Professional Development Ideas

Our school subscribes to UnitedStreaming. This connection with Google Earth is interesting. I am personnally interested in learning how these tools can help our students learn math skills. Our math scores on standardized tests are horrible. The scores are showing growth, but they are still very low. This only means we must think outside the box to reach our learners.

The challenge is to find time to retool our staff. Discovery has the right idea- Professional development is critical. I will not try to use new strategies without some idea of how to do it.


Develop Dynamic Lessons for Geography, Math, Social Studies, and Language Arts Using Google Earth and Google SketchUp!

www.unitedstreaming.com > Professional Development > Project Demonstrations

Discovery Education and Google have created a series of lesson plans that bring together unitedstreaming video and images with two of Google's products, Google Earth and Google SketchUp. Available for elementary-, middle-, and high-school classrooms, these lessons, tutorials, and demonstrations represent a unique method of incorporating digital media into the curriculum.


Project Demonstrations

www.unitedstreaming.com > Professional Development > Project Demonstrations

Visit the Project Demonstrations page to review and download sample Google Earth and Google SketchUp lessons, tutorials, and getting-started guides, as well as demonstrations of completed projects. Additional lessons and projects are available for popular educational software - e.g., creating digital stories with Adobe Premiere Elements, brainstorming activities with Inspiration, or incorporating interactive whiteboards into your classroom activities. Each project area contains lesson plans tied to state standards, examples of integration of digital media, templates, and tutorials on how to integrate unitedstreaming content.


Webinars and Webinar Workshops

www.unitedstreaming.com > Professional Development > Live Online Webinar Sessions > Webinar Workshops

You can attend complimentary webinars (30-minute Web- and phone-based tutorials) on using Google Earth, SketchUp, and other software to develop classroom projects for your curriculum. Sign up at https://discoveryed.webex.com.

Our online instructors are eager to collaborate with you to develop a customized Webinar Workshop that supports your school-based in-service. These sessions combine live online instruction with hands-on activities in your computer lab.

Choose a half- or full-day session, which give teachers ample time to create classroom projects. Participants will view multimedia examples, learn how to integrate unitedstreaming content with software they already have and use digital media to enhance student learning. Select a subject area that's right for your group.

Contact your Account Representative today at 800.323.9084 to schedule a Webinar Workshop.


Conducting a Staff Development Session? Use Interactive Training As a Pre-Requisite!

www.unitedstreaming.com > Professional Development > Interactive Training

To prepare for an upcoming staff development session on technology, have your participants complete the online Interactive Tutorial. With this engaging series of lessons, teachers can learn online at their own pace, print a certificate after successfully completing each lesson, and submit certificates and assignments to their staff development coordinator for possible continuing education credit. Each lesson is equivalent to a half-hour online and two hours offline doing related activities.

Lesson 1: Features and Navigation
Learn to use the features and resources that correlate to your curriculum, subject area, and grade level.

Lesson 2: Integration Strategies
Learn to use digital media to create multimedia lesson plans with PowerPoint and Inspiration.

Lesson 3: Differentiated Instruction
Explore ways digital media can be used to meet the diverse needs of students.

Lesson 4: Teacher Training and Technical Considerations
Examine strategies, support materials, and technical considerations for training other teachers.
http://www.unitedstreaming.com/home/newsletter/profDev.cfm

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New Version of Flock

Oh-- Man. They fixed whatever it was and I am in love with Flock 0.7.7. It works. I installed Performancing in my Firefox browser and until someone comes up with a spell checker, I am not interested in leaving Flock's blog editor.

I am testing to see if version 0.7.7 of Flock has any improved compatiblity with Blogger.

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Kick Off Fireside Chat with Preconference Keynote

   Please make plans to attend the K12 Online 2006 Unleashing the Potential Kick Off Fireside chat with Preconference Keynoter David Warlick on October 16, 2006 at 6pm EDT. This informal virtual chat will take place online using Elluminate Live software.

Here is the link for gaining access to the room:
http://tinyurl.com/rpt4a

See you there!

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Claymation Project - Week 4 - Update

This week's Friday Learning Institute here at North Whiteville Academy we continued working on claymation projects.  Students in half the groups actually captured most of their images.  One group will begin editing their presentation this coming Friday.  During next week, students will be able to take their images of their clay figures.

Student seen in this image is hard at work molding the stalk of his sunflower plant. 

This is an example of how one of our teams utilized the storyboard to check to make sure his seed clay model is the correct size.  This project requires a tremendous amount of problem solving skills.  Decissions about scale, color, sequencing, timelines.  Students that have problems following directions seem to be having the most difficulty with this project.  Basically, it requires students to focus and pay attention to lots of details.  Those students in the class that lack self-discipline, or are authoritatize defiant, make you not want to do any thing with them but worksheets...but that would like "giving up" on them.

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Our New Gecko

Morning Coffee- More Sugar Please!

Sitting here looking at my half full coffee cup, makes me think about my students. We feed them "breakfast" each morning. The milk is either sour or they do not like the cereal. It is always something. They complain about it being to cold in the rooms if the AC is on or the teacher next door is too hot. Somedays, I wish it would stop, but -- I owe, I owe, it off to work I go...(hummed to the tune of a famous family classic).

Motivating Middle School Students with Technology

I noticed at drop in the folks reading my blog that occured after I included a YouTube video clip. I am not sure if reader dropped my blog from the their reading list because I had included a video clip, or because I have not been finding the time to write. Seems the only time I deleted the YouTube clip, but hope to include student claymation project we are working on in class on my Junk EduBlog. I have to write is on Sunday morning. This morning, my mind really sparked fire when I ran across this product from the creative thinkers at Griffin Technology.

While reading an article found in iLounge The iPod Book 2.2, I followed a link to Griffin Technology's upcoming gadget for iPods: iKaraoke. I was almost read to turn the page before I remembered a resent presentation conducted by Larry Bell, national presenter, educational
consultant and author, and how he used tunes of Calendar Girl, My Girl, The Lion Sleeps Tonight, Accentuate the Positive, Oscar Mayer Weiner, The Adams Family, and Are You Sleeping to help students learn twelve words. These twelve words are critical links to students scoring better on standardized testing. They include analyze, infer, evaluate, formulate, describe, support, explain, compare, contrast, summarize and predict. I can just see a classroom full of elementary or middle school kids being throughly entertained with a teacher using their iPod and iKaraoke. Man, would that be fun. I know, you do not have to go out and buy any of this to accomplish this instructional strategy. Heck, a hair brush and anyone that can carry a tune can lead students in a chorus of The Adams Family-- if the kids know the song. But, most of our students do not know that tune. My middle school kids do not know any of the tunes Bell mentioned. In the Flat World, the author lists adaptivity as a skill that successful folks must possess in a this day and time. Well, using this iKaraoke to teach kids to know 12 words to help them score better on standardized tests has to be adaptive thinking. Maybe I am just crazy as heck. Hey, we have to use whatever it takes to motivate and engage learners.

Griffin Technology: iKaraoke - Karaoke for your iPod

technorati tags:k-12, iKaraoke, iPod, edtech, instructional, motivate

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Professional Development - Closing the Achievement Gap

The Southeast Education Alliance for Professional Development sponsored a wonderful presentation today in Wilimington, NC.  The title of the presentation was "Practical Strategies for Closing the Achievement Gap," with Larry I. Bell, National Education Consultant. 

I was simply blown away by his energy and really practical strategies.  After about the first hour, my mind began to focus on how I was going to use one of his main tools in my classroom.  I have been using Moodle in my classroom for almost two years now.  My students like Moodle activities like Hot Potatoes J Matching but they get tired of it.  I have struggled with creating reading activities that engage my students.  Mr. Bell has a reading strategy he calls "UNRAAVEL". 

