Source of the Day:
StumbleUpon.com - If you're anything like me, there have been times that you've been surfing the glories of the world wide web when suddenly that surfboard under your feet hits a big ol' rock wall. What do you look at? Or even FOR? Googling only gets you so far, and Bing may be a more precise search engine, but either one only ever gets you exactly what you search for.
Enter StumbleUpon. On your arrival you create a username and password and are given a very small tutorial of what this website is actually about: recommending other pages and websites according to your interests. You can "follow" certain topics of interest (poetry, writing, gadgets, video games, animation, space exploration, on and on and on), get connected with other related topics, friends, and other people with the same interests. All who share websites and recommend things to see, read, and watch videos about. You can save your favorites for later, and StumbleUpon starts to recommend things that might peak that surfboard into motion again.
Gawker.com - Along the same lines as Stumble, Gawker makes your life a little easier with easy to find links to other blogs and websites according to your interests! Merely visit the Latest Tab to find the newest categories of different common interest. If CraftGawker isn't your thing, try DwellingGawker for design, FoodGawker (a favorite of mine), WeddingGawker, or visit the Gawkerverse to see the latest entries on all categories they maintain, and a link to all the specific pages. Love this for craft ideas and recipes!
September 26, 2012
September 14, 2012
Couple Neat Do-Dads
Surfing the great waves of the net I've found a couple resources to share with you all in an unofficial blog post. No great stories to share today, but I hope you find these links helpful!
Source of the Day
For those of you in early education (or just with hard-to-settle children in your lives) I've found a good solution to time-out tantrums and timer dilemmas. The Relax-Bottle Time-Out Timer created by this blogging stay-at-home mom solves a lot of issues that can come up with little kids facing the inevitable punishments of youth. Step-by-step instructions show you how to create a bottle that will not only focus their attention enough to alleviate a tantrum conundrum that prevents focus on why they're there in the first place, it can also become your timer for said period of incarceration. With nothing but an empty plastic bottle, glitter glue and water you can solve some pretty outstanding fit-throwers that come your way.
And for you secondary education majors that think you will never have any use at all in your life for the above link (*snerk* fat chance.) a morsel for you as well. Let me introduce you to the wonderful mind of Don McMillan. Mr. McMillan is a comic. One who does PowerPoint presentations. If you've seen his work, you understand the correlation. If not, then enjoy. I've used his YouTube videos to introduce the Do's and Don'ts of PowerPoint design to high school students that I've taught in the past. The why is obvious. Lecture all you want on your requirements to your students, someone somewhere will forget every word you've just said. But if you can show them the mistakes in action and make them laugh while you do, they'll sit up and pay attention. There are several versions and updates to his videos on this, some 5 mins, others about 10 mins, and some aren't exactly school appropriate, but the ones that are are worth it. I've included one that's relatively classroom safe right here, but use your own judgment. Enjoy!
Source of the Day
And for you secondary education majors that think you will never have any use at all in your life for the above link (*snerk* fat chance.) a morsel for you as well. Let me introduce you to the wonderful mind of Don McMillan. Mr. McMillan is a comic. One who does PowerPoint presentations. If you've seen his work, you understand the correlation. If not, then enjoy. I've used his YouTube videos to introduce the Do's and Don'ts of PowerPoint design to high school students that I've taught in the past. The why is obvious. Lecture all you want on your requirements to your students, someone somewhere will forget every word you've just said. But if you can show them the mistakes in action and make them laugh while you do, they'll sit up and pay attention. There are several versions and updates to his videos on this, some 5 mins, others about 10 mins, and some aren't exactly school appropriate, but the ones that are are worth it. I've included one that's relatively classroom safe right here, but use your own judgment. Enjoy!
September 11, 2012
Two More for the Blog Roll
Stare at a blank piece of paper long enough and you may see dots. This syndrome is a common affliction of writers, a struggle for students, and a downright pain in the arse roadblock for student teachers. I went through it. Everyone I know went through it. And you will, too. You will get caught up in the teaching standards. You will wonder how to connect two completely unrelated lessons. You will wish you had a curriculum of your own already set up and the more ambitious of you will try and figure out in your head exactly what that unit of lessons would be like if you were at the helm rather than your cooperating teacher. You will go bald by the end of the semester trying to relate, rethink, and rewrite the lessons, only to have your students send you on a roller coaster of successful days that prove you were right to chose your field and days that make you want to quit altogether. This is normal in your new found role as a student teacher.
