OCTOBER 2005

Experts offer homework help online

As students get back into the routine of another school year, many will be taking advantage of the scores of experts from academia, government, and elsewhere who offer free online advice to those needing homework help--as long as the inquiring young minds are motivated by curiosity and aren't merely lazy.

One such resource is Robert Stewart, the man behind the "Ask Dr. Bob" internet service.

Stewart says he is glad to answer any questions students might have about oceans. But he draws the line when students ask him to complete entire homework assignments. When one student eMailed a list of 10 questions from an assignment on octopuses, he replied simply with a
link to a web site about them.

It's all in a day's work for Stewart, a Texas A&M University oceanography professor who responds to questions from teachers and other adults, too.

"I find a lot of very curious students out there who really have an interest and are trying to find out something to arouse their curiosity," said Stewart, who gets a $100,000 a year grant from NASA to run the service and his OceanWorld web site.

Henry Fliegler gets no such funding, yet he's no less dedicated to helping students around the world with math problems. He spends about three hours daily answering 25 or so questions, up from three or four when he started in 1996.

The retired engineer from Orange, Calif., said he gets enough reward from the "17 jillion ... thank-you notes," including one declaring him "my math God."

"It doesn't get any better than that," Fliegler said.

Among his favorite questions is one from a second-grader who asked whether it's OK to count with her fingers (yes, as long as the answer isn't more than 10). He also hears from adults, including an Italian math professor who wanted him to critique a paper on a new number theory (he suggested contacting wiser folks at Princeton).

Rosalie Baker, a former Latin teacher who now edits a nine-issue-a-year archaeology magazine for children called Dig, said she's happy that students with assignments "are not just looking at a book on archaeology and giving some rote answer."

Students also can turn to for-fee services, some of which are paid for by their schools.
AskMeNow will launch a mobile service this fall in which people can call or send an eMail message with a simple question and receive a text reply on their phones within a few minutes. More than 10,000 people are now participating in a free test, and the company eventually plans to charge up to 49 cents a question, possibly less for students.

Google Inc. offers the Google Answers service, in which users are matched with researchers willing to conduct online searches for a fee. Though a credit card is required, Google says parents sometimes sign up for their kids.

Google also runs ads from companies offering to complete homework assignments, including one promising to "solve hard problems" for a recommended $20 a problem. "Why not pay us to do your homework?" the ad teases.

Such come-ons hint at one of the downsides to online homework help services.

Another problem is that students have to evaluate them for credibility, because the internet allows anyone to claim expertise. Services offered by universities and government agencies, for instance, probably are more reliable than a commercial service with little information about its operators.

And because many of the free services are run by volunteers, responses can take days, weeks, or even months. Baker said she saves the best questions for her magazine, meaning students with an assignment due in five minutes could be out of luck.

Many such services stopped as more people found out about them, because the volunteers simply got overwhelmed, said Joshua Koen, who tracks such resources at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J.

Students should think twice before submitting a question and make sure it's not something--such as what "NASA" stands for--that is easily answered elsewhere, he said.

The common complaint from those running such services relates to students who see them as shortcuts to doing the work.

"Some will say, 'Show me how to do this step by step,'" said Sally Illman, an online math and physics tutor at Elluminate, which offers free services for customers of certain textbooks and for-fee tutoring for others. "Some people come in thinking they will just watch a movie and see someone doing their homework for them."

But Illman said many students are glad to devote the time once they adjust their expectations.

Some commercial services have shied from such offerings completely.

Scholastic Inc. has opted to focus on teaching students good research methods rather than providing answers.

"Learning is not about immediate answers," said Seth Radwell, president of Scholastic's online division. "It's about figuring out how to get better at research and organization."
America Online Inc. recently discontinued a bulletin board where students could post questions, opting instead to let visitors search for answers prepared ahead of time on frequently asked topics.

"It's more efficient," said Jennifer Maffett, director of AOL's Research and Learn unit. "It's the way we can reach the most kids."

Some services, including AskMeNow and Webmath.com, blend automated responses with human-generated answers to serve more users.

Ken Leebow, an author who visits schools to educate parents and teachers about internet resources, also suggests that students look through answers to frequently asked questions that many sites cull.

Fliegler, for instance, has a page with the basics on fractions, decimals, and percentages and suggests that students check there first.

But for tougher questions, the 82-year-old Fliegler said he will keep giving individual responses "as long as I can stay alive and stay alert. It's good mental exercise for me at this stage of the game."

Links:

Ask Dr. Bob
http://oceanworld.tamu.edu/

Flieger's Mathman
http://www.fliegler.com/mathman.htm

Ask Dr. Dig
http://www.digonsite.com/drdig

Stevens list of "Ask an Expert" resources
http://www.ciese.org/askanexpert.html

From eSchool News staff and wire service reports
September 9, 2005
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5865


The Eyes Have It

Montville - Every September is busy for health care providers, and for Dr. Jacqueline Campisi, an optometrist, it's no different. Back-to-school medical checks look for current immunizations and sports readiness as mandated by the school.

But Campisi checks the primary pathway that students use for learning -- their eyes.
"Good vision is essential for effective learning," said Campisi, who practices at Visions Sight and Learning Center in Mystic.

Sight is being able to see while vision is a learned process of understanding what we see. Because nearly 90 percent of education is visual, having a 21-point eye exam before school can be as important to academic success as a physical. From blackboard note-taking and homework text readings to online research, young eyes need to do far more than what the standard 20/20 Snellen eye chart tests and the state requires for school children.

"A child may pass the eye chart test, but that doesn't measure how well he can read at distances or coordinate, focus or track with his eyes," Campisi said.

Among school-age children, vision disorders affect one in every four, according to the American Optometric Association. While vision problems don't create learning disabilities, impaired visual skills interfere with learning and can create behavior problems.

The College of Optometrists in Vision Development found that often, children with vision problems are misdiagnosed as having dyslexia, learning disabilities, or even attention deficit disorder. More alarming was their finding that 70 percent of juvenile delinquents had visual problems.

Some signals that a child might have vision problems include avoiding reading, covering one eye when reading, losing place when copying from textbook to notebook, reversing letters, misaligning digits in columns of numbers, or being unable to describe what he has been reading.

Behavioral or developmental optometrists, a subspecialty of optometry, can diagnose complex visual problems and treat them with vision therapy. Campisi's practice offers perceptual home vision therapy, which treats visual problems that have compromised students' academic achievement. She makes clear it is not a treatment for true learning disabilities, but rather to rebuild eye skills to correct such problems as convergence insufficiency.

