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Single Sex Education Advantages

Boy at Computer

What are the advantages, if any, of single sex education? Is single sex education better than co-education? What does available research have to say about the subject? Here are some answers.

More on Single Sex Schools

Private Schools Spotlight10

Robert's Private Schools Blog

The Impact of Educational Technology

Sunday November 29, 2009

A couple of years ago I wrote a piece entitled Is Technology the Answer to our Education Problems? Being the geek I am, I saw the issue back then as a simple case of teachers not wanting to adapt to change. I had computerized the Anglican schools in The Bahamas back in the '90s and had seen the strong resistance to change on the part of teachers and administrators.

I recently updated that article. In the course of doing my research, I began to see the issue from another point of view. Why? Because putting computers in the nation's class rooms was supposed to fix our education problems. Computers would enhance teaching, stimulate students' interest, make lessons exciting and so on. But that really wasn't the issue as I discovered. The issue had to do with administrators at every level not having the data in real time with which to drive their decisions. In other words, if a particular class was having trouble with quadratic equations or a grade district-wide was struggling with social studies, the administrators had no way of producing the reports they needed in real time to see the trends as they developed.

What do you think of my conclusions? What have I missed? Are there other points which should be emphasized? You can tweet your comments and thoughts to me at PRIVATESCHL.

Spotlight on Upper Canada College

Friday November 27, 2009

Upper Canada College
This week's spotlight takes us to Upper Canada College in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. UCC is a large PK-12 boys' school. The upper school curriculum is college preparatory. Students take courses leading to the International Baccalaureate diploma which is recognized at colleges and universities around the world. It is tough to get into 9th grade, the normal high school entry point at UCC. Applicants outnumber available places by a ratio of 8 to 1.

Read UCC's profile. If you went to Upper Canada College, tell us about your experiences and what you thought of the school. Please post your response here.

You can follow me on Twitter at PRIVATESCHL.

Using Twitter When Choosing a School

Tuesday November 24, 2009

With more and more private schools using Twitter, I found myself wondering whether it might be a useful tool during the school selection process. If I were visiting schools, I'd want to keep in touch with them after the visit.

Twitter offers a great way to keep in touch. That's because most schools have figured out that tweeting about anything which is going on at school reaches a large audience. When a professional writer like me sees something interesting on Twitter, I retweet it to all of my followers. So the exposure to a school's message grows exponentially. Would I use Twitter to follow a school if I were a parent choosing schools? You bet.

What do you think? Tweet your thoughts to me at PRIVATESCHL.

Still Time to Register for the SSAT

Saturday November 21, 2009
You can take the SSAT or Secondary School Aptitude Test on several test dates throughout the year. But the December test date is typically the last one before the deadline for many private school applications. January 15 or February 1 are common application deadlines. The late online registration deadline for the December 12 SSAT is this Friday, November 27.

You can tweet me at PRIVATESCHL.

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