WAVE POWER!

Efforts to Harvest Ocean’s Energy Open New Debate Front

Oregon State University

Researchers from Oregon State University began testing a high-tech buoy to capture wave energy in the Pacific Ocean this fall.

NEWPORT, Ore. — Chris Martinson and his fellow fishermen catch crab and shrimp in the same big swell that one day could generate an important part of the Northwest’s energy supply. Wave farms, harvested with high-tech buoys that are being tested here on the Oregon coast, would strain clean, renewable power from the surging sea.

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They might make a mess of navigational charts, too.

“I don’t want it in my fishing grounds,” said Mr. Martinson, 40, who docks his 74-foot boat, Libra, here at Yaquina Bay, about 90 miles southwest of Portland. “I don’t want to be worried about driving around someone else’s million-dollar buoy.”

The coastal Northwest is one of the few parts of the West where water is abundant, but people are still fighting over it. Amid concerns about climate change and the pollution caused by generating electricity with coal and natural gas, Oregon is looking to draw power from the waves that pound its coast with forbidding efficiency.

It might seem a perfect solution in a region that has long been ahead of the national curve on alternative energy. Yet the debate over the potential damage — whether to the environment, the fishing industry or the stunning views of the Pacific — has become intense before the first megawatt has been transmitted to shore.

“Everyone wants that silver bullet,” said Fran Recht of the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission. “The question is, Is this as benign as everyone wants to say it is?”

The first federal permit to conduct testing for a wave energy farm off the coast of the United States was awarded in February to a company that wants to study the ocean area near Reedsport, Ore., 60 miles south of here. Three more permits have since been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Major technical and financial obstacles remain, and energy generated from waves is not expected to start contributing to the electrical grid in the United States for several years. Yet like wind energy in its early stages in the 1980s, wave energy is considered promising, perhaps inevitable, with the potential to one day provide 5 percent to 10 percent of the nation’s energy supply, according to some projections.

Oregon, Washington and Northern California, where the Pacific Ocean first meets land in the contiguous United States after gathering momentum for thousands of miles beneath westerly winds, have the potential to generate four times as much energy from waves as states on the East Coast, according to studies by the Electric Power Research Institute.

All of the permits approved have been in Oregon, where transmission lines run close to the coast, making them easier to tap into, and where state government encourages businesses to explore new forms of energy.

With state support, Oregon State University is testing a wave energy buoy it plans to deploy off the coast here next spring.

Finavera Renewables, a Canadian company with an office in Portland, has conducted tests near the Yaquina Head lighthouse here, and has a permit to do more testing near Coos Bay. Ocean Power Technologies, the company planning the project near Reedsport, has received a preliminary permit to test the potential for a wave farm it says could generate up to 50 megawatts of electricity. A typical coal-burning plant produces about 600 megawatts.

Several kinds of technology are being tested. Some would use buoys that hold turbines turned by waves. One type being tested at Oregon State would create energy from the relative movement between a fixed spar and a buoy that rises and falls with waves.

The Reedsport project could transmit energy to shore through an outflow pipe once used by a now-defunct timber mill. That convergence of old economy and new reflects what supporters of wave energy say is fitting symmetry for a region that has evolved from an extraction-based economy built on logging to one striving to use natural resources in ways that are environmentally sound.

But some environmentalists and fishermen worry that the recent rush for renewable energy is more about politics, big business and the next big thing than it is about clean energy. They warn that too little is known about what effect wave farms might have on migrating fish and whales.

“The tendency with new technology is always to minimize the downside,” said Ms. Recht, of the fisheries commission, which works with conservation agencies and the fishing industry to protect fish populations. “I’m not prepared to take new risks unless we’re conserving and respecting the energy we already have.”

Nancy Fitzpatrick, the administrator of the Oregon Salmon Commission, which is financed by the fishing industry, said: “Is it going to impact us? Going way back to the dams, we find out later that of course, yes, it affected salmon and migration. So we don’t want to be stuck in a situation like that with wave energy.”

For now, wave parks are expected to be built two or three miles offshore and cover as much as several square miles. Supporters say they will barely be visible, if at all.

Philip D. Moeller, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and a supporter of wave and tidal energy projects, said the government was “not allowing these to go into sensitive areas.” Mr. Moeller added, “We haven’t defined sensitive area, but the point is we’ll be cognizant of that.”

He said the commission was encouraging wave energy companies to seek a new five-year “pilot license” the commission has created specifically for wave and tidal energy projects. The license, which could be gained in six months, would let companies set up a short-term wave farm to test technology and demonstrate success to wary investors. If environmental damage became evident, he said, the equipment could be removed from the ocean fairly quickly, something that is far more complicated with dams.

“Let’s get this stuff in the water and find out what it has to offer,” Mr. Moeller said. “Consumers want green power, and this is an option.”

Erik Olsen contributed reporting to this article.

Care to Dance?

A Global Perspective

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Global Nomads: At-Risk Students Connect with Peers Worldwide

An ambitious videoconferencing program brings together teens from all over -- and wakes them up to the world at large.

by Elizabeth Crane

published 12/11/2006

Take a group of kids -- let's say they're at-risk high school students -- and give them the opportunity to not only participate in but also design and direct a worldwide videoconference with other teens in remote or war-torn or poverty-stricken locales. Then sit back and see what happens.

Credit: Christoph Schmitz

"Usually, I have to make sure the kids are awake in class," says Shirley Herrin, a social studies teacher at ALPHA Academy, in Magnolia, Texas, outside Houston. "Here, they were on the edge of their seats, interested." Herrin's students dove into the Global Nomads Group videoconferencing program in fall 2005, and they haven't been the same since.

The GNG's Currents program brought kids from countries such as Brazil and Japan into American classrooms (such as Magnolia's) to talk about HIV/AIDS. "My kids assumed they knew it all," says Herrin, when in fact they understood very little about the global AIDS situation. Working on their own, they decided to bring their newfound knowledge to the rest of the school by organizing an assembly at which the district nurse came and spoke about HIV. "This was a group of kids who had never done anything on their own, and they went after this with such a passion."

GNG, whose mission is to bring young people face-to-face across spatial, cultural, and national boundaries through videoconferencing, has been doing so since its founding in 1998. Though the open dialogues have a theme and structured content (designed by the students), the conversation also includes what music they listen to and how they get along with their parents -- in other words, teenagers talking to teenagers about teenage issues. One goal of the interaction is to get rid of some of the ignorance that exists simply because we live in different places. GNG has broadcast from many countries, including Brazil, China, Honduras, Iraq, Japan, Jordan, the Sudan, and Vietnam, while meeting and speaking directly with the young people living in those locations.

The ALPHA students have responded to the GNG message enthusiastically. Distance-learning coordinator Charlie Brown said these kids -- not "your usual motivated crowd" -- "soared" when they began preparing for the videoconferences. At a school where 84 percent of the population is designated at-risk, the upturn in academic achievement has been notable and, it turns out, long lasting. Along with lessons in social studies, geography, culture, politics, religion, the military, the government, and resources, the students learned a little diplomacy, which, Herrin says, is a "huge lesson for our kids."

Most of these students have never ventured outside of Magnolia; the GNG programs brought them some perspective as well. After the Mozambique program in spring 2006, Herrin's students decided they didn't have it so bad after all. They held a fund-raiser (again, all on their own initiative) and sent the $170 they collected to Mozambique, where, they had learned, it costs $130 to feed, clothe, and educate a child for a year.

"It doesn't sound like a lot of money," Herrin admits, "but this school had never held a fund-raising event before. There's not a lot of money floating around our school."