Some vision therapy exercises include using two sets of lenses on a single handle -- one magnifies print, one minimizes it. Reading text first through one set and then the other trains the eyes to focus and refocus without a time lag. Eventually, the student can make his or her eyes track as a team.

Campisi said poor hand-eye coordination and other physical manifestations of visual health "are ascribed to clumsiness or laziness." Both labels begin a cycle of frustration in a child, and can erode his or her self-esteem over time.

"Our eyes just weren't made to spend long periods of time on close work -- such as reading or at a computer. Eyestrain is caused by the visual demands of modern living," Campisi said.

The AOA recommends a thorough 21-point eye exam for children beginning at age 3, again when starting kindergarten, and every year thereafter. The National Parent Teacher Association just amended its position statement in June to recognize the importance of comprehensive eye and vision exams for all students regularly throughout their school years.

Elizabeth Yerkes, Shore Publishing Staff Writer
The Day Publishing Co.
September 9, 2005
http://www.theday.com/eng/web/news/re.aspx?re=fe2f5776-14ac-4fee-9b26-16113160256f


Saying It With Feeling
New Technology Lets Deaf, Hearing People Enjoy Richer Conversations

Jeff Kelly used to tell his girlfriend, Terri Vincent, that before calling him at work, she should "be prepared with what you want to say."

Kelly, a 29-year-old Frederick resident, wasn't being rude; he was just acknowledging the time-consuming nature of their calls. Because Vincent, 25, is deaf, she had to type her message into a computer or hand-held pager and transmit it over the Internet to a go-between in a remote location. This intermediary would call Kelly, read Vincent's words to him and then keyboard Kelly's reply into a computer and forward it to Vincent.

This slow, cumbersome process, known as Internet protocol relay (IP Relay), stripped conversations of emotion, nuance and spontaneity. But many deaf people who are comfortable with American Sign Language (ASL) have begun using a faster, easier system called video relay service (VRS), one of several emerging technologies designed to improve life for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

To reach Kelly from her home in Frederick, Vincent now uses a videophone connected to a standard television monitor. When her call to a VRS interpreter is connected, Vincent's TV shows a split screen of two live images: the interpreter on one side and Vincent herself on the other. (The videophone includes a camera and transmits images over a high-speed Internet connection.)

Using sign language, Vincent asks the interpreter to call Kelly, who is frequently away from his office and available only via cell phone. When Kelly answers, the interpreter signs his words as Vincent watches on her screen. When Vincent signs back through the videophone, the interpreter voices the message on to Kelly with little pause.
Finally, Kelly said, "it's a normal conversation."

"This technology just really puts us on a level playing field," said Vincent in an interview assisted by an interpreter.

Lisa Marie Wilson, 27, a financial management specialist at the National Institutes of Health, agreed. "The videophone has changed the deaf community's lives -- changed our world," said Wilson, speaking through a VRS interpreter.

VRS is free to the deaf through the Americans with Disabilities Act. According to the Federal Communications Commission, 7,215 minutes of VRS interpretation was used in January 2002, the first month the service became generally available. By June 2005, usage was up to 2.1 million minutes.

Full Conversation Thanks to VRS, a phone conversation with a deaf person is no longer a dry, impersonal affair. One key reason is that VRS lets deaf people express and perceive mood and personality. Contrary to common belief, said Billy Kendrick, an interpreter at Visual Language Interpreting in the District, ASL is not English represented word for word through signs but rather a language all its own, with signs representing nuanced phrases and thoughts.

Meaning is also conveyed by how a deaf person uses space while communicating. For instance, signing "is generally enlarged when there's high emotion involved," like excitement, anger or shock, Kendrick said. A VRS interpreter might speak sharply or slow down his speech for emphasis to convey those feelings to the hearing party.

How many people use ASL is unknown. "Researchers in the field of deafness are confident [that the number is] more than 250,000, and would be surprised if it were more than 1 million," said Ross Mitchell, a research scientist at Gallaudet Research Institute, part of Gallaudet University, a college for the deaf in Northeast Washington.

Wilson says VRS has allowed her to remain close and communicate regularly with family in Boston.

"My family [all of whom are hearing] really prefers video relay services over the text relay services," said Wilson through a VRS interpreter. "The sign language interpreters can see if I'm happy or sad and can relay that in their interpretation." (When face to face with family members, Wilson said, she signs and speaks simultaneously.)

With text communication systems such as IP relay or e-mail, said Wilson, "misunderstandings happened quite frequently." Even with family members, Wilson said, she often had to tell them explicitly, "I am happy."

Another plus: With VRS, "I can interrupt" before the translator is finished, just as people routinely do in spoken conversations, Wilson said. "With text relay, I can't do that," since the messages would become garbled. This ability makes even mundane calls -- like getting insurance quotes -- a lot easier, she said, probably cutting in half the time needed for such a call.

Robert Rice, president of BayFirst Solutions, a District-based management and technology consulting firm, is deaf and often uses phone interviews to screen job candidates. He appreciates VRS and a Web camera/computer variant instead of a videophone.

"Trying to do a phone interview was extremely difficult" with text communication, Rice said through a VRS interpreter. "Now, I can see the personality [of the candidate] on the phone by way of the interpreter."

Rice cannot actually see the job applicant, but the interpreter aims to convey more than just the hearing person's words.

"A good VRS interpreter will indicate via a roll of the eyes or an exasperated facial expression that the candidate is bored," Rice wrote in an e-mail. "The twiddling of the thumbs or a twirl of the hair may be expressions chosen by the interpreter to indicate extreme boredom, if it is clearly sensed in the candidate's voice." Sometimes, he wrote, an interpreter will "state directly [in sign language] . . . if the hearing candidate seems enthusiastic, bored, polished or inarticulate."

The speed of the new technology improves communications, too. With text-based calls, said Claude Stout, executive director of the advocacy group Telecommunications for the Deaf Inc., or TDI, most deaf people could type "40 words per minute. But now, with VRS, we sign . . . about 200 words per minute."

Continued Stout, through an interpreter, "With VRS, there's no lag time, no delay, [so hearing] people in the community are willing to call us. They don't feel dread in calling us -- that translates into employment and education opportunities."

But Rice points out that with demand for VRS interpreters high -- this is also true for services like in-person interpreting in schools and hospitals -- initiating a call can take patience: "Sometimes it can be forever. This morning, I had to wait maybe five to 10 minutes."

Some deaf people have taken the interpreter out of the equation altogether when speaking with other people who know ASL: They simply sign to one another through videophones or Web cameras.

