Mike Falick's Blog

Flickr Joins with the Library of Congress to Bring You Over 3,000 Amazing Historical Images

The Flickr website has joined with the Library of Congress in a pilot program to post 3,000 (of its 14 million) archival photographs on the internet.  These pictures  contain an incredible amount of history and graphically show how different our country is today as compared to the first half of the 1900s.

From the Flickr website:

Back in June of 2007, we began our first collaboration with a civic institution to facilitate giving people a voice in describing the content of a publicly-held photography collection.

The key goals of this pilot project are to firstly give you a taste of the hidden treasures in the huge Library of Congress collection, and secondly to show how your input of a tag or two can make the collection even richer.

You're invited to help describe photographs in the Library of Congress' collection on Flickr, by adding tags or leaving comments

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and from the Library of Congress blog:

My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven

Posted on: January 16th, 2008  by Matt Raymond

If you’re reading this, then chances are you already know about Web 2.0. Even if you don’t know the term itself, you’re one of millions worldwide who are actively creating, sharing or benefiting from user-generated content that characterizes Web 2.0 phenomena.

As a communicator, I want to expand the reach of the Library and access to our magnificent collections as far and wide as possible. Of course, there are only so many hours in the day, so many staff in Library offices and so many dollars in the budget. Priorities have to be chosen that will most effectively advance our mission.

That’s why it is so exciting to let people know about the launch of a brand-new pilot project the Library of Congress is undertaking with Flickr, the enormously popular photo-sharing site that has been a Web 2.0 innovator. If all goes according to plan, the project will help address at least two major challenges: how to ensure better and better access to our collections, and how to ensure that we have the best possible information about those collections for the benefit of researchers and posterity. In many senses, we are looking to enhance our metadata (one of those Web 2.0 buzzwords that 90 percent of our readers could probably explain better than me).

The project is beginning somewhat modestly, but we hope to learn a lot from it. Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist.

The real magic comes when the power of the Flickr community takes over. We want people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves. For instance, many photos are missing key caption information such as where the photo was taken and who is pictured. If such information is collected via Flickr members, it can potentially enhance the quality of the bibliographic records for the images.

We’re also very excited that, as part of this pilot, Flickr has created a new publication model for publicly held photographic collections called “The Commons.” Flickr hopes—as do we—that the project will eventually capture the imagination and involvement of other public institutions, as well.

From the Library’s perspective, this pilot project is a statement about the power of the Web and user communities to help people better acquire information, knowledge and—most importantly—wisdom. One of our goals, frankly, is to learn as much as we can about that power simply through the process of making constructive use of it.

More information is available on the Library’s Web site here and on the FAQ page here.

And with that,  gentlemen (and gentlewomen), start your tagging!

UPDATE: You can read Flickr’s take here.

(Image of baseball player “Bugs” Raymond from the Library’s Bain Collection because I liked the surname.  Image of grain elevator from Caldwell, Idaho, from the Library’s FSA/OWI Color Photographs Collection because it helps illustrate that there are active Flickr user groups for even such diverse subjects as grain elevators.)

Keybr.com: A Free Website that will Improve Your Touch Typing Skills

Here's a free website that will help you improve your touch typing abilities.  It shows how fast and error free you type each exercise, is semi-customizable, and does not require any registration.

Spring Branch Teachers and Students Can Now Blog for Free on the My SBISD Community of Blogs

Are you a teacher or student in Spring Branch with an interest in blogging?  Now you can learn how to blog, and do so for free at the District's new community blogging site located at http://blog.mysbisd.com.

From the blogging website:

Welcome to My SBISD!

January 2008: My SBISD is an online community blogging site for Spring Branch ISD teachers and employees. At this time, there are several classrooms throughout the district who are piloting programs where teachers and students create and maintain blogs for educational and instructional purposes. If you are not a part of this pilot program, hopefully in the near future, as the “kinks get worked out”, more and more teachers will be afforded this opportunity.

