CKNW: 2008 February 7
Education minister Shirley Bond says the government is acting on recommendations put forward by the auditor-general today to improve literacy in BC.....the auditor says more work must be done for the government to reach its goal of making BC the most literate jurisdiction in North America by 2015.
Bond was asked how confident she is that goal can be reached.
"Is there more work to be done? Absolutely, but this is a government who said it's our priority, we've set very significant targets, is there more work to be done? Yes there is, but together you know I’m confident we are going to make progress and continue to see British Columbia lead the world."
The auditor says not enough is being done to monitor progress or even spending on literacy programs.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
B.C. needs to do more homework to reach top literacy goal, says auditor general
Canadian Press: 2008 February 7
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5j1_uH_NIPQtO32pEABnbaLGOyvfw
VICTORIA - The auditor general says the B.C. government needs to do more homework if it wants to reach its goal of making British Columbia the most literate jurisdiction in North America by 2015.
B.C. Auditor General John Doyle makes six recommendations in his report, including urging the Education Ministry, Boards of Education and post-secondary institutions to join forces to develop plans to encourage the use of services to improve literacy.
Doyle says British Columbia's literacy rate compares favourably with other jurisdictions but 40 per cent of working age British Columbians lack the literacy skills to fully participate in the workforce.
He says the government does not explain how much it is spending on improving literacy and there is little data measuring the program's progress.
Doyle calls on the government to issue a provincewide annual public report on its progress in achieving literacy goals and objectives.
British Columbia students currently rank in the top three in the world in reading, math and science based on an international literacy standard that focuses on 15 year olds, says Doyle's report.
Literacy: Creating the Conditions for Reading and Writing Success
Report 6 - February 2008 Report PDF
News Release Backgrounder
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5j1_uH_NIPQtO32pEABnbaLGOyvfw
VICTORIA - The auditor general says the B.C. government needs to do more homework if it wants to reach its goal of making British Columbia the most literate jurisdiction in North America by 2015.
B.C. Auditor General John Doyle makes six recommendations in his report, including urging the Education Ministry, Boards of Education and post-secondary institutions to join forces to develop plans to encourage the use of services to improve literacy.
Doyle says British Columbia's literacy rate compares favourably with other jurisdictions but 40 per cent of working age British Columbians lack the literacy skills to fully participate in the workforce.
He says the government does not explain how much it is spending on improving literacy and there is little data measuring the program's progress.
Doyle calls on the government to issue a provincewide annual public report on its progress in achieving literacy goals and objectives.
British Columbia students currently rank in the top three in the world in reading, math and science based on an international literacy standard that focuses on 15 year olds, says Doyle's report.
Literacy: Creating the Conditions for Reading and Writing Success
Report 6 - February 2008 Report PDF
News Release Backgrounder
Library and Archives Canada launch black history resource
Online resource will help counter the invisibility of Black history in the dominant narrative of Canadian history.
National Union of Public and General Employees
http://www.nupge.ca/news_2008/n07fe08a.htm
Ottawa (7 Feb. 2008) - In time for Black History Month the Library and Archives Canada has launched Under a Northern Star, an online web resource which promises to be an important tool for researchers, students, activists and all Canadians.
The website is intended to "document the diverse historical experience of African Canadians. The collections include historical papers that contextualize the life and work of persons who fought against slavery and racism, built settlements, and flourished as early Canadians."
In her introductory essay award-winning poet, author, historian, curator, performer, cultural worker, and recording artist Dr. Afua Cooper thinks that:
"What is brilliant about these collections is that each one speaks to the historical experience of African Canadians in different parts of the country at different time periods. Moreover, each one tells a story of the important contributions Blacks made to Canada as pioneers, enslaved persons, explorers, citizens and settlers. Of great import is that these collections lay to rest the myth of Black people just 'came off the boat,' but reveal that they were a part of what became known as Canada from its very inception. The collections reveal the multi-layered history of Black Canadians, and explore, in depth, Black people's vast achievements and their contributions to Canadian society."
The site provides access to digitalized collections on the themes of: Reverend William King - The Elgin Settlement; Mary Ann Shadd Cary - Abolitionist; Sir James Douglas - Colonial Governor; Green Thurman - Runaway Slave; Black Loyalists - Nova Scotia; Africville - A Community Displaced; and, Railway - Black Porters. Each collection comes with a short essay by a recognized authority on the topic.