"I have a friend who lives in Minnesota," Wilson said via a VRS interpreter. "Through the videophone, I can see my friend as well as her baby. . . . Since I can verbalize, I call [the baby,] who is hearing, and she will look up and walk toward the [videophone] -- a wonderful experience, really."

Old and New VRS doesn't mean the death of IP relay or older text-based formats like TTY (a tool that typically lets a user see only one line of text at a time). For instance, TTY is the only way for deaf people to call 911 directly, since Internet technologies make it difficult to identify a caller's location.

Despite the awkward features of the IP relay system, Kelly and Vincent aren't ready to abandon it; unlike VRS, IP relay is something Vincent can use when she's away from a computer screen or videophone. Her T-Mobile Sidekick pager allows her to place IP relay calls and send and receive other types of text messages.

For all of the new system's virtues, there still are times when even a skilled VRS interpreter just can't do a fully convincing job.

For Kelly, it's "most awkward, when [his girlfriend's interpreter is] a man," he said. In that case, Kelly might hear a male voice saying: "I love you, baby. I'll see you later." •

Samantha Sordyl, Washington Post Staff Writer
September 6, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/05/AR2005090501067.html


The Chalkboard's Energetic New Cousin Interactive Screens Reshaping Lessons

Twenty-three sixth-graders at Sterling Middle School got a combined lesson in current events, physical science and new technology last week when a cartoon boy named Tim and a robot called Moby answered the question, "Where do hurricanes come from?"

Afterward, students eagerly waved their hands in the air, hoping to get called on so they could go up to an electronic board on the classroom wall and press a finger on the answer to quiz questions such as: What is the region in the middle of a hurricane called? A) the eye, B) the mouth or C) the navel.

"It's really cool. Instead of using the mouse, you can just touch the screen," Andrew Lai, 11, said after he tapped the correct response -- the eye -- prompting a loud checking sound from the board.

The board, known as an interactive whiteboard, is a new tool that teachers at Sterling Middle will be using this year. With its touch-sensitive screen hooked up to a projector and a desktop computer with Internet access, the 4-foot-wide screen is beginning to take the place of the chalkboard, paper handouts and even textbooks. Its online lessons move, talk and invite students to use their hands as well as their minds.

This year, students in more than 150,000 schools around the world -- including many in the Washington area -- are returning to classrooms with interactive whiteboards.

Warrenton's J.G. Brumfield Elementary School is the first Fauquier County campus to invest in one of the boards for each grade level, and in Montgomery County, the boards are being tried out in a few schools.

The boards are widely used in Fairfax County, said Maribeth Luftglass, assistant superintendent and chief information officer. The county's newest high school, South County Secondary School, will open Tuesday with an interactive whiteboard in every classroom.

Luftglass said teachers have found the boards especially useful in special education programs and with students who have limited English proficiency. The more engaging and multimedia teaching approach can appeal to different learning styles and help students understand the concepts behind lessons, even if they can't understand every word.

But she said that funding can be scarce and that PTA funds or outside grants often are used to buy the boards, which cost about $1,000 to $2,000. With the computer and projector, the price tag can rise to about $4,000 per board.

"These kids have grown up with technology. All they want to do is play on their PlayStations and GameBoys," said Travis Ivory, 29, the Sterling Middle science teacher who used a whiteboard to give a lesson on hurricanes. In the classroom, he said, "Anytime you pop in technology like that, they swallow it up."

Ivory said he first used a whiteboard in North Carolina a few years ago and was impressed with how it held his students' attention. He also liked that the board could transform his handwritten notes into typed text and that he could save and reproduce the notes for a student who missed class by hitting "Print."

He and an English as a second language teacher at Sterling Middle teamed up last year to apply for a grant to buy one of the boards.

Ultimately, a local company donated Sterling Middle's first board, and this year the Loudoun County system's math supervisor, Cheryl Wimer, purchased nine for the school's math department.

"We wanted to get our test scores up," said Katrina S. Smith, a technology resource teacher at the school, which posted some of the county's lowest Standards of Learning test scores in the 2004-05 academic year.

Preston Coppels, director of instructional services for the Loudoun system, said he is trying to make sure that every school in the county has one or two whiteboards.

Cost is the primary barrier to acquiring the boards, said Nancy Knowlton, president and co-chief executive of Smart Technologies, the Calgary, Alberta-based inventor and vendor of the SMARTboard, a brand name for one of the interactive whiteboards. She said some schools have held bake sales or walkathons to purchase the equipment.

The market has grown faster in England, where the government has set aside 50 million pounds -- nearly $92 million -- to help schools buy interactive whiteboards as part of a larger effort to ramp up technology in classrooms, Knowlton said.

Schools make up about 60 percent of Smart Technologies' customers, but with faster Internet connections and the development of such tools as Web animation, the interactive boards have more and more applications. Many companies use them for video conferencing, and National Basketball Association teams have bought them so coaches can replay video of games and use electronic markers to draw plays, Knowlton said.

Back in the science classroom, Ivory flashed through a slideshow of images that he had found online documenting the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina: school buses floating in water, the Superdome missing swaths of the rubber sheeting that once covered its roof, a broken bridge.

While viewing an aerial photograph of New Orleans, Ivory asked Lauren Hemphill, 11, to outline the streets -- which now look like canals -- with an electronic marker.

"It's not just like reading out of book," Lauren said later about the day's lesson. "You actually get to see what you're learning about."

Michael Alison Chandler, Washington Post Staff Writer
September 5, 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/04/AR2005090401452_pf.html


An Unexpected Reprieve
Thanks to new treatments, people with cystic fibrosis now have
adulthoods they could never have imagined.

Sept. 12, 2005 issue - When 6-month-old Tiffany was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis in 1972, her doctor warned her mother not to let her play with dolls. The girl would die before her 5th birthday, he said; why stir up maternal instincts she could not hope to fulfill? But by the time Tiffany reached 5, new treatments had arrived, and the doctors promised her a few years longer. It was to be the first of many reprieves as medical advances kept barely a step ahead of the growing girl. At 10, doctors said Tiffany would die in adolescence; at 18, she abandoned her dream of going to college because she did not expect to live to graduate. "I can't remember a time when I didn't know I was supposed to die," says Tiffany, now 33, who lives in Bradenton, Fla., with her husband, John Reid, and their three children. "But I'm still proving them wrong."

