Audio News Picks: Listen Up
By Sara Bernard
Welcome to Listen Up, Edutopia.org's guide for the auditorially curious. Twice a week, we deliver an eclectic selection of radio news stories, podcasts, audio documentaries, classroom tools, sonic field trips, and more.
Listen Up is designed with teachers in mind, but -- since teachers do a lot more than teach -- we're taking a broad view here: We aim to bring you the freshest, most interesting, and most useful audio on the Web. If we're doing our job right, you won't want to take off the headphones.
We hope you'll tune in ... and help us tune in, as well. Send a message to listenup@edutopia.org and tell us what great material you've found online.
Public Schools Expand Curriculum Online
A growing number of small schools are turning to online programs to offer additional courses. -- NPR Listen to this audio
Raising the Scores
A school in Newark grapples with efforts to meet federal standards. -- New York Times Listen to this audio
Students Learn by Emulating the Candidates
A charter school in Hialeah Gardens has gone beyond just studying the presidential primary: Students portray the presidential candidates in elaborate mock debates. -- Miami Herald Listen to this audio
Merit Pay for Denver Teachers Gets Mixed Reaction
For decades, the nation's teachers could count on at least one constant -- the longer they served, the more they'd earn. But now, that's changing. -- NPR Listen to this audio
A District Where No Two Schools Are Alike
One Colorado school district superintendent threw the deck of cards up in the air and has reshuffled every school, creating seventeen distinct programs. They are as different as schools can be. -- NPR.org Read this article
No College Plans? No Way
At this Boston high school, all students must be accepted to college before they get their high school diploma.
Tech and Tradition at a Seminole School
At Florida's Pemayetv Emahakv Charter School, funded by the Seminole Tribe's billion-dollar gambling enterprise, students use brand-new computers, iPods, and state-of-the-art facilities to acquire twenty-first-century skills -- and preserve their native language and culture.
Identical Strangers
Here's the latest iteration of the nature-versus-nurture debate: Identical twins Paula and Elyse were secretly separated at birth as part of a research study on that very topic. After they met at age thirty-five, they wrote a book about their experience.
Checking in on Web 2.0
In light of the recent Web 2.0 Summit, in San Francisco, experts discuss the new world of business, social networking, and learning on the postmillennial Web. Great fodder for classroom discussion.
What Makes a Great Principal?
Find out why the National Association of Secondary School Principals named San Francisco principal Jim Dierke National Middle School Principal of the Year.