Dr. Cooper sees the online collection playing a valuable role in countering "the invisibility of Black history in the dominant narrative of Canadian history. These digitized collections will ensure this can happen no more." NUPGE
National Union of Public and General Employees
http://www.nupge.ca/news_2008/n07fe08a.htm
Ottawa (7 Feb. 2008) - In time for Black History Month the Library and Archives Canada has launched Under a Northern Star, an online web resource which promises to be an important tool for researchers, students, activists and all Canadians.
The website is intended to "document the diverse historical experience of African Canadians. The collections include historical papers that contextualize the life and work of persons who fought against slavery and racism, built settlements, and flourished as early Canadians."
In her introductory essay award-winning poet, author, historian, curator, performer, cultural worker, and recording artist Dr. Afua Cooper thinks that:
"What is brilliant about these collections is that each one speaks to the historical experience of African Canadians in different parts of the country at different time periods. Moreover, each one tells a story of the important contributions Blacks made to Canada as pioneers, enslaved persons, explorers, citizens and settlers. Of great import is that these collections lay to rest the myth of Black people just 'came off the boat,' but reveal that they were a part of what became known as Canada from its very inception. The collections reveal the multi-layered history of Black Canadians, and explore, in depth, Black people's vast achievements and their contributions to Canadian society."
The site provides access to digitalized collections on the themes of: Reverend William King - The Elgin Settlement; Mary Ann Shadd Cary - Abolitionist; Sir James Douglas - Colonial Governor; Green Thurman - Runaway Slave; Black Loyalists - Nova Scotia; Africville - A Community Displaced; and, Railway - Black Porters. Each collection comes with a short essay by a recognized authority on the topic.
Dr. Cooper sees the online collection playing a valuable role in countering "the invisibility of Black history in the dominant narrative of Canadian history. These digitized collections will ensure this can happen no more." NUPGE
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
ChatMaker: Instant Chatroom
DE Tools of the Trade: 2008 February 6
http://pastelpixels.com/detools_wp/?p=97
Last week, one of our teachers wanted to set up a temporary chatroom for a small group of students working on a collaborative project but without having to endure a lot of technical hassles. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to offer. A week later, Chatmaker showed up. It’s exactly what I wanted.
Chatmaker is simplicity itself. There’s no registration needed or account required. Simply give your chatroom a unique name. That generates a unique URL. E-mail the URL to the other participants. That’s all they need to join.
The application’s simplicity is also a glaring weakness for educators. For example, there is no way to make the chatroom private or to control access via username and password. Anyone who has the URL can join. Nevertheless, if a “quick & dirty” chatroom is something you need from time to time, Chatmaker is the best I’ve seen, by far.
Check it out at:
http://www.chatmaker.net
http://pastelpixels.com/detools_wp/?p=97
Last week, one of our teachers wanted to set up a temporary chatroom for a small group of students working on a collaborative project but without having to endure a lot of technical hassles. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to offer. A week later, Chatmaker showed up. It’s exactly what I wanted.
Chatmaker is simplicity itself. There’s no registration needed or account required. Simply give your chatroom a unique name. That generates a unique URL. E-mail the URL to the other participants. That’s all they need to join.
The application’s simplicity is also a glaring weakness for educators. For example, there is no way to make the chatroom private or to control access via username and password. Anyone who has the URL can join. Nevertheless, if a “quick & dirty” chatroom is something you need from time to time, Chatmaker is the best I’ve seen, by far.
Check it out at:
http://www.chatmaker.net
TL Blogs/Wikis
Not Your Mother's Librarian
http://notyourmotherslibrarian.blogspot.com/
Libraries have changed. Yes, they still have books and they still get checked out. However, library media centers in the 21st century are not your mother's library. And I am most decidedly not your mother's librarian.
Do you have a blog or wiki for your library, chapter or district? Check to see if it is listed on the BCTLA site at http://psas.bctf.ca/bctla/web.html
Send additions or changes to vhamilton@shaw.ca
http://notyourmotherslibrarian.blogspot.com/
Libraries have changed. Yes, they still have books and they still get checked out. However, library media centers in the 21st century are not your mother's library. And I am most decidedly not your mother's librarian.
Do you have a blog or wiki for your library, chapter or district? Check to see if it is listed on the BCTLA site at http://psas.bctf.ca/bctla/web.html
Send additions or changes to vhamilton@shaw.ca
We're on information overload
Kids can't focus these days, and neither can I.
