Category: advisory

advisory, MSM, PodcastBy Troy Patterson

MSM – 107- I’m a Wall Wisher

Podcast 107:  I’m a WallWisher, I’m a WallWisher watchin’ Walls Go By . . . .

Jokes:

Gifts…
Bob was in trouble. He forgot his wedding anniversary. His wife was really pissed. She told him “Tomorrow morning, I expect to find a gift in the driveway that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds AND IT BETTER BE THERE !!” The next morning he got up early and left for work. When his wife woke up, she looked out the window and sure enough there was a box gift-wrapped in the middle of the driveway. Confused, the wife put on her robe and ran out to the driveway, and brought the box back in the house. She opened it and found a brand new bathroom scale. Bob has been missing since Friday.

Only Three Doors
A group of middle school students went on a field trip. They were staying overnight. In the morning, 3 students were missing. The teachers went up to the room. They opened the door and found the three of them sitting in the middle of the room. The teacher asked: Why didn’t you guys come down. “There are only three doors in here,” they sobbed, “one is the bathroom, one is the closet, and one has a sign on it that says ‘Do Not Disturb’!”

On Our Mind:

MAMSE
www.mamse.org

From the Twitterverse:

Shout Out:

Thanks Alex for the feedback!

Advisory:

Project Implicit
Discover the bias within.

Stupid Inventions:
http://students.ou.edu/R/Basil.G.Rayan-1/

Webspotlight:

Word Clouds, Student Writing and Ownership

http://www.mguhlin.org/2010/02/word-clouds-student-writing-and.html

Doodle for Google

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/doodle-4-google-tell-us-what-you-would.html
Example:  http://www.google.com/doodle4google/2009/images/us_doodle4google2009.gif
Competition
http://www.google.com/doodle4google/index.html

World Maths Day

This year features an exciting new format with multi-levels for all age groups. Teachers, parents and media are invited to participate for the first time. Can we beat last year’s world record of 2 million students from 204 countries correctly answering 452,681,681 questions?
http://www.worldmathsday.com/2010/Default.aspx?

Interview Of The Month: Marvin Marshall On Positive Classroom Management

from Larry Felazzo:

Marvin Marshall, author of the influential education book “Discipline Without Stress, Punishment or Rewards” and the newer book “Parenting Without Stress.”
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2010/02/02/interview-of-the-month-marvin-marshall-on-positive-classroom-management/
See also:  Responsible Thinking Process by Ed Ford.

16 Ways to Use WallWisher
http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_436f8kscmdc

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

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 Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010. Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  • Second Life:
advisory, MSM, Podcast, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM-106 iPad, Do You?

Jokes:

Most problems can be
Ignored. The more difficult
Ones can be slept through.

I don’t mind being
Teased, any more than you mind
A skin graft or two.

My brain: walnut-sized.
Yours: largest among primates.
Yet, who leaves for work?

Your mouth is moving;
Up and down, emitting noise.
I’ve lost interest.

There’s no dignity
In being sick – which is why
I don’t tell you where.

On Our Mind:

Dropbox:

  1. Free
  2. Backup no matter where you are
  3. Constant access (Computer always has a copy, Access from anywhere with web connection)
  4. Sync
  5. No Flashdrives
  6. Sharing
  7. Cross Platform

Apple’s iPad

Net Safety
http://www.onguardonline.gov/topics/net-cetera.aspx

From the Twitterverse:

Advisory:

Tongue Twister:

Mr. See owned a saw.
And Mr. Soar owned a seesaw.
Now See’s saw sawed Soar’s seesaw
Before Soar saw See,
Which made Soar sore.
Had Soar seen See’s saw
Before See sawed Soar’s seesaw,
See’s saw would not have sawed
Soar’s seesaw.
So See’s saw sawed Soar’s seesaw.
But it was sad to see Soar so sore
Just because See’s saw sawed
Soar’s seesaw!