However, there are things that you can do to save yourself some gray hairs and nights sometimes nearly in tears. My biggest frustration when I went through my student teaching was the lesson itself. I tried too hard to come up with new content, things that people hadn't seen before, and to make it absolutely perfect and flawless. I repeatedly forgot to respect the existence of Murphy's Law. Things don't go perfect. Even when you're at the end of the student teaching experience and you start to think "FINALLY, I've got this", you go out into the field proud of yourself, step into the role of a substitute teacher, and if your first day will be anything like mine was, by the end of the day you think "what have I done to myself". It's a factor that happens because you forget that you are green and inexperienced. You forget that you were given basic tools, but that you still aren't practiced in putting them all together. That's where I hope to come in.
Your lesson plans will be your first hurdle. Focus on them. Forget the writing and the standards, come up with your content with them in the back of your brain as you go, and start drawing rough lists of your process and procedure. Bullet point your steps, and if you are doing a demonstration (as I so often had to do as an Art Ed major) DO THE PROJECT YOURSELF BEFORE YOU EVER WRITE THE LESSON. You will inherently do the project much faster than your students because, let's face it, they're kids. Time yourself to completion and add extra time to complete for the younger and younger the kids are, yes, even for teens.
As for content, don't sweat not coming up with something completely original. Most people don't. Trust the tried and true teachers and focus on getting your practice in. That's what student teaching is for. Look online for lessons, or ask your cooperating teachers for lessons of theirs to look over for inspiration. They are there to help. It is no sin to take a lesson offline and put a twist of your own on it. These are written and offered by teachers who have tested them (let's face it, who else would voluntarily write a lesson plan if they didn't have to) for others to use and learn from. Take advantage of it.
As far as content, I can recommend two sources I've recently found to help the random thoughts and information floating in your head to come together. I'll try and share a new link review or blog with each new post from now on in my "Source of the Day".
The Learning Network - Sponsored and written by the New York Times, this website seemed to have quite a bit going for it. It was a bit dry in reading but when put to the test, it was a wealth of information feeds, lesson plan suggestions on all different types of subjects, and news stories in addition that can be easily accessed as continually feeding posts to keep you updated on recent events going on in the world. Use this either for current lesson subject, research for your own lesson plans, or just to keep your students updated on what's going on. Teenagers rarely ever read or watch the news voluntarily themselves. Keep them abreast of what's going on if you can. It makes what you're teaching all that more relevant to them if they know it's not ancient history.
The Cool Cat Teacher Blog - The subtitle of this page reads "Teaching students with new tools, enthusiasm, and belief that teaching is a noble calling", and it certainly delivers. It is written by a full time teacher to introduce new concepts, new ways of reaching students, and advice to parents, teachers and students alike. Please, do not miss this blog. Mrs. Vicki Davis
is already putting into action technology in her classroom. Read her bio and I know you will agree, this woman is someone you want to connect with.
However, there are things that you can do to save yourself some gray hairs and nights sometimes nearly in tears. My biggest frustration when I went through my student teaching was the lesson itself. I tried too hard to come up with new content, things that people hadn't seen before, and to make it absolutely perfect and flawless. I repeatedly forgot to respect the existence of Murphy's Law. Things don't go perfect. Even when you're at the end of the student teaching experience and you start to think "FINALLY, I've got this", you go out into the field proud of yourself, step into the role of a substitute teacher, and if your first day will be anything like mine was, by the end of the day you think "what have I done to myself". It's a factor that happens because you forget that you are green and inexperienced. You forget that you were given basic tools, but that you still aren't practiced in putting them all together. That's where I hope to come in.
Your lesson plans will be your first hurdle. Focus on them. Forget the writing and the standards, come up with your content with them in the back of your brain as you go, and start drawing rough lists of your process and procedure. Bullet point your steps, and if you are doing a demonstration (as I so often had to do as an Art Ed major) DO THE PROJECT YOURSELF BEFORE YOU EVER WRITE THE LESSON. You will inherently do the project much faster than your students because, let's face it, they're kids. Time yourself to completion and add extra time to complete for the younger and younger the kids are, yes, even for teens.
