A generation ago, “distance learning” in Delaware referred to boys from Salesianum School and girls from Ursuline Academy and Padua Academy shuttling across Wilmington for first-period classes that weren’t offered in their own school.

Today, the concept is a bit more sophisticated and, in Delaware’s public schools, just getting off the ground.

The Red Clay Consolidated School District’s launch of distance learning, with seven classes being taught this year at the Conrad Schools of Science and Alexis I. du Pont High School, will expand by 2012-2013 to include all of the district’s high schools.

Gregory Fulkerson, education associate for world languages and international education at the state Department of Education, hopes the network will expand even more, crossing school district lines and linking buildings at the northern and southern ends of the state.

The bell rings and Barbara Prillaman greets her sociology class. Her back is to the students in her classroom at the Conrad Schools of Science, yet she clearly sees the face of everyone in the class, even the ones who are seated more than five miles away.

Prillaman doesn’t have eyes in the back of her head, nor does she have remarkable distance vision. What she does have is a teaching assignment in the first distance learning program attempted in Delaware public schools, a pioneering effort involving about 130 students at Conrad and Alexis I. du Pont High School in the Red Clay Consolidated School District.

On November 26, NASA launched an Atlas V rocket towards Mars containing Curiosity, a car sized rover which NASA claims is “the world’s most advanced scientific laboratory.” Once Curiosity makes the eight and a half month trip to the Red Planet, it will analyze surface samples to develop a better picture of the past environment on Mars – and perhaps determine if it has ever been able to support life.
Delaware State University’s Dr. Noureddine Melikechi and graduate research assistant Alissa Mezzacappa played a role in developing the technology that will be used to analyze surface samples during this latest NASA exploration of Mars.
DFM News joined Mezzacappa in DSU’s optics lab after her return from Curiosity’s launch to discuss Delaware State’s connection to the Mars mission and the unique opportunity it has provided her as a student.

Visiting the Delaware Children’s Museum (DCM) in Wilmington is one thing both kids and parents can agree on. Filled with seven hands-on exhibits, an art room, café and gift shop, the DCM strives to provide a fun educational experience in a family-friendly environment.

Located on the downtown Wilmington Riverfront, the DCM has brought in more than 215,000 visitors since its doors opened in April of 2010 – numbers that have museum officials and others involved in the riverfront feeling upbeat.

Governor Markell offers his Thanksgiving message to Delawareans, thanking state residents for the opportunity to serve them as Governor. Governor’s Weekly Message Governor Jack Markell Get the Flash Player to see this content. var params = { ‘allowfullscreen’: ‘true’, ‘allowscriptaccess’: ‘always’, ‘wmode’: ‘transparent’ }; var attributes = { ‘id’: ‘video0′, ‘name’: ‘video0′}; var flashvars = [...]

Strong holiday sales can make or break a year for retailers. The National Retail Federation (NRF) estimates that for some the holiday season can represent anywhere from 25 to 40 percent of annual sales.

The big push for those “make or break” holiday numbers traditionally begins the day after Thanksgiving – Black Friday.
But Black Friday is no longer alone on the holiday shopping calender. It’s been joined in recent years by Cyber Monday and Small Business Saturday as more and more retailers seek ways to funnel holiday shoppers to their stores and websites.

DFM News sat down with both UD Fashion and Apparel Studies professor Sharron Lennon and Jayne Armstrong, the U.S Small Business Administration’s Delaware District director, to talk at length about Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and the start of the holiday shopping season.

In laying out the UD’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request for budget-writers with the Delaware Office of Management and Budget, University of Delaware President Patrick Harker said its priorities are making an education accessible to Delaware students while alleviating the financial burden on their families, enhancing job opportunities and career competitiveness for students, conducting more outreach to southern Delaware, and stimulating job creation and growth.
According to Harker, the University of Delaware’s goals are consistent with the state’s public education strategies under its federally-funded Race to the Top improvement initiative – something budget-writers also reviewed during their Tuesday meeting in Dover when the Department of Education presented its FY ’13 budget request.

This week, the biggest shopping season of the year kicks off on Black Friday and companies around the state have been hiring employees to handle the crowds since October.

Job opportunities during the holiday shopping season can often be a harbinger of how the economy is going, and based on hiring patterns around the state and throughout the mid-Atlantic region the economic environment is a mixed bag.

“Delaware and the mid-Atlantic have been a bit slower to recover in terms of an uptick in temporary hiring,” said Todd Bevol, President and CEO of Integrity Staffing Solutions in Wilmington. But, he added, “We’re starting to see a shift. We’re getting calls from customers we haven’t heard from for some time saying they need seasonal workers and folks to fill in for vacations.”

From Afghanistan, Governor Markell discusses his trip overseas to visit Delawareans deployed is support of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.

Environmentalists applauded a decision by Delaware Gov. Jack Markell to vote against a plan to open up the Delaware River basin to natural gas drilling, saying it could represent a turning point in the heated public debate over the safety of shale gas development.

Markell’s move Thursday afternoon was followed by a statement early Friday by the Delaware River Basin Commission, an interstate regulator, that it was postponing a meeting scheduled for Monday at which commissioners were due to vote on the plan, which would lift a three-year moratorium on drilling.

Opponents of the plan to allow thousands of gas wells into the basin speculated the meeting had been canceled because Markell’s ‘No’ vote means the commission wouldn’t have enough votes to approve drilling.