Free Digital Textbooks for High School Students from Rice University's OpenStax

The next big thing is here. 

OpenStax is now developing free, digital textbooks designed to deliver personalized lessons to high school students. The project aims to significantly decrease costs for schools and assist teachers by providing actionable analytics that enable them to optimize their students’ learning.
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Rice University-based nonprofit OpenStax, which has already provided free textbooks to hundreds of thousands of college students, has launched a $9 million effort to develop free, digital textbooks capable of delivering personalized lessons to high school students.

Shifting the Learning Ecology: An Interview with Ewan McIntosh, NoTosh, Inc.

Ewan McIntosh, Founder of NoTosh Inc., out of Edinburgh, Scotland and David Bill of California are working with Region 7 ESC, and an East Texas cohort of schools in Region 7 to focus on Design Thinking for schools.

Ewan is a teacher, speaker and investor, regarded as one of Europe’s foremost experts in digital media for public services.  His company, NoTosh Limited, invests in tech startups and film on behalf of public and private investors, works with those companies to build their creative businesses, and takes the lessons learned from the way these people work back into schools and universities across the world.

In a podcast dated, March 10, 2014, Alan November, with **November Learning, spoke with Ewan McIntosh about, "Shifting the Learning Ecology."

The two begin with a discussion about Ewan’s work with design thinking for developing a new learning ecology within an International Baccalaureate school in Barcelona, Spain.

This leads into a conversation about the emotional process teachers go through in relinquishing some of their established control within the classroom.

Finally, they discuss the role of school leaders and the key shifts they must make in order to jump into the design thinking process within their schools.

**Offered in ESC 7
Save the date for a Two-day Alan November Series, Learn to Learn
ESC Region 7 (Both sessions run from 9 a.m.-3 p.m.; lunch included)
December 2, 2014 • March 3, 2015
Learn to Learn is a two-day series based on Alan November's New York Times best-selling book Who Owns the Learning and a powerful new six-step model of designing transformational learning experiences.

Topics include building collaborative classrooms, teaching students to self assess, a range of quality teacher feedback strategies, and applying game design to learning. Focused on transforming learning communities and empowering students, this two-day academy is being offered in ESC 7. Find out more. 

Listen to the Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Watch Ewan in his TEDxLondon Talk.  Read more about Ewan at his blog.

The Regular STAAR Test Questions are Public

TEA releases two types of test questions for the STAAR test - sample questions and test forms. Sample test questions are small subsets of test questions released from the STAAR test banks. These test questions may have been previously administered to Texas students. A test form is a set of released test questions previously administered together to Texas students which reflects the STAAR test blueprints. 

TEA will release the first test form administered in the spring for each general STAAR assessment in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and every third year thereafter. Released test questions on this webpage do not represent all the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) student expectations eligible for assessment on STAAR.

Find your grade/subject at the link below….
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/student.assessment/staar/testquestions/

Only the regular STAAR tests has been released at this time, but this is great information to use in understanding how the standards that are taught in our classrooms are assessed. The new state assessment for students with disabilities will be called STAAR A.  This new test is a regular STAAR test with embedded accommodations.

New Requirements for the 2014-15 School Year Campus Principal

On July 31, 2014, TEA issued correspondence about two new statutory requirements for the upcoming 2014-15 school year that will require immediate action. 

Child sexual abuse is a crime of secrecy which, tragically, breeds within our communities because it’s difficult to talk about. That’s why conversation—openly discussing this issue—is the most effective tool we have to eradicate child abuse. (- See more at: http://www.cactx.org/child-abuse-in-texas#sthash.w2ej8LaQ.dpuf )

In accordance with Texas Education Code, (TEC) §38.0041, districts and charter schools are required to provide, to all district and charter school employees, training concerning prevention techniques for and recognition of sexual abuse and all other maltreatment of children.

In addition, all campuses are required to post, at student eye-level, in at least one high-traffic area, and in both English and Spanish, a poster (11 x 17 inches or larger) with information that includes the Texas DFPS Abuse Hotline telephone number, instructions to call 911 and directions to www.txabusehotline.org.

Resources:
A poster developed to meet the requirements, and more information can be found at: www.onewithcourage.org/take-action/for-educators/

Training options and more information is available at the TEA website for Child Abuse Prevention: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/childabuse.html 

View the letter from TEA about mandatory 2014-15 Training: Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Training and Posting of Hotline Number

Early Childhood Data to Inform About Readiness for Kindergarten

The Early Childhood Data System (ECDS) formerly known as the Kindergarten Readiness System (KRS) is a new state reporting feature in the Texas Student Data System (TSDS).

The ECDS will be used to collect early childhood data to inform school districts, communities, and early childhood programs about the effectiveness of pre-kindergarten programs in preparing children for success in kindergarten under Texas Education Code (TEC) §29.161.

ECDS will be introduced in a two-phased approach. In phase one, required kindergarten data will be submitted from June 1, 2014 with a new closing date of August 31, 2014, and in phase two, voluntary prekindergarten data will be submitted from August 1 - October 31, 2014.

If you have additional questions about the policy requirements of TEC, §28.006, please contact Howard Morrison, statewide coordinator for early childhood education, via email at howard.morrison@tea.state.tx.us. All technical questions should be submitted via the TSDS Incident Management System (TIMS), available within the ECDS application. The data entry process is listed in the original To The Administrator Addressed Letter that posted on May 14, 2014.

The Texas Education Agency posted a communication regarding the extension of the deadline for the new Early Childhood Data System (ECDS) at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index4.aspx?id=25769814799.