The New York Times reported on a school district in Vail, Arizona, that has equipped school buses with wifi in an effort to quell the noise level, rowdiness, & discipline issues on the buses.  In effect, the buses turn into mobile study halls:

Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students call it the Internet Bus, and what began as a high-tech experiment has had an old-fashioned — and unexpected — result. Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.

“It’s made a big difference,” said J. J. Johnson, the bus’s driver. “Boys aren’t hitting each other, girls are busy, and there’s not so much jumping around.”

On this morning, John O’Connell, a junior at Empire High School here, is pecking feverishly at his MacBook, touching up an essay on World War I for his American history class. Across the aisle, 16-year-old Jennifer Renner e-mails her friend Patrick to meet her at the bus park in half an hour. Kyle Letarte, a sophomore, peers at his screen, awaiting acknowledgment from a teacher that he has just turned in his biology homework, electronically.

“Got it, thanks,” comes the reply from Michael Frank, Kyle’s teacher.

You can read the complete article here.

In a school district that seems to be smaller and more financially well off, this idea sounds great.  The majority of students have laptops or mobile devices that can take advantage of this.

The question is, would this work in a larger, more urban school district, like the Chicago Public Schools?

YouTube is notoriously blocked by several school districts, the Chicago Public Schools being the most prominent example in my mind.  YouTube has a LOT of great educational content, but unfortunately this content gets pushed down due to the controversial content that the media grabs onto.

Yesterday, YouTube took a major step in solving this issue for parents and schools: YouTube Safety Mode. From the Google Blog:

Diversity of content is one of the great things about YouTube. But we know that some of you want a more controlled experience. That’s why we’re announcing Safety Mode, an opt-in setting that helps screen out potentially objectionable content that you may prefer not to see or don’t want others in your family to stumble across while enjoying YouTube. An example of this type of content might be a newsworthy video that contains graphic violence such as a political protest or war coverage. While no filter is 100% perfect, Safety Mode is another step in our ongoing desire to give you greater control over the content you see on the site.

A video demonstration is below.  In my opinion, this is an excellent filter, and should solve school district’s issues with YouTube.  You can now lock down the computer’s browser so that kids can’t disable the filter.  While this is far from perfect, it’s a major step.  I even have this enabled for my account, and I like YouTube a lot more now; it keeps a lot of the garbage out.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

A spotlight web page was created on the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) website last September, and asked if social media in the classroom is a good idea or not.

To use social media or not to use social media… that is the question facing many school districts across the country.

• Should video sharing sites like YouTube be used in the classroom?
• Should teachers use FaceBook or Twitter to communicate with their students during class and outside of the classroom?
• How can sites like this improve how we educate our students?

There are many questions with just as many answers circling around this issue. That’s why we’ve opened the discussion up to you: our parents, community members, students and staff. We’d like to get your thoughts on social media and how it should be used when it comes to educating our students. Read the comments below and chime in when you agree, disagree, or have an idea of your own that you’d like us to know about.

Check out the full article; there are answers from both camps.

How this effects you and your school:

Social media isn’t going anywhere, and since students are starting to have such sophisticated phones & portable devices, it’s going to come in the classroom.  As a school administrator, ask yourself: “Will I attempt to ban it altogether, or will I find a balance that appeases both teachers and students, while still making learning the priority?”

Thoughts? Leave a comment below.