That feeling of being able to effect change has spilled over into other aspects of the students' lives. "They are part of something so special, they get to do something not a lot of people get to do," says Herrin, and that factor has improved self-esteem as well as grades.

"They represented our country in a positive way, and maybe changed how people think of Americans," she adds. Herrin says she experienced "the highest high you can get as a teacher, seeing your kids want to know more, asking thought-provoking questions, and then wanting to know even more."

The GNG programs at ALPHA would not be possible without the school district's commitment to videoconferencing technology. In 2000, Magnolia director of technology Rob Miller installed camera systems in every school and administrative building. "We just put in fiber optics," says Brown. "And we have a VirtualLAN for videoconferencing, which keeps things fast and clear because there's no other traffic." In a district with 8 to 10 percent growth per year, investment in technology is a necessity.

When Brown was hired, he was given the task of finding interesting applications for the videoconferencing system, which, up to that point, had been used only for professional development. He followed up on a Center for Interactive Learning and Collaboration (CILC) advertisement for GNG and ran a trial at Magnolia. The 2004 GNG program, filmed from a refugee camp in the Darfur region of Sudan, was enough to convince him that his videoconferencing system could become a GNG hub. "I liked what happened in that classroom," Brown says.

It isn't enough to have the students watch a video or take a virtual tour of a place, though. A videoconference has to have academic content, and it has to be interactive. "We do no conference where we are not interactive," Brown insists. In an ordinary class, he says, he usually feels he has reached or changed one, maybe two kids by the end of the year. He believes that, after the GNG conferences, every student was affected.

GNG got them out of the classroom and into another part of the world without taking them away from their home. "It has had an impact on their lives," he says. One student decided to graduate early and become an intern with GNG in New York. When her parents balked, she compromised by attending a Texas university, majoring in communications and media. "This is a kid who had trouble just being in school," Brown recalls, and, all of a sudden, she was on fire, graduated early, and is now working toward a college degree -- thanks to GNG's window on the world.

Elizabeth Crane is a freelance writer in San Francisco who writes about many things, including education, parenting, technology, and food.

Originating Partner and Intention (Continue to Build Capacity)

EDUCATION CHALLENGE


Success in learning


International Academy plans to expand with site in Troy


December 6, 2007

BY PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

The success of students at Oakland County's International Academy can be measured a variety of ways -- from test scores to the colleges its graduates attend to its repeated recognition as one of the top public high schools in the country.

It's also apparent in the increasing number of students applying for spots in the school, and the number of schools across Michigan considering similar offerings.

Already, 10 other schools in the state offer International Baccalaureate curriculum -- rigorous courses that challenge students' analytical and critical-thinking skills -- and 19 others have applied to add the program.

The International Academy is planning to expand from about 700 students now to 1,400 students over the next four years, which would make it the second-largest IB school in the world.

Macomb County's school districts will open an IB school in fall 2008, similar to the one in Oakland County. And Grosse Pointe Public Schools are expecting a report this month about adding an IB program.

"What IB is actually training you to do is step in the shoes of a practitioner," said Bert Okma, principal and founder of the International Academy in Oakland County, an IB school that's been ranked by Newsweek magazine as one of the top 10 high schools in the country since 2002. "It's not just asking you to know biology, it's asking you to think like a biologist."

IB programs use a comprehensive approach to determine if students are learning the material, with assessments that include oral and written reports, traditional testing and community-service projects. Educators say they are more rigorous than most other college prep programs, stressing an interdisciplinary approach to the subjects covered.

The International Academy is run by a consortium of Oakland County school districts, on campuses in Bloomfield Hills and White Lake Township. A third site is to open next fall in the Troy School District, in the former Baker Middle School, which is currently being remodeled to house the high school students.

The Troy district elected to open the branch in order to increase the number of seats available for its own students from 25 to 75. The school will open with ninth-graders and will add another ninth-grade class each year until it has all four high school grades. When it's fully opened, it will double the size of the International Academy.

"I have a coworker; his daughter is going to the International Academy and he's really pleased about it," said Margaret Estes, whose son, Michael, 13, has applied for the Troy school. She likes the international aspect and the rigor of the curriculum. "I heard the program will be more focused on science and mathematics, more so than in regular schools."

Unlike the other two campuses, the Troy campus likely will take students from neighboring counties to fill spaces not claimed by Oakland County students, said Troy spokesman Tim McAvoy.

Macomb County's school is to open next fall in Clinton Township, with admission open to students from any county school district.

It will share the former Seneca Middle School with Chippewa Valley High School's ninth-grade academy, which is only expected to need about half of the building's 1,100-student capacity. Like the Troy school, it will open with ninth-graders in the fall, adding a grade each year until the high school is complete.

"It's not for all kids, but it's a wonderful opportunity for the ones that want to step up and get challenged," said Gayle Green, assistant superintendent for instruction and special projects with the Macomb Intermediate School District. "We've been talking about it for a year and a half, but have really gone full steam on it for the last six or eight months."

An IB program doesn't guarantee college admission.

"Anytime a student goes beyond the regular college preparatory curriculum, it's certainly value added," said Jim Cotter, director of admissions at Michigan State University.

But IB students can get college credit for their high school classes. Exactly how much credit depends on the test, their score and the college or university's policy.

Getting credit "depends a great deal on the level of examination they take and the subject area in which they take the examination," Cotter said.

Contact PEGGY WALSH-SARNECKI at 586-469-4681.

URGENCY!

Published Online: December 4, 2007

Education Week

U.S. Students Fall Short in Math and Science

By Sean Cavanagh

Teenagers in a majority of industrialized nations taking part in a leading international exam showed greater scientific understanding than students in the United States—and they far surpassed their American peers in mathematics, in results that seem likely to add to recent consternation over U.S. students’ core academic skills.

New results from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, released today, show U.S. students ranking lower, on average, than their peers in 16 other countries in science, out of 30 developed nations taking part in the exam.

The test measures the performance of 15-year-old students, regardless of grade level, examining the skills they pick up both in the classroom and outside school, as well as their ability to apply that knowledge to a variety of situations.

In science—the main subject tested on the 2006 PISA—American students scored an average of 489, below the international average among industrialized nations of 500, on a scale of 1 to 1,000. Finland, which has shone in worldwide comparisons in recent years, notched the top science score of 563, followed by Canada, Japan, and New Zealand.

While the United States’ science score on PISA lagged statistically behind more than half the developed nations’, it ranked in the same statistical category as eight other industrialized countries, including Poland, Denmark, France, and Iceland. The United States outperformed such nations as Italy, Greece, and Mexico.

In 2003, the last time PISA measured performance in science, U.S. students tallied an average of 491, 9 points lower than the average of 500 in industrialized countries.

In math, which was tested in less depth on this PISA, American teenagers fared even worse, producing an average score of 474, 24 points below the international average of 498 among the 30 participating industrialized countries. Finland also landed on top in math.

The top-scoring American students’ averages were statistically worse than those for 23 of those nations, and equal to only those of Spain and Portugal. Just four countries—Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Mexico scored lower than the United States.

As in science, U.S. teenagers’ math performance was roughly the same as in 2003, the last time PISA was administered. The United States was 17 points behind the average score for industrialized nations then, meaning the score gap has since widened slightly.

Twenty-seven nonindustrialized nations also took part in the 2006 PISA. U.S. scores in both math and science ranked below those of several countries considered nonindustrialized, including Estonia and Slovenia.

Science Understanding Questioned

Unlike some national and international tests, which examine knowledge and skills that students are supposed to have picked up in school, PISA takes into account learning that may occur outside formal academic settings.

