The Famundo Blog: Category School

True Stories - What made us choose Famundo

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:50:00 -0400

What made us choose Famundo as our calendar system? It was the three most important features that Famundo offered us that no other online calendar application system could;

1) Cost – as a school with a limited budget you will be well aware that anything that offers a great service for free is preferred.

2) Integration into our school website. Famundo was the only service we looked at that allowed us to embed the calendar into our website design – (and did not embed with links to external sites not suitable for children)

3) Multiple author addition. We wanted a system that allowed our office staff, headteacher and class teachers to add events themselves, and not rely on a sole user to make all changes.

Simon Widdowson

ICT Coordinator

Porchester Junior School, Nottingham, England

True Stories - Managing our carpool

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 14:14:00 -0400

We have been using Famundo to manage our carpool. There are four families involved and in the past we would get daily calls with questions about who is picking up in the morning or who is picking up after school.

We solved this problem by adding a carpool calendar to our Famundo site, with View access set to Public. Since the View access on the other items on our calendars is set to Family, only the carpool schedule is viewable by the public.

Now we set the carpool schedule over the weekend and enter the events for the upcoming week. If the schedule is the same, it is very easy to use Famundo’s Copy feature to copy events from one week to another.

Everyone else in the carpool has our public URL so they can pull up the calendar anytime they wish. We even have the phone numbers available in the events so if you need to call a driver, it is right there at your fingertips.

Here is a screen shot of our carpool calendar.

Protecting Student's Privacy Online

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:44:00 -0400

The internet is a powerful and cost-effective way to distribute information to a large group of people. This is especially true for schools. A school can post their schedule online where students and parents can get up-to-date information quickly and easily. It is hard to imagine any school not having their own website today with some sort of schedule information on it.

But there have concerns raised recently about who has access to this information. Just as this information is available for viewing by the student body, it is also viewable by those who don’t have the best of intentions. Predators can have easy access to information such as what time school gets out or where a field trip might take place.

Famundo solves this problem by providing multiple layers of permissions (5 layers to be exact) to their online calendar solution, so only those given permission have viewing access.

How does this work? A school creates a Members Group that has a single sign in and password.

This information is distributed to the student body, which can then log in to see their schedules. No one without the sign in and password would be able to view it. A new Members Group can be created every year or as often as necessary.

The default view access for events should be set for All Staff and Members Only, so that going forward, any events will only be viewable by someone who has the correct sign in and password.

For those events that you want viewable by the public, such as a concert or sporting event, can be set on the fly when creating the event.

We would love to hear from you about any ideas or suggestions on ways you have used Famundo to solve problems within your family or organization. Thank you.

Bill Gates Speech to High School Graduating Class (not)

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 22:53:22 -0500

There is an e-mail going around claiming to contain a speech given by Bill Gates to a high school graduating class. I did a little investigation and found out that it is in fact, not from a speech by Bill Gate, but rather from Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add by Charles J. Skykes.

Nevertheless, it bears repeating:

Rule 1: Life is not fair – get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

Good advice. Guess it just sound better coming from Bill Gates.

Edublog Blogroll

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Fri, 20 Oct 2006 15:11:00 -0400

I have been meaning to do this for a long time, so I thought could make this into a weekend project (as I continue to clean up the Parenting Blogroll).

So here is a start, with much more to come, our Edublog Blogroll.

Let me know if you know of any blogs that should be added.

Long Distance Learning

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 09:19:00 -0400

First it was customer service, then technical support, now your children can be tutored by someone thousands of mile away in another country.

From today’s CNETNews:

The world of Web 2.0 and the global economy have merged once again, this time to deliver online tutoring sessions that can cost less than a tank of gas (though these days, that isn’t saying much).

Read the entire article here.

The end of cursive?

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 07:27:00 -0400

There has already been a lot of dicussion in the blogisphere about an article in the Washington Post citing the demise in cursive writing among students.

The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it’s threatening to finish off longhand.

When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

And the reason for this?

Until the 1970s, penmanship was a separate daily lesson through sixth grade, said Dennis Williams, national product manager for Zaner-Bloser Handwriting, the most widely used penmanship curriculum. At its peak in the 1940s and ‘50s, most teachers insisted on as much as two hours a week, but a 2003 Vanderbilt University survey of primary-grade teachers found that most now spend 10 minutes a day or less on the subject. To adapt to this new reality, the Zaner-Bloser method has been changed to a 15-minute daily plan.

When I went to school, we were taught to write in meticulous cursive. Today I write in a combination of cursive, printing and chicken scratch, which sometimes I can barely read.

It is a good article on what may become a lost art. Read the entire article here.

Time away from the "rat race"

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 13:40:00 -0400

Well, most of your kid’s time may be structured and over-scheduled, but at least one group is urging schools to rethink recess.

From an article in today’s Wall Street Journal:

A report released yesterday by the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests that recess can foster creativity and social skills, arguing that when play is undirected, kids become resourceful in figuring out conflict resolution, negotiation and even leadership—which might not surface as naturally in an adult-structured atmosphere, when children are more likely to “acquiesce to adult rules and concerns.” The report cites academic research and includes advice for pediatricians on how to promote and recommend “free child-centered play.”

Read the article here.(subscription may be required, article is free today, October 10, 2006)

No wunder our kidz ar doing so purli in skool

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:36:00 -0400

According to the American Literacy Council, English Spelling Stardards are a Primary Cause or Illiteracy. According to the ALC, there are currently 36 million illiterate US citizens and English is the third hardest language to learn after Chinese and Japanese.

They claim that by “normalizing” English spelling, we could spend our teaching resources on other subjects such as reading, math and science. So “tough” would become “tuf”, “thought” would become “thaut” and so on.

Spelling is not a subject taught in Spain, Russia, Germany or other European countries. At least we don’t have to worry about those pesky masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns. That never made any sense to me.

There is some truth in what they say, but I’m not sure if this really to be concerned about. And could you imagine what a mess the transition would be? Have a look at the slideshow above, it should make for interesting conversation at your next cocktail party.

And I always thought it was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s fault that our kids can’t read.

Famundo for Organizations in now available!

richard.kuhlenschmidt@famundo.com (Richard Kuhlenschmidt) — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:46:00 -0400

We are very pleased to announce that Famundo for Organizations is now available and ready for you to signup.

Famundo for Organizations is designed to save you time and money by simplifying the scheduling and communications processes between you and your members.

Famundo is not only FREE for community organization, but also offers incredible fundraising opportunities. For each member of your organization that signs up as a Famundo for Families subscriber, we will donate a portion of their subscription fee back to your organization. Click here to learn more.

To learn more about Famundo for Organization, click here.

We have two hosted demos set up, one for schools and one for churches, so you can get a feel as to how Famundo can work for your organization. To view our demos, click here..

To sign up for Famundo for Organizations now, click here.

Famundo for Families is scheduled to be released by the end of July and we invite you to tell your members about it.

Famundo for Families is a great complement to Famundo for Organizations. Members of your organization will be able to subscribe to calendars and events on your organization’s Famundo calendar and have it automatically updated in their personal Famundo calendar.

Your members can signup for notification by clicking here.

To learn more about the benefits of Famundo for Families and how it works with your Famundo, click here