In The News - The Infamous Rubber Room?

NY City’s Rubber Room
A snippet worth taking a peek at is the web page “The Rubber Room”. It represents the home site for a group of independent film makers creating a documentary on the place known as New York City’s teacher purgatory.

According to the page, “Each year in New York City hundreds of schoolteachers are suspended. Their teaching privileges are temporarily, but indefinitely, revoked. Accused of a wide range and varying degrees of misconduct, these teachers are no longer allowed in the classroom. Instead, while awaiting a lengthy adjudication process, they are compelled to report to an off-campus location commonly referred to as The Rubber Room.”

The numbers are staggering from the opening which reveals the amazing statistics regarding the New York City public education system, all 1400 schools, the $15 billion annual budget, and one million students (a population larger than 8 states) to the $25 million spent on “The Rubber Room.” To see the movie trailer, skip the intro by clicking on the link to the lower left. the site is troubling to navigate but it is a must review as will be the final documentary.

Mobile Learning
Abilene Christian University has created a video that depicts the potential of Mobile Learning. The school first asks, ” What might a university look like with a fully deployed program of converged devices like the iPhone?” The offers a possible, though still fictional day-in-the-life account of the potential benefits for higher education if every student, faculty, and staff member is “connected.”

In essence, forget giving each student a laptop. ACU plans to be the “first university in nation to provide iPhone or iPod touch to all incoming freshmen.” The college intends to make the Apple iPhone or iPod touch “a central part of an innovative learning experience” by providing all incoming freshmen next fall one of these media devices.

The second half of the video is available here.

When Lies Are Good for Students
I just loved “My Favorite Liar” available at OvercomingBias.com. The writer “recounts an exceptionally powerful teaching technique employed by an economics professor.” The key elements, “teaching fact-checking and skepticism by salting it into the content of his delivery.” It is well-written and offers a great mechanism for teaching students to be a bit more attentive in the classroom. You see, a certain professor, a Dr. K, employed a specific technique. He would work one lie into each of his lectures. The students had to unearth the one “Lie of the Day” from the many instructional insights delivered during each class.

How to Podcast
Jason Van Orden, a podcasting Consultant, has a site getting many bookmarks these days, “How to Podcast.” The site claims to be the “definitive step-by-step guide on how to podcast without breaking the bank.” Since the tutorial is free it certainly meets the initial criteria for not breaking the bank. The site also offers to take you further with fees involved, offering to provide podcasting tips and podcasting tutorials regarding the promotion of a podcast, improving audio quality as well as how to upgrade a podcast studio and make money with podcasting.

Science Fair Chuckles
This page is worth a look for at least a chuckle or two. The greatest humor is always found in the truth. These “41 Hilarious Science Fair Experiments” sure represent a science teacher’s truth each and every year he or she might dare to ask students to create a science fair project. As a former science teacher, father of two girls and grandfather to yet another girl, I couldn’t help but wonder how I might have felt had one of my daughter’s come up with this salty topic.

Have a great weekend.