The test measures science literacy, as defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, which oversees PISA. That literacy on PISA is defined as the ability to think scientifically and identify questions, gain new knowledge, explain scientific phenomena, and draw evidence-based conclusions about issues in science.

When compared with their peers from other developed nations, U.S. students scored best—meaning only 7 points lower than the international average—on questions that asked them to identify scientific issues. They were at their worst—scoring 14 points below the international norm—in “explaining phenomena scientifically,” which testing officials defined as interpreting science and predicting changes, and identifying the correct descriptions, explanations, and predictions.

Many American elected officials and policymakers in recent years have repeatedly voiced worries that the United States will gradually lose its international economic edge if students’ math and science skills do not improve, given the flourishing school systems and growing economies in a number of other countries. Business and technology leaders have argued that more U.S. students need to be encouraged to acquire, and be provided with, the necessary academic skills to enter math- and science-related professions.

Senta Raizen, who helped direct a recent revision of the science version of the National Assessment of Educational Progess, a federally sponsored testing program, said those concerns would likely echo once again with the latest PISA results. But Ms. Raizen said an equally important concern—particularly given the broad science skills PISA measures—was that U.S. students lack a strong grasp of the overall nature of science, and by extension, an understanding of its role in society.

The scores call into question American students’ “support for the enterprise of science—their understanding of the importance of the field,” Ms. Raizen said.

“It’s not just about having more people go into those fields,” Ms. Raizen said. “Can kids apply the science knowledge to problems that confront them as citizens?”

Gerald F. Wheeler, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, in Arlington, Va., said recent test results have carried the same message: Science is not being emphasized strongly enough in U.S. classrooms, and teachers need more resources and skills to deliver sound lessons to students.

“Why are we surprised?” Mr. Wheeler said of the scores. “It’s a sad state to be in.”

The NSTA official said he was encouraged by the urgent tone adopted by members of Congress and business leaders recently in talking about U.S. students’ science and math shortcomings. But there is far too much apathy among members of the public at large—especially parents—who can stir a passion for science among students of all ages, he said, citing recent polls.

“The policymakers do get it,” Mr. Wheeler said. The challenge, he said, is presenting the issue so that “the public gets it.”

In addition to its science and math scores, the United States was supposed to receive PISA scores in reading. But the reading results were invalidated by printing errors in the testing booklets given to U.S. students, which both American and OECD officials determined would have skewed the results. Officials at the National Center for Education Statistics, while taking partial responsibility for the mishap, said it was the primary duty of the contractor, RTI International, of North Carolina, to make sure the reading exams were printed correctly. ("Printing Errors Invalidate U.S. Reading Scores on PISA," Nov. 28, 2007.)

A Washington-based advocacy organization, the Alliance for Excellent Education, called last month for U.S. officials to readminister the reading test. But NCES Commissioner Mark S. Schneider, in a conference call with reporters this week, said that option was not feasible, considering the length of time it takes to arrange and give a PISA test.

PISA groups student test results in six categories, or proficiency levels. The United States had larger shares of students in the lowest-scoring category in science, at 8 percent, and the second-lowest group, at 17 percent, than the average for the 30 participating industrialized countries, at 5 percent and 14 percent.

Among high-achieving students, 10 percent of American 15-year-olds scored in the top two proficiency levels in science, roughly the same as the average for the other developed nations. Some nations, however, produced a far greater proportion of teenagers in the two highest categories, such as Finland, which had 21 percent reach those heights.

Great Lakes IT Report 12-04-07

UM-Dearborn gets $900,000 NSF grant to teach tech

Posted on 12/3/2007 7:57:40 PM The School of Education at the University of Michigan-Dearborn has received a grant from the National Science Foundation worth $900,000 over the next three years to support a new program for underserved high school students. The program will provide opportunities for the students to build skills and knowledge of information technologies within the science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields. The youth-based program, called Fostering Interest in Information Technology, or FI3T, will begin in July and run through June 2011. FI3T will employ a concept called "Community of Designers" that brings together partners from schools, colleges, industry and government organizations focused on advanced IT applications in STEM disciplines. The partners will work to create high-quality learning projects, strategies and curriculum models for use in after-school, weekend and summer settings through hands-on, inquiry-based activities with a strong emphasis on non-traditional approaches to learning and understanding, according to education Professor Mesut Duran, principal investigator and the director of the UM-Dearborn project. Duran is working on the project with UM-Dearborn professors Margret Hoft, Brahim Medjahed, Elsayed Orady and Paul Zitzewitz. “In recent years due to the relentless advance of IT developments, the business, industry and government sectors in southeastern Michigan are facing fierce global competition from around the world that has simply decimated our traditional regional manufacturing-based workforce,” Duran said. “This has led to a steep decline in the local, state, and to some degree, national economies. One of the steps deemed absolutely necessary to competitively transform the region from a ‘brute-force’ to a ‘brain-force’ economy is to provide K-12 student-centered research vehicles with a strong emphasis on innovative 21st century career and educational pathways.” The FI3T project funded by the NSF’s Information Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers Program is a direct response to this need, Duran said. “It will provide opportunities for underrepresented high school students in grades 9-12, particularly those from disadvantaged urban communities in southeastern Michigan, to build the skills and knowledge needed to function and contribute in a technologically rich society," he said. After attending year-long IT workshops offered in the context of four major STEM subject areas, students will attend eight day-long field trips during the summer to locations representing IT applications in different fields. Working in teams, students will develop science-fair quality projects in the following school year that reflect their grasp and ability to solve problems with IT applications. Partners participating in the project will include the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters, and the School of Education at UM-Dearborn; Detroit Public Schools and Oakland Schools; and industry partners such as the Survivability Technology Area of the U.S. Army’s Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center; Dassault Systèmes and its DELMIA unit; Fanuc Robotics Inc; Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute; the Department of Systems Analytics and Environmental Science at Ford Motor Co.; the Department of Advanced and Manufacturing Engineering Quality at Ford Motor Co.; and the 21st Century Digital Learning Environments.

PlayAnywhere

Variations on a THEME!

Cell Phone Projector Coming Soon

Smaller Becomes Bigger Which Begets Better!

Get SMART! Go DIGITAL!

Friday, November 30, 2007

High-tech schools pilot program puts kids in charge

BY CARRIE MELAGODAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, November 25th 2007, 4:00 AM
Barnuevo For News

Alyssa Deonarian uses a laptop to participate in a class assignment.

A Giant outline of the human body is projected onto a 72-inch screen inside Middle School 202, next to a jumble of organs and bones that belong inside it.

One by one, eighth-graders in the Queens classroom walk to the special screen. The kids - a mix of new English speakers and general and special-ed students - touch a body part and drag it toward the empty outline.

The traditional skeleton propped up in the classroom looks downright antiquated as it stands next to the interactive teaching tool called a "SMARTboard."

"It's awesome," said 15-year-old Joseph Guerra, who correctly placed the esophagus. Nodding toward his teacher, he added, "You can learn a lot more than if they're just talking."

The Ozone Park middle school is one of 22 across the city participating in a pilot program designed to create and test-drive the 21st century classroom.

About $13.4 million in capital funds, along with federal grants, have been invested into the so-called iTeach-iLearn schools over the past two years.

The pilot program outfits classrooms in the 22 schools with devices including SMARTboards, laptops, wireless Internet access and special lockers to keep all the technology safe when the school is closed.

Teachers receive training so they feel comfortable with the new technology, officials said, and each school has a specialist so technical difficulties don't derail lessons for days on end.