Let me try to outline how I plan to initially implement this in a Moodle lesson.  I am not sure how it will work, but I will be blogging about it soon.  The first step is to find an appropriate reading passage.  This could be a challenge.  Let's say for now that I have an original story about a science concept.  More than likely, I will use materials from Wikipedia, or our textbook, it I can acquire permission from the textbook publishers.  Since I am not opening the class outside my classroom, I  am banking on traditional fair-use protection of copyrights.  Our Moodle site, WCS WebCampus

is password protected.  Anyway,  Moodle has a module called a lesson.  In the first part of the , students will first see the reading passage.  Next, they will have to complete a series of edits to the reading passage.  Finally, they will answer a multiple choice question about that passage. 

I am just in the initial thinking stage about this process, but I think it will work.

technorati tags:teaching, Moodle

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Weekly Update

This past week, my students began a project in science. Student will demonstrate knowledge of concepts of plant growth cycles. We are using clay figures and stop motion animation to illustrate the growth cycle of plants. Friday, we introduced the students to some of the tools they will be using to tell their story. We used a couple of examples of animation for them to see how animation works. They seemed to understand it. Well, it was very obvious that some of them did not get it. When we started having them complete a concept map on the four main stages of the life cycle of a plant, after watching two examples on movies, they also had a packet of images from a bean plant with diagrams of its life cycle, they had a difficult time completing the concept map. I was ready to throw up my hands. What in the world was wrong? Then it hit me, these children have never studied plants. In seven to eight years in school, they had never mastered the basic concept of the life cycle of a plant. The next challenge was to have them work in teams to create a storyboard of the life cycle. In past experiences of teaching middle school students claymation animation, I have learned that students must sketch every frame, not just four or five. If they just sketch a few of the frames, they think that when they start shooting with the digital camera, all they need are four pictures.

I did not think about it until while talking to our communications teacher that I should have passed out a pack of post-its and asked them to sketch the life cycle on the post-its. So, tomorrow, I plan to pass out the post-its and have them create a simple animation of a bouncing ball (gravity demo). I found a great example on YouTube that I would love to share with my students, but our school district blocks YouTube.com. So, to get around the block, I emailed the guy that created the movie on YouTube and convienced him to email me a copy of his animation. I will put it on a thumb drive and bootleg the file in the back door! Where there is a Will, there is a Way.

This week, students will finish their storyboards and on this coming Friday, they will begin shooting the frames. If they complete the required 30 frames. Students think that they can take their clay figure and in a couple of minutes, shot their movie. It is a process, like science, which requires critical thinking, problem solving, technology skills, and time. This process of creating claymation animation is engaging, but is enraging to kids with no attention span. We have a few students that none of their classmates want to have in their group. It is a real challenge. We spend as much time teaching the other kids in their group how to cope with class clowns and disruptive behavior as we do helping them master the science concepts. We had to have one group removed from the room. I hated it, we rearranged the initial groups, and still, the disruptors continued. The dynamics of the group changed significantly after they were removed. Maybe we need a behavior contract for our next group activity. Maybe we need to invite the parents of the kids that are misbehaving to sit in class with them.

I know we need to figure out what the root cause for their inappropriate behavior is and deal with it. I know why teachers burn out. It is not enough to prepare, plan, setup, reschedule, correlate the lesson with the Standard Course of Study, facilitate and still have to negociate with kids with behavioral issues. This is exactly why worksheets are the number one way to teach science-- IMHO!

First Day: 2006-2007

See my Tabblo>

10 PM and Ernesto is Strengthing

I just can back in from taking the dog out for his nightly walk, and man, is it rough out there. We are experiencing strong gusts here inland.

Things have changed in two hours!  Winds have been reported in Wilmington, NC to be in the 70 mph range.  My daughter is in Wilmington tonight, and called earlier, around 7 pm and said that the weather was rough, high winds and heavy rains.  The NWS reported 0ver 6 inches of rain has fallen in Wilmington.  We have received over four inches here inland in Chadbourn.

technorati tags:Ernesto

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Two Hour Delay - Public Safety is Job One

Our school district will start the school day Friday, Sept. 1, 2006, on a two hour delay. This is in anticipation of Tropic Storm Ernesto. In the era of post-Katrina politics, everyone seems to be covering our tails in royal fashion. But, this is a good thing. Mother nature is unpredictable. I sure would not want my 6 year old riding in any vehicle, school bus or family truck or car on a muddy, rain slick, dirt road after a storm like Ernesto. No, I do not have a child that young, but I remember an incidence when one of my daughters was in elementary school. The school bus she was coming home on was in a wreck. The weather conditions worsened rapidly and they had to drive in a rain/sleet storm. Luckily, she and all the other bus passengers and the car were fine. I remember being a nervous wreck as I rushed to the wreck site. No one has to tell me that schools have to do everything they can to avoid dangerous conditions.

How will this impact student learning? I am not sure, but we can basically draw a line through our lesson plans. It is not going to happen. Combine the fact that everyone is on a different schedule, teachers have to remember that children may not sleep well. When they do not sleep well, they are cranky and hyper. I over heard my high school students telling each other that they are going to... [let's say they will not be reading the Bible, if you know what I mean] because they do not have to get up as early as they usually do. Now, I hope they were just "bragging" and "running their mouth." They will not be very receptive to learning about controlled variables, the scientific method and science models. Friday morning, with a two hour delay, will make the day-- a real challenge. Any change in routine, automatically compounds disorganization. Since students will be "off their schedule", teachers have planned an alternate activity day.

On the topic of planning, I have been trying to pull together another episode of our podcast. However, this week has been filled with hours of meetings and discussion as we edit our school's improvement plan. This is a very important process for our school. We have received input from parents, teachers,

Day One - Photo

NWA welcomed our students back to school on Friday. This photo was posted using Photobucket.com. This works much faster than Flickr. I tried to email images to Flickr, tried uploading and was frustrated with my Flickr account. So, I switched quickly to my account on Photobucket, and in a snap, had the photos uploaded. I have been using Flickr for a few years, but from this experience, I am re-evaluting which of these to use as my primary service.

Fossils of new dinosaur species unearthed in China

Fossils of a new dinosaur species have been unearthed near Lingwu City in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, said experts on Saturday afternoon. Eight sauropods, or huge, long-necked herbivorous dinosaurs living in the middle Jurassic period some 160 million years ago, were unearthed in a 3,000-square meter area,

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Things That Make the Earth Go Hm

The Earth hums.... Long dismissed as "background noise" by seismologists, a new look at this constant hum is opening a window on ocean activity, providing insight into the Earth's structure that may one day be used to give advance warning of earthquakes.

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Can This Machine Rescue Physics?

When the world's biggest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, opens next year near Geneva, the focal point of the high-energy physics world will shift from U.S. soil for the first time in half a century. But America's brightest are busy devising a rescue plan.

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Classroom III Episode 1 for 2006-07 School Year

Show Notes:

Today's podcasts features a chat with Mr. Leon Dockery, mathematics teacher at North Whiteville Academy. We discuss the beginning of school and technology in our classes. We used the TuneTalk from Belkin on a 5thGen iPod Video to record this podcast.

Classroom III Podcast, August 24, 2006

technorati tags:podcast

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Classroom Tech Idea?

While trying to catch up on my Flock News aggregator's backlog of articles, I scanned across this interesting story. Our school just purchased nine new Lenovo desktops and ordered Office for each of them. My question is what will software look like in 5 years when we upgrade five or six more computers? As far as that goes, what will it look like in 5 weeks?

Teachers will be interested to know that instead of Microsoft, we may be sending our tech dollars to Google in the near future.

The guys over at TechCrunch posted this and I had to repost it. Sorry guys, you did such a great job, I could not help myself.