When cystic fibrosis was first diagnosed in the 1930s, 80 percent of its victims died before their 1st birthday as their bodies' mucus thickened, clogging their lungs and digestive tracts. But in the last two decades, new treatments have extended patients' life spans from months to years, and from years to decades. Cystic fibrosis is still the most lethal genetic disorder in America, affecting 30,000 people, but most sufferers now do not succumb until their mid-30s; a lucky few reach old age. With 40 percent of patients now older than 18, a new generation is living to face the challenges—both medical and emotional—of an adulthood nobody thought they would see.

The gift of life has come in installments. The extended life span of today's CF patients stems not from a single breakthrough but from a stream of minor innovations. Patients now stave off infection with a battery of different treatments: aerosols deliver increasingly potent antibiotics directly to their lungs; vibrating vests loosen their phlegm; fistfuls of enzyme supplements maintain their failing digestive tracts. "It's been an incredible success story, but we still have a lot of ground to cover," says Dr. Bruce Marshall, VP for clinical affairs at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. And despite new therapies targeting the deadly double-CF gene (carried in harmless single form by 10 million Americans), researchers say no decisive victory is imminent.

Doctors have sometimes been slow to realize the implications of their success. Until recently, patients in their 30s were still treated in pediatric wards, sitting in the same Winnie the Pooh chairs they had used as children. Dozens of adult centers have now opened, but the years in limbo left a mark, says Dr. Mike Knowles, codirector of the University of North Carolina's adult CF center. "Patients were sort of lost," he says. "They were not treated as if they were going to have a future, so they were not given the opportunity or responsibility to grow into mature young adults."

David Trester, a 32-year-old machine operator from Winona, Minn., blames cystic fibrosis for a youth spent drinking, fighting and racking up credit-card debt he never believed he would have to pay. "I was living in the fast lane," he says. "I didn't expect to live, so I figured, why not go out and enjoy every minute I can?" He reformed only when doctors told him potent new drugs meant he might live for decades—if his spiral into alcoholism and taste for Marlboros didn't kill him first. "As I got into my late 20s I realized, hey, I'm going to live," says Trester, who is now alcohol-free, married and expecting his first child. "I figured it was time to clean up my act."

As they embrace adult life, more and more CF patients are starting families, but the path to parenthood can be tough. Though few male CF patients can father children without expensive surgery, many young men were never told they were infertile. Female patients, in contrast, can conceive relatively easily, despite the predictions of some doctors that the disease would leave them sterile. There was initial confusion, too, over whether patients' children would inherit CF; doctors now know that transmission is impossible unless both partners carry a defective gene, and screening has become widely available only in the last decade.

And while genetic tests bring some peace of mind, prospective parents still face an agonizing dilemma. Despite medical advances, cystic fibrosis remains a fatal disease, and doctors often have to remind patients that they may not survive to raise their children. Pregnancy and sleepless nights strain patients' health, and exposure to schoolyard sniffles can trigger life-threatening infections in a parent's CF-ravaged lungs. "The easy part is getting pregnant," says Dr. Michael Boyle, director of the John Hopkins adult CF program. "Our job is to get patients to think more than nine months at a time."

For those who decide to have children, parenting can be both deeply fulfilling and bittersweet. Stacy Danko, a 40-year-old Baltimore mother of three, says she never regrets her decision; still, it's difficult watching her children, ages 14, 10 and 7, struggle to accept that their mother will die before her time. "I see their pain and it kills me," Danko says. "Your children are going to suffer as much as you do." And learning to live with that is the hardest thing of all.

Ben Whitford
Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9189605/site/newsweek/


Study: Daily routine helps bipolar disorder

PITTSBURGH --Patients suffering from bipolar disorder who underwent therapy to help them maintain a regular daily routine and cope with stress were able to avoid relapses over a two-year period, a study has found.

The study, published in September's Archives of General Psychiatry, examined a therapy developed by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Using what researchers dubbed interpersonal and social rhythm therapy, patients were taught how to keep to normal sleeping, eating and other daily routines. They also were shown how to anticipate and cope with stress just as a diabetic who would be taught, for example, how to cook and eat differently.

"This is really a disorder characterized by massive disturbances in the body's clock and in all the things the body's clock controls," said Dr. Ellen Frank, lead author of the study. "Their clocks need to be very carefully protected and we need to do everything we can to shore up and protect that fragile clock."

Bipolar disorder, also commonly referred to as manic depression, is a brain disorder in which sufferers experience cycles of mania, depression or mixed states. Treatment for the disorder varies by patient, but often involves some type of medication combined with therapy.

Frank, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, said doctors for years have counseled bipolar sufferers about managing their lives but no one had ever systematically put that information together. She said social rhythm therapy does that, and also teaches patients to identify the triggers in their relationships with other people that can cause relapses.

In the study, 175 patients suffering from the most severe form of bipolar disorder were divided into several groups. All the patients were given medication for the disorder, but only some received interpersonal and social rhythm therapy.

The researchers found those who received the therapy were more likely to not have relapses of their illness during a two-year maintenance phase.

Dr. Gail Edelsohn, an associate professor of psychiatry at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, said sleep, especially, has a huge effect on those with mood disorders.

"This is a very important study because what's happened is that since we have a variety of medications which are extremely useful, I think the psychosocial interventions were prematurely cast aside," Edelsohn said.

Dr. Suzanne Vogel-Scibilia, president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said it's most important that bipolar sufferers have access to care, something that doesn't always happen because of the high costs of health care.

Jennifer C. Yates, Associated Press Writer
September 6, 2005
On the Net:
http://www.upmc.edu
http://www.boston.com/yourlife/health/mental/articles/2005/09/06/
study_daily_routine_helps_bipolar_disorder/


Anger as experts claim dyslexia is a myth

Dyslexia, the learning disability thought to affect one in 10 Britons, does not exist and is no more than an emotional construct, education experts will claim in a television documentary to be aired next week.

In the programme, which looks at the causes and treatment of poor reading, at least three academics call into question the value of separating those with difficulty in reading into dyslexics and "ordinary poor readers", when the treatment is the same for both groups.

Experts say many children are being diagnosed with the condition to save embarrassment over their reading skills and in order to get extra help at school.

But the suggestion has angered many dyslexic people and dyslexia organisations, who say the argument is damaging and unhelpful.

The widening gulf between academics and those who teach dyslexic people has resulted in a call for the term to be consigned to medical history books and a rethink on the treatment of all people who have difficulties reading.

The Channel 4 documentary will present the argument that dyslexia is a myth. The programme's producer, David Mills, said yesterday that the assertion that people with poor reading skills but high IQs should be diagnosed differently from other poor readers was wrong.

"You cannot separate a group of poor readers and say they are dyslexic, but if we clump all poor readers together you are then labelling 20% of kids with a disability."