"It's teachers giving students the opportunity to take control of their learning," said Troy Fischer, director of the city's Office of Instructional Technology, which will evaluate the program at the end of the school year. "Students begin to bring more to the classes."

The pilot comes as other school districts across the nation debate the effectiveness of using similar technology in the classroom. Some schools that rushed to equip kids with laptops have since backed off, citing mounting costs and questionable results.

A study released by the federal Department of Education this year also showed that educational computer software made no significant difference in student achievement.

But teachers at MS 202 are sold on the new technology.

In her second-floor classroom, sixth-grade teacher Dana Matorella uses the newest gadgets to teach kids about ancient Egypt.

The students use laptops to research hieroglyphics, filling in their answers on work sheets. Then Matorella gives them a pop quiz - but instead of pencils, they pull out remote controls.

A question about hieroglyphics is projected onto the SMARTboard, and the kids enter their answers using the remotes, similar to how audiences are polled on TV game shows.

Instantly, Matorella can see that all but one child answered correctly - and only she knows who got it wrong. "It's anonymous and they feel free," she said. "They love when I say, 'Get out the remotes.'"

Principal William Moore was an early advocate of technology in the classroom, teaching astronomy courses online when he worked as a professor at the New School in Manhattan.

When he came to MS 202 several years ago, he put WiFi Internet access in the school and bought laptops for every floor. But he never imagined the changes he's seeing now. "We're lightyears ahead of what I ever thought I'd have here," Moore said. "It totally transforms the school."

In Joseph Birgeles' seventh-grade social studies class, students played an interactive game about the old Jamestown colony called "17th Century Survivor."

Afterward, they were asked to justify their decisions on a work sheet.
"They have lunch right now," Moore said, "and they don't want to leave."

Students at MS 202 said they preferred their high-tech classrooms to the ones in their former elementary schools - and particularly like the SMARTboards more than blackboards.

"It's easier to see and learn," said Kimara Davis, 12, who also doesn't miss using chalk. "It doesn't mess up your hands."

cmelago@nydailynews.com

BREAKING NEWS: On Two Fronts (U of M-Dearborn and the City of Detroit)

U-M might tap Detroit as a living classroom

November 29, 2007

BY DREW PHILIP

FREE PRESS SPECIAL WRITER

Instead of studying abroad in England, Taiwan or Chile next year, University of Michigan students might spend a semester living, learning and working in downtown Detroit.

The program, expected to begin in fall 2008, would have students hold internships with community organizations, take classes taught by U-M professors at the school's Detroit Center and participate in community service and events.

Organizers of the program, who believe it would be the first of such a scope in Detroit, say it would immerse students in the life and culture of Detroit while fostering relationships between community organizations and the university.

The program would allow students to experience Detroit with city residents and leaders, not simply read about the city while in classrooms.

"It was conceived and is being created with the idea of being mutually beneficial to the city and the university," faculty adviser Stephen Ward said last month.

Local planners are creating the model for this in-depth type of service, but it draws from similar programs elsewhere in the country. Louisiana State University routinely sends students and faculty to rebuild hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, and the University of California, Los Angeles offers students service learning opportunities and internships in Los Angeles.

But the U-M program would be unique because students would forgo the societal comfort of a college campus and go home blocks, not miles, from where they work.

A budget has not been set, and the plan is working its way through channels to formalize it as a sustainable program, but U-M Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Lester Monts said the program is "a sure thing."

Organizers say they hope the program will open channels between the university and the Detroit community to help further the revitalization of downtown.

The program also has been pitched as a way to promote diversity at U-M after the passage of Proposal 2, the statewide affirmative action ban that bars the use of race and gender in admissions and financial aid decisions by public universities.

Ward said the program is a manifestation of a larger movement in the university and the nation to stop looking at inner cities as laboratories for study and to begin to partner with citizens and organizations for social change.

Alumna Rachael Tanner, 21, of Kalamazoo, a former student in Ward's Urban and Community Studies class, proposed the idea of a Semester in Detroit as a final class project. Fellow students formed a planning committee in January. Professors and administrative staff helped put the program into motion.

"We have a semester in Washington, D.C. Why not have a semester in Detroit?" Tanner asked. "The culture is so rich, but students spend so little time there."

The program would support 20 to 30 students and cost about the same as a semester at the Ann Arbor campus. Students would take 15 to 18 liberal arts credit hours studying subjects including the development of urban areas and grassroots responses to urban challenges.

Nick Tobier, a professor in the School of Art and Design who takes university students into Detroit elementary classes, plans to teach in the program.

Tobier said he thinks of Detroit as among the "most productive cultural ecosystems" and wants to bring more students into that atmosphere.

Students would spend the bulk of their time earning class credits at internships with community organizations. Guided by faculty, these students would be expected to secure the internships themselves. In preparation, a student planning committee is working with the university's Ginsberg Center to contact community groups that might be willing to host internships.

Tim Duperron, interim chief executive officer of Focus: HOPE, said the university's relationship with his organization has always been positive, and he would love to have Semester in Detroit's students intern there.

"They certainly have the right mind-set and the right spirit," he said. "I'm encouraged by this, because it will be done well, not superficially."

Classes would take place at and internships would be coordinated through the university's Detroit Center at Woodward Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard. The center serves as a university base in the city to conduct research and meet with community partners.

Organizers expect to buy a home near Wayne State University, where students in the program would live.

Western Michigan University has programs sending students to study internships in major U.S. cities, and Michigan State University sends students to Washington, D.C., in a program with internships and class time. None has programs of this scope in Detroit.

"That's something we're going to strongly consider in the future," said Karen Reiff, director of experiential learning at MSU.

Some see this as a way to bridge two disparate communities.

"Having a program would make a big statement that the university is committed to investing in the city," said senior Megan Hanner, 21, of Whitehall. "I have no doubt that the program would teach students the appropriate way to be invested in a city they're not from."

If he weren't graduating, senior Tom Szczesny, 20, of Bloomfield Township said he would want to spend a semester in Detroit.

"It makes a lot of sense because we're connected geographically, but there's a big disconnect between the university and Detroit," he said. "If you have something like Semester in Detroit, it brings a new awareness of the city."

GO GREEN!

(ADAM BIRD/Special to the Free Press)

KALAMAZOO

Green school

Curriculum blends environment, business


November 29, 2007

BY TINA LAM

FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

KALAMAZOO -- Public schools devoted to the arts, creative writing, international studies, music and technology have sprung up nationwide. But not many are devoted to the environment, despite growing concerns about the planet and an increased push for green-thinking business.

The Edison Environmental Science Academy, part of the public school system in Kalamazoo, aims to close that gap. Seven years since its founding, the school is going strong and has begun a new mission: blending the environment and business.

"We're ahead of the curve," said principal Chuck Tansey. "We want to see kids who create green businesses when they grow up."

The school features small class sizes, a greenhouse and three laboratories. Outside, there is a courtyard with a pond, wetland, birdhouses and an observation deck. Inside, the walls are painted with murals of seas and forests. Hallways are lined with buckets of gardening tools. In the library, Edison, a 42-inch iguana, basks under heat lamps, listening to classical music on a radio next to her cage. Scattered terrariums hold firebelly toads, a tiger salamander, a leopard gecko and crickets (soon to be gecko meals).

A lab boasts a large groundwater flow model and a chick-hatching incubator.

It wasn't always like this. A decade ago, Edison had a reputation as an unsafe, poorly functioning school in the city's most impoverished neighborhood. "The state was ready to take it over," Tansey said. He didn't want to send his kids there, much less teach there.