For all other teachers and employees of Spring Branch ISD, there is a limited amount of blog space being made available on this site. With this part of the blogging initiative, teachers and employees can participate by creating their own professional blog.

If you are interested in creating a professional blog for your classroom or department, please click the link below, to create your own blog. You must be a district employee and you must use your Spring Branch ISD employee email address when you set your blog up.

Before creating your site, please download and read the Teachers Blogging Acceptable Use Guidelines. If you are one of the teachers piloting the program where you are blogging with your students as part of your curriculum, please download the Student Blogging Acceptable Use Guidelines . All students and their parents MUST read and sign this document before they should be allowed to create their blog for your class.

In the near future, look for online tutorials that will show how to use the blogging feature.

CREATE YOUR BLOG HERE!

The Spring Branch Collegiate Challenge Mentoring Program Recognized as One of the Best in Texas

The Spring Branch Collegiate Challenge Mentoring program pairs adult mentors with high school juniors and seniors.  The mentors help these juniors and seniors through the college and scholarship application process.  Our program, which began in 2000, is one of 20 programs recognized as an Exemplary Program by the Texas High School Project.

This recognition has earned Spring Branch a grant in the amount of $42,500 to expand this program to Stratford HS and Spring Woods HS.

The District's volunteer partners are Chapelwood United Methodist Church and Memorial Drive United Methodist Church.

Much more information about this program is available here.

Recap of Tonight's Board Workshop

Our Board held a workshop tonight.  Here's a recap of the issues discussed and actions taken on tonight's Agenda.

It is the time of year when we evaluate the performance of Dr. Klussmann, our Superintendent, and discuss his contract.  By law, those conversations take place in executive session, which is how we started tonight's meeting.

As you might have read on the District's website, we filed a declaratory judgment lawsuit that asks the Travis County Court authorize SBISD’s issuance of Proposed Public Securities, or bonds, up to the voter-approved limit of $597.1 million.  More information about the lawsuit is available here.  We ratified the legal proceedings that have occurred to date in the lawsuit.

We then received an update on the Long Range Technology Plan.  The District is well on its way to implementation of the ACTIVclassrooms, creating a fully wireless environment, and acquisition of laptops for teachers.  In addition, this year the District implemented a pilot blogging/podcasting program for teachers and librarians that can be greatly expanded.

Next, we discussed the development of a Citizen' Guide to the District's Budget which would provide useful information to our community concerning Spring Branch's budget and the ongoing impact of Robin Hood (Chapter 41).  In addition, the Guide will increase transparency in the budget process.

We then discussed possible Teacher Incentive and Performance Based Pay.  The discussion is very preliminary and represents the starting point for achieving this item in the Five Year Educational Plan.

One of the concerns with so many school bonds being approved in November is the potential shortage of qualified architects, engineers, and contractors. 

Our meeting concluded with more of our ongoing work to revise the Board's Policies with discussion and consideration of DEA (Local) Compensation and Benefits: Salaries, Wages and Stipends, CFE (Local) Accounting: Payroll Procedures, and TASB Policy Update 81.

The Longest List of Everything in the World

I'm not sure how useful this website is, but it is certainly interesting.  It touts itself as "the longest list of the longest stuff at the longest domain name at long last," and with its url -- http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/ -- it certainly does have a long name.

The question it asks is: Ever wonder what the longest (insert item) in the world is?

There are literally hundreds of topics that you can then select to see the longest everything from abbreviation to zucchini.  Here's an example:

Spring Branch Educators Podcasting: Here's a List of All the Available Podcasts

The Spring Branch Education Technology Department has created this very useful website that will teach you how to podcast.  In this initial year, EdTech took grant requests for podcasting educators, and below are the winners and their respective podcasts.

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And the Winners Are........

