Response to "180 Days"

When I returned to the "Best(?) of the Fischbowl 2007", I found a blog title named "180 Days". I guess being a math major numbers catch my eye. So I clicked on the link to find out that teachers/schools waste time during 180 days of the school year. Barry Bachenheimer showed the "Did you know?" video to his students and this prompted him to find out why there is not enough time to learn/teach about all of the new technology. He posted a presentation about wasted time and Karl Fisch decided that he agreed with Barry. Karl recreated Barry's power point presentation (with Barry's permission) that lists what schools do that waste time. The time that the teacher/school waste was counted in days. Some of the things that Karl said wasted days were tests, final exams, standardized testing, days before major vacations, and students and teachers being absent. There were many other things, but they didn't take up as much time. I agree with some, but the students have to tests and have to be out sometimes. He said that there are 60 of the 180 days wasted, but this is just estimates. I think at certain schools, there are probably more than 60 days wasted.

According to Karl the schools have 120 days to instruct. That really is not enough time to instruct all of the teachers and students how to use new technology. This presentation can help us to decide what to take out of school and what to add in. Meaning what would not hurt to remove and what could we fit in to teach the teachers and students about new technology. I think everyone should take this in and be thinking about it when we become teachers.

Click herefor Karl Fisch's power point presentation.

Barry's Video