Google’s Writely released; will another sector be squashed?

Online ajax-rich word processor Writely began accepting new accounts today after closing registration when the company was acquired by Google in March. A number of startups who used to compete with Writely will now have to challenge Google.

Writely’s acquisition fueled talk of a Google Office suite of services, a vision made more real by the subsequent launch of Google Spreadsheets and Google Calender. A Google Drive for online storage has long been rumored to be just around the corner and analysts at Gartner have predicted that a Google PowerPoint type service will be released some time this year. (Garnter references Thumbstacks, see also Zoho Show and our coverage of both.)

Writely is collaboration friendly, can import Word documents, save to PDF, OpenOffice, Rich Text Format and zip. The system autosaves your documents every 10 seconds and offers online storage. Google Accounts will soon be used for signing in. Writely works on Mozilla based browsers and IE only.

Writely got the best review in a recent CNet round-up that goes into detail on its features and compares it to Zoho Writer (our coverage), Think Free Online and Glide Write. Other tools in this class include Rallypoint and WriteBoard.

Now that Writely is publicly available in the Google suite, do these other vendors stand a chance? They certainly may, but yesterday’s surrender from calendar company Kiko - with a nod to Google Calendar - certainly makes you wonder.

Writely

Tags: TechCrunch, Web2.0, ajax, writely, Google

technorati tags:ajax, writely, Google, Kiko, OpenOffice

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Blogging in my classroom

This week has been a busy one. Yesterday was the first day back from summer break. Today, we had our district's annual "kick-off" breakfast and day-long staff development session.

I have been trying to pick a new device to create podcasts with and finally made a decision between several really good choices. After listening to Aaron Smith's podcast using the new Belkin TuneTalk, I read reviews from the guys over at iLounge.com on them. While reading their review, they pointed to thought I wanted an Edirol R 09. Aaron's podcast showed how good the TuneTalk could work. I am not sure how high the gain was on his podcast, but it sounded fine. So, with his example and the fact that the TuneTalk has USB port to supply external power while recording, I thought the iPod video would do what I wanted it to. In addition to voice recording at a high quality than my old iPod, plus my educator's discount, I got real serious about selecting the iPod. While looking at the iPod, and articles about the TuneTalk, I started having second thoughts because after spending time creating podcasts the summer, I ran into one big issue: you need two microphones to record a conversation between two folks. If a podcast is just a TV news style interview, were the reporter basically asks his/her question off camera and the interviewee responds into the mic, the iPod works fine. So, I started looking for a way to get around this.

No one makes a device that I could find that allows two microphone to be feed into an iPod. Someone needs to build it. They need a cheap mixer so the volumes and gain levels can be controlled and then can be connected to the iPod for recording. I found that a Marantz 660 has two XLR mic jacks. I am not sure if Marantz makes them, but there is a company that ships what they call conference microphones, which are twin mics, which are perfect for a two person interview situation.

I saw a podcaster at the PodcasterCon event, that had a pro set up with a mixer and compressor, and could mic up to five panelists or performers. He ran this through a PowerBook. Ok, that is like the ultimate podcaster setup. Not realistic for my use.

Another option, the Edirol R09, was so hard to find, I gave up on it. Last weekend, I made a trip to Walmart, again, to see if they had an iPod instock. Much to my surprise, the electronic department associate I talked to told me that they had been out of them for three or four weeks and "Apple" just sent them what they wanted to, they had not control over what they got in. I smiled at the acne-faced teenager employee and thanked him for his time. Within 30 minutes from almost having an "Apple Basher" tell me how sorry the batteries are on the iPod video, I went home, got online, ordered the black iPod Video/ 30 GB, and Belkin TuneTalk. I got a confirmation the next day from Apple. The estimated ship date was initially two weeks. This made me a little disappointed. However, arriving home Wednesday, only four days later, there was a sicker on door and when I got closer to the door, the note was from the FedEx driver. I was amazed. Looking back at my email, somehow, I had overlooked another email from Apple with a FedEx shipping tracking info. The info supplied showed that the iPod has been shipped from Shanghai, China Sunday night, flew to Alaska, then Wilmington, NC and FedEx's driver had not left it in the door because no one was home to sign for it. I almost fell out of the chair. It was almost here.

I have to go this weekend to Walmart and show the Walmart clerk that on one has to "wait for Apple to ship" an iPod to Wally World. Get online and they can build it in China, ship it via FedEx and you can be watching videos by Wednesday! This is a Flat World. Walmart - you have to do a better job if you want to sell electronics! Wally World must make more profit on the Creative products. I know they have their own Walmart Music store, or did they close that?

The Belkin mic worked with my brief testing the night my iPod arrived. It occurred to me that it might be interesting to record some audio from various teachers and ask them what they did during their break, and what one thing they were looking forward to for this new school year. So, I charged up the battery on my new toy. I arrived slightly late for the breakfast that began at 8:00 am. My iPod was in my pocket. Evidently, sitting down during the breakfast, the battery ran down. Pulling it out of my pocket and punching the play button, nothing happened!

Crap. No recording during the breakfast. After the breakfast, it was time for a mad dash back to my vehicle. In the glove compartment, was my trusty iPod cigarette lighter converter. Plugging it in, the iPod powered up. Crap crap crap. Lesson learned #1- USE THE HOLD BUTTON to make sure you do not accidental turn on the iPod in you dang packet. Lesson learned #2 Allows carry a power converter. I have one for my old iPod that uses Firewire to connect to an AC wall outlet. I am not sure if the new iPod works with the firewire cable. But if it will, I have that AC adapter. Hum, got to try it. Better read the Apple Support page first to check for issues.

Have a great school year! Life is too short to be miserable.

I am looking forward to working with my students to create this year's podcast series.

Podcast Episode: Transportation Technologies Career Pathways

Check out this episode of our CCTPC podcast as we investigate the transportation technologies career pathway here in Columbus County.

Podcast Episode: Bio Ag, Build It and They Will Come

Bio Ag, Build It and They Will Come

This episode explores the Agricultural and Natural Resources Technologies career pathway featuring a special guest, Rebecca Westbooks, director of Agricultural Biotechnology at Southeastern Community College, Whiteville, NC.

• Interesting Fact #1: The North Carolina is one of the top three states in biotechnology in the United States
• Interesting Fact #2: Out of the 50 states, only California and Massachusetts rank higher than NC.
• Interesting Fact #3: NC is a worldwide BioAg leader
  
• Interesting Fact #4: Salaries in biotechnology field are very attractive. Annual salaries for entry-level technicians start at $25,000 to $30,000 and can progress to $50, 000 in five years.
• Interesting Fact #5: The NC biotechnology industry is growing 10-15% each year. At this rate, 125,000 workers will be needed by 2025.
• Interesting Fact #6: NC has more thatn 150 biotechnology companies. These companies generate about $3 billion in annual revenue and employee more than 18,500.
  
  Southeastern Community College, in Columbus County, North Carolina. We are going to explore one relatively new career pathway and course offering in the field of Agricultural Biotechnology – or BioAg. Our guest for this episode of CCTPC podcast is Rebecca Westbrooks, project director of the Agricultural Biotechnology curriculum at Southeastern Community College. She is also the lead instructor and developer of SCC’s Environmental Science Technology program. Westbrooks was awarded a Biotechnology Innovation Fund grant to develop the Agricultural Biotechnology curriculum back in 2005. The first class start(s or stated depending on when you listen to this podcast) in August 2006. Westbrooks also was awarded a grant to develop six Biotechnology course lectures for Internet delivery. She was selected to receive a full fellowship to attend the BioLink Conference “New Frontiers in Biotechnology” in Berkley, California in June 2006. She was one of 50 nationally to receive this fellowship. She has been teaching at SCC for more than 18 years and has taught for a total of 32 years. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology, and chemistry from Austin Peay State University, and a master’s degree from University of South Carolina with an interdisciplinary concentration in biology (botany), chemistry and physics. Welcome Mrs. Westbooks to our podcast.
  

technorati tags:podcast, careers, CCTPC, k-12

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Podcast Episode: Business Technologies Career Pathway

Business Technologies

This podcast features a description of the business technologies career pathway and an interview with a West Columbus High School graduate and a conversation about his career exploration.

technorati tags:pathways, k-12, podcast

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What is OPML?