Congratulations to the Spring Branch Podcasting Grant  Winners. The Educational Technology Department received some amazing grants that covered a vast range of ideas, grade levels and subjects. Because of that, we were unable to narrow it down to just 5 winners. The good news...we decided to award all 17 applicants a podcasting package. In the near future, look for some amazing podcasts being produced and published from the following Spring Branch teachers and librarians:

1. Susan Sisler: German - MHS --                  Unter vier Augen
2. Patricia Mennes: Broadcast - MHS -- MBC Pony Express
3. Richard Fanning: Language Arts - SWHS -- Book Talk
4. Jessica Waltman & Sandra Harvey:  Humanities – WAIS -- Thoughtcasts
5. Meredith Tolson: MS Language Arts and Social Studies - WAIS -- Tolson’s Top Ten Books
6. Cheryl Wegscheid: MS Science - WAIS -- Wegschizzle’s World
7. Kathryn Rose: MS Science - SWMS -- Sci Kid
8. Cynthia Tuma & Julie Seeley: MS Language Arts - LMS -- Stories to Capture the Imagination
9. Mary Drawl & Stephanie Walton: Fine Arts & Broadcast - NBMS -- KNTV: Focus on Fine Arts
10. Karen Harrell, Lisa Davis, & Judy Juan: Library, 2nd & 5th Grades - Rummel Creek -- War of the Words
11. Sandra Henao: 2nd Grade - Ridgecrest -- Energy to the Wise
12. Terry Herblin:  Library – Thornwood -- My Pod or Yours?
13. Linsey Chafin: 2nd Grade - Memorial Drive -- Second Grade Scoop
14. Ann Martin: 2nd Grade - Hunters Creek -- New From Second Grade
15. Noemi Lopez: 4th Grade - Hunters Creek -- Book Brag
16. Bonnie McSpadden: Music - Pine Shadows -- Secret Songs and Rhythmic Riddles
17. Joseph Alvarado: 2nd Grade - Buffalo Creek -- Mystery Readers

Dallas Morning News Runs Another Story that Highlights the Problems with the State Center -- The State Center is Sharing Kindergarten Students' Social Security Numbers, without Parental Consent -- And Sadly, It's Actually Even Worse than That

Last month I posted about the Edvance report that blasted the State Center for its lack of transparency and accountability (among other identified problems).  You can access that prior post here.

Shortly thereafter, the Dallas Morning News ran a story entitled Landmark Preschool Program Isn't Paying Off that highlighted the Edvance report.

Today the Dallas Morning News has another story about the State Center that highlights an equally troubling problem -- the collection and dissemination of personal student information, including student's social security numbers.  The article appears after the jump below.

My own investigation of the State Center has revealed the following: 

First, the State Center, which has failed to get parental consent, is requiring school districts to provide personal student identifier information to it for the District's kindergarten students, including the following:

• Student's full name
• ID numbers: PEIMS, social security, and interim TEA (if known/applicable)
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Anticipated kindergarten year
• The student's teacher and/or classroom name
• enrollment status
• race/ethnicity
• home county
• school district
• home language
• street address
• home phone
• language of instruction
• instructional days attended
• Limited English Proficiency
• Special Education with IEP
• Free/reduced lunch eligible
• CCMS student

Second, it appears that by doing so, the State Center, which is part of the University of Texas Health Science Center, is violating the University's own guidelines for collection of research data for research involving children.  UTHSC's policy specifically requires the following:

School-Based Research

Research conducted with school students holds special concerns as it relates to coordination with school districts and schools as well as obtaining informed permission from parents. . . . obtaining active informed permission of parents will be expected of investigators.

The State Center has failed to comply with this policy.

Third, in addition, the State Center has contracted with Wireless Generation (WGen) regarding the data collected, and, as shown below, the State Center has specifically agreed that WGen is the owner of all data, including "personally identifiable information.

The Assessment is broadly defined to include all of the items administered to student's as part of the State Center's research including student results on a variety of tests and social measures.  More on the social screener is below.

Subsequently, in an effort to be perfectly clear, WGen sent a letter dated November 15, 2006, to the State Center in which it sought the State Center's permission to "distribute, both electronically and in print, Student Assessment Sheets . . . for use by its customers . . . ."

