Connexions - Could this be Nirvana?

Dr. Rich Baraniuk of Rice University has created a free, web-based site of peer-reviewed scholarly works on a far-ranging number of topics, including education; however, the site is much more that just a repository, it offers courses too.

The National Council of Professors of Educational Administration is soliciting articles from school administrators and other education professionals to include on Connexions.

I am going to be exploring this site in the days to come but thought everyone should take a look at it. I am amazed at the global collaboration of this endeavor! I think I was even introduced this site from my tech planning class by another classmate, but at the time, I was just getting into using the new technology that I let it pass me up.

Special Education - Where is the REAL DATA?

Working on a paper for another class, I was wondering where the data was that broke down the percentage passing for students with disabilities on the Virginia SOLs. This lack of information encouraged me to call Dr. Wickman in assessment at Virginia's Department of Education. She was extremely helpful and said that she working on gathering the data. She mailed to me a link with the requested breakdown between students with and without disabilities. Basically, it appears that our students with disabilities are at a plateau that is right around 50% passing for all subjects across all grades; however, there are many unanswered questions.

I would still like to know how students with disabilities are performing at subcategory levels, especially in math; for example, do autistics perform better at computation or geometry. Why would I want to know this? I have now met about 120 autistic middle school boys who all have very similar characteristics like poor handwriting, bumping into people and things, and toe walking (i.e. student does not place heel all the way down as he is walking.) Dr. Megson says that many of these kids "see" the world like a David Hockney photocollage. If these kids really see the world this way, it would explain why they bumped into walls and people as well as not being able to look at your face when talking. It would explain why so many of these kids absolutely hate to write and have poor coordination.