This morning, I had an interesting conversation with a brilliant 8th grader.  Talk about a digital native, this child is a classic example.  Her second toy, behind a pacifier, was sitting in her dads lap and slobbering on the keyboard.  I think she preferred the taste of the keys to her baby formula.  She has already be through more cell phones than a Cingular Account Exec.  I may be overly biased in that she is my niece, but my two daughters are amazed at her tech skills.  She could transfer TV game consoles from one TV to another by the time she could walk.  I still have to call Tech Support. 

I tried to explain, in a hurry, what OPML was and why she needed to know about it.  I must have sounded like a Senate Stevens trying to explain that the Internet was a "system of tubes".  I really got lost in the description.  So, I promised to email her the "Clarence Update" version of  what  it is. 

First, what is a feed? 

A feed is a text file that contains a series of items, such as blog posts, news stories and search engine results.Feeds can come in many formats, including RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom. These formats have differences in the way a feed is described internally, but conceptually all feeds are a series of text items.

I showed her how trying to keep up with changing content on multiple web sites that school teachers can learn about how other teachers are making their classes interesting or how they are trying to deal with challenges they face in their classrooms is easier for me when I use something called and aggregator to help organize and how I can save interesting parts or post to my blog so I can learn from others and construct a better understanding for myself, she got it.  She has an ah ha moment.  She asked how could she get an aggregator, and told her I would show her the ones I had tried.  I showed her Bloglines.com for the reason that I had been using it myself for a relatively long time.  Now, I know there are tons of aggregators on the web, and I am not going to  "pimp" one over another in this post.  I'll track that one soon and try to give an educators point of view. 

The guys at Grazr.com say on their page that: "An aggregator is a program that allows you to read or view the contents of a feed. They can also be called feed readers. Most aggregators are either desktop clients, which means they must be downloaded and installed, or Web-based, so they can be run as a Web page in any browser. Grazr is an aggregator that runs on the Web, but looks like a client program in its own window. There is no installation necessary to use Grazr. When you open a Web page containing Grazr, it is automatically displayed along with its feed. 

This is good for those using blogs like WordPress, and Blogger, that I have used where I can edit the template.  However, I have a couple of blogs on James Farmer's wonderful multi-user WordPress blogs and individual users can not access the templates.  Maybe you can, but I have not figured it out.  Maybe I need to ask James or even better, search MU WordPress.  I have not tried in awhile to see if you can like add code to the template.  Got to remember to try and learn about this...

Ok, now we know what a feed is and an aggregator, we need to understand OPML. 

Multiple feeds can be combined in a outline structure using a format called OPML.  The most common use of OPML is to store a list of blog feeds as a way of publishing a set of feed subscriptions. To facilitate this practice many feed aggregators provide OPML import and export of the current subscriptions.  Now what would that mean to a classroom teacher?  Let me just tell what I have experienced.  Last year, I wanted my students to create a series of digital storys about the topics they were learning about in science.  Things like elements, cells division, water quality, and a few other projects.  We used a free program online called BubbleShare.com, and students created their projects using digital cameras, and titles to tell about the concepts.  They learn how to add audio comments, which could have been dangerous if they had wanted to be vulgar.  I made sure that they were old enough according to Bubbleshare's policy to create an account, we took a long time to discuss the ramifications of inappropriate use of school property, and used this as an ethics lessons first. 

I am not sure I would try this lesson with students under 16 years old.  Anyway, the point is that all these projects on Bubbleshare had the option of having their own feed.  So, to be able to grade their work, I taught them to email me their RSS feed and I copied and pasted them to my aggregator.  I also learned that iPhoto allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds and that was just too cool.  I still enjoy glancing at them in iPhoto.  I had hoped some of the students would continue to add images.  However, none of my students in that class owned a digital camera.  They all had cell phones, but only one of them had a camera built in.  We do not allow students to carry their phones in our school, they can have them on the bus, but not on campus. 

I plan to try to teach my students how to use aggregators at the beginning of the school year and challenge them to create folders for each of the topics they study during the semester.  We are using Moodle and the newest version has a blog feature. 

technorati tags: OPML, Moodle, Aggregators, Grazr, teaching

Will Social Software Become Another Product of "Wikialiaty"?

How many stories like this could an elected official ignore before his voters would remove him from office? Here is another "Wikialiaty" -- 'the Internet is full of evil, so let's block it.' Ironically, enough folks believe it, so it must be true. Right? Wes Fryer mentioned in his recent podcast that the current version of DOPA that was passed in the US House and is now in the Senate Trade committee, has a stipulation that Blogging is allowable in schools if the project is approved by a teacher. Fryer interviewed Jonathan and Michelle Moore about the role of Moodle in schools. This is a very good podcast and one I will listen to again. I wonder if how many schools will allow Blogging or Moodle at all if any Federal Laws are passed banning blogs like in the article below.

I think educators that are trying to use Blogs in their classroom will find that there will be a "throwing out the bathwater with the baby" of all social software in the majority of school districts if DOPA is passed into Federal Law. School Boards are not going to stick their necks out for a few early adopters for technology. It ain't going to happen. If DOPA passes, watch, teachers will not use blogs and Moodle and anything that could get them in trouble. Teachers go by the rules. They will not invest the energy to learn how to effectively include blogging strategies in their instruction. I am sorry if I sound negative, it is just reality speaking here. Educators should not fold your cards on this issue.

What will be blocked next? Should schools even have Internet access? Do we really even need computers to teach reading, (w)riting, and (A)rithmatic? Where will it stop? We all know teachers that would be just happy as a clam if they took all the computers in the school out tomorrow anyway. No it is not just the "old farts", I know beginning teachers too that never to check their email and never take their students to the lab or ask for the laptops, because it is too much trouble. The issue is out of my hands. Just interesting to follow and observe which way the politicians go with it.



Teen arrested for MySpace meet-up

Aug 1, 2006 04:17 PM

PENDER COUNTY -- The internet is a source of endless information, but it's also a place where predators can lurk, waiting to prey on underage teens and children.

Just recently authorities arrested a 19-year-old Virginia man for encounters with a 14-year-old Pender County girl.

Investigators say the two met through the popular website MySpace.

Authorities say 19-year-old Jonathan Nylen was caught red-handed having relations with an underage Pender County girl he met on the popular website MySpace. They say the relationship started in early 2006 and escaladed to the point where Nylen drove more than 300 miles to pursue the girl.

Det. Scott Lawson of the Pender County Sheriff's Office said, "He began contacting and conversing with a 14-year-old Pender County girl. Over the course of a couple of months they eventually exchanged enough information to where they met up with each other."

Authorities say Nylen drove down from his hometown of Springfield, Va. and met up with the girl on more than one occasion.

"And on one of those occasions some alleged inappropriate sexual activity took place," Det. Lawson said.

The girl's guardians did some investigating into her MySpace account and found out about the relationship. They then notified authorities who began their investigation into what kind of information was exchanged between the two through MySpace.

"I think what people don't understand is that if you type it and you save it we can access it. We can find out what you've talked about, what you've planned, what you know because someone has told you as far as who you are, where you live, or how old they may be," Det. Lawson said.