Webspotlight:

Multiple Intelligences Survey
http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks3/ict/multiple_int/index.htm

Scribble Maps:
http://scribblemaps.com/#

Origins
http://www.originsonline.org/dd_classroom.php?resource_type=148

Seven Places to find Free e-books:
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2010/01/seven-places-to-find-free-ebooks.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+freetech4teachers%2FcGEY+%28Free+Technology+for+Teachers%29

Dance Rules:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2010/0126102dance1.html

Graph paper:
http://www.printfreegraphpaper.com/

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

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 Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010. Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  • Second Life:
advisory, MSM, Podcast, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM-105 The Revolution in the Classroom

Jokes:

An advanced society has figured how to package basic knowledge in pill form. A student, needing some learning, goes to the pharmacy and asks what kind of knowledge pills are available.

The pharmacist says, “Here’s a pill for English literature.” The student takes the pill and swallows it and has new knowledge about English literature!

“What else do you have?” asks the student. “Well, I have pills for art history, biology, and world history,” replies the pharmacist.

The student asks for these, and swallows them and has new knowledge about those subjects. Then the student asks, “Do you have a pill for math?”

The pharmacist says, “Wait just a moment,” and goes back into the storeroom and brings back a whopper of a pill and plunks it on the counter.

“I have to take that huge pill for math?” inquires the student. The pharmacist replied, “Well, you know… math always was a little hard to swallow.”

In his day, Michael Jordan made over $300,000 a game. That equals $10,000 a minute, at an average of 30 minutes per game.

With $40 million in endorsements, he made $178,100 a day, working or not.

If he slept 7 hours a night, he made $52,000 every night while visions of sugarplums danced in his head.

If he went to see a movie, it cost him $9.50, but he made $18,550 while he was there.

If he decided to have a 5 minute egg, he would have made $618 while boiling it.

He made $7,415/hr more than minimum wage.

He’d made $3,710 while watching each episode of Friends.

If he wanted to save up for a new Acura SLX (about $90,000) it would have taken him a whole 12 hours.

If someone were to hand him his salary and endorsement money, they would have had to do it at the rate of $2.00 every second.

He’d probably payed around $200 for a nice round of golf, but was reimbursed around $30,000 during that round.

Assuming he put the federal maximum of 15% of his income into a tax deferred account (401k), he would have hit the federal cap of $9500 at 8:30 a.m. on January 1st.

If you were given a penny for every 10 dollars he made, you’d be living comfortably at $65,000 a year.

He would have made about $19.60 while watching the 100 meter dash in the Olympics.

He would have made about $15,600 during the Boston Marathon.

While the common person was spending about $20 for a meal in his trendy Chicago restaurant, he would have pulled in about $5600.

In his last year, he made more than twice as much as all U.S. past presidents for all of their terms combined.

… However…

… If Jordan had saved 100% of his income for the next 250 years, he’ll still have less than Bill Gates had right then.

On Our Mind:

Head on over to iTunes. We’re looking for some feedback.
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=261383649

From the Twitterverse:

Advisory:

Exciting individuals telling their personal stories from the front lines of social and environmental change.
changents.com

MultiTask
Think you or your students can multitask well?  MultiTask challenges you to play multiple games to test your multitasking ability.  It introduces one game at a time and one error will cause you to lose.

Webspotlight:

Sweet Search

Every Web site in SweetSearch has been evaluated by our research experts.
Visit our Web Links for teachers and students, organized by subject and academic level.
http://www.sweetsearch.com/index.html
http://www.sweetsearch.com/weblinks/categories/middle-school/students.html

Dabble Board-

Dabbleboard is an online whiteboard that will help you visualize, explore and communicate ideas. The best way to learn more about it is to view the video below. See the Top 10 Reasons to use Dabbleboard.
http://www.dabbleboard.com/

Cosketch-

What is CoSketch.com?

Do you have an idea, a problem or just a cool picture that you quickly want to show a friend?