One of the programme's contributors has written about the condition in this week's Times Educational Supplement. Julian Elliott, professor of education at the University of Durham, said that despite 30 years in the field he has little confidence in his ability to diagnose the condition.

"Dyslexia persists as a construct largely because it serves an emotional, not scientific, function. Forget about letter reversals, clumsiness, inconsistent hand preference and poor memory - these are commonly found in people without reading difficulties, and in poor readers not considered to be dyslexic ...

"Public perceptions often link reading difficulties with intelligence and, in our culture, an attribution of low intelligence often results in feelings of shame and humiliation.

"It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the widespread, yet wholly erroneous, belief that dyslexics are intellectually bright but poor readers would create a strong, sometimes impassioned demand to be accorded a dyslexic label.

"Yes of course, some children will require special resources and dispensations, but we certainly don't need spurious diagnoses of dyslexia to achieve such ends."

It is thought that about 375,000 schoolchildren suffer from dyslexia, which requires skilled specialist teaching.

Those with a diagnosis are often provided with teaching aids and are given extra time in exams, leading to claims that parents want a diagnosis to get an unfair advantage.

About 4% of the population are thought to suffer from a severe form of dyslexia.

A spokeswoman from the British Dyslexia Association said it had been inundated with calls from people worried about their own condition.

"This is very damaging and insulting to the people who are trying to overcome their dyslexia - a condition which is widely known to be a neurological disorder," she said.

John Rack, head of research at the Dyslexia Institute in York, said the scientific basis for dyslexia was well established.

"We know which of the chromosomes are involved and some of the genes that are involved, as well as some of the brain differences you observe when looking at a dyslexic child," Dr Rack said."

But Michael Rice, a dyslexia and literacy expert from the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University, said the term dyslexia could soon be a thing of the past. "People feel a sense of justification when they are diagnosed, and it becomes almost defining of who they are. It gets them off the hook of great embarrassment and feelings of personal inadequacy," Dr Rice said.

Well-known people who are dyslexic include Sir Richard Branson, Jamie Oliver and the swimmer Duncan Goodhew, who said: "I don't think it is very helpful to argue about terms when we should be looking at the solutions. It is a neurological problem, a neurological deficit which ruins many people's lives."

Sophie Kirkham, Guardian
September 3, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1561810,00.html


New tool aims to ease academic file sharing

Researchers at Penn State and other universities have developed a tool to help educators and researchers search for and exchange large academic or scientific files more easily--using the principles most associated with trading music and movies illegally.

But unlike the free "peer-to-peer" (P2P) file-sharing systems that have drawn complaints and lawsuits from the entertainment industry, people who allow data to be exchanged over LionShare can place limits on who can view specific files.

"It all comes down to how people share content and what restrictions they put on the content that they share," said Mike Halm, director of LionShare project at Pennsylvania State University, where the project originated.

The secure, private network is meant for faculty, researchers, and students to share photos, research, class materials, and other types of information that might be not be easily accessible through current technology, Halm said.

"It's a lot more than [an] academic Napster," he said, speaking about the project at a Sept. 20 meeting of the Internet2 consortium in Philadelphia. The consortium is a partnership of universities, businesses, and government agencies working together "to develop and deploy advanced network applications and technologies."

Normally, a researcher looking for data would need to conduct separate, time-consuming searches at individual repositories--virtual warehouses where research databases, photos, or other large files can be stored. It also might be difficult to download large data sets or video of, for instance, a deep-sea expedition.

LionShare, now being tested and slated for general release on Sept. 30, combines the concepts of P2P file sharing--or exchanging files directly between computers, without the use of a file server--and repository searching into a single search, "like Google-searching the internet," Halm said.

Fred von Lohmann, an intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, said LionShare appears to be a great tool for academics.
"A lot of internet users want to share files without having to have their own web server," he said.

But Von Lohmann, who represents a file-sharing service in a copyright infringement suit, warns that LionShare's closed networks and methods to control access could possibly make it easier to violate copyright infringements by allowing students to "create a neat, private sheltered place where people could shop music and movies to their heart's content" without entertainment companies ever knowing.

A Penn State news release about LionShare states several times that the technology is aimed at academic file sharing, not swapping copyright-protected works.

Halm said LionShare was spearheaded by Penn State researchers and developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Open Knowledge Initiative, the Internet2 P2P Working Group, and researchers at Simon Fraser University in Canada.

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a $1.1 million grant to Penn State in 2003 to develop the technology.

eSchool News staff and wire service reports
September 23, 2005
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5876

Links:
Penn State University
http://www.psu.edu

LionShare
http://lionshare.its.psu.edu/main

Internet2
http://www.internet2.edu

Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.eff.org

MIT's Open Knowledge Initiative
http://www.okiproject.org

Simon Fraser University
http://www.sfu.ca


Students tackle math via fantasy football

It's been ten years in the making, but a former California middle-school teacher insists he's found a way to accomplish the unthinkable: getting students to do homework on the weekends--while watching football, on the couch.

Forget about sophisticated graphing calculators. No need to lug giant textbooks home every night--not anymore. With the start of the professional football season less than a week away, veteran math instructor Dan Flockhart says a teacher's best bet for getting students interested in mathematics is football--fantasy football, that is.

Flockhart--who spent several years as a math teacher at a San Mateo middle school before going to work as a professor at College of the Redwoods in Eureka, Calif.--believes so strongly in the concept that he's written a book to help other teachers integrate the popular gridiron computer game into their lesson plans.

Called Fantasy Football and Mathematics, the book started as a college thesis. Given the enormous popularity of fantasy football--analysts say as many as 30 million people now play the game--Flockhart's tome seems poised to become an online phenomenon all its own.

"The guys were so psyched just to be able to talk football and not get in trouble for looking at the sports page in class," said Heather Brown, a math teacher at East High School in Fortuna, Calif., and an early adopter of Flockhart's fantasy curriculum. And as for the girls, Brown said, the prospect of beating the boys at their own game was just too good to pass up.

Despite the growing number of school-age children playing fantasy sports online, Flockhart said, the market for instructional materials that make the game relevant to what teachers are trying to accomplish in the classroom is almost nonexistent. Given the widespread use of statistics in professional sports, he says, the concept is a natural fit for most math classrooms.

Aside from encouraging students to work together in teams, Flockhart says, the supplementary program touches on a host of important middle- and high-school math concepts--from fractions and decimals to percentages and algebraic equations.

"The amount of mathematics problems you can come up with is almost infinite," said Flockhart of his fantasy curriculum, which he's been beta-testing in classrooms since the mid-1990s. "Whatever we were working on at the time, it was reinforced by the game."