As for content, don't sweat not coming up with something completely original. Most people don't. Trust the tried and true teachers and focus on getting your practice in. That's what student teaching is for. Look online for lessons, or ask your cooperating teachers for lessons of theirs to look over for inspiration. They are there to help. It is no sin to take a lesson offline and put a twist of your own on it. These are written and offered by teachers who have tested them (let's face it, who else would voluntarily write a lesson plan if they didn't have to) for others to use and learn from. Take advantage of it.
As far as content, I can recommend two sources I've recently found to help the random thoughts and information floating in your head to come together. I'll try and share a new link review or blog with each new post from now on in my "Source of the Day".
Source of the Day
The Learning Network - Sponsored and written by the New York Times, this website seemed to have quite a bit going for it. It was a bit dry in reading but when put to the test, it was a wealth of information feeds, lesson plan suggestions on all different types of subjects, and news stories in addition that can be easily accessed as continually feeding posts to keep you updated on recent events going on in the world. Use this either for current lesson subject, research for your own lesson plans, or just to keep your students updated on what's going on. Teenagers rarely ever read or watch the news voluntarily themselves. Keep them abreast of what's going on if you can. It makes what you're teaching all that more relevant to them if they know it's not ancient history.
The Cool Cat Teacher Blog - The subtitle of this page reads "Teaching students with new tools, enthusiasm, and belief that teaching is a noble calling", and it certainly delivers. It is written by a full time teacher to introduce new concepts, new ways of reaching students, and advice to parents, teachers and students alike. Please, do not miss this blog. Mrs. Vicki Davis
is already putting into action technology in her classroom. Read her bio and I know you will agree, this woman is someone you want to connect with.
September 5, 2012
On Technical Terms
"My beliefs about Technology and Learning"
It's hard to think back to a point in my life when technology wasn't at my fingertips. One of my earliest memories in fact includes pixels on a television screen, a 16-bit music score playing over the speakers and my fingers wrapped around my dad's Atari controller. I remember an old gaming computer we had in our house (an old Mac, rainbow apple logo and all) that we slid cartridges into what was also a keyboard. I remember computer class in elementary school being one of my favorites. It was second grade, but we learned how to use a mouse and get that diver to chase it to the bottom of the screen to pick up that treasure chest. We learned how to cross the country in a covered wagon as settlers on the Oregon Trail and winced every time we lost our cousin "Phil" to the small pox. We solved mysteries with Carmen San-Diego and we scouted the rainforest in the Amazon. But these games and classes were designed for just that: learning.
I was born in 1986, when computers were just starting to come down to a size that didn't encompass a whole laboratory room unto themselves to compute simple calculator level mathematics. Gone are the days of punch card "programming" where a card stock piece of paper was what you needed to communicate with software and hardware alike. I never in my life banged away a paper on a typewriter, and certainly have never had to re-type an entire page for one little simple misspelling or smudge at the very end of it. I grew up with technology at my fingertips.
Now at only 26, I have been outstripped. I am admittedly smartphone dumb. I still believe I am proficient and ahead in Photoshop even if truthfully I am far behind what it is capable of. Iphones baffle me and I had dial-up in my home only a year ago. I still don't know what a podcast really is, wonder why people feel the need to tell the world they're on the pot in things like twitter, and I have never had the gull to place a diary open to the world on my Facebook.
I still, however, retain my sensibility and some big bit of foresight. Kids today will run circles around what I know. As an educator, that bugs me. I can offer no help and no new knowledge to them with what I don't know.
It is our responsibility as educators not only to educate ourselves on technology, but to include it as a tool (not a crutch, but a resource) in classrooms nearly every single day that we are in our professional careers. To not do so not only takes away our "marketing" edge to our lesson plans, but the student's desire to be connected with the material.