With the help of a federal grant, the school district turned it into an environment magnet school in 2000. People in the neighborhood kicked out drug dealers and adult entertainment stores and took the area back, Tansey said. Then came the Kalamazoo Promise, a commitment two years ago by anonymous donors to provide every child in Kalamazoo a free college education. That offered even more hope.

"There's been an immense change," Tansey said. The school's population is still mostly poor and minority kids, but test scores are up, the bad reputation is gone, and students aim high.

Deonte, 9, whose mother is a waitress at a Big Boy, transferred to Edison last year. His grades were poor. Now, he gets A's and B's and can explain how a thermometer works and how molecules move. He's considering becoming an architect. "You can't get a good job without a college degree," he said.

Some members of Congress want more schools like Edison. Bills in the U.S. House and Senate, dubbed the "No Child Left Inside Act," would add environmental science standards to the national curriculum. Tansey hopes other schools will follow Edison.

"We've made a positive transition," said Barb Clopton-Bizzell, who has taught at Edison for 30 years. "Becoming an environmental academy gave us pride, and the public sees us differently now." Second-grade teacher Darryl Blasingame transferred to Edison from another school. "They have a great program, and I liked the direction they were going," he said.

This year, the neighborhood and the school helped organize citywide protests against the nearby dumping of contaminated soil from a cleanup of the Kalamazoo River. Edison students researched and wrote passionate letters to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which Tansey read at a public hearing.

The EPA sent the PCB-laden soil elsewhere.

In the heady early days of the new Edison magnet program, primatologist Jane Goodall visited, and kids went on field trips to Lake Michigan to sample its water. Goodall no longer visits, and Tansey said the school has found that labs, greenhouses and field trips are expensive.

"It's hard to sustain," he said.

Without watering down the school's core theme, and with a new infusion of federal money for the next three years, Edison is adding economic development to the curriculum, hoping to earn extra cash for programs. Next spring, kids will raise herbs in the greenhouse to sell at a local farmers market, and fifth graders are creating a new game board to sell. The school also plans a video production studio and classes in nature photography. The kids are learning how to do market research and environmental impact statements.

"We want to show them a world beyond this neighborhood and that they can make a difference," Tansey said. "We want the kid that will create the next Toyota Prius."

Contact TINA LAM at 313-222-6421 or tlam@freepress.com.

Michigan Wind Working Group

Please see below the schedule/agenda for the Michigan Wind Working Group meeting slated for Fri Dec 14, at MPSC offices. The meeting will be accessible via toll-free teleconference. Call in number and pass code are at the bottom of the page.

In addition, in the afternoon from 1:30 to 3:30 this same day, we will be discussing the upcoming Michigan Wind Energy Transmission Study. Representatives from ITC, ATC, and MISO will be joining in on that discussion – also available via toll-free teleconference and webconference. More details will be forthcoming prior to the meeting. The general purpose for this meeting is to begin to organize the Michigan wind energy transmission study, which is planned for completion in the first half of 2008. We will start to identify the objectives for the study, and to assemble a technical advisory group.

-- Tom Stanton, Coordinator Michigan Renewable Energy Program -- http://www.michigan.gov/mrep voice 517-241-6086, generally 9a-5p, M-F EMAIL: stantont1[at]michigan[dot]gov
-----Original Message-----From: Sarver, John H (DLEG) Sent: Monday, November 26, 2007 8:46 AMTo: Sarver, John H (DLEG)Subject: Dec 14 Wind Working Group Meeting

The next meeting of the Michigan Wind Working Group will be on Friday, Dec. 14 from 9:00-12:00 at the Michigan Public Service Commission, Hearing Room E. Map and directions can directions can be found at http://www.michigan.gov/mpsc/0,1607,7-159-16400_33353-42315--,00.html. The agenda will be:

9:00 Introductions
9:30 "European Perspective on American Wind Developments: How Can Michigan Be in The Game" - Dr. Stefan Schmitz, Squire Sanders.
10:30 Update on Wind Energy R&D Consortium – John Patten, Western Michigan University
11:00 International Transmission Corp. Tariff Update - Tom Wrenbeck, Manager for Stakeholder Relations
11:15 Michigan Wind Energy Transmission Study – MPSC, ITC, ATC, MISO, MSU
12:00 Adjourn

Call in number: 877-336-1829
Pass code: 2022874#

Presentations and materials will be posted at www.michigan.gov/eoworkshops . Hope to see you on the 14th. ……John

21st Century Digital Learning Environments

TECHNOLOGY CLICKS WITH KIDS

Raising the Bar: What a difference a decade of "digital discourse" makes.

Computers transform classrooms

Gadgets get students excited to learn


November 26, 2007

BY LORI HIGGINS

FREE PRESS EDUCATION WRITER

The kids grab small voting devices on their desks, then punch in their answer to a question posed on the screen above them: "¿Cual es verde? "

In an instant, teacher Nancy Conn pushes a button and up pops a chart showing the correct answer -- the green square -- among six squares of varying colors.

All of this is happening on a large interactive white board -- a cross between a blackboard, computer screen and projector -- that Conn uses in her Spanish classroom at Hickory Grove Elementary School in Bloomfield Township.

The boards -- which will be in every classroom in the Bloomfield Hills Schools district by the beginning of next year -- are among the ways schools in metro Detroit are using technology to teach and capture the minds of a generation growing up in a digital age.

At Lottie Schmidt Elementary School in New Baltimore, students in Jim Alvaro's fifth-grade class create podcasts of their lessons, broadcast for anyone on the Web to hear. Rob McClelland, a teacher at the Oakland Technical Center campus in Wixom, has created computer games that help solidify students' understanding of key lessons.

And at Fisher Elementary School in the South Redford School District, students are learning Chinese and interacting with pen pals in China via a webcam, computer, projector and software.

"You always learn something new by using technology," said Natalie Joniec, 10, a Fisher fifth-grader.

Technology boosts performance

While some schools are pushing forward with plans to fully integrate technology, others struggle to do so in ways that engage kids and help them learn, said Ledong Li, an assistant professor of education at Oakland University.

And that's a problem, he said.

"If we deliver information like we used to do in the traditional way, kids are bored in the classroom," said Li, who organized a workshop in June on using video games in the classroom. "They don't feel they are engaged."

Li said technology can be intimidating to teachers who aren't familiar with how to use it, or how it can benefit their lessons. And so much is focused today on improving test scores that it's easy to see technology as an extra. Yet, Li said research shows technology can improve student performance.

Still, some teachers "look at the requirements for raising test scores as the kind of signal that they have to do things in a traditional way," Li said.

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan has announced proposed changes to teacher preparation programs, and he's making the integration of technology into teaching practices a priority. Last year, Michigan became the first, and still the only, state in the nation that will require students to take an online class or have online experience to graduate high school.

Ric Wiltse, executive director of the Lansing-based Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning, said budget crunches have impacted how schools integrate technology.

But, Wiltse said, "teachers are getting more and more creative about how they use the technology tools students have these days."

That includes Alvaro, whose classroom has a blog called the Skinny as well as the podcasts. The students worked on a project that had them research and write about when their ancestors arrived in the United States.

Games that teach

Today's kids are steps ahead of their teachers, in many cases. They instant message, text message, play video games, blog and use social Web sites like MySpace and YouTube.

"Everything we do is about technology," said Kala Kottman of Commerce Township, a senior at Walled Lake Western High School and the Oakland Technical Center campus in Wixom. "It's a big deal."

Kala, 17, is enrolled in the culinary arts program at the technical center. She was among a group of students in a computer lab playing a game created by McClelland, who provides support to fellow teachers.

