A recent post by fellow educator Faustin N. Weber on his blog “Catholic Educator” and a fascinating story “What Happened To Losing?” in Sunday’s  (8/22/10) Boston Globe Magazine both refer to what many call “sanitizing our kids lives.”

The former post speaks of a child who is not willing to “struggle” to achieve.  Self-esteem, Weber notes, is not about “being told you are great and wonderful. It’s obtained when you fight through something which is hard or challenging and come out the other side with success.”

The Boston Globe Magazine story addresses a society where scores are not kept and everyone not only wins but receives trophies merely for participating. Sooner or later competition enters into their life and many children just can’t cope.

Similar stories abound.

Recently I read where a college English professor notes that he spends 30-minutes meticulously marking each of his students’ papers in his freshman writing class. He’s attempting to improve their writing skills. Except that his  students argue with him about not getting the ‘A’ they deserve because “I worked hard on that paper!”

Even George Will when discussing NYC’s mosque controversy on ABC TV’s Sunday morning show This Week With Christiane Amanpour noted “…there’s no right to go through life without your feelings being hurt.”

Are we sanitizing our children’s future? Will they have the roll up my sleeves and get dirty attitude necessary to compete in an ever more competitive global economy?

What are your thoughts?

I came across this wonderful (and accurate) post from Talance, a Boston area non-profit website company, titled, “15 Ways To Create a Horrible Non-Profit Website.”

I work with private schools and this list resonated with me. Here are just a few of the items:

1. Let everyone on your staff and board give feedback on your design, and apply everyone’s preferences.

5. Hide the donation forms. It also helps to make it really hard to use.

7. Make sure you don’t look “too polished,” because no one will give you money unless the site looks like it was built on a shoestring.

10. Design for your board members (or yourself) rather than your audience.

Take a gander at the rest of the list here.

Had similar experiences? Post your thoughts.

Want to know what a PLN is? And, why it just might be beneficial for you to have one?

Thanks to David Hopkins (@hopkinsdavid) for this recent post from his terrific blog “eLearning Blog Don’t Waste Your Time.”

Someone once told me that a PLN is like attending a seminar or conference with some of the best minds in the world on the topics that interest him the most.  And, most important, he could choose to attend anytime of the day, night, week, or month.

Hopefully, it’ll be the impetus for you to begin the new academic year as the “lifelong learner” mentor and role model that you wish for your students.

Creating a Personal Learning Network by Corinne Weisgerber.

To be or not to be. That is the question. For the iPad 3g that is.

Received my “magical device” this past Friday. Unboxed, loaded, and played. Here are my thoughts.

Overall, I love it. In my humble opinion, not a game changer.

Except possibly with newspapers, magazines, and books. Especially textbooks. Can you imagine school children with one iPad instead of a backpack with 60 pounds of books? With the ability to connect to the internet, define words immediately, create multi-media reports, and on, and on, and on… All untethered. All in one device.

I’m writing this post on the 3g. Not much different than sitting at my desk in front of the laptop. Except it’s on my lap and I’m enjoying a warm early spring day here in the Northeast sitting on my deck (not in direct sunlight, I might add).

When using home Wi-Fi the iPad is ultra fast. Tried the 3g connection from AT&T. Easy sign-up and just as fast. So fast that the lack of multi-tasking is not as bad as might be expected.

Using NewsRack as the RSS feed app. This is where the iPad excels in comparison to a Smartphone. Readability. So much easier and quicker.

Using the app Pages to write this piece. Too many posts about issues with Numbers and Keynote. Mostly because of lack of reliable transfer features with Microsoft equivalents. Let’s face it. Many of us love Apple products. But we are in a PC world. Can’t we all just get along?

Twitterrific and TweetDeck already have iPad maximized apps. Still waiting on Facebook and Linkedin. iPhone apps work on the iPad but are the same size as the iPhone screen. You can increase the size but the app becomes slightly pixilated. Not unusable. But annoying.

Only a few magazines available right now. Time magazine for example. Excellent experience on the iPad. But, terribly overpriced. However, in the marketing world we live in, publishers know that early adopters will pay more. I don’t expect it will be long before prices come down and subscriptions become available. It’s all about the advertising in the mags. More subscribers mean more advertisers who have potential customers just one click away.