CoSketch is a multi-user online whiteboard designed to give you the ability to quickly visualize and share your ideas as images.
Simple sharing
• Anything you paint will show up for all other users in the room in real time.
• One click to save a sketch as an image for embedding on forums, blogs, etc.
Zero hassle
• Runs in all common browsers without plugins or installation.
• No registration
Now with Google Maps support!
• Use google maps as the background for your sketches to show directions or share trips.
Read more or just create a sketch and try for yourself.

Google Resources for Education

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/29YqS3/www.onlinecolleges.net/2009/10/25/100-google-tricks-that-will-save-you-time-in-school/

Revolution in the Classroom

by Clayton M. Christensen and Michael B. Horn

President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s flagship idea for reforming education—a competition among states over a total pot of $4.35 billion known as the “Race to the Top Fund”—is a bold move to use scarce resources to coerce states into adopting big, potentially controversial strategies for education reform. It aims to achieve four stated goals:

– Develop common, internationally-benchmarked standards and assessments

– Improve the effectiveness of teachers and principals

– Use data to inform decisions

– Turn around the lowest-performing schools.

As details of the competition emerge, states vying for funds could simply opt to check off the boxes, suggest some novel-sounding strategies, and implement a few tweaks to the way things are already being done. But doing so would miss a genuine opportunity. In order to transform our factory-era schools into a truly student-centric system fit for the 21st-century, the funds should be used to innovate disruptively. And the best way to do that is by implementing online learning – an approach that’s constantly improving in its ability to deliver personalized, high-quality learning experiences to students from all walks of life, regardless of geography, special needs, or socioeconomic background.

Putting New Standards Into Practice a Tough Job

Challenges Loom on Curricular and Teaching Fronts

Todd Clark remembers his “aha” moment when Florida began rolling out the next generation of state academic-content standards to its teachers in 2007.
“I had a 5th grade teacher come up to me and say, ‘Mr. Clark, I can cover all of these objectives by December,’ ” he recalls. “The way she saw it was that there was only enough material for her to cover half a year.”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/14/17practical.h29.html?tkn=QLUFv6tltIiniJxnW3ZjCGFnpX0FvCKmEj6T

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

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 Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010. Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  • Second Life:
  • Google Teacher Academy for Administrators: “We’re very excited to announce our first ever Google Teacher Academy for Administrators.  Since many of you have been asking for a GTA for Admins for a while, we’ve decided to host the first one immediately preceding the ASCD conference, on Friday, March 5th in San Antonio, Texas.  As you might know, the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators is a FREE professional development experience designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative technologies. Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and learn how to apply examples from our innovative corporate environment.  Potential applicants include educational leaders or decision makers including (but not limited to) school principals, assistant principals, state, county or district superintendents, technology directors or coordinators, and CTOs who actively serve K-12 teachers and students.  For more information, please check out:  http://www.google.com/educators/gtaforadmins.html
    OR
    Apply before midnight, January 25th here:  https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dE1lYmFfTU4zN1RQWDBpX20wb3BsWXc6MA
advisory, MSM, NMSA09, PodcastBy Troy Patterson, , , ,

MSM-104-The Terrible 2’s (There are 52 weeks in a year . . . well, you get it.)

Jokes:

Buddaist Monk walks into a restaurant. What can I get you?
Make me one with everything.
Thanks Steven

On Our Mind:

Thanks to you, we’re a Top 20 podcast in K-12 education. Please help us by voting on iTunes.

From the Twitterverse:

Advisory:

Masters of Disaster:


http://www.redcross.org/preparedness/educatorsmodule/ed-cd-6-8-main-menu-1.html

Try this with your Advisory:
tremellino Three Swedish switched witches watch three Swiss Swatch watch switches. Which Swedish switched witch watch which Swiss Swatch watch switch?

Webspotlight:

A National Yardstick for Gauging Math Progress

States Show Uneven Performance; Even Top Achievers Fall Short

By Christopher B. Swanson

To complement Quality Counts 2010’s exploration of reinvigorated interest in common standards and assessments on the national stage, the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center conducted an original analysis intended to help ground these dynamic debates in a firm understanding of state performance in one core academic area.