In exchange for agreeing to collect student's personal information for WGen, the State Center receives a flat-rate license fee and a per student royalty fee (see paragraphs 4.1 and 4.2 of the contract.  This is in addition to the tens of millions of dollars the Center has received and continues to receive from Texas taxpayers.

Included in the information collected by the State Center without parental consent and provided to WGen for use by WGen's customers is kindergarten student performance information on assessments including Rapid Letter Naming, Rapid Vocabulary Naming, Phonological Awareness, Teacher's Behavior checklist, and a Social Screener that asks the teacher to identify subjective behavioral characteristics of a  student (click on the image to enlarge):

Fourth, the DMN article discusses that the information is collected by OZ Systems (Optimization Zorn, Inc.).  It is interesting to note that OZ Systems was in bankruptcy just  3 years ago.   Nevertheless, OZ is quoted in the DMN article as saying that "parents have nothing to worry about."  Wouldn't it be better to give parents the choice of whether this outside contractor should be given their child's personal information?

For more information about the State Center, please see these prior posts (here and here).

Houston A+ Challenge Receives $3 Million for New Principal Leadership Academy

The Houston A+ Challenge, which frequently partners with Spring Branch, announced yesterday that it received a $3 million grant from the Houston Endowment to create a new Principal Academy focused on improving school leadership.

My friend, and the new Executive Director of Houston A+, Scott Van Beck, made the announcement at a reception today.  A portion of his speech on the importance of school leadership can be viewed here or by clicking the image below.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date:                January 9, 2008
Contact:           Melissa Milios Davis, Houston A+ Challenge: (713) 658-1881, [email protected]

NEW PRINCIPAL LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
AWARDED $3 MILLION FROM HOUSTON ENDOWMENT
A new leadership academy designed to attract and prepare aspiring principals to lead the Houston region’s most challenging middle and high schools has been awarded a $3 million grant from Houston Endowment, the Houston A+ Challenge Board of Trustees announced today.

While many issues affect student performance, a growing body of research demonstrates that students in schools with strong principals achieve better – and stay in school longer – than students in schools with weak principals and/or frequent principal turnover.
The new Houston A+ Challenge principal academy will focus on improving school leadership, with a high priority on serving secondary schools that are low-performing, suffer from frequent turnover, and serve a majority of low-income students.

In addition, the academy aims to help school systems and state policy makers develop new models for leadership succession planning, by drawing on Houston A+ Challenge's decade of work in building building strong teacher leaders, school principals and central administration support.

“With this $3 million investment, Houston Endowment aims to help stimulate long-term improvements in the way that principals are selected, trained and supported in order to effectively lead public schools in the greater Houston area,” said George Grainger, senior grant officer for Houston Endowment, which also supported the academy during its planning phase. “We have confidence that, ultimately, this initiative will have a powerful impact in classrooms throughout the region.”

An estimated 160 principal vacancies need to be filled across the Houston region each year, and more than one-fourth of all principal positions turn over each year in some districts, including Houston ISD. Turnover among assistant principals leaves hundreds more vacancies per year, and this trend will increase as many current school leaders approach retirement age. Such high turnover results in school instability that has a direct and negative effect on children and their experience in the classroom.

“Houston A+ Challenge is honored by this gift from Houston Endowment, which will allow us to launch our new principal leadership academy with strength,” said Scott Van Beck, Executive Director for Houston A+ Challenge.  “The academy is an ambitious initiative that we are confident the entire community will embrace, for its mission is to improve leadership and succession planning in the Houston region’s public schools. We thank Houston Endowment for leading the way."

This Blog is Featured on the Municipalist Blog

Last month, I was interviewed (via email) by the Municipalist blog, a blog that is highlighting elected and appointed governmental officials.

The posting from my interview is available here and is also below.  You can also read it by clicking on the image to the left.

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January 09, 2008

Q & A: Mike Falick, school board member, Spring Branch, Texas

Local school board member Mike Falick was elected in May 2004 in the Spring Branch Independent School District on the west side of Houston, and re-elected unopposed in 2007. He is well into his third year of blogging, and claims 100,000 page views. "I think people in our community like the information I provide," he says. The school district serves a broadly diverse student population of 32,000 students.

