Question and Answer format that makes it easy to ask whatever is on your mind. And of course we hope you’ll answer questions other folks have posted. It’s up to everyone participating to vote up and down the answers – this will make sure the really good answers stay at the top.

You’ll notice the “Community” and “Q&A” tab at the top have a “beta” icon on them. We’ve worked hard at making sure everything is running smoothly and have tested and retested all the new features. But of course there’s always a few glitches when something new is launched so we thought adding the “beta” icon was a good idea. If you see anything unusual or if you have any questions about these new features or how to use them please comment below or email us at community@schoolfamily.com.

Look forward to seeing you in the community! My username is klagden if you’d like to add me as a ‘friend’ after you’ve registered!

Thought this Summer Reading Program from Half Price Books was a neat idea. (Of course I was one of those kids who read after a bedtime with a flashlight under the covers so it’s not surprising I like this promotion to encourage reading!)

The store is offering kids (12 and under) a $3 shopping card for each week they read at least 15 minutes a day. The promotion is running for the months of June and July so a great way to keep those reading skills active over the summer months.

Checklists, reading logs, and tips to help your kids select books can be downloaded directly from their website.

A colleague sent me this neat site that promotes learning and feeds people at the same time! I have to confess I probably spent a little too much time reviewing my high school french vocabulary but it’s hard to stop when each correct answer donates another 10 grains of rice to the United Nations Food Program!

FreeRice is a great way to keep your kids’ brains sharp over the summer months. The quizzes are very easy to use and I like how they return to questions you previously answered wrong to make sure the word or concept has stuck. Lots of subjects to choose from - vocabulary, science, geography, and math.

Looking for other ways to keep kids’ minds active this summer? Check out this article -Summer Amnesia: Avoid the Brain Drain.

We’re thrilled that Connie will be sharing her insight and expertise here on SchoolFamily.com. As a teacher, she has devoted her career to making sure that her young students do very well in school, right from the start. Connie has tons of experience in helping youngsters learn the fundamentals for success at school. She has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Elementary Education, a Master’s Degree in Special Education, and has fulfilled all the requirements of the State of Rhode Island to be deemed a “Highly Qualified Teacher”. Connie will be sharing her experience with regular blog posts.

In addition to writing a newspaper column, Connie is a regular speaker on the subject of preparing children for school. As she was raising her own two children, she taught nursery school for four years in her hometown of Barrington, RI. She has been teaching early elementary grades in East Providence for the past twenty-one years.

Connie will be sharing all sorts of tips, ideas, and experience on the blog. She also has some great hands-on activities that are easy to do at home and reinforce core skills.

Connie’s first post will be going live tomorrow and it will talk about some of the skills children need to develop before they can master learning. Hope you’ll check back often and jump in with your own thoughts and comments!

Thought this was a neat story written by a mom with a 13 year-old who found her science curriculum about food chains turned into music and video and posted on Youtube. The catchy tunes helped the daughter (and of course her friends as she shared the video on Facebook) study for a test.

The days of the one-way flow of information in a classroom setting are definitely changing. As Leigh Himmel (the mom) says

“No longer being forced to learn only from your own class, you bring your entire context and the network to the learning process. Students become teachers, teachers become study groups.”

I always enjoy the quirky way Google adapts its logo to tie-in with special holidays and events. Now they’re getting school-aged kids involved by inviting them to submit doodles around the theme “What I Wish for the World.”

Unfortunately the competition has already closed for this year but you can vote for your favorite doodles in each grade level category. (Looks like it’s an annual event so perhaps an opportunity to participate next year.)

Nice to see that Google is also giving a technology grant to the school district with the highest point total based on their quality criteria.

Some of the doodles are really quite creative. Be interesting to see which one appears on the google homepage May 21st.

While flipping through the April issue of Wired magazine, the advice column (Dear Mr. Know-It-All), caught my attention as it raises an interesting question about how much you can/should post online of someone else’s kids.

The question:

I recently posted a video of one of my son’s high school wrestling triumphs on YouTube. The defeated wrestler’s father has asked me to take it down, saying it humiliates his boy. Is his request reasonable?

You can read the full answer on the Wired website (scroll down to the second question). It’s obvious Mr. Know-It-All feels the video should stay up. Whether you agree or disagree with his philosophy that “losing is part of the learning that high school sports provides” it does make me think about the appropriateness of posting videos and photos of other people’s kids.

Internet safety and privacy is a big concern these days and many parents make the decision to keep any identifiable photos of their kids off the internet. Seems trickier for high school kids as many of them post their own images and videos to Myspace, Facebook, and the like. Even so, I think it’s good practice to ask before posting photos/videos of other people, especially kids, and especially when it’s the parents doing the posting.

What better way to kick off Internet Safety Week than for our founder, Tim Sullivan, to appear on Fox 25 this morning! You can see what Tim had to say about keeping kids safe online by clicking in the video box below.

I particularly like the analogy of teaching kids to drive. We don’t put kids behind the steering wheel of a car without instruction, we should apply the same principles when they’re navigating the web.

Want more info about Internet Safety? Lots of articles, tools, and resources here - http://www.schoolfamily.com/internet-safety-week

Last week I wrote a post about UK schools looking at introducing Twitter, blogs, and other web applications into the curriculum. Seems that Story2.oh agrees there’s a need for computer instruction for kids as they’ve launched Hailey Hacks, a series of web videos to show 8-13 year olds “all kinds of cool things they can do with their computers.”

Series creator, Jill Golick says,

“Computers will become increasingly important in every aspect of kids lives – for entertainment, communication, work, everything. Yet there’s virtually no computer instruction in the classroom before grade 9,”

Not sure many parents will love the April Fool jokes Hailey shares but perhaps having kids learn how to use web based applications will outweigh the exasperation of being a victim of her practical jokes.