Geography matters. Where a student lives affects his or her chances of benefiting from known correlates of achievement and attainment. Those would include exposure to a middle school curriculum that places students on track for advanced coursetaking during high school, as well as the opportunity to learn from experienced and well-qualified math teachers.
For example, only one out of five students nationally attends a school where taking algebra by the 8th grade is the norm. However, the index shows tremendous cross-state variability in this opportunity indicator, with virtually no 8th graders attending such schools in some states, compared with more than half in California.
A closer investigation of Math Progress Index data reveals that states where poor students have more-equal access to experienced math teachers also tend to post significantly smaller math-achievement gaps. This is, just to be clear, correlation and not causation.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/14/17math.h29.html?tkn=R[MF4Qzo6orsW67cZxBzNGAHZdia9LvSag4Z
http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/qc/2010/17overview.h29.math.pdf

Debunking the Case for National Standards

By Alfie Kohn

I keep thinking it can’t get much worse, and then it does.
A decade ago, many of us thought we had hit bottom—until the floor gave way and we found ourselves in a basement we didn’t know existed. Now every state had to test every student every year in grades 3-8, judging them (and their schools) almost exclusively by test scores and hurting the schools that needed the most help. Ludicrously unrealistic proficiency targets suggested that the federal law responsible was intended to sabotage rather than improve public education.

  • Let’s be clear about this latest initiative, which is being spearheaded by politicians, corporate CEOs, and companies that produce standardized tests. First, what they’re trying to sell us are national standards. They carefully point out that the effort isn’t driven by the federal government. But if all, or nearly all, states end up adopting identical mandates, that distinction doesn’t amount to much.
  • Second, these standards will inevitably be accompanied by a national standardized test.
  • Third, a relatively small group of experts—far from classrooms—will be designing standards, test questions, and curricula for the rest of us.

Advocates of national standards say they want all (American) students to attain excellence, no matter where they happen to live. The problem is that excellence is being confused with entirely different attributes, such as uniformity, rigor, specificity, and victory.

…common-core-standards Web site, don’t bother looking for words like “exploration,” “intrinsic motivation,” “developmentally appropriate,” or “democracy.” Instead, the very first sentence contains the phrase “success in the global economy,” followed immediately by “America’s competitive edge.”

Yes, we want excellent teaching and learning for all—although our emphasis should be less on achievement (read: test scores) than on students’ achievements. Offered a list of standards, we should scrutinize each one, but also ask who came up with them and for what purpose. Is there room for discussion and disagreement—and not just by experts—regarding what, and how, we’re teaching and how authentic our criteria are for judging success? Or is this a matter of “obey or else,” with tests to enforce compliance?
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/14/17kohn-comm.h29.html?tkn=WXUFzMageZQH55f62llSx04pEy9h1dTAV7g0

Walnut school adds iPod touch to three Rs

By Caroline An, Staff Writer

With their headphones and iPod Touch machines on, Beatrice Azanza’s 20 third grade students were geared up for an afternoon of reading and math.
After a lesson on addition and subtraction, Azanza’s students can get on the iPod Touch, launch the Basic Math application, and test how quickly they can solve a set of problems. The fun, Azanza said, is endless.
In September, Azanza’s class was chosen for a pilot program to gauge if students’ English comprehension and fluency improved with daily use of the iPod Touch. Oswalt Academy is already using technology in the classrooms, having implemented a One to One Laptop Learning Program two years ago. Currently, fifth through seventh grade students use computers with pre-loaded textbooks and other applications, said Astrid Ramirez, Oswalt’s principal. Oswalt was recently named one of eight schools in California as an Apple Distinguished School.

Azanza said to help students improve their reading and comprehension skills, she will have to listen to a book on iPod Touch so they can hear the different intonations and where the pauses are. After that, the students will record themselves reading the same story.

The idea is to have an audio archive so students can hear how they have improved over the weeks.