By Thomas Washington
from the February 6, 2008 edition
Christian Science Monitor
As a school librarian, I wind up reading all sorts of damning reports on students' lack of reading skills. The latest dire news came from the National Endowment for the Arts' recent "To Read or Not to Read" study, which warned that "less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier." High school students are faring even worse: Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of "nonreaders" has doubled over a 20-year period, from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. This multitasking generation, we're led to believe, can't focus on any item for longer than nine minutes.
But despite the ominous reports, it's business as usual for students today, at least the ones I'm talking to. So what gives?
Educators or parents might start by framing the questions differently. Who isn't having trouble concentrating these days? Who doesn't find it nearly impossible to stick with a 450-page novel?
The other night, for example, I stumbled over a paragraph in Milton Friedman's seminal 1962 tome "Capitalism and Freedom." Years ago, I might have worked with Friedman's convolutions and tried to unspool the main idea. Today, I have neither the time nor the desire. Well, I probably do have time, but with so many other books by my bedside, queued like a fleet of 757s on a snowy runway, there's too much competition to endure such prose. I put Friedman down for good after Page 30.
I suspect that the tipping point in information overload has tipped. Students' aversion to reading does not necessarily signal a weakness, much less a dislike of reading. For them, and now maybe for me, moving on to something else is an adaptive tactic for negotiating the jungle that is our information-besotted culture of verbiage.
These kids manage to survive by bushwhacking through the muddle – while seamlessly dealing with an e-mail, a Word document, or a 50-page PDF from the scholarly database JSTOR. It's taken them just a few years to arrive at the same conclusion that I've reached after a lifetime of sustained reading: The pursuit of knowledge in the age of information overload is less about a process of acquisition than about proficiency in tossing stuff out. By necessity, we spend more time quickly scanning manuals, king-size novels, the blogosphere, and poems in The New Yorker than we do scrutinizing their contents for deeper meaning.
This is the price we pay for the changed demands in reading. Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff defines this new reading terrain as "the paradox of our age." We've grown into a culture of searchers, not readers. "Surely, we have never read, or written, so many words a day," Schiff writes. "Yet increasingly we deal in atomized bits of information, the hors d'oeuvres of education."
Of course, I still believe that students have to pay their dues as readers. English teachers turn students into more skilled readers by moving from "The Catcher in the Rye" to "King Lear" in something akin to the way a fitness trainer slowly increases the heaviness of a weight to create muscle. But in the process, if we're going to insist on extracting the main ideas from chunks of text instead of admiring, as we once did, such aesthetic values as a book's form, rhythm, and content, then we need not berate ourselves for our failure to mount an assault on Denis Johnson's thorny "Tree of Smoke."
Reading is all about testing these days. As the NEA reports, it is also about some prospective employer who ranks reading comprehension as "very important." Students know this. It's part of the reason they're in SAT preparation overdrive in their freshman year.
Living in the era of information overload forces a few key questions on all readers. What do we need to know? Why do we need to know it? And, given that by the end of our lives we will have absorbed and converted to knowledge only a sliver of the information available, should we bother knowing it?
• Thomas Washington is head librarian at the Potomac School in McLean, Va.©2008 The Washington Post.
By Thomas Washington
from the February 6, 2008 edition
Christian Science Monitor
As a school librarian, I wind up reading all sorts of damning reports on students' lack of reading skills. The latest dire news came from the National Endowment for the Arts' recent "To Read or Not to Read" study, which warned that "less than one-third of 13-year-olds are daily readers, a 14 percent decline from 20 years earlier." High school students are faring even worse: Among 17-year-olds, the percentage of "nonreaders" has doubled over a 20-year period, from 9 percent in 1984 to 19 percent in 2004. This multitasking generation, we're led to believe, can't focus on any item for longer than nine minutes.
But despite the ominous reports, it's business as usual for students today, at least the ones I'm talking to. So what gives?
Educators or parents might start by framing the questions differently. Who isn't having trouble concentrating these days? Who doesn't find it nearly impossible to stick with a 450-page novel?
The other night, for example, I stumbled over a paragraph in Milton Friedman's seminal 1962 tome "Capitalism and Freedom." Years ago, I might have worked with Friedman's convolutions and tried to unspool the main idea. Today, I have neither the time nor the desire. Well, I probably do have time, but with so many other books by my bedside, queued like a fleet of 757s on a snowy runway, there's too much competition to endure such prose. I put Friedman down for good after Page 30.
