Jessica Tyler said she was trying to get photos of her niece while she was onstage performing but kept getting blocked by Latisha James, who was standing up with her own camera.

“I walked up to the lady. I asked her just to kneel down for a second just so I could get a picture of my niece and she turned around and said, “No, I ain’t (expletive) sitting down.” said Tyler.

Tyler took matters into her own hands and stepped in front of James to snap her pictures, but she knocked down James’ 3-year old daughter in the process, and though she says it was an accident, Latisha James didn’t take kindly to it. She put her hands on Tyler’s throat and the two went at it in the middle of the crowd, and now both women are banned from school grounds.

James says she may lose her job at a local hospital and faces a year in prison. Authorities are deciding whether or not Tyler will face charges, as well. The entire incident was caught on video, because several other parents were recording the show.

This time the problem appears to be Nerf guns. Three elementary school kids – two sixth graders and a fourth grader – in Edmonds, Washington have received a one day suspension for shooting Nerf guns at school. One of the boys brought the guns in with his teacher’s permission to use in a class project. The problem, it seems, is that before school started the three students did what you’d expect any child (and many a grown-up, myself included) to do with easy access to Nerf guns: they started shooting them.

An Edmonds School District spokesperson declined to go into specifics, but told Seattle’s Komo News that an incident had occurred at Chase Lake Elementary School. She said that “it’s a matter of safety and it’s of the utmost importance. So even if it’s a toy, we take it seriously.” She also said that in the case of toys like this, disciplinary measures are at the discretion of the school’s principal.

The parents of the suspended students called the punishment an overreaction, though. Stacey Leidholm. mother of one of the children, said “I understand that they definitely need consequences, but not that harsh of a consequence.” Her son is reportedly a straight A student. Because of the suspension on their records, the children will be barred from taking certain advanced courses in high school and will not be able to serve in student government.

The children’s parents are appealing the suspensions.

The AP reports that a brawl broke out at the Michael R. White Elementary School during a graduation ceremony on Friday. At the end of it all, eight people were arrested.

The brawl reportedly started with some spilled juice. After that, two teenage girls began to fight. The families soon joined in. At the end of it all, it was revealed that two of the people involved in the fight brandished a pipe and a hammer.

Even with the heavy weaponry, nobody was hurt in the fight. The police still booked eight people for a count of aggravated rioting. Charges may be filed against those involved after prosecutors have a chance to review everything.

After the fight was broken up, parents were allowed into the school to collect their children. As you would expect, some parents are scared for the future safety of their children. One parent in particular said that the fight makes her “not want to send them [to school] for the rest of the school year.”

The city has also chimed in on the incident with city councilman Jeff Johnson saying that any parent involved in the fight should be barred from school grounds. He said that the city is “not going to have people coming into our schools, being disrespectful, fighting.”

The funds were dispersed in two separate grants to the National Center on Time and Learning and Clemson University totaling over $1.1 million dollars. The grants are trying to find out if “Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) bracelets which will determine the feasibility and utility of using such devices regularly in schools with students and teachers.”

Thats right, the bracelet is going to determine if the students are engaged in the current discussion. kind of Orwellian don’t you think? Some other people tend to think it is a waste of money saying, “That’s more than $1.1 million that could have been spent on things that schools actually need, such as books, teachers, librarians, etc.” I don’t know if I agree with that but that is her opinion.

The study of galvanic bracelets is part of the “emerging field of neuromarketing,” which “relies on biometric technologies to determine a participant’s emotional and cognitive response to certain stimuli.”

photo courtesy of MIT technologyreview.com

As previously reported by Mike Fossum and according to the Minnesota Star Tribune, a 12 year-old girl is now involved in a lawsuit against a Minnesota school district, claiming they violated her Constitutional rights when they demanded her Facebook passwords and punished her over a post she made on her page concerning her feelings toward a particular hall monitor, who was “mean to her”.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Tuesday, has the full support of the A.C.L.U. under the claim that the Minnewaska School District violated the sixth-grader’s First and Fourth Amendment rights–the right to freedom of speech and against illegal search and seizure, respectively. The child, identified only as “R.S.” in court documents, was initially given detention for the post, but after a second post turned up demanding to know who had turned her in, she was given in-school suspension. After a third incident regarding R.S. and a Facebook conversation about sex with another student–which garnered a complaint from the student’s parents–she was called before school officials and a deputy, who reportedly pressured her to give up her internet passwords in order to gain access to her Facebook page. Interestingly enough, the lawsuit claims that none of the posts were made from school property or on school equipment.

According to CNN, R.S. was intimidated, frightened, humiliated and sobbing while she was detained in the small school room and says her schoolwork consequently suffered because of her embarrassment over the incident.

“Students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the school house gate,” executive director for the ACLU in Minnesota Charles Samuelson said in a statement. “The Supreme Court ruled on that in the 1970s, yet schools like Minnewaska seem to have no regard for the standard.”

The school district maintains that they were within their rights to search the girl’s Facebook account.

“The district is confident that once all facts come to light, the district’s conduct will be found to be reasonable and appropriate,” a representative for the district said.

According to a report by the Madison State Journal, the program will put 600 tablets into the hands of students this spring, with a further 800 coming in the fall. Bill Smojver, director of technical services for the school district, pointed out that iPads beat computers in portability, user-friendliness, and price. He called the transition to tablets a major transition point for digital learning. The program will initially focus on replacing paper workbooks, though deputy superintendent Sue Abplanalp said that the transition to e-textbooks was one the district would consider down the line.

The program comes before the Madison school board for approval today. Assuming it passes the iPads will be in 20 elementary schools, 10 middle schools, and 3 high schools by the middle of March.