Flockhart's classroom version works much like other fantasy football programs available through Yahoo or ESPN.com--with a few instructional twists.

At the beginning of the football season, each student must start by drafting a team. After using the internet to research players' potential based on their previous years' performance, each student-manager makes eight selections--one quarterback, two running backs, two wide receivers, one tight end, one kicker, and a team defense.

The students then watch the games as they're played, or check the box scores in the newspapers the following day, to see how well their individual players performed. If their quarterback threw for a touchdown that day, for example, they might get six points. If their field goal kicker booted one through the uprights, they might get three; an extra point, one, and so on. Bonus points also are awarded for additional yardage. Conversely, players might lose points if they commit a fumble, or if someone on their team is brought down in the end zone for a safety.

Flockhart first started experimenting with fantasy football as a learning tool during the internet boom of the 1990s. At the time, he said, he was looking for a way to make math more relevant to students. He also wanted a program that would mesh with students' often varied and diverse learning styles. Not only is fantasy football technology-based, he said, it also encourages students to interact with one another in an atmosphere that's competitive--but still fun.

"The content in most math textbooks doesn't even come close to relating to [students'] experiences--to their lives," he said. With fantasy football, students have a way to track what they're learning with an event that's happening in real life.

And you don't have to be a football fan to play, Flockhart says. Whether you spend Sundays on the couch, watching game after game, or simply check the box scores the next day to see how your team performed over the weekend, he contends, the competition factor is enough to keep the game exciting and relevant for crazed fan and layman alike.

Then there's the gender thing. Looking back on the early years of his experiment in San Mateo, Flockhart knew the majority of boys in his classes would show an interest. It was the girls he worried about. In middle school, girls typically are more caught up in boys and fashion--and anything, really, but football, he said.

But after a few weeks of playing the game, female students, too, got caught up in the excitement. Before long, he said, it was the girls who were taking it to the boys.

"In seven years of playing fantasy football in classes, I think I only had one boy who actually won," he said. "The rest of the time it was the girls."

"The competitive edge was huge," added Brown. What's great about fantasy football as a math tool, she said, is that students--especially struggling ones--get so involved in the competition, the thought never even occurs to them that they're actually learning something.

"A kid will say to me, 'I can't do that.' And I'll turn around and say, 'You just did,'" she said. "It's almost like they do it without realizing they've done it."

Depending on the age of the student, Flockhart said, it normally takes anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes for kids to add up their point totals at the beginning of each class. In some cases, he says, students get so excited to play the game that they actually add up the totals over the weekend before they arrive at school, thus saving their classmates the trouble.

Once the totals are tabulated, Flockhart's book recommends teachers step up the challenge by requiring students to convert their point totals to fractions based on a 1-to-1/48 ratio, or some other variation of that scale devised by the instructor. Once the conversions are complete, Flockhart says, students can construct bar graphs, line graphs, and other visual depictions designed to measure how well their teams perform each week in relation to their classmates' teams.

All told, the book offers 46 different worksheets and matching assessments teachers can use when constructing lesson plans around fantasy football play, he said. From looking at an individual player's performance from week to week to tracking the play of the entire team, he says, there is no limit to the number of equations teachers can devise to test their students' knowledge.

So what happens when a student uses his or her understanding of the game to draft only the best players?

Realizing some students might have an unfair advantage over those who know very little about professional football or how the game itself is played, Flockhart devised a system that assigns dollar figures to each player based on their skill level and point potential. For instance, Peyton Manning, the All-Pro quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, might cost team owners $4.7 million to acquire, while a less accomplished player--say, Detroit Lions backup quarterback Jeff Garcia--might cost a relatively modest $2.9 million.

To even the playing field, each team is allotted a certain amount of money at the outset of play. As the draft goes on, students must use strategy to choose players based on the amount of money they have left in the bank. Any miscalculations could hurt their chances come playoff time. So while football acumen is helpful, Flockhart says, just knowing who the good players are doesn't guarantee you'll field a winning team. The key is to spend wisely and plan ahead based on research, he said.

While the book isn't exactly tearing up the best-seller charts, Flockhart says he's already tasted modest success. Despite having done very little marketing to promote the book, he estimates he's received "dozens" of orders since putting copies--which sell for $19.99 apiece--up for sale on his web site. That was less than three weeks ago, and he expects those numbers to climb as the season ramps up.

What makes fantasy football such a hit in the classroom? Flockhart says the answer is simple.

"Millions of students in the U.S. are not proficient in mathematics because the subject matter does not interest them, and they do not see the relationship between math at school and math in their personal lives," he said. "Fantasy Football and Mathematics makes connections between math in the classroom and math in the real world."

Brown, who plans on starting her second year of classroom competition this fall, agreed. "The kids are really into it--and it's fun," she said. "For me, I just love the dynamic that goes on in the groups, especially watching the students try to work together to calculate the points ... it's really exciting."

Links:

Fantasy Football and Mathematics
http://www.fantasyfootballmath.com/

Corey Murray, Associate Editor, eSchool News
September 2, 2005
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5861


Computer simulation is 'making history'

A simulation-style computer video game that allows players to act as world leaders, make momentous decisions, and discover the consequences is being used to teach students history.

Muzzy Lane Software of Newburyport, Mass., has issued "The Calm and The Storm," the first offering in a planned series of computer programs called "Making History." The idea behind the series is to teach students the skills and concepts they need to learn in history class using a medium they will relate to. (See "Simulation-style video game targets education field.")

In the game, single or multiple players take on leadership roles in ten different hot-button nations during World War II, in six different key scenarios that shaped the war from 1936 to 1945. For instance, the game scenario entitled "Munich: The Politics of Appeasement" places the student at the moment following Germany's successful annexation of Austria. "The End of Diplomacy" begins after agreements reached at the 1938 Munich Conference have fallen apart. The other four scenarios are similarly situated along the war's timeline.

The game gives students the chance to compete against other "national leaders" in making economic, military, and international and domestic policy decisions. Students can even use features such as the game's instant-messaging feature to negotiate "backroom deals" they can then act out in official game play.

In one scenario, students assume the role of Prime Minister Hideki Tojo of Japan, a former general who came to power in October 1941. As war minister, Tojo invaded Indochina, after which the United States froze all Japanese credits, resulting in crippling economic effects that, according to a game briefing, leads Japan to bomb the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. That attack leaves Tojo's navy in control of the Pacific. In addition, Tojo has signed a neutrality treaty with the Soviets, which gives him the breathing room he needs to carry out invasions of the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies--if he can maintain control of China, French Indo-China, and other holdings.