I suspect that the tipping point in information overload has tipped. Students' aversion to reading does not necessarily signal a weakness, much less a dislike of reading. For them, and now maybe for me, moving on to something else is an adaptive tactic for negotiating the jungle that is our information-besotted culture of verbiage.
These kids manage to survive by bushwhacking through the muddle – while seamlessly dealing with an e-mail, a Word document, or a 50-page PDF from the scholarly database JSTOR. It's taken them just a few years to arrive at the same conclusion that I've reached after a lifetime of sustained reading: The pursuit of knowledge in the age of information overload is less about a process of acquisition than about proficiency in tossing stuff out. By necessity, we spend more time quickly scanning manuals, king-size novels, the blogosphere, and poems in The New Yorker than we do scrutinizing their contents for deeper meaning.
This is the price we pay for the changed demands in reading. Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff defines this new reading terrain as "the paradox of our age." We've grown into a culture of searchers, not readers. "Surely, we have never read, or written, so many words a day," Schiff writes. "Yet increasingly we deal in atomized bits of information, the hors d'oeuvres of education."
Of course, I still believe that students have to pay their dues as readers. English teachers turn students into more skilled readers by moving from "The Catcher in the Rye" to "King Lear" in something akin to the way a fitness trainer slowly increases the heaviness of a weight to create muscle. But in the process, if we're going to insist on extracting the main ideas from chunks of text instead of admiring, as we once did, such aesthetic values as a book's form, rhythm, and content, then we need not berate ourselves for our failure to mount an assault on Denis Johnson's thorny "Tree of Smoke."
Reading is all about testing these days. As the NEA reports, it is also about some prospective employer who ranks reading comprehension as "very important." Students know this. It's part of the reason they're in SAT preparation overdrive in their freshman year.
Living in the era of information overload forces a few key questions on all readers. What do we need to know? Why do we need to know it? And, given that by the end of our lives we will have absorbed and converted to knowledge only a sliver of the information available, should we bother knowing it?
• Thomas Washington is head librarian at the Potomac School in McLean, Va.©2008 The Washington Post.
Copyright Bill: Born in USA?
Industry urging feds to follow Washington's lead.
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2008/02/06/CanCopyright/print.html
View full article and comments here http:///Mediacheck/2008/02/06/CanCopyright/
By Michael Geist
Published: February 6, 2008
TheTyee.ca
With Industry Minister Jim Prentice preparing to unveil his controversial copyright bill, there has been considerable speculation about the role that the U.S. government has played in pressuring Canada to move on the copyright file. U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins has been very vocal, repeatedly, if misleadingly, claiming that Canada's copyright laws are the most lax among the G7 nations.
While the influence of the U.S. government in crafting a Canadian version of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been a recurring theme, what has gone largely unnoticed is the role that some Canadian lobby groups have played in quietly encouraging the U.S. to step up the pressure. Indeed, according to documents recently obtained under the Access to Information Act, last spring Canadian Recording Industry Association president Graham Henderson met with Wilkins' counterpart -- Canada's Ambassador to the United States Michael Wilson -- to encourage him to pressure both governments to prioritize U.S. style copyright reforms.
The private May 2007 meeting led some government officials to openly question why the ambassador would be willing to meet with CRIA on such a sensitive file.
A report on the meeting noted that Henderson told Wilson that "everything the Embassy hears from stakeholders on IP issues is true." He added that the government should prioritize the ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties, remarking that the only prior attempt to address the issue -- the Liberal government's failed Bill C-60 -- died before the lobby group was "able to fix it in parliamentary committee."
Henderson also dismissed the privacy-related concerns associated with copyright reform (recently reiterated by Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart in a public letter), arguing that the government should not concern itself with the issue.
Fanning flames
The internal reports on the meeting reveal not only efforts to fan the flames of U.S. pressure on Canada, but also the skepticism of policy makers with the U.S. and lobby group claims within both Industry and Canadian Heritage. The briefing note jointly prepared by the two departments for Wilson advises that "the Government is aware that TPM [technological protection measures] enforcement is strongly requested by some rightsholders such as CRIA. However, many Canadians have raised concerns over public interest issues such as their potential impact on privacy, innovation, competition, and consumer choice."
