By Julianna Parker
The Transcript

NORMAN, Okla.

One University of Oklahoma staff member recently participated in an international leadership summit in Tokyo.
Chris Howard, vice president for Strategic and Leadership Initiatives, spent Friday through Sunday sitting across from tribal leaders from Pakistan, investment bankers from Tokyo and activists from India, among others.
“It was just a phenomenal cross section of civil society,” Howard said in a phone interview Wednesday.

CNHI News Service

WINDHAM, N. H. — Every student at the new high school in this upscale town will be issued a laptop computer when the school opens next fall. And teachers will post lessons and give tests online.

"We need to start teaching the way kids learn," said Terry Bullard, the school system's technology director.

Young people, she said, are digital-age multitaskers who listen to music, text message, talk on cell phones and do homework on their personal computers simultaneously.

By Daniel Suddeath
The Tribune

NEW ALBANY, Ind.

Southern Indiana faces economic challenges next year, including job loss and decreased retail sales, financial experts said Tuesday.

Forecasters at the 2009 Economic Outlook breakfast held at Indiana University Southeast in New Albany said there could be light at the end of the tunnel despite these bleak predictions.

By CNHI News Service

GLOUCESTER, Mass. -- Public elementary schools here are scrapping the traditional letter-grade report card in an effort to end student and parent obsession with As and Bs.

Replacing it in December will be a 1-through-4 point system tied strictly to skill standards set by the state for different subjects.

Superintendent Christopher Farmer called the standards-based report card a "quiet revolution" in education.

By Joe Hornaday
Greensburg Daily News

GREENSBURG, Ind.

When a Honda Civic Sedan begins construction on the assembly line at the new Honda Manufacturing of Indiana (HMIN) factory in Greensburg, it hardly resembles the car it will become.