Use what they know to make them own it. Take virtual museum tours. Set up jeopardy rounds with a SMART board for test reviews. Let yourself scour the internet for lesson plan ideas that you can use and make your own. Shake up your content, and don't let yourself get bored with it. Video conference with classes across the hall, or better yet, in Hawaii or Russia. Send Flat Stanley emails along with the letters. Help them build websites for their resumes. Let them see how red and blue make purple by sliding shapes across a SMART board. Record lessons on podcasts. Have students create movies on their summary of the results on their latest chemistry experiment on a class website. Show them videos off PBS, and when you have moments to kill and no resources to use, gather them around your laptop or projector and use your Netflix instant watch account to show them the Bill Nye videos you couldn't find to rent.
Create technology where you can't find it. With about $100 or less, you can CREATE your own SMART board! How to Make Your own SMART Board with a Wii Remote
If you wonder if you can pull something off, google a how-to. If you find a strange bug no one can identify at recess, show your students how to email a digital picture to AllExperts.com and have an expert email you back!
Not including technology into the classroom not only does a disservice to yourself, but to the knowledge and, ultimately, to the career paths you set your students up to persue.
- heyyou -
It's hard to think back to a point in my life when technology wasn't at my fingertips. One of my earliest memories in fact includes pixels on a television screen, a 16-bit music score playing over the speakers and my fingers wrapped around my dad's Atari controller. I remember an old gaming computer we had in our house (an old Mac, rainbow apple logo and all) that we slid cartridges into what was also a keyboard. I remember computer class in elementary school being one of my favorites. It was second grade, but we learned how to use a mouse and get that diver to chase it to the bottom of the screen to pick up that treasure chest. We learned how to cross the country in a covered wagon as settlers on the Oregon Trail and winced every time we lost our cousin "Phil" to the small pox. We solved mysteries with Carmen San-Diego and we scouted the rainforest in the Amazon. But these games and classes were designed for just that: learning.
 |
| And my wagon had little luck in everything else |
 |
| Never had much luck fishing in this game. |
I was born in 1986, when computers were just starting to come down to a size that didn't encompass a whole laboratory room unto themselves to compute simple calculator level mathematics. Gone are the days of punch card "programming" where a card stock piece of paper was what you needed to communicate with software and hardware alike. I never in my life banged away a paper on a typewriter, and certainly have never had to re-type an entire page for one little simple misspelling or smudge at the very end of it. I grew up with technology at my fingertips.
Now at only 26, I have been outstripped. I am admittedly smartphone dumb. I still believe I am proficient and ahead in Photoshop even if truthfully I am far behind what it is capable of. Iphones baffle me and I had dial-up in my home only a year ago. I still don't know what a podcast really is, wonder why people feel the need to tell the world they're on the pot in things like twitter, and I have never had the gull to place a diary open to the world on my Facebook.
I still, however, retain my sensibility and some big bit of foresight. Kids today will run circles around what I know. As an educator, that bugs me. I can offer no help and no new knowledge to them with what I don't know.
It is our responsibility as educators not only to educate ourselves on technology, but to include it as a tool (not a crutch, but a resource) in classrooms nearly every single day that we are in our professional careers. To not do so not only takes away our "marketing" edge to our lesson plans, but the student's desire to be connected with the material.
Use what they know to make them own it. Take virtual museum tours. Set up jeopardy rounds with a SMART board for test reviews. Let yourself scour the internet for lesson plan ideas that you can use and make your own. Shake up your content, and don't let yourself get bored with it. Video conference with classes across the hall, or better yet, in Hawaii or Russia. Send Flat Stanley emails along with the letters. Help them build websites for their resumes. Let them see how red and blue make purple by sliding shapes across a SMART board. Record lessons on podcasts. Have students create movies on their summary of the results on their latest chemistry experiment on a class website. Show them videos off PBS, and when you have moments to kill and no resources to use, gather them around your laptop or projector and use your Netflix instant watch account to show them the Bill Nye videos you couldn't find to rent.
Create technology where you can't find it. With about $100 or less, you can CREATE your own SMART board! How to Make Your own SMART Board with a Wii Remote
If you wonder if you can pull something off, google a how-to. If you find a strange bug no one can identify at recess, show your students how to email a digital picture to AllExperts.com and have an expert email you back!
Not including technology into the classroom not only does a disservice to yourself, but to the knowledge and, ultimately, to the career paths you set your students up to persue.
- heyyou -
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