Teacher Leigh Aufenanger asks each of the five students circling one table in her room what they would like to eat. Most students in this particular room have difficulty expressing what snack they would like. So by taping a food item on the “Snack Board,” the iPad voices the request for them, and the teacher prompts them to mimic the sentence to the best of their ability.

“They have all been increasing in their willingness and ability to speak ever since we have the iPads in the classroom,” Aufenanger told FoxNews.com.

Aufenanger primarily uses an app called Proloquo2Go, which turns the iPad into a speech output device. “For all of these kids who are either nonverbal or very early emergent verbal, it gives them a voice,” Aufenanger says.

Read entire article HERE.

The key to generating truly innovative ideas, [social designer Marc O'Brien] says, is learning how to challenge the status quo—which is why he's busy trying to teach people how to "think wrong."

Read entire article HERE.

Autodesk, one of the premier 3-D printing companies out there right now--they make AutoCAD, the pioneering software--has a new app out for iPad that aims to make 3-D printing easier. Just snap a bunch of pictures of the object you want to reproduce from different angles, and the app, cleverly named 123D Catch, creates a 3-D rendering automatically.

Read entire article HERE.

The winning invention, the Baby Safe Rider, was submitted by 15-year-old Greyson McCluskey, a North Carolina honor student who aspires to be an architect. The device is designed to prevent the deaths of infants forgotten in hot cars through a weight sensor placed in a car seat.

Read entire article HERE.

The family appealed to the Fresno County Board of Education, whose five members found there was evidence that was improperly excluded or that could not have been produced at the expulsion hearing. They deemed the hearing unfair, voted unanimously to overturn the expulsion and ordered the district to expunge his record.

Fresno Unified challenged the board’s decision in court; the case is pending.

Meanwhile, a due process decision issued last month by the Office of Administrative Hearings has further entangled the district and family in a legal morass.

Administrative law Judge Peter Paul Castillo invalidated the district’s manifestation determination review – the disciplinary hearing that allowed the district to expel the boy. That voided the expulsion as well.

San Diego schools have launched a website and are sending email blasts urging residents to take certain positions on state issues.

State law prohibits the use of public resources to advocate a position on a ballot measure, but also specifically allows local governments to lobby legislators.


Read entire article HERE.

This column was written by the San Joaquin County Superintendent of Schools. It is timely and worth the time you will spend reading it. (I am thankful to Dr. "Mick" Founts for sharing this with us.)

"I write best when I am tired. I am really tired tonight. This should have been a heck of a good column…but it isn’t. I don’t have much to write about. I am tired beyond creativity. Do you ever get that way? Tonight I am at that tiredness that pulls your heart into your stomach and makes you sick to your soul. I am so tired of what is happening to our children…and to our teachers…and to our schools…

My friends who work in schools…at any level…in any job…work to “keep that stiff upper lip” in a time where those with power say that they value school, but continue to slowly erode what should be the cornerstone, or pillar, or foundation, or…Heck, you know the rest. Educators are optimists by design…they are generally “made” to keep a positive outlook. That is who they are…they are optimists inside and out. They have to be. Their kids depend on that human star that guides them through a difficult lesson, later to learn that it was not about the “lesson at hand,” but rather was about a life lesson…far beyond that classroom problem, far beyond that high school or elementary school quiz. Our young people count on us educators to give them the academic, social, and emotional tools that will prepare them for…as cliché as this might seem…life.

I remember that poem, that chemistry experiment, that art project…because their lessons helped me reach for answers that would come to life years later in settings that had relevancy that were born in classrooms, designed by teachers who knew the future power of foundational work that had begun in classrooms, but would have true meaning in a real life, in a real time which transcended those hour-long classroom lessons.

What a week. A text message from a teacher who was really tired from trying to reach her 38 students…and not being able to. Listening to a counselor who has 1,000 students to care for…and not being able to. Hearing a principal who struggles, alone, to give his teachers, his support staff, his kids the help that they need…and not being able to. Talking with a group of parents who want to believe that their kids will have that complete educational experience…and not being able to. Trying to believe our elected leaders, and candidates, when they say that “education is the most important part of our future”…and not being able to.

Our schools are doing so much, with so little. What could we do if we were given just the funding that the law says that we should have? What would our children look like? What would our future, as a society…as a State…look like?

I am tired, and truly write the best when I am tired…but not tonight. I guess I could have written a story…you know I like doing that…but not tonight. I am tired, but am actually looking forward to the coming days. You see, I am tired of giving away our future, and believe that it is truly time to say…not tonight, not tomorrow, not ever.

An election is coming. Don’t accept the rhetoric. Ask the questions. What have you done to support our children in our schools; what will you do? Our kids deserve it."

Please see the attachment.

Pedro Garcia, a professor of education at USC who has served as the superintendent of school districts in West Covina and Nashville, said much of the discrepancy is the result of teachers having a "short fuse" when it comes to misbehavior by minority students.

He said it's often the case that minority students have trouble connecting with teachers who don't share their background.

"Part of that is that we don't have enough minorities in education," Garcia said. "There is research that indicates that when kids have role models and they connect with people that look like them, their behavior is better, their attendance is better and performance is better."