“It’s also for the parents, too. I’m going to play them during parents conferences so they hear their child’s progress,” she said.
http://www.sgvtribune.com/news/ci_14161816

Epson has new “short throw” data projectors.
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2009/11/04/epson-introduces-two-ultra-short-throw-projectors-designed-with-k-12-education-in-mind/

NMSA09:

Teaching in 4-D:  Rick Wormeli Closing Keynote
Expertise
What elements of This We Believe have we really integrated into our teaching?
We teach in ways they best learn, not we best learn.
Teachers have their own secret code so the kids don’t know what’s going on:  Cursive.
We don’t settle for this reality in exchange of a potential reality.
“I don’t know” gets the response of “If you did know, what would you say?”
Fine arts gives dimension and meaning!
Kids need to eat every 90 mins. or they lose cognition.
Irritability is the first sign of dehydration.
Creativity
Mantra of the middle school teacher is “Let me get out of the way.”  Open up all the possibilities for our students to express what they have learned.
(example:  juggling illustration of ethos, pathos, and logos.)
We need to teach our kids how to ask good questions.  Really GOOD questions.
Thems that ask the questions are doin’ the learning!
Teach in different ways.
How would you teach if you couldn’t give homework?
How would you teach if there wasn’t long term memory?
Failure
Concerned with the demonization of failure.
Differentiate the assessment if the assessment is not the product.
The person who never makes mistakes takes his orders from one who does.
Go beyond the “Gotcha/Caughtcha” mentality.
Rim Waver:  the child digs a pit and the teacher stands at the rim and waves . . .
Your job is to jump into the pit and tell the kid, “I’ve been here before.  I know the way out.”
Our commission:  I teach so that you can learn.
Redos
Let them redo.  Every real world test does!
Make them do a letter about what they learned if they do a redo
Make it a learning experience (a small hassle) to redo, but let them redo.
Get them to get permission from their parent to do a redo.
Charge $5.00 to do a redo and finance the budget.
Courage is not the absence of fear, it is the judgement that something else is more important than that fear.  (Horace Redmoon?)
Collaboration
There is a democratization of knowledge.
Kids can check your facts.
We do all this stuff together.
We become a bright, shining community …
Full use of personal technology!
Narcissism
Facebook, MySpace:  We’re creating an online culture where people only visit sites that are familiar.
We need to expose our students to multiple sources of information.
Join a listserv (MiddleTalk Rules!)
Write a letter to yourself about all you learned here at the conference and then seal it in an envelope and give it to a friend to mail to you in six months as a
way to re-ignite the fire from the conference.
… that can become the echo (slide changes before I can finish …)
Doubt is the compass rose to an educator.
Who’s voice is not being heard?
How do our metaphors limit us?
Core classes (What are the others then?)
LD  (Learn Differently or Learning Disabled?)
What is the role of homework?
Does it matter WHEN he learns it?
The General Westmoreland paratrooper story.
We need to hang out with the folks who inspire us to be better teachers.
Fight the good fight more than 50% of the time.
Go out and ask the important questions and inspire the next generation.
This, we believe . . .
Video:  The Perfect Teacher, an Instructional Lesson in …  Instruction!
Sound of Music clip.

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

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 Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010. Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  • Second Life:
  • Google Teacher Academy for Administrators: “We’re very excited to announce our first ever Google Teacher Academy for Administrators.  Since many of you have been asking for a GTA for Admins for a while, we’ve decided to host the first one immediately preceding the ASCD conference, on Friday, March 5th in San Antonio, Texas.  As you might know, the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators is a FREE professional development experience designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative technologies. Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and learn how to apply examples from our innovative corporate environment.  Potential applicants include educational leaders or decision makers including (but not limited to) school principals, assistant principals, state, county or district superintendents, technology directors or coordinators, and CTOs who actively serve K-12 teachers and students.  For more information, please check out:  http://www.google.com/educators/gtaforadmins.html
    OR
    Apply before midnight, January 25th here:  https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dE1lYmFfTU4zN1RQWDBpX20wb3BsWXc6MA “

advisory, NMSA09, Podcast, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM 103: Title: #SkypeFail and Lesson Planning Made Easy

