Month: June 2011

A wife went to the police station with her next-door neighbor to report that her husband was missing. The policeman asked for a description. She said, “He’s 35 years old, 6 foot 4, has dark eyes, dark wavy hair, an athletic build, weighs 185 pounds, is soft-spoken, and is good to the children.” The next-door neighbor protested, “Your husband is 5 foot 4, chubby, bald, has a big mouth, and is mean to your children.” The wife replied, “Yes, but who wants HIM back?”

A husband was having great difficulty getting along with his wife – nothing but arguing and friction – so he decided to consult a marriage counselor. After they had talked for a while, the counselor said, “I suggest that you run five miles each day for a week. Then please call me back.”
A week later the counselor received a call from the husband, “Well,” asked the counselor, “how are things going with you and your wife?
“How should I know?” said the husband. “I’m thirty-five miles away.”

Lady, this vacuum cleaner will cut your work in half.
Good. I’ll take two of them.

Two ROBINS were lying on their backs, BASKING in the sun. A mama cat and her kitten were walking by. The kitten complained, ‘Mama, I’m so hungry, what can we eat?’ To which the mama cat, spying the two robins, replied,
How about some Baskin Robbins?’

A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party.
As her dad donned his tuxedo she warned, “Daddy, you shouldn’t wear that suit.”
“And why not, darling?” he asked.
“You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning.”

On Our Mind:

If you had $9,000 left in building PD, what would you choose to spend it on?

– Must be spent before the end of July.
– Must be approved by your building principal, School Improvement Committee, and perhaps Act of Congress.

Eileen Award

Janelle Rowe, newest member to the Diigo group.

Advisory:

What do you get when you combine Mythbusters, Tesla coils and Doctor Who? The answer is one charged-up performance.
ArcAttack is a performance art group that has rocked audiences with its custom-built Singing Tesla Coils since 2005. The plasma speakers produce musical tones by modulating spark output, a phenomenon that was featured in the Nicholas Cage film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame took it to another level though at this year’s Maker Faire in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this YouTube video, Savage awkwardly dances to the tune of Doctor Who‘s iconic theme music while in a cage. The result is a performance that electrified the crowd (pun intended).
http://mashable.com/2011/05/25/adam-savage-doctor-who-tesla-coils/

Stats of the Union

If you have an interest in American demographics and statistics, you need to check out the Stats of the Union iPad app. Statistics are only useful when you have a clear way of organizing and viewing the data. Without being able to do that, you can’t glean any useful information from the numbers. What Stats of the Union does is take a host of data from the Community Health Status Indicators (CHSI) report and present it on an interactive, color-coded map.
Stats of the Union allows you to visualize any number of statistics for the entire country, all the way down to the county level. There are multiple subcategories in the seven prime categories including Summary, Demographics, Births, Deaths, At-Risk Groups, Diseases, and Risk Factors. For example, with a few taps I can see that in the county where I grew up (St. Louis County), life expectancy is 77.4 years, and population is 991,830. 20 percent of those people are at risk of health issues from smoking, and 102,548 people under the age of 65 (over 10 percent of the population) lack health insurance.
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/29/stats-of-the-union-brings-american-demographic-data-to-the-ipad

Middle School Science Minute

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)

Middle School Science Minute – Dissections and Dissection Apps.

From the Twitterverse:

*EDPressSec Justin Hamilton @arneduncan: @DianeRavitch in denial & insulting hardworking teachers, principals & students proving her wrong every day me.lt/760ka Note:  Arne Duncan’s verified account doesn’t follow a single teacher.

* DianeRavitch Diane Ravitch Having worked in the U.S. Dept of Education, I truly don’t understand why the Dept would use its resources to attack one person. Shameful.

*FlyontheCWall Find free grants for teachers and schools by searching by grade level, subject, or deadline.

*bethstill A great opportunity today to learn about ISTE Unplugged, Edubloggercon, and Bloggers’ Cafe at #iste11. Noon EST. bit.ly/9Du1vP

*web20classroom From @justintarte-10 Reasons To Get Educators Blogging:

*coolcatteacher I’m fully convinced inigma is the best QR code app http://www.i-nigma.com/i-nigmahp.html #qrcode

*HappyTeacherLA @toughLoveforx @DianeRavitch waiting 4 edreformers 2 pass laws 2 jail prnts 4 not reading the prescribed minutes 2 their children at home.

*bhsprincipal A Professional Development Design Concept (via @jimohagan) < Thoughts on Learning Spaces for Teachers? #edchat #cpchat

*Larryferlazzo The Best Rubric Sites (And A Beginning Discussion About Their Use)

*markgammon RT @armano: (good read) What College Degrees Are Really Worth #edu

Don’t forget to join the conversation on MiddleTalk and Twitter at #midleved this Friday at 8:00 pm EST.

