Joan Shin, Education Professor of Practice, has launched a book series with National Geographic Learning designed to give learners the skills and knowledge they need to learn English and understand the world around them.

The series, called “Our World,” uses images and video and provides National Geographic content to young learners of English. Shin is co-editor of the series along with JoAnn Crandall, Professor Emerita and former Director of the Language, Literacy and Culture Ph.D. program. You can find out more about the series here.

As part of the series, Shin also developed a professional development video program for teachers. It was filmed and produced at UMBC in collaboration with New Media Studio. The program examines topics such as using video and technology in the classroom, using songs and chants, and providing young learners with real-world content. You can read more about the program here.

Shin also has a new textbook out called, Teaching Young Learners English (National Geographic Learning/Cengage Learning, 2013). The book, written by Shin and Crandall, teaches English as a foreign language to young children and presents practical suggestions and best practices to engage young learners.

Public school is kind of like a prison.

You spend hours sitting in enclosed rooms with fluorescent lighting, you need permission to go to the bathroom and an annoying, high-pitched bell tells you when you can go and leave.

But does a public school building have to look like a prison? In some parts of New Jersey, they do.

This is a photograph of a hallway in Trenton Central High School. The walls are chipped and yellowing and the ceiling is filthy (literally, this picture is disgusting. we feel like scrubbing the computer screen with a toothbrush just looking at it).

Local photographer Andrew Wilson was hired by New Jersey Healthy Schools Now to photograph some of the state’s most depredated schools. The collection is called “A Blind Eye: The Immorality of Inaction.” Other schools profiled have missing ceiling panels, mouse droppings, uncovered pipes and classroom temperatures of 80 degrees.

The educational advocates hoped to reach recently re-elected governor Chris Christie. He had been criticized in the past for a lack of attention towards renovating and renewing New Jersey’s at-risk public schools.

The New Jersey School Development Authority is charged with financing and running construction projects for the needy schools in the state. However, it …

“has been moving at a snail’s pace in recent years, leaving schools’ conditions to weaken and kids’ educations to suffer.”

According to Moriah Kinberg, a member of Healthy Schools Now,

Allowing teachers and students to be in this condition is a moral issue. I’ve heard from teachers who say [school] conditions are making them physically ill. It’s really demoralizing to go to school when you walk into the hallway and there’s water running down the hall.

This isn’t just a problem in New Jersey.

It seems everywhere some schools receive adequate funding for athletics and after-school enrichment opportunities…

While others in the same district can’t get the holes in their walls fixed.

Is the system rigged?

Or does it sometimes seem like urban schools just don’t matter? 

In the USA, sweet sixteen marks a threshold of new independence.

Teens cheers because they can finally get their driving license.

Now, for some teens in Maryland, their new freedom means they will be driving to the voting booth.

Takoma Park, Maryland made history as the first city in the United States to give 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote in city elections.

On Wednesday November 6^th, these fresh new faces fulfilled their civic duty.

It must be added though that the mayor and all six council members ran uncontested. Regardless, it didn’t deter these new teens from receiving the envious “I Voted” sticker.

90-percent of Takoma Park’s 16 and 17-year-old population is now registered to vote.

Do you think 16 year olds are ready to vote?

Is Takoma Park setting an example for the rest of the United States by extending the youth vote? 

The Model-Based User Interfaces Working Group has published the First Public Working Draft of MBUI – Task Models. Task models are useful when designing and developing interactive systems. They describe the logical activities that have to be carried out in order to reach the user’s goals. This document covers the specification of Task Models, with a meta-model expressed in UML, and an XML Schema that can be used as the basis for interchange of Task Models between different user interface development tools. Learn more about the Ubiquitous Web Applications Activity.