What inspired you to begin blogging? I began blogging in August 2005. The reason I began blogging was that I see the blog as a very effective communication vehicle for providing real-time information about our district to the community. Initially, as the board's legislative liaison, my idea was to provide the community with information concerning legislation that might impact our district. Over time, the scope of the blog has broadened to include board related items, including a recap of all of our board meetings, and items of general educational interest.

What do you see are the benefits to your blogging? With the blog, I can rapidly disseminate important information to the community. In addition, I have found educational resources on the internet that are being utilized in our district. I have also been able to post information about issues in a timely manner concerning legislative issues that affect our district's finances and educational programming.

What have been the challenges, or the negatives? There really have not been any challenges or negatives.

What do your constituents think of your blog? I have received a great deal of very positive feedback from my constituents concerning the blog. I think people in our community like the information I provide. I also send out a weekly email newsletter through Constant Contact to over 1,000 people with links to updates from the blog.

What do your fellow board members think? I think my fellow board members like the blog. Indeed, one of the other board members has started her own blog.

What advice would you give other school board members who would consider blogging about their work? I would give four pieces of advice.

First, use a blogging service that makes posting, adding hyperlinks, and uploading pictures and documents easy. There are a lot of choices, out there. I use TypePad which I have found to be very user friendly.

Second, make sure you are willing to post with some regularity. I posted for almost a month before I let people know about the blog to test that I would actually post.

Third, I have found it useful to email my blog posts to people on a regular basis. As I said above, I use Constant Contact.

Finally, add a counter to you blog and use a service that allows you to see where your hits are coming from and what people are reading on your blog. I use Statcounter and I know Google has its own blogging analytics.

More helpful information can be found in this American School Board Journal article from the September 2007 issue (pdf).

Posted at 06:16 PM

Local school board member Mike Falick was elected in May 2004 in the Spring Branch Independent School District on the west side of Houston, and re-elected unopposed in 2007. He is well into his third year of blogging, and claims 100,000 page views. "I think people in our community like the information I provide," he says. The school district serves a broadly diverse student population of 32,000 students.

What inspired you to begin blogging? I began blogging in August 2005. The reason I began blogging was that I see the blog as a very effective communication vehicle for providing real-time information about our district to the community. Initially, as the board's legislative liaison, my idea was to provide the community with information concerning legislation that might impact our district. Over time, the scope of the blog has broadened to include board related items, including a recap of all of our board meetings, and items of general educational interest.

What do you see are the benefits to your blogging? With the blog, I can rapidly disseminate important information to the community. In addition, I have found educational resources on the internet that are being utilized in our district. I have also been able to post information about issues in a timely manner concerning legislative issues that affect our district's finances and educational programming.

What have been the challenges, or the negatives? There really have not been any challenges or negatives.

What do your constituents think of your blog? I have received a great deal of very positive feedback from my constituents concerning the blog. I think people in our community like the information I provide. I also send out a weekly email newsletter through Constant Contact to over 1,000 people with links to updates from the blog.

What do your fellow board members think? I think my fellow board members like the blog. Indeed, one of the other board members has started her own blog.

What advice would you give other school board members who would consider blogging about their work? I would give four pieces of advice.

First, use a blogging service that makes posting, adding hyperlinks, and uploading pictures and documents easy. There are a lot of choices, out there. I use TypePad which I have found to be very user friendly.

Second, make sure you are willing to post with some regularity. I posted for almost a month before I let people know about the blog to test that I would actually post.

Third, I have found it useful to email my blog posts to people on a regular basis. As I said above, I use Constant Contact.

Finally, add a counter to you blog and use a service that allows you to see where your hits are coming from and what people are reading on your blog. I use Statcounter and I know Google has its own blogging analytics.

More helpful information can be found in this American School Board Journal article from the September 2007 issue (pdf).