Parents

K aren Mahon, Ed.D joined Dr. Berger to discuss educational apps and lessons for the industry. Mahon is the founder of Balefire Labs that has reviewed nearly 5,000 apps in education. Balefire Labs utilizes a research-based set of criteria to review apps in the areas of instructional and usability design. Karen L. Mahon Ed.D is an Educational Psychologist and Instructional Designer with more than 15 years’ experience in education technology. Mahon was Principal Investigator and Research Scientist at Praxis, Inc., a Waltham (MA) ed tech startup that produced instructional software for children with severe and profound disabilities. While at Praxis, Mahon successfully generated National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation Research grants totaling close to $4M.Other previous appointments have included Global Senior Manager of Learning Sciences at Mimio Interactive Teaching Technologies and Research Assistant Professor at the University of Kansas. Karen received her Ed.D. and M.A. in Educational Psychology from West Virginia University, her Product Management Certificate from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business, and her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego.  

Photo credit: Christopher Webbby The Takeaway’s T.J. RaphaelA dozen parents and community activists in Chicago are on hunger strike over by a proposal from Chicago’s public schools to turn their community high school into an arts magnet. Read and listen to the story at WBEZ.org.

Photo credit: WoodleywonderworksSchool children have to carry a heavy load of notebooks, supplies and textbooks, resulting in a bulky backpack that can affect their posture and cause chronic pain. The American Chiropractic Association recommends that a child’s backpack should weigh less than 10 percent of the child’s body weight, so here are some things you can do to lighten the load.Read the rest of the story on The Literacy Site Blog.

As American children prepare to head back to school tomorrow, many of them will return to racially homogenous classrooms. A 2014 report found that 60 years after the landmark desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), segregation in American primary education — though certainly not at pre-Brown levels — has significantly increased since the 1980s, which generally marked the peak of integration.Read the rest of the story at The Week.

by Sara GilgoreThe World Privacy Forum, a public-interest research group focused on privacy protection, has launched a campaign urging parents to “opt out” of allowing schools to release “directory” information—student data the organization says schools could otherwise disclose to third-parties who request access.Read the rest of the story at Education Week.

by Corey MitchellA group of Chicago parents and residents fighting to have a say in what happens to their neighborhood high school have entered the second week of a hunger strike.The Chicago Sun-Times reports that members of the Coalition to Revitalize Dyett High School havelobbied for years on behalf of the school, first to prevent a planned closure, then to put a new neighborhood school in the building.Read the rest of the story at Education Week.

Photo Credit: Walter Limby Mark ThomaAn issue that’s likely to arise in the debates leading up to the next presidential election is preschool education. Among the questions involved: Should preschool programs be available to all children no matter their socioeconomic status? Should America invest in programs such as Head Start or Perry Preschool so that all children can attend? Does any evidence show these programs work?Read the rest of the story at CBS MoneyWatch.

Photo credit: David Hawgoodby Dr. Francis CollinsWhen children enter the first grade, their brains are primed for learning experiences, significantly more so, in fact, than adult brains. For instance, scientists have documented that musical training during grade school produces a signature set of benefits for the brain and for behavior—benefits that can last a lifetime, whether or not people continue to play music.Now, researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, have some good news for teenagers who missed out on learning to play musical instruments as young kids. Even when musical training isn’t started until high school, it produces meaningful changes in how the brain processes sound. And those changes have positive benefits not only for a teen’s musical abilities, but also for skills related to reading and writing.Read the rest of the story on the National Institutes of Health Director’s Blog.

by Jon GrinspanEACH summer, when school ends, education mostly stops short, too. But it hasn’t always been that way. For the striving youths of 19th-century America, learning was often a self-driven, year-round process. Devouring books by candlelight and debating issues by bonfire, the young men and women of the so-called “go-ahead generation” worked to educate themselves into a better life.Read the rest of the story at the New York Times.