Rented a movie from the iTunes store. Up In the Air. (I used to travel a lot. Friends who still do informed that it’s a must see for frequent flyers.) Great resolution. No playback issues. And, for music lovers, the speakers are surprisingly good.

I believe that in the coming weeks and months iPad apps will proliferate. And, I’d bet there will be a goodly number that will be winners.

That’s about it for now. Need to play more.

Let me know your thoughts.

January means it’s a new year on our calendars.

However, for schools and many politicians it’s mid-term time.

Teachers use mid-terms to evaluate students mastery of content. As a result, adjustments will be made, lesson plans may change, or students may move up or down levels.

It’s mid-term time for many politicians, also. State of the Union, State of the State, or State of the Municipality addresses will echo throughout the nation in the coming weeks.

It’s a time of assessment. Or, should I say reassessment.

Maybe it’s time for a mid-term of sorts for school administrators.

In my work with schools across the country, I always suggest that administrators consider writing a “State of the School” at mid-year. Tout the various successes during the first half of the year, share your vision for the second semester, and place it within the context of your long range vision. Distribute it to current parents, prospective families, Board members, benefactors, alumni, and community. Put it on the school’s website and link to it via Twitter or Facebook.

Likewise, it’s a good time of year for administrators to conduct a “Parent Satisfaction Survey.” SurveyMonkey, Zoomerang, or ConstantContact are ideal should you wish to use an online survey. You could even use the Super Bowl as a theme for the project. Something like, “I watch as the teams go in at halftime, make revisions, and come out with a renewed sense of purpose for the second half. Well, we’re going to so the same thing here at XYZ School.”

Find out how you’re doing. Prioritize and address the issues that are on their minds. And, just as important, share positive feedback with your school’s publics.

Remember the enthusiasm everyone had to open the current academic year. The “State of the School” message and the “Satisfaction Survey” are terrific tools to re-energize families, teachers, Board members, benefactors, the community, and, yes, even students.

It’s based on a basic tenet of marketing – that good marketing is mutually beneficial for all parties involved. If that’s so, then let’s market to our constituencies in a way that says, “I’m listening, I’m revising, and together we’ll ensure that we stay on course in achieving our vision for your sons and daughters.”

A 21st CENTURY EDUCATION CONUNDRUM

I’m passionate about moving education into the 21^st century; about adequately preparing students for the future they will encounter; about encouraging schools to adopt innovative tools that will engage students in the teaching-learning process; about re-energizing teachers by giving them the OK to break out of our Industrial Revolution mode of teaching.

I do not believe that our country or our educational systems have fully come to grips with the rapidly increasing worldwide competition, especially from China and India, that current students will face when they enter the job market.  Brad Whitehead, President of Fund for Our Economic Future, points out the “Gross mismatch: 80% of the new jobs require post secondary education but only 25% of our population has a college degree.”  How are we preparing students for the next level?  Will they be able to compete against the increasing number of students from foreign nations with college degrees?

The wildly popular YouTube video “Did You Know 3.0” is a must see.

There certainly are a plethora of educators who are moving their institutions forward.

Antonio Viva challenged his students at Worcester Academy (Worcester, MA) to “write for the world.”  He began by having them integrate writing, videos, photos, blogs, and tweets on a blog page.  It quickly gained a national and international following and is now called WAMash and includes additional members of the Worcester Academy community.  What happens to students’ writing when they know that it will be read by hundreds or even thousands from around the world?

Eric Sheninger, principal at New Milford High School in New Jersey, actively tweets about education in the 21^st century.  Check out his list of bookmarks on Delicious for New Milford (or other schools) teachers use.  Watch WCBS-TV’s story on New Milford’s students using Twitter in school.

Can you imagine a classroom full of eager students “skyping” questions to the author of a recently read book, a researcher at the state university, or their pen-pals from China?  Think about it.  To whom would you rather ask questions?  The author or your teacher?  The researcher or your teacher?  The native speaker or your teacher?  For examples, read 50 Awesome Ways to Use Skype in the Classroom.

I invite you to share your examples of innovative educational initiatives.

And, more important:  How do we move academia forward?  What’s needed?  Who needs to get involved?

What are your thoughts?