It also downplays U.S. criticism of Canadian law, stating that the U.S. Trade Representative Special 301 Report, which Prentice has presumably relied upon to support claims that Canada's trading partners have criticized the current copyright law, was "essentially based on U.S. stakeholders' submissions on alleged denials of adequate or effective intellectual property protection."
In fact, an early draft of the document went even further, cautioning that this issue has "raised considerable world wide controversy and media attention over the years, where all countries who have been trying to implement TM [technical measures] legislation have had to go through the slow process of carefully balancing the public interest."
Made in Canada?
The concern expressed by tens of thousands of Canadians is that calls for balance have not been heard, drowned out by the vocal lobbying from the U.S. and well-connected lobby groups.
The Conservative government campaigned in 2006 on a platform of government accountability and transparency to put an end to these forms of secretive influence. If the copyright bill proceeds without addressing public concerns and before conducting the promised House of Commons review of the WIPO Treaties, Canadians will be left to ask whether Prentice's plan is a made-in-Canada solution or, as it appears, a bill that was born in the U.S.A.
Related Tyee stories:
http://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2008/02/06/CanCopyright/print.html
View full article and comments here http:///Mediacheck/2008/02/06/CanCopyright/
By Michael Geist
Published: February 6, 2008
TheTyee.ca
With Industry Minister Jim Prentice preparing to unveil his controversial copyright bill, there has been considerable speculation about the role that the U.S. government has played in pressuring Canada to move on the copyright file. U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins has been very vocal, repeatedly, if misleadingly, claiming that Canada's copyright laws are the most lax among the G7 nations.
While the influence of the U.S. government in crafting a Canadian version of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been a recurring theme, what has gone largely unnoticed is the role that some Canadian lobby groups have played in quietly encouraging the U.S. to step up the pressure. Indeed, according to documents recently obtained under the Access to Information Act, last spring Canadian Recording Industry Association president Graham Henderson met with Wilkins' counterpart -- Canada's Ambassador to the United States Michael Wilson -- to encourage him to pressure both governments to prioritize U.S. style copyright reforms.
The private May 2007 meeting led some government officials to openly question why the ambassador would be willing to meet with CRIA on such a sensitive file.
A report on the meeting noted that Henderson told Wilson that "everything the Embassy hears from stakeholders on IP issues is true." He added that the government should prioritize the ratification of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties, remarking that the only prior attempt to address the issue -- the Liberal government's failed Bill C-60 -- died before the lobby group was "able to fix it in parliamentary committee."
Henderson also dismissed the privacy-related concerns associated with copyright reform (recently reiterated by Privacy Commissioner of Canada Jennifer Stoddart in a public letter), arguing that the government should not concern itself with the issue.
Fanning flames
The internal reports on the meeting reveal not only efforts to fan the flames of U.S. pressure on Canada, but also the skepticism of policy makers with the U.S. and lobby group claims within both Industry and Canadian Heritage. The briefing note jointly prepared by the two departments for Wilson advises that "the Government is aware that TPM [technological protection measures] enforcement is strongly requested by some rightsholders such as CRIA. However, many Canadians have raised concerns over public interest issues such as their potential impact on privacy, innovation, competition, and consumer choice."
It also downplays U.S. criticism of Canadian law, stating that the U.S. Trade Representative Special 301 Report, which Prentice has presumably relied upon to support claims that Canada's trading partners have criticized the current copyright law, was "essentially based on U.S. stakeholders' submissions on alleged denials of adequate or effective intellectual property protection."
In fact, an early draft of the document went even further, cautioning that this issue has "raised considerable world wide controversy and media attention over the years, where all countries who have been trying to implement TM [technical measures] legislation have had to go through the slow process of carefully balancing the public interest."
Made in Canada?
The concern expressed by tens of thousands of Canadians is that calls for balance have not been heard, drowned out by the vocal lobbying from the U.S. and well-connected lobby groups.
The Conservative government campaigned in 2006 on a platform of government accountability and transparency to put an end to these forms of secretive influence. If the copyright bill proceeds without addressing public concerns and before conducting the promised House of Commons review of the WIPO Treaties, Canadians will be left to ask whether Prentice's plan is a made-in-Canada solution or, as it appears, a bill that was born in the U.S.A.
Related Tyee stories:
Unpopular new ruling reveals flaws in current copyright system.
Privacy watchdog fears new copyright regs.
Hint: Deregulation isn't the silver bullet.
A version of this article appeared in the Hill Times. Michael Geist holds the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online at www.michaelgeist.ca.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)