(Appearing in the Daily News, Letters to the Editor 8/29/06)
Lately there has been much focus and debate about the starting of a new public charter school in Moscow called the Palouse Prairie School of Expeditionary Learning. When looking at the Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound model, http://www.elob.org, and hearing stories about its effectiveness from those who have experienced it first hand, it is hard not to be excited and hopeful that the Moscow School District will support EL as an option for the children of Moscow.
I am a parent who is completely awestruck by those who, over the past two and a half years, have put in hours of hard work to carefully craft a charter and have held public meetings to educate people about the EL model.
Most of the original board members involved in the conception of this school have had personal experiences with EL that affected them so profoundly they now have a selfless drive to create this type of learning experience for the children of Moscow.
I say selfless because they stand to receive no personal gain with the creation of this school. They are not teachers hoping for a job or parents who want their children to attend Palouse Prairie School.
They are educators and others from the community who have seen with their own eyes how amazing it is to have a learning model where children, teachers, and parents are tapped into their inner drive to learn and contribute.
The passion and selfless devotion of these founding members is testament to the power and effectiveness of expeditionary learning.
There are currently two successful EL charter schools in Idaho. If this letter has piqued your curiosity, please check out their Web sites: http://www.anser-charter-school.org and http://www.accs.k12id.us/. To learn more about Palouse Prairie School: http://www.palouseprairieschool.org/.
Lahde Forbes, Moscow
mySite status – first use for class notes
August 28, 2006There are two reports of student created mySite for class notes (Each site below requires WSU Network ID to login):
Brandon Crane (Home – MSE 401 fall 06) started using OneNote (and its audio recording) to take notes in his class. He is exploring making the site visible to students in the class (and more widely as an example).
Mark Zocher (Home – MgtOp215) is hoping to use discussions to share class notes and other discussion.
The mySite creation numbers continue to rise
8/21 642
8/22 804
8/23 894
8/24 1042
8/25 1143
8/26 1261
8/27 1282
8/28 1312
For the first 1008 users in the system, here are the demographics:
By employment status
By class standing
Several users have started to create portfolios, but only my demonstration timber frame portfolio appears to have any content.
Posted in Collaborative Tech, Commentary, My Portfolio, Personal Collab Site | 1 Comment »