Patricia Hawke

At the Raleigh convention center in North Carolina, an education conference was held to talk about the way schools and teachers are teaching. Schools are so focused on standardized test scores that they are not really looking out for the student's best interest. By teaching the students in a way that will help them to score better n the standardized tests, this is not going to help the students in the long run to retain their knowledge they get while in grade school.

At a time where sleep is needed more than ever, teenagers aren't getting enough of it. The Kansas City Star reported that new research has found that by using technological devices it has distracted the teens enough to bother there sleep. Weather the device is a cell phone, a television, a video game console, The Internet or mp3 players; they are taking away from things such as exercise and sleep.

In the Houston Independent School District and many other districts nationwide, teachers are beginning to be rated on how their student's score on the tests they provide. It seems rational to test teacher's way of teaching by testing their students on how well and how much they have learned in their class.

A special hands on Science and Technology workshop is coming to San Antonio, Texas. This workshop is for science teachers and designed for them to learn more about the new technologies that have came out that make science more hands on. Currently, Science programs have labs once and a while, but mostly consist of bookwork. By introducing science teachers to these new technologies, they are able to create more fun and interactive science lessons.

What's great is because of the number of summer school "failed" classes; it was much needed to make a change in the summer school math curriculum to better the children's chances of passing the classes. We all know summer is not the best time to learn; the high heat (depending on your region), the abundance of fun activities that your friends are all doing, the ability to relax and be a kid and not have to worry about anything makes it extremely hard to focus in summer school.

In a world of technology our school classrooms need to keep up. As much as technology is used on an everyday basis with students outside of school, its very important to keep the kids attention by implementing a lot of technology into the classrooms. As much as classroom technology has been improving over the years, it is not improving fast enough.

In Dallas, Texas public schools are trying new ways to get the students to pay attention. In a world now full of many distractions, teachers aren't just concerned of students talking to their peers during a lecture. There are many ore distractions that come along with being a child of the 21st century. Not only do the students get distracted from their friends in class, but also passing note in class has turned into texting during class.

In Denver, Colorado, the Denver-area district is trying a new way of placing students in grades. The old way of spending time in classrooms doing the same work as the other students and moving up a grade, as the kids get older is changing. They are now trying a new way of moving up grade levels by the student's ability.

At Paradise Valley Unified School District in Phoenix, Arizona they are beginning to branch into mobile learning. Called twenty-first century learning, using mobile technology in the classroom has created concerns for the teachers, as they fear the students will be distracted with other mobile applications on their device. Regardless of these teachers' fears, times are changing; students need to be challenged technologically to keep their attention.

Skyline School in Portland, Oregon, has placed cameras in the schools to monitor and protect its students. Last June, a seven year old, disappeared from their school and thanks to a great donation, the school was able to install these cameras to protect other students. Many high schools are starting to install video surveillance camera on their campuses because they want a method to deter crime and deter students from doing things that they shouldn't be doing.