Jokes:

Albert Einstein – When Albert Einstein was making the rounds of the speaker’s circuit, he usually found himself eagerly longing to get back to his laboratory work. One night as they were driving to yet another rubber-chicken dinner, Einstein mentioned to his chauffeur (a man who somewhat resembled Einstein in looks & manner) that he was tired of speechmaking. “I have an idea, boss,” his chauffeur said. “I’ve heard you give this speech so many times. I’ll bet I could give it for you.” Einstein laughed loudly and said, “Why not? Let’s do it!”

When they arrive at the dinner, Einstein donned the chauffeur’s cap and jacket and sat in the back of the room. The chauffeur gave a beautiful rendition of Einstein’s speech and even answered a few questions expertly Then a supremely pompous professor ask an extremely esoteric question about anti-matter formation, digressing here and there to let everyone in the audience know that he was nobody’s fool. Without missing a beat, the chauffeur fixed the professor with a steely stare and said, “Sir, the answer to that question is so simple that I will let my chauffeur, who is sitting in the back, answer it for me.”

A teacher and a principal go on a fishing trip. They rent all the equipment – the reels, the rods, the wading suits, the rowboat, the car, and even a cabin in the woods. I mean they spend a fortune!

The first day they go fishing, but they don’t catch anything. The same thing happens on the second day, and on the third day. It goes on like this until finally, on the last day of their vacation, one of the men catches a fish.

As they’re driving home they’re really depressed. One guy turns to the other and says, “Do you realise that this one lousy fish we caught cost us fifteen hundred bucks?”

The other guy says, “Wow! Then it’s a good thing we didn’t catch any more!”

Shout out:

LindaB23

Answer to our Palindromic question from Doc Tatum:  “Concerning last podcast – Feb. palindrome: Australia, they do day then month (01-02-2010) Keep up Gr8 work w/ podcast!! Monte”

Hi Guys,
Here is some information for Middle School Science.  I produce the Michigan Science Matters Network on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month.  If you like this information, I can try to send it on a regular basis.  You can hear the podcast at:
k12science.net and you can view the hyperlinked eBlast at: msta-mich.org/smn
Keep up the good work,
Dave Bydlowski, Wayne RESA

National Lab Day

National Lab Day is more than just a day. It’s a nationwide initiative
to build local communities of support (hubs) that will foster ongoing
collaborations among volunteers, students and educators.  Volunteers —
university students, scientists, engineers, other STEM professionals
and, more broadly, members of the community — will work together with
educators and students to improve labs and discovery-based science
experiences for students in grades 6-12.  In the first week of May, 2010
we will celebrate this collaboration with National Lab Day activities
across the country.

What is a lab?  It’s a place where you can explore, experiment, test,
and maybe even get your hands dirty. This is not just talking about test
tubes and beakers. A lab could be a laptop to a software designer, a
mountaintop to a geologist, a computer link to a distant particle
accelerator to a physicist, or a factory floor to an industrial
engineer. It’s a place where hands-on lessons in science and engineering
and technology can be designed to happen, or where math can come alive,
and it could be anywhere in the physical or virtual world.

For more information, please visit:
http://nationallabday.org

Earth Science Teachers Needed for Inquiry Advisory Panel

The Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca, NY has a five year NSF
funded project to develop Teacher-Friendly Guides that will promote the
merging of standard geologic concepts with their local geologic history,
opening the door to inquiry by allowing teachers and their students to
apply basic science concepts to situations outside the classroom’s walls
but within the reach of student experience.

Topics covered in each guide are: Geologic History of the Region; Rocks;
Fossils; Topography; Mineral Resources; Non-Mineral ReEnvironmental

Issues; and How to Do Fieldwork. Once completed, all
guides will be posted online for free download to teachers across the
nation.  The Teacher-Friendly Guides and associated online components
seek to provide educators with the pedagogic background, content, and
support that will enable them to engage students in asking real
questions about their own communities. It is hoped that students will
learn to apply understanding of Earth systems to their personal lives,
to think to ask questions about the origin of the world around them, and
to make educated attempts to answer them.