Investigators say Nylen knew the girl was 14 but pursued the relationship anyway. Now he's facing felony charges of statutory rape and first-degree kidnapping.

"He did not have, he being an adult, the right to take her anywhere, in North Carolina that's considered kidnapping."

Prosecutors in the case hope to have Nylen in front of a grand jury by next month. Until then Nylen is banned from coming to North Carolina and from having any contact with girl or anyone she knows.

Since the incident in Pender County authorities there are working to get parents more educated on protecting their children.

The Pender County Sheriff's Office now has free computer software called Computer Cop available to anyone who requests it.

The software is designed to run a scan of chats and websites visited on a computer and then flag certain hot-button words.

The software is also available if you live in New Hanover County. You can pick it software up at the Sheriff's Office, the Wilmington Police Department or the District Attorney's office. SOURCE

Colbert Analyzes Wikipedia

Over 100,000 views of this video from YouTube already. If you have not seen it take a look. Many comments are posted about how ironic this humor is and how they are offended by it, but the part I get from this is how "Wikialiaty" will impact our educational system. Education has this major issue with resistance to change. Ironically, technology can be an instrument of change in our classrooms if used for something besides an electronic worksheet. As a look forward a couple of days to the opening of a new school year, my mind tries to deal with changes and things that will never change. Knowledge and the ideas we ask our student to master has some major unchanged concepts. Like matter is made of atoms. 2000 years ago, this idea was a joke. Yet, we measure our schools on how successful we are, if we made AYP and such, based on shifting this? Wikialiaty would lead one to believe this is a valid and proper function of educational funding. If enough folks think it is the thing to do for children, then it must be a fact.

I read this today: Staff Relationships
Positive, self-motivated teachers are more receptive to good ideas and achieving than negative people—and they are more likely to work and put ideas to good use.

Therefore, when you choose a committee member, teammate, or mentor, consider attitude over experience.

Experience is very helpful, but it’s much easier to share new ideas and skills with a positive person than it is to change a negative person’s thinking.

It must be a Wikialiaty thing...

Texas Will Require Students to Complete Four Years of Science and Math: More Yee Haw for Schools

Texas Will Require Students to Complete Four Years of Science and Math

Beginning with freshmen in 2007-2008, Texas will require students to complete four years of science and math to graduate from high school. Struggling students may have the requirement reduced to three years of math and two years of science with school and parent permission. Teachers of electives concerned about their subject areas are asking state lawmakers to raise the number of elective credits for graduation. The only other state with a four-year requirement is Alabama. To read more in this online story from the Dallas Morning News, visit http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/071706dnmetrequired.1a20f17.html.

North Carolina now requires Biology, Earth/Environmental Science, and one physical science, and 4 years of math only if the potential graduate is seeking admission to the UNC system of 4-year colleges.
(4^th credit effective for first time ninth graders in 2002-2003)

Algebra I, Algebra II, Geometry, and higher level math course with Algebra II as prerequisite OR Integrated Mathematics I, II, III, and a credit beyond Integrated Mathematics III.

CAREER PREP and COLLEGE TECH PREP Course of Study Requirements in mathematics require only 3 credits. These students are on a career pathway to attend 2 year community colleges and then transfer to a 4 year college, go to work, or the military. I understand through the grapevine that some higher level talks in our state are suggesting we do away with these two less challenging pathways for graduation. This could spell trouble IMHO. I remember when our schools removed summer school programs and said it was a waste of time and money. Drop out rates remained high and students continued to fail and those that could bare the stigma and stick around for a 5th year of high school finally, sometimes by the Grace of God, somehow passed enough courses to graduate. Are our students going to be better off with more science and math courses on the high school transcript? That is a good question. Will it increase our all ready horrible track record of 9th graders never making it to graduation night? I say probably it will. I think the current requirements are challenging for our students. I could see how it would make our state's curriculum look good, but how will it impact the lives of our students? What does the research say? Is the research valid and compelling?

Lots of questions. I have no answers, and am glad I am in the classroom, not having to way this issue. It is too hot to worry about it. My gout is trying to flare up and I need to get some more work done before starting back to work the 15th of August --

Brainiac Thermite and Liquid Nitrogen

This is an interesting demonstration for my science students to view.

My Sunday Morning "Laptop Rant"

If you are reading this you must have lots of time for thinking, early on Sunday morning. In rural North Carolina, the birds are making their morning noises, and the traffic on old 74 Highway, outside my home, is peaceful. With gas at $2.98 per gallon, one would expect only those with a nicotine habit or the baby needing diapers, or a fool would be on the roads unless it was an emergency. The AC is running and the ceiling fan is on high. As I sit here reflecting on how much difference 24 hours makes, it was 97 degrees yesterday. Going to be hot as heck again today. With a nice breeze blowing and the shade of an old loblolly pine, it was almost pleasant. I convinced myself, with some loving help from my wife, to use my new Black and Decker hedge trimmer to trim four over grown Red Tips in the yard. (product placement time- wink) The hedge trimmer model I bought was battery powered. That tool must have been designed by my clone, because it has a limited run time. The moment both my arms were about to fall off, the battery began to die. Halleluiah Brother! I just smiled at my wife and said this dang battery is about dead. That was all it took. She has known me log enough to know I was so darn happy that be battery was dead. She said it would be ok to stop. My Saturday of yard work was almost finished; Black and Decker battery powered hedge trimmer-- my new best friend. I put the trimmed branches in the bed of my F150, filling it to capacity, and drove them to a brush pile on our property for composting. It was time for a cold shower and a power-nap.

My family deliberately sleeps late on Sunday. I got up early to take the dog for a walk. My arms are still weak from running that hedger the morning before. They will be sore on Monday. I need to get back in the gym. This hot weather saps my energy and I just can’t stand burning four dollars worth of gas to drive round-trip to Whiteville. It might be worth it, but for now, the heat is my excuse.

I really think watching TV depresses me way too much. All I see on TV is death and destruction on the news, violence and sassy-talk on the networks, and sex and drugs on FX, and the rest of satellite TV. If junk food can make one fat, then a diet of junk TV can make your brain fat...hum could this be is a good analogy? Basically, this is one of the issues education is in such a bad state in the US. No one has the guts to really stick there necks out and say, ok, our kids watch way to much brain junk food, they are eating to much crap and developing diabetes and other weight related maladies and we are way to spoiled. Take for example, borrowing from the words of an AP writer concerning the 10-day power outage in the Queens, New York:

City Council hearings on the blackout are scheduled for Monday, while a state Assembly hearing is scheduled for Thursday. On Saturday, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-NY, demanded an investigation of the utility's power grid capacity and infrastructure.

"It's clear we need an independent assessment of what ails the power grid before we have another blackout," the senator said in a statement.

On Friday, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-NY, toured the affected Queens streets and called the outage "a classic case of blunder after blunder."

Clinton asked the president to declare the neighborhood a disaster area, a step that could trigger federal aid.

Officials working for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who resisted taking that move, said they don't believe the aftermath of the blackout meets federal criteria for a disaster.

New York Gov. George Pataki asked the federal government to offer low-interest disaster loans to Queens residents who suffered heavy losses.

By watching and listening to news from that region, you would have thought they had been hit by a terrorist attack. Special news bulletins, speeches from the mayor, hello, the flipping power grid broke and it takes time to fix it. Federal Disaster? PLEASE, it's a potential scam artist epidemic.