"Your empire awaits you," the briefing ends.

Muzzy Lane is betting its 3-year-old empire on this new take on computer gaming for the classroom. The company is hoping its "Making History" series will find its way into American curricula from middle schools to undergraduate programs.

Though each scenario begins at an accurate moment in history, from there, students' decisions might parallel actual events--or diverge significantly. The game allows students to make their own decisions. No action in the game occurs without a consequence. Players have objectives their countries must attain to stay afloat, and they must negotiate through the political, economic, and military events that are critical to the success or failure of their governments and citizens.

"Early in the game-play tests, a senior history major in college was absolutely furious that he'd lost control of France in only four plays," said Bert Snow, lead game designer for the company. "When he checked against the historical record, however, he discovered he'd made decisions that kept him in control of the government about twice as long as it was held historically."

Snow said the developers of the game have designed its scoring component to take into account a player's performance against such historical facts, as a way of leveling the playing field between players representing countries with significantly different military or economic power and international influence.

Nick deKanter, vice president for business development at Muzzy Lane, said the game is "in effect a competition against history," in that students are given the opportunity to do better than the leaders whose roles they play. In the process, students develop skills in analysis, synthesis, relating cause and effect, bias detection, and negotiation, he said.

A huge database of World War II events--compiled over thousands of hours under the supervision of respected historian William Keylor of Boston University--lets students and teachers compare their virtual leadership decisions against the historical record.

"In one instance, we called a Chinese scholar to track down the country's national debt in 1937," deKanter said. "We've also been working closely with economists to determine exactly how economies worked during the period."

Educators also can add to this database to include materials they believe were left out of its version of the historical record. That transparency of design, the game's creators said, has led some universities and community colleges to consider the game as a model for teaching gaming design.

In addition, tools built into its platform enable teachers to generate reports, track student progress, and provide a system for consistent scoring among a range of games.

Muzzy Lane says "Making History" permits students to engage in what experts call a constructivist learning environment, weaving together interdependent elements for productive learning. Matched with appropriate content, the company says games for multiple players offer a three-dimensional learning framework, "with teachers talking to students, students challenging each other, and an entire classroom discussing the causes and effects of a game scenario."

Both deKanter and Snow said the game's content is aligned with the framework presented by the National Council of History Education and can be manipulated to represent the standards of individual states.

Critics might note the company intentionally left out elements of the war it believed could not be represented tastefully in the game--the most glaring example of which is the Holocaust. But Snow said that, although the Holocaust is not directly represented in the game, some of its effects still can be gleaned through the activity.

"For instance, raising taxes against your commercial population, like Hitler did at the beginning of the Holocaust, was meant to [weaken] the country's Jewish population at the time significantly," he said. "That kind of activity still might play out without getting into the Holocaust itself."

Dave McDivitt, who teaches at Oak Hills High School in Indiana, piloted the program with his students last year. He said his students really responded to learning in this type of format.

"I found that student interest and enthusiasm for this was overall very high," McDivitt said. "It took a lot of what kids are doing--gaming--and used it in the classroom scenario. Kids love that."
McDivitt said he was most surprised at student retention in areas he didn't expect.

"Student understanding of European geography at that time was definitely improved," he said. "I could mention Estonia, Latvia, the Baltics, and have kids understand where that was in terms of geography. That never happens." He added that students' recognition of the names of historical figures and events during that time period also improved by playing the game.

"I would say it was successful, because it reaches teenagers in a mode that is successful with teenagers," McDivitt said.

Ann Watts, technology director of the Des Moines Area Community Colleges in central Iowa, agreed with McDivitt. Watts said the game can be used to bridge the classroom with the world outside.

"We are entering a period where the technology inside the classroom can match the 'always-on' technology culture of teenagers outside the classroom," Watts said.

"The biggest difference we see with students using 'Making History' is the degree to which they exercise higher-order cognitive skills that go beyond comprehension of the subject matter in front of them. They're learning about leadership and how to think critically in complex situations."

Muzzy Lane's deKanter said the market will drive which historical events the company continues to develop software around in the future. He said the company is now developing two additional content packs addressing American history up to the Civil War, and after.

"I think there are certain aspects of teaching history that are begging for simulations that this game doesn't do," deKanter added. "What was it like to be a lower mill worker at the turn of the century? Some people call it the 'little people's history.' That approach is something that would come with a new template we're developing ... that would allow gamers to go walk around a historical environment, talk to people, and get feedback [from the characters represented in the game]."

Pricing for "Making History: The Calm and The Storm" starts at $39.99 per copy, though site licenses also are available.

Links:

Muzzy Lane Software
http://www.muzzylane.com/

"Making History: The Calm and The Storm"
http://www.making-history.com

Robert Brumfield, Assistant Editor, eSchool News
September 6, 2005
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStoryts.cfm?ArticleID=5862


Simulation-style video game targets education field

A software start-up company relying on MIT-derived know-how is developing a historically accurate, high-tech video game that it hopes will engage high school and college students in World War II (WWII) history lessons. The game will use state-of-the-art technique while meeting the standards and accommodating the limitations of today's classrooms, its developers say.

The idea appeals to some educators, who believe video-game technology can be a powerful teaching tool if tailored to the classroom environment.

Although a handful of mainstream simulation games, such as Civilization III or Age of Empires, are useful tools for teaching social studies, they are not a perfect match for the classroom, said Kurt Squire, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who is interested in piloting the new WWII game.

"In cases like Age of Empires, you have kids playing the game and ... developing a lifelong love of history," Squire said. But "one of the problems with a game like that is it's designed to be used at home. It requires 200 to 300 hours of game play."

Muzzy Lane Software, of Newburyport, Mass., intends to address this and other limitations of mainstream, simulation-style programs with the launch of Making History, an educational video game expected to debut this fall.

"We're taking the best of the state-of-the-art the gaming industry has to offer ... and applying it to our product. But because it is an education product, there are additional things we need to address," said Nick deKanter, the company's vice president.

Making History will have shorter play segments, ranging from 45 to 90 minutes long, that are more suitable for school schedules. It also will have reporting and feedback features built in.

"If this is to be a strong tool in the classroom, it has to be able to collect and report what students have done," deKanter said.

Unlike typical consumer-oriented video games, Making History will feature a recording engine that will keep track of the decisions students make and their outcomes. Besides using this information for assigning grades, teachers can start classroom debates with it. For example, if 32 percent of the class decided to go one way and the rest decided to go another way, the teacher could ask: Who had the better result, and why?

