The Abstinence-Only Sex Ed. program that I am paying for

I do not usually feel the need to comment on the politics of this country. I hid safely behind my dual citizenship, claiming Canada with pride and a hint of condecention. HOwever, over coffee this morning I was accosted by the latest headline in Education Weekly. Apparently with the passage of the much discussed health care reform bill, was the renewal of Title V, some legal-eeze that mandates Abstinence-Only Sex Education for our youngsters. The article describes that this program was first signed into law under Clinton more than ten years ago. It also states that this program will continue to recieve over $250 million in funding over the next how ever many years.

The article goes on to delineate the type of abstinence program that would qualify, because clearly not every abstinence program is doing it right. There are eight tenents that a program is measured against, the first of which is "Teach abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the expected standard for all school-age children". Which makes me reflect about my own relationship. I guess since I do not have the legal right to marry, I should not be engaging in sexual activity. I guess I am missing out on what is described as the "social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity," and I am clearly putting myself at risk because "sexual activity outside the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects".

Apparently there has been one lone study in the past ten years that has shown scientifically based evidence of the success of an Abstinence-Only education program. One. I wonder who funded that study? I wonder who performed the data analysis? I wonder?

Where am I? is it really 2010 or did I wake up in the middle ages? I understand that the government needs to find methods for controlling to population, this is not new. But what happened to the glorious idea, seperation of church and state, upon which this country was founded (I at least know that). People want to have sex, we always have we always will, it is out of our control regardless of our religious beliefs. I think history has taught us that. Besides which with shows like 'pregnant and 16' and the multitude of visual media that sell using sex, we probably want to have sex more now than we did 100 years ago. Perhaps we should study that?

First Special Education iphone application

Well ladies and gentleman, the wait is over. We finally have an iphone app that helps us prepare for our IEP meetings. Watch this!!

Tech tools for teachers

Recently, I have not had the opportunity to keep the Teacher Cafe up to date. This is the result of a few major distraction in my life, the most prominent of which is is getting admitted into graduate school. Yes, the news is true, I will be pursuing my PhD. in Special Education here in the Bay Area at both Berkeley and San Francisco State University, in the Joint Doctoral Program. I know, its a mouth full. I am sure not as much to chew as my immanent five years of schooling, but a morsel none the less.
The other major distraction has been my current course work, some of which takes me further into my budding interest in becoming technologically literate. In my search for new and interesting materials on the World Wide Web, I came across something locally grown. This web tool is free and designed to give teachers the flexibility to create whatever teaching tools they feel will best address the student's need. Flexibooks are digital text books that can be compiled by reusing already approved materials that are aligned with state standards, or by creating your own from scratch, or somewhere in between.
California has mandated a push towards technology based texts and this resource is way ahead of the game in offering a new solution. The most exciting part of this tool is that any teacher can now personalize and differentiate their texts to meet any students needs. In addition these tech texts can save paper, be transported to any machine, and will increase students ability to use the tech tools the schools provide them with.

web tools

Well it certainly has been some time since my last post. That's probably because I was busy teaching, applying to graduate school, and figuring out these new tech tools for my tech class. Yes that's right!! the Luddite in me is having to step aside for a new and improved woman for 2010. I feel very proud of myself. In the last two days I have created one Voicethread, one vodcast, and uploaded them both the my lesson website.
The resources I used were easy and fin to use. I now have this glowing little yellow ball at the top left corner of my screen, it's my Jing. This handy site lets you film your screen and talk all at the same time. To me this is simply amazing. It uploads all of these to a screencast account and from here one can easily distribute them to anyone. Love it.
Voicethread is also a helpful teaching tool because the teacher can create content and the students can comment on that content, making it an interactive educational experience.
Check them out. If I can do it....you can do it.