There are about 100 culinary tools students must memorize, and while they still use rote memorization tricks, McClelland's game gives them a fun way to test their knowledge. McClelland has produced a similar game for two other technical center programs.

In the game, which is timed, students must quickly match a picture of a tool with its correct name.

McClelland programmed the game using popular phrases familiar to kids. For instance, if they click on the wrong answer, they're likely to hear the "D'oh!" popularized by Homer Simpson. If they get it right, they might hear a "Woo hoo."

Instant feedback

The Bloomfield Hills district is making a significant investment in the Promethean white boards. About $2.1 million has been committed to put them in all of its classrooms.

Conn was among the first to try them, and she said they make a difference in the classroom. The screen is connected to a computer, and it takes just a few clicks for her to call up lessons. The board also is interactive, allowing students to manipulate it.

The voting system allows Conn to constantly assess students, asking them to record correct answers on the hand-held device.

The instantaneous feedback means that instead of waiting until she grades a quiz to see who is struggling and which concepts students aren't getting, Conn finds out "just like that," she said with a sharp snap of her fingers.

It also means she can do some re-teaching on the fly if she sees many students answering a question wrong.

Mitchell Shults and Destiny Lynch, both 8-year-old third-graders, said the boards make classes more fun.

"You can play games on it and learn a lot of stuff," Mitchell said.

The voting, Destiny said, gets kids excited, especially when the whole class records the correct answer.

Technology makes it possible

At 7:45 on a Tuesday morning at Fisher Elementary, Deborah Reichman and her students were sitting around a table in a small conference room learning to speak the Chinese language. Reichman, the school's intervention specialist, doesn't know how -- she's learning with her students.

They go over a worksheet, practicing saying words and numbers in Chinese. When they get to a word they're unfamiliar with, Reichman has a plan.

"We may have to change or alter how we pronounce it when Mr. Nemo gets online," she said.

Nemo Ma is a teacher at the Nanao School in Guangzhou, China, and he is usually online when the kids meet to provide assistance and give them a chance to interact with a native Chinese speaker. Often, he places his mouth close to the lens of his camera and slowly enunciates the words so the students in Redford Township can see how his mouth moves. His image is projected on a large screen in the conference room.

The two schools are partnered through a program they call A Classroom Without Walls. The idea here isn't to create fluent Chinese speakers, Fisher Principal Brian Galdes said.

"Our goal is for the students ... to be global citizens, to interact with students from another culture one-on-one," Galdes said.

About 30 kids are involved in the program, in which they also use an online program to learn the language. And they have pen pals at the school in China. They chat with their e-pals, exchanging stories about their lives. But they also work on projects together.

Without technology, "we wouldn't be able to communicate," said Bradford Thomas, 10, a fifth-grader. "We'd have to write letters. And it'd probably take too long for them to reply."

Contact LORI HIGGINS at 248-351-3694 or lhiggins@freepress.com.

LIVE! TV on PC

Ann Arbor firm plans to put live TV online in U.S.

November 25, 2007

BY JUSTIN HYDE

FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

For all the countless hours of video available on the Internet, you can't watch many live events on your computer, and what you can watch -- such as congressional debates -- usually isn't worth the trouble.

But an Ann Arbor start-up may have an answer for what could be a billion-dollar problem.

Zattoo, founded in 2005 by University of Michigan computer science professor Sugih Jamin and Swiss software marketer Beat Knecht, has built a growing video service of live video streams in Europe with 1.2 million users. Its free software lets users watch live events such as soccer matches on their computers with far better quality than what has been available before.

Networks "have so many years of practice at producing live TV. It's a multibillion industry, and we're not going to replace it overnight," Jamin said. "There will always be people interested in live TV."

Launched with $350,000 from friends and family, Jamin said Zattoo just closed a $10-million fund-raising round led by venture capital firms in Switzerland, with another $20 million planned for next year. The company has grown to 25 full-time employees, including 20 in its Ann Arbor tech center. It also has an office in Zurich.

Zattoo's software, developed by Jamin and his students at U-M, uses a technique pioneered by Internet file-swappers known as peer-to-peer networks. Instead of relying on one central computer to broadcast data to thousands of users, peer-to-peer systems make each user's computer handle part of the workload, swapping data among themselves.

While developed mostly for pirating software and music, peer-to-peer has emerged as the best method of sending large files and streaming data over the Web. Internet phone service Skype is a peer-to-peer system, and its founders have launched a video service called Joost using the same technology.

Founded in 2005, Zattoo -- which means "crowd" in Japanese -- focuses on streaming live TV channels, a bigger technical challenge than offering recorded videos such as YouTube or Joost.

Using its software, viewers in Europe can choose from a variety of channels in their countries. Zattoo's technology allows it to respond quickly when a user changes a channel, with a lag time of a few seconds, similar to everyday television. The service is free for viewers, who have to watch a short ad when they change a channel.

Jamin said Zattoo's software offers several benefits to media companies. It's a cheaper way to get on the Internet than other systems. Zattoo blocks its video from being recorded, a key concern for media outlets worried about piracy. And by focusing on live video, Zattoo avoids some problems that competitors face, such as ensuring enough users are online to share data.

Though the company is based in Ann Arbor, Zattoo is available only in Europe today. Jamin said that is due to the ease of reaching deals with TV channels for transmitting their video there vs. the hurdles for doing so in the United States. But the service already has carried big events, such as the 2006 FIFA World Cup soccer championships, and has deals with foreign units of U.S. broadcasters. The service hopes to expand to Asia and the United States in 2008.

"The vision is that everybody will watch live TV on the PC someday," he said.

Contact JUSTIN HYDE at 202-906-8204 or jhyde@freepress.com.

Getting DIGITAL!

Bloomfield Hills schools add more classroom tech

Posted on 11/19/2007 2:22:38 PM The Bloomfield Hills schools Monday announced that its board had approved a $2.1 million technology investment plan. By Jan. 1, all 350 district classrooms will be outfitted with interactive whiteboards, projectors, document cameras, sound amplification and playback equipment. One powerful component is Activotes, which are wireless computer mouse-like student response devices that allow teachers to immediately adapt instruction. High school students and faculty will begin using the new technology when they return from the December holiday break. Elementary and middle school students are already benefiting from the boards, since classrooms were similarly equipped over the summer and fall. Bloomfield Hills Schools will be the first district in Michigan to so-outfit all classrooms K-12 with the equipment, manufactured by Promethean. “Teachers tell us that the impact of this technology is as dramatic as the introduction of personal computers into the classroom,” said Steven Gaynor, BHS superintendent. “Students in our elementary and middle schools who are already using this technology are highly engaged mentally, physically and emotionally. Our teachers are as excited as the kids, and are buzzing about the likely boost to student learning.” About $500,000 of interactive equipment will be installed at Andover, Lahser and Model high schools, as well as Bowers Academy, the Bowers Farm classrooms and the Johnson Nature Center. The equipment at Andover and Lahser will be portable, so that it could be moved and reinstalled in the future if the aging high school buildings are renovated. Bloomfield Hills Schools has provided professional development to teachers to aid their understanding and use of the systems. As with traditional lesson planning, teachers develop instruction in advance to best incorporate the technology into student learning. Cindi Hopkins, director of technology, said that the whiteboards will make common classroom items like wall maps and televisions obsolete.

REPORT: TECHNOLOGICAL ROLE!

Maximizing the Impact: "The Pivitol Role of Technology in a 21st Century Educational System."

In a new report, Maximizing the Impact: "The Pivotal Role of Technology in a 21st Century Education System", the State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA), the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills urged renewed emphasis on technology in education.