Historical accuracy is another problem with using mainstream games in the classroom. Although no simulation is entirely precise, entertainment-based games have more freedom to fudge the facts.

To combat this, Muzzy Lane's designers have based the game on the best-known history as reported by respected universities. But, because history is a product of different perspectives, teachers reportedly will be able to modify certain assumptions--such as the belief that Winston Churchill was hawkish, for example.

Making History's technology, graphics, and interfaces will be familiar to students. But what's different is that students will be able to learn, and even experience, hard-to-explain concepts surrounding WWII, the game's creators say.

History involves a fairly complex set of events and trends, notes deKanter. Making a decision to form a treaty with another country, for example, involves economic and political repercussions.

Making History intends to immerse students in the period and give them an opportunity to think and make decisions like actual historical figures. Students will be asked to make critical, strategic decisions as they handle challenges such as reuniting a series of regions in Germany, peaceably rebuilding the country and its economy, and keeping Europe's borders defined by the Treaty of Versailles without going to war.

Though Making History is one of the first commercial simulation games of its kind to come to market, more will follow, predicts Squire, who works with the Education Arcade (formerly MIT's Games-to-Teach project) and has a long history of developing and researching computer games for the classroom.

Educational simulations are already widely used in military, adult, and corporate training. "I think immersive worlds in education will become the norm," Squire said. "I don't think we're going to throw out classrooms and textbooks, but you will see (the technology incorporated) in a wide variety of areas."

See these related links:

Muzzy Lane Software Inc.
http://www.muzzylane.com/

The Education Arcade
http://www.educationarcade.org/

Cara Branigan, Associate Editor
April 1, 2004
http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfm?ArticleID=4968


Gizmos do not a Hemingway or a Copernicus make

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Alex Lam-Niemeyer could care less that Google can churn up millions of Web pages when he's researching homework assignments. Typically, he researches his reports by scouring library stacks, just as students have done for generations.

"There's too much stuff on the Internet," said the 12-year-old middle schooler in Berkeley, Calif. "I did this one search and it came back with 2 million pages. It takes too long to find what you're looking for."

Against a backdrop of talking dictionaries, computerized pens, and cell phones that issue pop quizzes, parents are being promised that the latest whiz-bang gadgetry can boost their children's grade-point average and keep them from falling behind their peers.

But Alex's perspective -- shared by many educational technology analysts -- is that many of these big-bucks digital tools won't give the haves an advantage over classroom have-nots.

"The biggest problem that students have is that technology often ends up being a distraction," says Robin Raskin, the founder and former editor of FamilyPC magazine. "In an information society the smart person will be the one who can shut out all the distractions."

Raskin cites an example of a student who searches the Web for information on the French Revolution -- and comes up with french toast, french music or french kissing. "A child can spend half the night searching for an answer to one question," Raskin said.

The Internet age has ushered in some valuable digital learning tools, some educational experts say. But parents must be choosy to find truly useful software programs, handheld devices or educational Web sites.

Parents should consider whether a product really addresses a child's weaknesses and strengths, and be sure the software is compatible with their computer, says Warren Buckleitner, editor of Children's Technology Review.

They should also take advantage of older software packages, which can be found at Web sites such as Planetcdrom.com, eBay.com and Kidsclick.com, and cost far less than current off-the-shelf products, he said.

For students wrestling with algebra, geometry or calculus, Stanford University education professor Roy Pea recommends Geometer's Sketchpad, produced by Emeryville, Calif.-based Key Curriculum Press. Introduced 15 years ago, the $39.95 Sketchpad allows students to construct objects on a computer screen and then explore their mathematical properties by dragging points on the object with a mouse.

Mindful that many school administrators have tried to ban cell phones because teenagers use them to play games, chat and share answers to tests in the classroom, some companies are creating software that can make the devices more than tools for entertainment and cheating.

San Diego-based Vocel loads study material and sample questions for the Scholastic Aptitude Test on cell phones so students can study as they wait for the bus or head to school. For $3.99 a month or a flat fee of $9.99, the phones ring with pop quizzes and timed tests. Parents can track their child's progress at a secure Web page on Vocel.com.

Microsoft Student 2006 attempts to become a homework help destination for middle and high school students.

It combines Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Encarta Encyclopedia and a graphing calculator, summarizes major books and suggests topics for book reports. But the software, which retails for between $80 and $100, has received less than enthusiastic reviews; critics have called the search function imprecise and the amount of new material in the program low.

It's a tough season for the educational software sector.

Sales last year plummeted to less than half of the $500 million the industry gathered in 2000. And back-to-school spending on laptops, handheld devices and other electronics is expected to fall to $2.06 billion, down 33 percent from last year, according to the National Retail Federation.
One reason is that the Internet has made many products obsolete. Why bother downloading software or popping a CD into the computer when dozens of free educational sites are a mouse-click away?

Among some of the sites Raskin recommends for students wishing to bone up on science, math or spelling are Askjeevesforkids.com, Mathforum.org and Kaboose.com. Some other sites include Hotmath.com, School.Discovery.com, and Scienceguy.com.

But don't overdo it -- parents should limit a child's Web surfing to three or four sites a day to keep their focus on studying, not searching, Raskin says.

Some school districts actually recommend portable electronic devices, such as digital dictionaries, spelling correctors and translators.

Franklin Electronic Publishers Inc. has competed in this sector since 1986, the year it launched Spelling Ace. Kids can look up words by spelling them phonetically -- type in g-e-r-a-f and the $20 handheld device up with the correct spelling, "giraffe," along with synonyms and antonyms.
Franklin also produces talking dictionaries that electronically speak words so children can understand how to pronounce them, and a digital version of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary that retails for $199.

These kinds of tools should be considered as only supplements at best when it comes to learning, says Pat Ackley, principal of New Lebanon Junior-Senior High School in upstate New York. She's skeptical of some educational devices, saying they're really little more than toys.

For instance, she calls the idea of placing a chip inside a pen "ridiculous." But next month, education company LeapFrog Enterprises Inc. will roll out a $99 pen called the Fly Pentop Computer that features a microprocessor.

LeapFrog says the Fly solves math problems, stores spelling lists, recognizes handwriting, and even plays music when someone draws a picture of drums or other musical instruments.

"Homework has proven to be a real point of pain for children 8 to 13," said LeapFrog spokeswoman Cherie Stewart. "(The Fly) is designed to make learning enjoyable so that children can work independently."

GREG SANDOVAL, AP Technology Writer
September 8, 2005
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/TechNews/TopPhoto/2005/09/08/1207954-ap.html