When North Carolina citizens were hit by hurricanes, and the power was off for nearly 15 days, folks just shook their heads and said thank God we are alive. I was appalled by the way folks that were interviewed in the Queens area and were asked how much business they lost during the power outage and one restaurant owner had the gall to try to say he lost $40,000 in business. Ah, from the looks of the diner, he would be lucky to have $40,000 of business in a whole year. Well it isn't a New Yorker thing, do not misunderstand what I am trying to say. Just look at all the reports of those Katrina scams. They are enough to make a taxpayer throw their hands up and demand that the next natural disaster, just let the victims fend for themselves. What is wrong with PEOPLE? This same mentality spills over into our schools.

IMHO, we are in deep poop and not a whole heck of a lot we can do to dig out of it in a hurry...PEACE

The 100 science fiction books you just have to read!

Looking for something to do before school starts back? Tired of watching the crap on TV- re-runs and talk about a possible WWIII and the junk on YouTube?
READ!!!
Here is good place to start.
"Take my word for it; all science fiction books are not created equal. Many of these novels are award winners, and most have inspired profound trends in science fiction."

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Jellyfish swam N.C. shoreline

My daughter is visiting friends at the beach.  I hope she does not get stung. 

Here is what to watch for: (I know she is not reading this but, it makes me feel better)

CAROLINA BEACH -- Biologists at the Fort Fisher Aquarium say the recent tropical storm may be to blame for an over-abundance of jellyfish in local waters.

Several people are recovering Thursday from painful stings they got at Carolina Beach.

They're fun to see all lit up in an aquarium tank, but you don't want to run into jellyfish out in open water. Unfortunately our shore is seeing a spike in jellyfish numbers.

Fort Fisher aquarist Sandra Johnson said, "The recent tropical storm and other storms we might have during the summer just increases the wind speed, and jellies are dependent on winds and currents, so that pushes them ashore."  Source: WWAYTV3.com webpage.

technorati tags: environmental

Informal Mentoring- Writing Your First Pacing Guide

Time is flying by during this summer break from teaching.

This week, a second year 6th grade science teacher asked an interesting question of me. How do I know what to teach so I can cover our standard course of study? That was an easy one of me to handle. Pacing Guides are what teacher calls them. My brother is an engineer and tells me they call it project management. I do not think this 6th grade teacher would want to devote the energy create a spreadsheet or database to track progress in his class. He knows how to check his email, make a CD play music on a computer, and how to search the web to find out who to call to book a goose hunting trip half way across the US. I do not mean anything ugly by this, he just does not have time to sit in front of a computer and click a bunch of boxes to keep up with data. Heck, there are not very many teachers that want to spend that kind of time on progress reporting. Electronic grade books are nice when it comes to printing out progress reports and averaging columns of grades. But it takes hours to set the preferences and enter assignments and then go back in and update the grades...

Personally, I hate electronic grade book programs. We are required to put numerical values on student assignments, heck it is the law. But, the law does not say you have to use electronic grade books- yet. I prefer portfolio assessments, but back to the pacing guide. I told him to get his teacher's edition and drop by the house and we would do some planning.

Over the past 20 years, I have made many many pacing guides. There are a few tricks that I have learned about hacking out these roadmaps to success. Now, these tips are not the only way to attempt them, they are straight from my thoughts. No, I not a PhD and do not play one on TV.

Materials needed for creating your own pacing guide for your 6th grade science class:
Computer, word processing program, printer and paper, photocopy machine, plastic tape and scissors, School Calendar, and testing schedule, length of class period devoted to science. This is important. If your school teaches science all year, which is best in humble opinion, or like some schools that teach science half the school year and social studies the rest of the year, this means you have to compress or layer the curriculum. Photocopy of National Standards and State Standard (in North Carolina, we call it our Standard Course of Study), If you have access to different colors of photocopy paper, copy the National Standards in a different color from you State or local standards. Teacher's Ancillaries- Textbook, lab manuals and test banks. Get a large 2 liter Diet Sundrop and some ice. Oh, get a couple of cups, clear off a big table, and adjust the AC to make sure the room is comfy. Turn off the darn cell phones and turn on some classical music. I don't care if you do like Country; it is not the time for that. Make sure your chair is comfortable not too comfortable- no napping allowed. I like to use a large flip chart and easel with chart markers. I take the flip chart sheet and fold it in to six equally sized columns. If your school uses 9 week grading periods, you can figure out how many columns you will need...anyway, now the environmental conditions are ready, lets looks at some steps to create our pacing guide.

Step 1: Rough Draft - Calendar/Dates Framework
Using the calendar, write in the dates that the grading periods begin and end on your flip chart. Now, use the teacher’s edition. Most textbook publishers, include a number of days it takes to cover specific chapters in your text. This is not a "written in stone" number. It is only a guide. Seasoned science teachers can tell you that you cannot teach rocks and minerals to 6th graders in a week. But if you spend six weeks on them, you will never cover the curriculum. Use a pencil and write in the number of days the teacher's edition recommends devoting to the chapters on rock, motion, etc.


Step 2: Correlation of Curriculum and textbook
Now, if you do not have a correlation between your textbook and your standard course of study, you have several avenues to try. Contact the textbook coordinator (your assistant principal if he/she is working in the summer, most are 10 month employees and you will not find them). Contact the principal of your school. If you can find the email address or website for your textbook see if they have free ones for your state. You could ask the teacher down the hall (but they are working at Wal-Mart or home working in their garden or in school getting certified). Don't panic, do what I do, just google it! Use enough keywords to narrow your search, like include words like 6th grade, science curriculum, and pacing guide, North Carolina. It worked great to find a Word document in just a few seconds. Dang, I love the Internet. Remember, it is only a "guide". You could make your own, but believe me, this is going to take hours and hours to complete.

Step 3: Cut and Paste
Cut your standard course of study into strips and lay them on the chart paper. Basically, it is time to cut and paste the curriculum on the chart paper to give you an idea of what it will look like at a glance. Using the correlation document, and the textbook's suggested amount of time it takes to instruct and access specific goals and objectives decide where it could fit. Write in the page and Chapter numbers on the chart paper next to the objectives.

Step 4: Tape it to the chart paper
So you can fold it up, tape everything down. Put up you work and let it rest a couple of days.

Step 5: Revision Time
Use the chart paper and the info you have (rough draft) and create a document from your work so far. If you have access to a digital document of the curriculum, you are going to be ahead of the game. Copy and paste it into your document. Be sure to include the National standards too. If you have a fellow science teacher that is teaching the same grade level, this is when you could email them a copy of what you have done and ask them to edit the number of days (keep an original). Again, this is something that you will be changing as you write your lesson plans and access student's mastery of the topics. You need time to reteach some lessons. Check to make sure you have included all the objectives and not left anything out! If you can not find an objective that is in your standard course of study in your textbook, you have to find lesson and activities that correlate with them. North Carolina has a site called LEARNNC.org that has correlated lesson plans.

Step 6: Publish it
Ok, after you have gone through all the goals and objectives, recorded the number of days to spend of them, and even pages numbers and chapters, and it has been checked by a couple of teachers that have experience teaching the subject and grade level, you may want to print out a copy and insert it in a three ring binder. Keep this notebook near your lesson planner. Revise, rewrite and revise again. One thing you might try is to set up a free wiki page at somewhere like Pbwiki or Wikispace. Then envite teachers that you know to contribute to the version during the school year. Posting links to online resources right in a pacing guide would be a great resource.

Well, time to sign off. This is a tough job, but teachers only work from 8-3 and have "all summer off". Yeah right.

John Edwards is Using Bittorrent

John Edwards, one of the democratic Presidential candidates in 2004, and likely to run for President again in 2008, is using bittorrent to spread his campaign stuff. Now this is an interesting use of the technology that has been blocked by many school districts to prevent the illegal swapping of all types of videos and MP3 (music) files.

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N.C. lawmakers approve $18.9 billion budget

07-06-06 NCAE "HOTLINE" for Thursday, July 6, 2006

Take Action!
BUDGET ENACTED!