In a development that is sure to peg your irony meter, the money for these iPads – which the disctrict is getting for $479 each – is actually coming from Microsoft. Wisconsin (along with several other states) sued Microsoft on behalf of consumers, claiming that the software giant overcharged for its software. While the company managed to win dismissals in several of the cases, they wound up settling with several states. In 2009 they settled with Wisconsin for $80 million. The money for Madison’s iPads comes from a $3.4 million chunk set aside for schools.

The Courier Mail in Australia is reporting that new research from Southern Cross University has found strong benefits for the use of Twitter in the classroom by shy students who might not be comfortable raising their hands.

Southern Cross business lecturer Jeremy Novak and Central Queensland University’s Dr. Michael Cowling studied Twitter use among university students as a way to ask questions during class.

The Twitter method received positive feedback especially from international students. The research team is convinced that Twitter could be used by high schools and even primary schools.

“Twitter is another exciting teaching aide that is highly under-utilised by lecturers and teachers in the education sector,” Novak said. “Hopefully it would lead to fewer passengers in the classroom and allow those students who are less likely to engage with teachers, for social or cultural reasons, to participate.”

Under the study, university students were given the ability to send anonymous tweets to their teacher asking for better explanations or more detailed answers during lectures.

Novak did acknowledge that there would be some obstacles in getting Twitter use approved for the classroom. I know that in my university classes, students would abuse this to send texts and update Facebook during class. Novak agrees and while students would already do this, making Twitter acceptable would make it harder for teachers to point out those who were genuinely using it to learn and those who are just using it to socialize.

The researchers also fear for teachers who have less experience with social networking than their students. The generation gap may be too wide in some cases.

“Teachers would have to be savvy with the technology, but if those things were overcome there is no reason this could not be used to augment teaching methods,” Novak said. “We don’t see Twitter replacing actual class participation or interaction, but it could be a very valuable tool to add to the teacher’s toolbox.”

I for one welcome a new way to interact in class besides raising hands. I suffered from a speech impediment growing up and the stigma made me interact less during university classes. Tweeting to the teacher during class would be a revolutionary way for students who suffer from similar problems to interact with the material during class.

Probably thinking he was reporting a misbehaving student, Greenbaum contacted the school and explained the situation. Six hours later, the school called back: they’d found the commenter—an employee. After they confronted him, the employee resigned.

Most of us probably have an intrinsic notion that the anonymous commenter and Greenbaum Google+Reader”>both acted inappropriately (although there was no way for Greenbaum to know he was turning in an employee and not a student)—but perhaps the more important question is whether they were acting legally.

Greenbaum, a Post-Dispatch employee, should be bound by the paper’s online privacy policy, which states:

We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information.

However, at the beginning of the policy, they stipulate that “Your IP address does not contain personally identifiable information, nor does it identify you personally.” So is that individual user information? Sounds like it’s not.

And the Post-Dispatch’s ToS is an exercise in CYA (they define “submission” to include comments):

• You automatically waive any claim that any use of such content violates any of your rights, including privacy rights, publicity rights, moral rights or any other right, including the right to approve the way we use such content.
• You are responsible for the content of all Submissions and acknowledge that third parties may hold you responsible for content related claims including libel, invasion of privacy, misappropriation of likeness and disclosure of confidential information.
• You shall indemnify, defend and hold us, our parent company and our affiliated entities (including our officers, directors, owners, agents and employees) harmless from all liability and costs incurred by those indemnified in connection with any claim arising out of any breach by you of the above representations and warranties and for any claims related to the content or your Submissions.

And, naturally, the ToS stipulates that using the site to “upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available content that is harmful to minors in any way, or that is harassing, harmful, threatening, abusive, vulgar, obscene, defamatory, libelous, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable” violates the ToS, too.

And how were Anon’s actions illegal? Well, setting aside possible obscenity charges (while legally problematic, “obscenity” is not protected under the First Amendment), the school probably also has policies—policies that dictate the use of school resources. Most likely, this comment was made on school time, from a school computer, using the school’s Internet connection. Somehow, I can’t imagine there’s a provision in the policy that allows for use of school resources for posting vulgar comments online. By violating these policies, the employee could face discipline or even termination.

What do you think? Would these policies hold up in court?

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Here is a recap of the SES Chicago posts in case you missed any:

• Meet the Web Analytics Players
• Igniting Viral Campaigns
• Keynote Speech – Rodney Dangerfield School of Search Marketing
• Keynote – Seth Godin & 14 Trends to Avoid a Meatball Sundae
• Big Site, Big Search
• Actionable Social Media
• Usability and SEO
• Are You Ignoring the Power of Images?
• Snowy & Festive at SES Chicago
• SEO and Development – Get It Together
• Personalization, User Data & Search
• Podcast and Audio Search
• Strolling the Exhibit Floor at SES Chicago
• Images and Search Engines
• Managing PPC For Multiple Clients
• So You Want to Be A Search Marketer?
• Landing Page Optimization Clinic
• Kevin Ryan Unplugged
• Do Your Keywords Account for Local Vernacular?

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Through the training program, participants can hone their adCenter knowledge for improving their campaigns. Those who wish to do so may take the adExcellence accreditation exam; US residents who have had an adCenter account for 30 days or longer are eligible to take the exam, which costs $50.

Materials in the adExcellence training program appear as Flash content. They cover six categories:

Introduction to Microsoft adCenter
Getting Started
Targeting
Tracking Ad Performance
Optimizing Ad Performance
adCenter Budgeting and Billing

Currently the course materials only appear in US English, but Microsoft plans to keep updating adExcellence with new materials and support for more regions of the world.

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