The report urges federal, state and local policymakers and other stakeholders to take action on three fronts:

1. Use technology comprehensively to develop proficiency in 21st century skills. Knowledge of core content is necessary, but no longer sufficient, for success in a competitive world. Even if all students mastered core academic subjects, they still would be woefully underprepared to succeed in postsecondary institutions and workplaces, which increasingly value people who can use their knowledge to communicate, collaborate, analyze, create, innovate, and solve problems. Used comprehensively, technology helps students develop 21st century skills.

2. Use technology comprehensively to support innovative teaching and learning. To keep pace with a changing world, schools need to offer more rigorous, relevant and engaging opportunities for students to learn—and to apply their knowledge and skills in meaningful ways. Used comprehensively, technology supports new, research-based approaches and promising practices in teaching and learning.

3. Use technology comprehensively to create robust education support systems. To be effective in schools and classrooms, teachers and administrators need training, tools and proficiency in 21st century skills themselves. Used comprehensively, technology transforms standards and assessments, curriculum and instruction, professional development, learning environments, and administration.

The report supports the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ framework for 21st century learning, which calls for mastery of core subjects and 21st century skills. The report also highlights effective practices in states, districts and schools that are using technology to achieve results. And it provides guiding questions and action principles for policymakers and other stakeholders who are committed to maximizing the impact of technology in education.

Together, SETDA, ISTE and the Partnership for 21st Century Skills represent dozens of leading U.S. companies and organizations, six leadership states, education technology directors in all 50 states, 85,000 education technology professionals and 3.2 million educators throughout the country.

Click here to view the full report, Maximizing the Impact.

NSF ITEST STEM GRANT 2007

National Study to Examine Best Ways to Prepare Teachers to Use Technology

Nov 19, 2007, News Report

The Center for Evaluation and Education Policy in the Indiana University School of Education will partner with a Washington, D.C.-area company for a project examining how current and emerging technologies are being used in classrooms and how to prepare new teachers to best use these tools.

The "Leveraging Education Technology to Keep America Competitive" study has just begun with a $3.1 million contract through the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Technology.

"To our knowledge the federal government and the U.S. Department of Education have never really funded a comprehensive study of how cutting-edge technologies are being used in pre-service education," said Jonathan Plucker, director of the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy (CEEP) in the IU School of Education, and deputy project manager of the study.

Plucker said technological advances have made this a vastly different society. "But a common criticism is that that's not really changing the way that we teach," he said. "It's not changing the way we deliver education. It's not changing the way that students learn. This study gives us the resources to go out and do a very comprehensive and careful study to figure out if those things are happening."

Over a technical plan that breaks down into seven "task" areas, the project will produce an overall assessment of technology use in the classroom by April 2009. While that final work will help direct federal policy towards technology in education, a series of white papers issued throughout the length of the project will give immediate insight into the issues the work is tackling.

Put the DIGITAL in ONE "D"

SAVE THE DATE!

No Child Left Behind?

Presented by
Wayne State University
WWJ Newsradio 950
FOX 2
The Detroit News
WDET 101.9
The Michigan Chronicle

This unique panel will combine historical expertise and
the voices of ‘Generation D’
to generate discussion, consider options, and find solutions.

The topic will be Detroit’s future and our children’s education.
What has happened with the passage of the No Child Left Behind legislation?
How did it come to be? Where are we now? What comes next?
How can we be involved improving the classroom?

Tuesday, December 4, 2007
9:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

Wayne State University Law School
Spencer Partrich Auditorium
471 West Palmer
Detroit, MI 48202

Admission is free, but advance registration is requested

Click here to Register

Free Parking Available in Structure #1 with Registration
(across Palmer from the Law School)
Map

Sponsored by
Wayne State University
WWJ Newsradio 950
FOX 2
The Detroit News
WDET 101.9
The Michigan Chronicle

BEGIN VISIONING!

Meeting: University of Michigan-Flint Gary Weisserman

UM-Flint goes global with new program

Posted by Beata Mostafavi July 25, 2007 20:30PM

Categories: Flint, Higher Education

FLINT -- On the other side of the ocean, thousands of miles away in Geneva, Switzerland, Amy Meister waved hello to husband Kent and 13-year-old daughter Ashley here in Flint.

But Meister, of the local United Way, is learning to use technology in a way that could even kick satellite video out of the cutting edge club.

She is among 24 students in University of Michigan-Flint's new "Technology in Education Global Program" that was officially inaugurated Wednesday with a live feed from Geneva, where students are studying.

It's a first of its kind master's degree program in education at UM-Flint that requires global residency and research. The degree highlights the use of technology to teach topics of global importance, ranging from human rights to environmental issues.

The new 15-month program that has drawn students from as far as the Cayman Islands comes just as UM-Flint seeks to "internationalize" campus by giving students more international opportunities and lure more non-local and international students to the university.

The program will help students "re-think the role of technology in education and truly understand the way it can and does transform student learning," Acting Chancellor Jack Kay said from Geneva. "This program is poised to reinvent education for the needs and opportunities of the 21st century."

Acting provost Vahid Lotfi said the university has found partners in Geneva -- chosen because it is home to more than 100 non-governmental agencies -- that will help students focus on issues of social justice, civic engagement and education reform.

The program is mostly online but involves two 3-week-long trips to Geneva where students meet with international non-governmental agencies through the World Federations of United Nations Associations and the Federation of International Institutions in Geneva.

"They're focusing on issues sort of larger than the students themselves," said Sharman Siebenthal Adams, assistant professor in education technology. " They need to connect to the world around them.

"We are looking at all of these issues from a global perspective and using technology."

Students spend days doing Web development and video work. Examples of specific projects could include research on labor issues, K-12 schooling, social justice issues related to human rights or people with disabilities, parks and museums or environmental conservation efforts.

Via satellite, students Jennifer Holladay of Attica and Jeremiah Holden of New York said they are gaining a unique global perspective to using technology to teach in meaningful ways.

Gary Weisserman, a UM-Flint faculty member who is in Geneva with the program, said it's "not just about making a Web site."

"The goal is to make Web-rich communities that can make a difference," he said.

"This is teaching for social and educational change."

TEDTalks: Nicholas Negroponte (2006_

"Urgency of the Digital Emergency"

A Breath............FOR Fresh Air!

Valery Hache/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Former Vice President Gore during a speech in June in Cannes, France, before the screening of “An Inconvenient Truth.”

---

November 13, 2007

Investment Firm Names Gore as a Partner

By MATT RICHTEL

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12 — Deepening his ties to Silicon Valley, former Vice President Al Gore said on Monday that he had become a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The alliance provides Mr. Gore an additional pulpit for his advocacy of environmental causes, but also gives the Nobel laureate an opportunity to nurture green businesses.

Venture capitalists said the move could help companies financed by Kleiner establish ties with big business and government, and obtain subsidies that encourage broader use of new technologies.

Mr. Gore’s part-time duties will entail investigating the growth potential of start-up companies focused on the alternative energy sector, and then weighing in on whether Kleiner Perkins should finance those companies.

Mr. Gore said he would donate his salary from the venture to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit policy foundation.

Venture capitalist partners also typically earn a management fee of 2 percent of the amount of money they invest, but the potential for huge returns comes from the 20 percent they take of the profit when the start-ups they have supported go public or are acquired.

Kleiner Perkins declined to say whether Mr. Gore would receive a management fee or participate in profit sharing, noting that matters of compensation are private.“I will pull my share of the load at Kleiner Perkins,” Mr. Gore said in an interview. “I will be involved in a lot of activities.”