NCAE “HOTLINE” for Thursday, July 6, 2006

The House and Senate passed the conference report for the state budget this afternoon on third reading. The House passed the budget bill on a vote of 82-31, while in the Senate the vote was 31-15.

Some of the highlights of the budget bill are as follows:
Teacher Salary Schedules

The budget provides all teachers with an additional salary increase of $2,250 per step. As a result of these step increases, teachers will receive on average an 8.23% pay increase in 2006-07. Salary increase ranges from 6.45% for teachers moving from 28 to 29 years of service to 14.05% for teachers moving from 2 to 3 years of service. Salary schedules will be posted on the web at www.ncae.org early next week.

School Based Administrator Salary Schedules

The budget also provides assistant principals and principals with a recurring salary increase, which, when combined with a step increase provides on average a 7% overall pay increase in 2006-07. The proposed salary schedule can be found on the DPI web site at the following location: www.ncpublicschools.org/fbs/ under “What’s New.”

Non-certified Personnel Salaries
The budget provides a salary increase of 5.5% and guarantees that no 12-month State paid non-certified employee will be paid less than $20,112 per year.

Bonuses for Certified Personnel at Top of Range
Provides one-time lump sum bonus of 2% to school based administrators at the top of their respective pay schedules.


Another victory for NCAE was the transfer of the North Carolina Teacher Academy to auspices of the State Board of Education. The transfer means the Teacher Academy will retain its autonomous, teacher-led board of trustees. NCAE would like to applaud Governor Mike Easley, for his continued leadership on getting North Carolina on track toward the “national average” in teacher salaries.

NCAE will post the Roll Call vote on the budget early next week. We would like to encourage our membership to send thank you emails to their member of the House or Senate for supporting a budget that really addresses the needs of recruiting and retaining teachers.

This is good news for our hard working teachers and state employees. A fellow educator

While surfing the net, I ran across this in Teacher Magazine and found it a striking reason why teacher's pay is important even if folks somehow play it down as a reason for leaving education. All I can say is that I had a similar experience during my student teaching and vowed never to teach...that was a decission I regret now as many of my fellow college and high school friends are reaching the time they can retire and I still have 9 more years. Katie...get a grip on reality. Do not fight the urge. Just do it! Read on...Katie from Tiny Nose. Big Heart. revels in her decision to leave teaching. But, much as she is enjoying her new life, teaching apparently hasn't entirely left her.

I miss having the identity and moment-to-moment thought processes of being a teacher. I find myself reading while at the gym and thinking, "Oh, I ought to share this passage with my students. It offers a perfect illlustration of literary allusion," or "Wow, this song contains great examples of well chosen adverbs." I definitely get a little bummed out when I think that I'll never get to share these tiny wonders with my very own students again.

Why is it always the good ones who leave?

Curiously, Katie finds her ability to remember dreams has returned. Like this one:

In my dream, I received a memo informing me and the rest of the school staff that teachers who did not drive HUMMERS or at least Lincoln Navigators were no longer allowed to park in the school parking lot.

Dreams. The stuff nightmares are made of.

technorati tags: Teaching

'Morning After' Sunburn Cream Could Prevent Cancer

The "morning after" lotion is called Dimericine. Dimericine is basically an enzyme cream that repairs the skin's damaged DNA. The body does this process naturally, but this cream would significantly speed it up. My family is heading for a day at the lake. July 4th, if it does not pour down rain, usually means time on the pier and a sun burn. Mowing grass in the summer is another time I expose my ashy white skin to the cancer causing rays from the Sun. May stories about how sunscreens do not protect us from the damage of too much Sun have been written these past few months. Maybe I need to check into some of this 'Morning After' cream. Chances are that the cost of it may be prohibitive on a school teachers salary. Wonder if our State Teacher's health insurance would cover the costs. Probably would cost full price since it may not have "generic" brand available. Makes me want to keep the laptop running inside with the AC on. But, it is the Fourth of July and time to party. Life is short. Time to have a little fun. Just got to remember to sit in the shade.

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Microsoft demos Vista on a MacBook Pro

"No, this isn't some marketing goof up, where Windows is superimposed over a piece of Apple hardware with the logo removed. Microsoft actully loaded Windows Vista on a piece of Mac hardware and presented with it."
Ok, I know this may not seem revolutionary to educational readers at first glance. However, I would love to have Apple computers that would run on our Novell network for our students to use. It will be interesting to see how schools react to this "blending" of operating systems. I have x dollars budgeted for technology, and probably will not ever have enough money to buy a new computers to replace our old desktop PCs. I hope Apple comes out with a new eMac that will run XP or Vista.

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Half of all Elementary School Teachers Admit to Bullying Students

In a recent survey, nearly half of all Elementary School Teachers Admitted to bullying students, some link it to teacher's past experience of being bullied when they were young

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Full Dodo bird skeleton found

This is a big find for scientists who wish to study the flightless bird that went extinct sometime in the 17th century. The last full set of bones was destroyed in a museum fire in Oxford, England, in 1755. Cool science story.

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Apple has another Grand Opening in the Triangle

Grand Opening
Originally uploaded by The Blake Slate.

My daughter, Laura, called me on her cell phone today and ask me to guess where she was. I knew she must be in line at the Apple store in Crabtree Mall. I emailed her this week to remind her about the exciting event. It is really exciting to my daughter because she can walk from her apartment complex to the mall there in Raleigh.

She sent me 6 photos on her SideKick cellphone. This is my favorite.

Computer Lab or PC Graveyard?

remoteImage.jpg
Originally uploaded by teach42.

These are too funny. Best thing to do is throw them out that nice window. No, not really, but what a nice view. Had to say something positive.

I am sure the better computers are on the desks of the employees, right? Can someone from IT please report to this room?

Pluto's Newest Moons Named Hydra and Nix

The International Astronomical Union has officially christened Pluto's two newest satellites Nix and Hydra.

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Fish oil 'calms children better than Ritalin'

A daily dose of fish oil is better at treating hyperactivity than Ritalin - the 'chemical cosh' linked to the deaths of children, stunning research has revealed.

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Playing for Dinner

Father's Day at the lake. The turkey as deep dried and was a real hit. Almost as good as the Bluegrass music picked by my brother, his son, and me.

How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, And Why

So all my childs [must have skipped English class alot...it should be child's instead of childs. That's the teacher in me, wink wink] problems with learning and behavior come from the boredom of being schooled (imprisioned) for the first 12 years of his life?

The article is interesting, however the most engaging part of this Digg article has been the online comments generated by the "Digg-nation". Some comments really hit the issue of our public education on the nose. Others supported the various agendas present in all public debates of education. Some how, none of the contributors had any solutions. Funny how that works. I have a supportive administration that asks one thing from classroom teachers when we have a complaint - come up with a workable solution. If not, shut-up and teach. It works for me most of the time.

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Liquid Nitorgen + Swimming Pool = Awesome!

Ever wonder what happens when you dump a bucket of liquid nitrogen into a swimming pool? This is a good science demonstration.

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Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day
Originally uploaded by The Blake Slate.

Two lazy dogs.

Choosing Boot Camp or Parallels to Run Windows on an Apple MacBook

This article is an overview and comparison of two alternatives for running Windows on an Intel based Apple MacBook: Parallels or Boot Camp, which to choose? Pictures, benchmarks and video are included to demonstrate each Windows on a Mac solution.

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Google releases SketchUp for Mac OS X

Looking for some good summer fun? Check this out: Google has also kicked out a Mac OS X version of their recently-purchased SketchUp, a 3D modeling app for the masses.

