District Administration - September 2012 - (Page 20)

Br iefings Curriculum By Marion Herbert Find Better Success on Search Engines This Fall HOW SUCCESSFUL ARE YOUR GOOGLE SEARCHES when looking for instructional resources? If your results are subpar, you’re not alone. According to a survey that assessed how educators search for online materials, only 25 percent of educators described their searches as “usually successful.” The survey, conducted in April and released in July, was directed by the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI), a program led by the Association of Educational Publishers (AEP), which serves the educational resource community, and Creative Commons, a nonprofit organization that promotes open-source materials. LRMI’s mission is to make online resources more discoverable by developing a common metadata specification language for tagging online education content. This framework allows all educational resource searches via Bing, Google and Yahoo to yield richer and more relevant results. LRMI released its first version in June. “Metadata” by definition means a set of data that describes and gives information about other data. For instance, while shopping online, you may notice that your searches can be narrowed according to brand, size and color. Similarly, LRMI has created a context to organize educational content so that pertinent materials rise above the mass of Web pages. For example, you can search by learning resource type, such as “handout” or “presentation.” Content tagged as such will appear. The tagging is not just for curriculum materials, however; it applies to white papers and additional resources. Version 1.0 reflects many changes not found in traditional searches, such as the relationship between a learning resource and the achievement standards with which it is aligned. LRMI stems from Schema.org, a larger initiative by Google, Bing and Yahoo that aims to establish metadata vocabulary for all searches. “The next major milestone is that LRMI will be adopted by Schema.org when that is approved,” says David Gladney, project manager of LRMI at AEP. Although no specific date has been set, Gladney says that the adoption is imminent and is expected for the fall. To date, AEP has tagged over 600 resources from 18 publishers. Educators can visit lrmi.net/ the-specification to learn more about how they can adjust their searches to yield stronger results. Making Skin Cancer Awareness a Priority in Schools IN LATE JUNE, TWO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL SISTERS IN Tacoma (Wash.) Public Schools came home from a field day sunburned so badly that their mother rushed them to the hospital. Aside from being fair skinned, one girl, Zoe, has albinism, making her particularly sensitive to the sun. Because it was raining that morning, Zoe’s mother hadn’t put sunscreen on her daughter. Tacoma school officials said that sunscreen is monitored by the FDA as an over-the-counter drug and isn’t allowed in schools without a doctor’s note. The only exception is California. “Because so many additives in lotions and sunscreens cause allergic reaction in children, you have to really monitor that,” said Dan Voelpel, Tacoma school district spokesman, in a statement. “If you don’t carve out sunscreen as an exemption to over-the-counter medicine, you can’t really talk to students about promoting sun protection awareness,” says Dr. Jeff Ashley, an ally of the Skin Cancer Foundation and president of Sun Safety for Kids, a nonprofit promoting skin cancer awareness and prevention. Ashley has been working hard to get districts nationwide to change policies, including lifting bans on sunscreen and hats that can shade the sun, in an effort to teach young students about the dangers of sun exposure and skin cancer. Skin cancer is caused by an accumulation of sun damage. Children are more vulnerable than adults to such damage, and exposure in the early years dramatically increases the risk of developing cancer later in life. While policies may not change overnight, the Skin Cancer Foundation has developed a new initiative, Sun Smart U, to teach middle school students about the danger and about preventative measures they can take. The program includes free downloads and lesson plans for teachers of grades 6-8, a video of a young woman’s struggle with melanoma, a true or false activity to gauge students’ existing knowledge of skin cancer, a segment explaining smart steps to take, and a quiz to help students identify their skin type and inherent susceptibility to sun damage. To download, visit www.skincancer.org/education. 20 September 2012 District Administration http://www.Schema.org http://www.Schema.org http://www.lrmi.net/ http://www.skincancer.org/education

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - September 2012

District Administration - September/October 2012
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Curriculum Update
Inside the Law
District Profile
Administrator Profile
Product Focus
Resistance to High-Stakes Testing Spreads
Postgraduation for Special Needs Students
Rick & Becky DuFour
CIo News
Getting the Best ROI in Technology
Shaping a Digital Decade
Professional Opinion
Professional Opinion
Online Edge
Going Mobile
New Products
New Directions

District Administration - September 2012