News:

E-Book prices fuel outrage — and innovation

by Narasu Rebbapragada

An e-book that costs the same as a printed book doesn’t feel right. No trees died to make it. No heavy machinery ran to print it. No planes flew to ship it. You might need to buy one of those new $139 Barnes & Noble Nooks, announced this week, to be able to read it. So why should you have to spend as much as you would for a heavy hardcover book to own it?

http://www.macworld.com/article/160120/2011/05/ebook_prices_outrage_innovation.html

Resources:

Our school recently changed our school-wide referencing tool.

We have had a school wide referencing system in place for the past 6 or 7 years, we like many other Australian schools were a “Harvard referencing” school and we used a program called citation which was loaded on all the schools computers.

We shopped around for a few online referencing tools, looking at BibMe, Noodle Tools and EasyBib. We decided on Easybib and although it is a free product we opted to pay a small fee so that we could get APA referencing as an option for our students, which is similar to our previous Harvard system.

http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/essential-tools-using-easy-bib/

Merriam-Webster Dictionary now available on iPad for free

You could argue that there’s not much need for a separate dictionary app any more. With dictionary services built into nearly every interface and Google and Wikipedia searches just a tap away, it’s not hard to find out what a word means or how it’s spelled any more. But sometimes you may just want to browse around or look a word up for yourself, and for those times, there’s the Merriam-Webster Dictionary app, which is now available on the iPad for free.

Technology Integration Matrix

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated below.

http://fcit.usf.edu/matrix/matrix.php

Zondle

This is zondle, where you can play games to support your learning!

http://www.zondle.com/publicPages/welcome.aspx

Books Should Be Free

Free audio book in mp3, iPod and iTunes.

http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/

Web Spotlight:

Waiting for a School Miracle

By DIANE RAVITCH

Teachers and principals have been fired and schools that were once fixtures in their community have been closed and replaced. In time, many of the new schools will close, too, unless they avoid enrolling low-performing students, like those who don’t read English or are homeless or have profound disabilities.

Teachers and principals have been fired and schools that were once fixtures in their community have been closed and replaced. In time, many of the new schools will close, too, unless they avoid enrolling low-performing students, like those who don’t read English or are homeless or have profound disabilities.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/01/opinion/01ravitch.html

TEDEd Calling for Submissions: Are you ready for TED?

by ANGELA MAIERS

As a huge fan of TED, I was thrilled to see the TED organization reaching out to follow educators in search of powerful content for educators created by educators.

TEDEd is launching a global search for new best of breed educational videos. They are inviting content submissions for 10 video series in the following catagories:

1. Math in real life

2. Creativity in Action

3. Inventions That Shaped History

4. How and Why?

5. Questions no one (yet) knows the answer to

6. Mindshifting stories

7. Playing with language

8. Same – and different

9. Things they don’t teach you in school

10. The five minute aha

http://www.angelamaiers.com/2011/05/are-you-ready-for-ted-teded-calling-for-submissions.html

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

• National Conference: Thursday, November 08, 2011 —Saturday, November 10, 2011 Louisville, Kentucky.
  • Promotional Materials:
    • Crossword Puzzle! (Maryland Conference)

• • • Other News:

• ISTE Eduverse Talks are the recorded sessions held on ISTE Island every week. Join ISTE in their Second Life conference location for their weekly talks on education.
  • The ISTE Special Interest Group:  Virtual Environments is holding meetings on Mondays from 4:00 – 6:00 pm (SLT) on ISTE Island.

Ohio Middle Level Association:

• The Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 17 – 18, 2011 at The Easton in Columbus, OH.

• • OMLA Registration Form
  • OMLA Presentation Proposal Form

Michigan Association of Middle School Educators

• The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Annual Conference is coming up March 2012 in Warren Woods, MI.
  • MAMSE Exhibitor Form
  • MAMSE Registration Form

• • MAMSE Presentation Form
  • MAMSE Conference Program Book (2011)
• The National Substitute Teacher Association’s Annual Conference July 22-24.
• The North Carolina Middle School Association’s Annual Conference March 13-15, 2011
  • Conference Brochure
  • Presenter’s Application
  • Who They Are . . .
  • This year’s sessions . . .

• Classroom 2.0’s Live Calendar.

• • Classroom 2.0’s Ning Blog: Archived content is available.

• Second Life:
  • Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled. See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.  Check frequently this week as the ISTE Annual Convention is this week.
  • Video: Educational Uses of Second Life