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Computer Skills- "Ice Skating Over a Pond"

In reading this morning, I came across a blog entry over on Haulin' 'Net 2006
The Technology and Learning BlogView of Joseph Richard Poletti, updated: Fri, Jun 2 2006 7:15 PM, entitled "Ice Skating Over the Pond". The post discusses 21st Century Skills as they were topic of one of their recent technology meetings. Joe linked to a site that Larry V., a K-3 media coordinator, shared with the participants:
Mankato Technology and Information Benchmarks. These benchmarks are age appropriate and best of all relevant and clearly stated. Joe says they are "do-able".

I know one thing from working with our students this past year- lots of things are "do-able". They must first of all be relevant. That is a powerful and critical concept. If one wants to teach students from low-wealth homes how to use a digital camera, one need not ask the student to photograph the life cycle of a caterpillar. Instead, have them photograph their friends at school. My students found this activity very engaging.

Lisa R., Joe's middle school tech facilitator, shared that "ice skate over the pond of true education", and it appears we have the same kids. At least we have the same view of

Of course, technology has changed even if the basic skills we want to see in students have not. I find that students pick up the skills of technology rather quickly; itÂ’s the critical thinking required to know when and how to use the technology that is lacking.

I could not find Lisa's email address on her blog so, I hope she does not mind me quoting her insight on this issue. My students do not want to use critial thinking. Is it an issue of age appropriateness, relevance, or what? I do not have answers, but I have lots of questions.

Webcast Academy

This morning, I woke up and set up my laptop to run Skype. I then logged into Webcast Academy to participate in their webcast. The Academy is a hands on, collaborative training center for people interested in learning how to produce and host live, interactive webcasts. Jeff Flynn hosted the 6 am to 9 am part of the weekend's massive three day Webcastathon to celebrate their 1 year anniversary! It was my first experience using Skype. I was fairly frustrated with the numerous dropped signals that we experienced using Skype. Jeff quickly reconnected our conference call. I found out during our chat that we have shared experiences. Jeff has served as a special educator and while in college during the 70's, we also took a class that used computer punch-cards. Our conversation touched on a some additional points- Moodle, Joomla, and 2nd Life.

Moodle is something that my students have experienced this year. My students that are reading below grade level struggle with just following the simplest directions in Moodle. Many lack computer skills on the level needed to find files, upload files, and are challenged to even use the keyboard. The sad part is my students are in high school. Moodle works well with average students and above, however, without spending hours and hours of prep time creating visual content for the students that do not have the pre-requisite skill set, I am not recommending it. Sure, call me lazy, but teachers have to use technology that is appropriate for the learning style of the learner. If they are verbal student, they are frustrated and shut down real fast. My students enjoy using Hot Potato to create their own quizzes. Moodle does not fix student's lack of computer skills and does not provide them with the self-motivation. I can create all the Flash animations and podcasts, but if they are high on drugs when they come to class, or stayed out all night with their fellow gang members, not that my students are in gangs (yeah right) they have given up on themselves long ago. I like what Jeff Flynn said this morning when he told me that he did not miss working with this aged students. Maybe I should think about going back to take some classes in elementary education. My wife is an elementary school media specialist. She tells me all the time about how 4th graders seem to quit reading and appear to be suffering from the same problems that high school senior have. I am concerned that greater emphase on testing will only make the problem more challenging.

Joomla, is something that I am learning how to use. Jeff asked what I liked about Joomla, and I could not think that fast in that early in the morning. However, the feature that I like in Joomla is the template feature. Sure, I can change the template on our Moodle site, but the deign community for Joomla seems to have some neat designs. Also, Joomla looks more like a commerical site. I am not sure why, but it just has this look.

2nd Life-- my thoughts on using Second Life in the classroom are still washing around in my head. I can see the attraction, but I am not sure how to sell this to my fellow teacher. I am in an interesting position that my school's principal actually came to me with the idea to check out how games could be used to address the learning issues of alternative school students. She has listened to Marc Prensky and asked me to check into how we might tap the critical thinking potential of the gaming environment. I am not a gamer, but hey, if I can interest my students in learning about the environmental issues, or energy transfer through the biosphere, I am all for it. My problem is not that I am too lazy to explore it, I just have issues with devoting hours of my personal time at home, outside the work day to learn about something that may be out of style or old school before I can find out how to use it without my wife leaving me because I am "playing with my laptop" all the time. Bottom line, my 1st life is more important to me than my 2nd Life-- In this morning's webcast, one of the participants, I think it was Jo McLeay http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com/ questioned if we really need another "addiction"? Addiction is a good word for what I witness with my students that are avid gamers. Not that there is any thing wrong with them, lots of folks function in life with all sorts of issues. I just do not want to miss a chance to help my students learn in an interesting and engaging way. So, I plan to try to keep my eyes on sites like 2nd Life and the sort to see what happens.

What might we do to introduce a virus into MySpac"z"?

David Warlick posted an article about teachers reading student's MySpac"z". Well, yesterday, while walking around my classroom, I paused to monitor the conversation of a cooperative learning group. Student were preparing their storyboard for my science class. They had not managed their time well, and I was concerned that they had not submitted their script. They realized, the time needed face-to-face and pulled out their cellphones and made themselves memos of what time they would be online that evening so they could work through their script before coming to class today. They actually are using instant messanger, cellphone, and posting the rough draft and making corrections on the movie script on MySpacz. How do I know they are, because they are back on schedule with their project. They told me they worked on the project until 1 am this morning. No telling hour fast they could have gotten the same task done in class, but that is not the point. Students have their own reality or lack-of and are learning to manage their time. I can see this group of students doing the same things that my daughter that works for SAS Institute-- they work, and go home and work. They are doing what it takes to accomplish the task, to reach their goal. That is what I think I teach that is the most important skill. They will not remember the chemical forumla for caffeine or the difference between the law of superposition and law of faunal succession, but this is why I teach. It is what makes me tie my shoe laces and put up with all the bad behavior and kids that think school is boring. I just smile and remember that we have to focus on the positives.

I know "MySpacz" is blocked in my school district, but students understand why and use their face-to-face class time for brainstorming, and asking questions. I do not know the url for my student's MySpacz site, and it is not cool for teachers to ask... Some of students in Whiteville, NC are IMHO-- digital natives.

Scientists Discover a Massive Blue Whale Colony

"What we are seeing is one of the biggest feeding and breeding sources, at least in the southern hemisphere"

This is a neat story to share with our students. When we teach conservation and rant about saving the whales, it is interesting when facts like this are discovered. Our students need to know that science is not just a bunch of facts that are all true and never change. While reading this article on the Blue Whales and Humpbacks, the writer reports scientists did not know about this colony, because it does not migrate away from the waters in the southern hemisphere. The big question is will world whale hunters, now locate this colony and harvest them? Maybe they already have? Lots of questions to make my students think.

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Estuary Live - Activity

While students viewed this week's EstuaryLIVE streaming broadcast online, students were asked to sketch the animals they liked.

Estuary Live - Activity

This past week, we have been participating in a great virtual field trip - EstuaryLive (EL). My students have been very polite and watched the streaming videos. Well, some watched, and some actually slept. I hate that our culture of students that have been raised by years of VCR babysitters. Their brains are programmed so that when their "caretaker" put them on the floor in front of a TV with a wrestling, horror movie, Soap-opera, or what ever movie they rented from the video store is playing and go to sleep or sit passively. Their dendrites switch to the "dead" position when a video or movie is on.

Tomorrow, we are going to have them work with screen grabs we took while the streaming video from EstuaryLive's broadcast and use them to create digital stories or PowerPoint presentations to tell about the topics covered during the numerous sessions on EL.

We live less than 50 minutes from the beach here in North Carolina, yet my students do not know about any of the topics. So, as a follow-up activity, we are planning to take a real field trip to the beach. More later.