Signs of Sex Abuse at School: What Parents Should Know

Apps for the iPhone range from car locators to recipe helpers and every other tool in between. Now, iPhone apps are even making their way into public classrooms, allowing students, teachers, and parents more effective ways to keep in touch with one another. Instead of fighting cell phones in the Classroom, some school administrators are learning to make the most of technology to enhance the classroom experience.

An Academic Test Run

According to a recent report on TMCnet, one mobile phone provider is breaking through the ice and bringing the iPhone into the Classroom. MacroSolve, a provider of mobile phone apps, has recently announced that they will be creating a new phone app specifically designed to make the job of educators a little easier. Edison Preparatory School, a public school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, will test the app.

According to MacroSolve CEO and President Clint Parr, schools need to connect within their community. Communication lines between administrators, teachers, parents, and students must allow for real-time exchanges that keep everyone up on the latest happenings at individual schools and within the district.

This is where iPhone apps specifically designed for this purpose come into play. This technology will help the academic community communicate more efficiently, ensuring that information is exchanged at a rate that does not hinder the student's education or the communication between parents and school staff.

Benefits of iPhone Apps in the Classroom

There are plenty of opportunities that the iPhone apps might offer.

In choosing the best place to raise a family, parents have always ranked the quality of a school district. For many, choosing the most expensive school district in the region was often equivalent to giving kids the best possible start in life. However, quality education can be found at all economic levels, as long as you are willing to take the time to research each district individually when choosing a home for your family.

Forbes recently made the search a bit easier by publishing "The Best Schools for Your Housing Buck," which lists the top 25 school districts across the country, based on a variety of criteria. Forbes researched the top school districts in the country that provided both high-quality education and fabulous housing for residents. While some of the districts on this list are still relatively pricey for the average American, there are also some locations that provide positive educational opportunities for a fraction of the price.

Smart Criteria Used

Forbes and GreatSchools looked at more than 17,000 cities and towns in 49 states to assemble their listing. Factors considered included:

• Test score data
• Public school enrollment from K-12
• Median home prices for 2009
• Population data for 2009

Some cities were eliminated from the list because of populations less than 10,000 since these areas offered insufficient data for analysis. The study also left out the state of Nebraska, since it does not currently offer a standardized state-wide testing process to evaluate student performance. Cities with fewer

Tragic bullying cases like Phoebe Prince’s story have prompted public schools to review their responsibility in preventing bullying, both on and off-campus. With the rise of social networking, cyberbullying has become a real threat, and schools are scrambling to manage the ramifications of 2.0 bullying.

According to the Cyberbullying Research Center, cyberbullying can be defined as, "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices." The First Amendment Center cites statistics that show one-third of teens on the Internet have experienced harassment online. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dub electronic aggression as an "emerging adolescent health issue."

This video from the PACER Center offers resources for students and teachers.

Clearly, there is no doubt that cyberbullying has become a major problem in recent years, but the question then becomes: what should public schools do about it? It does not appear to be a question with an easy answer if one considers the differing responses to the problem by public schools and the government.

On one hand, when cyberbullying affects a child's educational experience, the schools have a responsibility to put a stop to the behavior. On the other hand, much of the cyberbullying that occurs takes place outside of school, leaving schools helpless in monitoring such activity. Then, there is the first amendment guarantee of free speech. Where

Two factors have given way to a shift in the focus of technology in the classroom. The need to cut state and district education budgets nationwide forces school administrators to find cheap yet effective ways to educate their students. Educators also realize that many students are already immersed in the technology slowly introduced in classes. By bringing technology into the classroom, teachers can hone in on methodology that students are familiar with, leading to more effective teaching strategies and better results.

These two factors are now ushering cloud computing into several classrooms across the United States, allowing teachers to use the technology for conducting lessons, performing student assessments, and developing homework plans in a virtual teaching space.

Subscriptions for cloud technology usually cost less than the purchase of software to facilitate a similar environment, and students and faculty alike usually adapt to the online approach much better than grappling with software installation and implementation.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing uses the Internet for much of the functionality that software installations traditionally offer. The term "cloud" refers to the Internet and is similar to the network diagrams used by phones and computers in the past.

Here is a list of cloud-based apps commonly used by public K-12 schools:

Google Workspace for Education
Includes tools like Google Classroom, Google Docs, Google Drive, and Google Meet. It is widely used for collaboration and classroom management.