Mr. Gore is no stranger to Silicon Valley. He sits on the board of Apple, and has an advisory role with Google. He is co-founder and chairman of Current TV, a television network based in San Francisco that broadcasts viewer-created content.

The Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2000, Mr. Gore keeps an apartment in San Francisco and spends five to six days a month in the area; a portion of that time will now be spent at Kleiner Perkins, which is based in Menlo Park, Mr. Gore said.

John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins who is a strong advocate for the development of alternative energy technologies, said Mr. Gore would help the firm, one of Silicon Valley’s largest, attract innovative start-ups — an advantage in the firm’s competition with other venture capitalists.

Silicon Valley’s venture firms have focused increasingly on financing alternative energy start-ups, so-called clean-tech companies.

The early investors are banking heavily — risking billions of dollars — on the proposition that solar power, various forms of ethanol, and other innovations will benefit as oil prices rise and federal and state government increase incentives for use of alternatives to oil.

Thus far, though, few of the alternative energy start-ups have rendered big payoffs for investors. The investments are relatively recent, and venture capitalists say it takes time for start-ups to grow to where their services are ready for the mass market.

But the other more fundamental challenge is that oil and gas provide most of the world’s fuel, and displacing them in a cost-effective way presents an enormous challenge.

Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and author of the blog Infectious Greed, said that Mr. Gore’s new role could benefit start-up companies by providing guidance through the political process.

For instance, Mr. Kedrosky said, Mr. Gore would now have a financial incentive to push for subsidies, like the tax incentives or rebates that have buoyed the solar industry, or to provide start-ups with important connections in government and big business.

“Anyone who thinks this is happening because Al has fantastic clean-tech entrepreneurial chops is fooling themselves,” Mr. Kedrosky said. Alternative energy “is a policy issue, a political issue, and that requires connections to get things done.”

Mr. Gore “is a political rainmaker,” Mr. Kedrosky said. The association between Kleiner and Mr. Gore “just means that clean tech is an inherently political exercise.”

It is not unusual for politicians and other celebrities to join venture firms, or other investment companies, at least in some capacity. Former President Bill Clinton was an adviser to the financier Ronald W. Burkle, and Bono, the singer from U2, has an affiliation with Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley investment firm.

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell serves as a strategic limited partner for Kleiner Perkins, a considerably less intimate role than that Mr. Gore takes as a partner. Former President George H. W. Bush has had a relationship with the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.

As part of the affiliation announced on Monday, Kleiner Perkins said it would collaborate with Generation Investment Management to find and finance clean-tech start-ups globally. Generation, which is based in Britain and was co-founded by Mr. Gore, focuses on investing in larger operations and later-stage companies focused on clean tech.

Mr. Gore has said he did not expect to be a candidate for the presidency in 2008, and he reiterated that position in an interview Monday.

“I don’t expect to be a candidate again,” he said.

STEM Prospectors: Find GOLD!

Thousands of middle and high school students packed Ford Field Thursday for the 2007 YES Expo.

The Expo -- the YES stands for youth, engineering and science -- is a collaboration led by Michigan Technological University among state agencies, corporations, youth organizations, professional societies, business development groups and other universities from throughout Michigan. It offers a hands-on educational experience with the goal of inspiring students to pursue education and careers in the science and engineering fields.

Headline speakers included Dr. Steven Squyres, a Cornell University astronomy professor whose repeated project applications to NASA turned into the wildly successful Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Squyres told the students he was once intimidated by math. Now he drives $900 million remote-control cars around Mars. He showed the students near-live pictures from the Martian surface, where one rover was busily digging into rock.

The event also featured a robotics demonstration from Toyota, which believe it or not has built a robot that can play the trumpet. (Not bad, but no threat to the mastery of Miles Davis just yet.)

While the major presentations took place on the Ford Field turf, the entire lower concourse was ringed by corporate and university exhibits. Included were major displays from General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Toyota, Faurecia (whose exploding airbag was by far the LOUDEST exhibit), the Michigan Department of Transportation, Chrysler LLC, Caterpillar, 3M, Kellogg, Radio Shack, Stryker Corp., Yazaki, Pulte Homes and Dow Chemical.

Michigan Tech, as founder and the lead university behind the event, had by far the largest number of university exhibits, featuring everything from a hovercraft to a polygraph to live satellite mapping.

Photo highlights are available at http://www.yes.mtu.edu/gallery/2007_pictures.php#.

GREEN POST!

Alternative energy summit offers hope for cleaner, greener state

Posted on 11/6/2007 2:44:07 PM Opportunities abound for Michiganders to save money and energy with existing alternative energy technologies. And many will also help boost Michigan's economy and employment. That was the word from a packed house Tuesday morning an an alternative energy summit sponsored by Glima Livingston, Automation Alley's trade association for technology professionals in Livingston County, and the Brighton Chamber of Commerce.The two organizations filled a room at the Crystal Gardens banquet center between Brighton and Howell for the event. NextEnergy title Mark Beyer opened the event by describing the state's efforts at promoting alternative and renewable energy technologies into commercial businesses. The job potential in the field is "huge, actually," Beyer said, "now that climate change has become pretty much a given in the fields of policymaking and public opinion. The global culture is embracing the need to be careful about our carbon output, conserve energy and use lighter weight nonpolluting materials." Virtually every industry, he said, can gain competitive advantage in the hearts and minds of consumers and partners by pushing a green agenda. Michigan has a need for the chemistry and technology professionals to solve battery and solar photovoltaic challenges. And, he said, the real estate and geological worlds will find new opportunities in wind farms and geothermal activity. He challenged those attending to look at what they do and study how to bend it toward renewable energy and energy efficiency. Next up: Rob Derksen of Whitmore Lake-based Michigan Energy Services, which provides geothermal heating and cooling systems. Geothermal heating uses the heat contained in groundwater -- which stays at 52 degres Fahrenheit year-around -- to both heat and cool a home. The only actual energy used is the electricity to pump water and transfer its heat or cooling power, depending on the season. Derksen used his own house as an example of the advantages of the system -- a 2,800 square foot home in Saline with a complete 2,800-square-foot walkout basement. He says he heats and cools that space for about $800 a year, vs. $2,100 a year for natural gas and $3,400 a year wtih propane. He said geothermal pays for itself when bundled into the mortgage on a new home, and on existing homes, payback is 3.6 years if you heat with propane, 7.3 years if you heat with natural gas. The event wrapped up with Larry C. Kauffman, principal program manager at DTE Energy, speaking about the utility's GreenCurrents alternative electricity program. More than 6,000 of DTE's two million ratepayers have signed up for the program so far. The program charges an extra 2 cents a kilowatt-hour to fund the development of renewable energy installations in Michigan. So far, the program has resulted in the building of three renewable energy plants in the state -- a wind farm in Michigan's Thumb, and two biopower plants that use the methane created by decomposing animal dung to generate power. Kauffman referred to the latter plants as "remooable energy," drawing a groan or two. Kauffman said renewable energy creates economic growth, mostly in rural areas, and also helps in energy independence. He said renewables are still more expensive than fossil fuel, but that the gap is narrowing. Michigan generates just 3 percent of its energy from renewable energy, vs. 6 percent nationally. However, that's about to change -- Kauffman said DTE is proposing 300 new megawatts of wind power. Michigan has the most wind power generation potential of any state east of the Mississippi, and is 14th nationally. He also praised solar power for heating water, saying those systems offer seven to 10 year paybacks. That's not true with photovoltaics, which remain prohibitively expensive (but are terrific technology, he added).

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http://www.archfoundation.org/aaf/audio/Events.Summit.Ackoff.mp3