In addition, the Teacher Advisory Panel members will meet once at a site
within the region.  Beyond that physical meeting, they will meet
periodically through teleconferencing while staying connected with
email.
They welcome your application to participate in a professional
development program that is focused on the Teacher-Friendly Guides to
regional Earth Sciences and Virtual Fieldwork Experiences.  The two
regions of present interest are those of the Midwestern (OH, IN, IL, MI,
WI, MN, IA) and Western (WA, OR, CA, NV, AK, HI) regions in the country.

They are seeking enthusiastic educators from these two regions to meet
with them before the actual development of the guides, serving as
advisors during these initial stages.  The Advisory Panels will be held
at The Field Museum, Chicago on March 6, 2010 for the Midwestern Region;
and Mission Trails Regional Park, San Diego on April 10, 2010 for the
Western Region.  The deadline to apply is February 1, 2010.   For more
information and to apply, please visit:
http://virtualfieldwork.org/Advisory_Application.html

If you have questions, please contact Christine Besemer 607.273.6623 x27

On Our Mind:

Race to the Top $$

Through Race to the Top, we are asking States to advance reforms around four specific areas:

  • Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy;
  • Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;
  • Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and
  • Turning around our lowest-achieving schools.

Awards in Race to the Top will go to States that are leading the way with ambitious yet achievable plans for implementing coherent, compelling, and comprehensive education reform. Race to the Top winners will help trail-blaze effective reforms and provide examples for States and local school districts throughout the country to follow as they too are hard at work on reforms that can transform our schools for decades to come.

From the Twitterverse:

russeltarr The e-safe site for sharing children’s poetry performances: http://tinyurl.com/ybbjzxa
bivey New blog entry, “If you were brave…” at http://sbsmiddleschool.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/if-you-were-brave/
elemenous 50 Fun iPhone Apps to Get Kids Reading and Learning http://ow.ly/TRcf
kellyhines RT @NMHS_Principal: Cool Science for Curious Kids #science #education
onealchris Fantastic assistive technology resources at http://attipscast.wordpress.com #at #assistivetechnology #edtech #sped #itrt #vste
ToughLoveforX: Google Experiments are Brilliant – Techtracer http://ilnk.me/135a || Teaching history? Timeline search is quite amazing. #edchat
courosa “Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard” http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_of_the_year/2010/01/teachers_should_be_seen_and_no.html
canyonsdave RT @colonelb: RT @ShellTerrell: RT @Irek: Looking at: 50 ways to motivate language learners.

skipz Problem-based Learning in Biology: with 20 Case Examples – http://capewest.ca/pbl.html
kjarrett RT @jackiegerstein: RT @3dgamestudio: 60 Educational Game Sites That You’ve Probably Never Seen:
drmmtatom Tools for the Classroom (Warning it’s Flash based.) via @addthis

Webspotlight:

Lesson Writer:  www.lessonwriter.com
Create comprehensive literacy lesson plans and student materials from any content in minutes.
There are some things that I would like teachers to know, so thanks for giving me the opportunity to bring them to your attention and feel free to include or leave out according to what you think your audience is interested in.

I asked Stephen Churchville what he wanted our listeners to know about Lesson Writer:
“First are some underutilized features that I think are a big help to everyone:
“My Classes” allow teachers to create as many classes as they need and everything they create is stored on LessonWriter. It is easy to create word searches, flash cards, word lists for word walls, etc. from past lessons, and everything is right their when you need to make a quiz or unit test.
“Question Groups” are sub-groups of classes. Create as many as needed, assign questions, exercises, notes, to the appropriate group on the Questions page, and then print lessons with only that groups lessons. to them
Second is a little history:
I have been a teacher for 25 years and developed, tested and improved LessonWriter over many years and hundreds of secondary and adult ed classes before I decided they were ready to share with other teachers.
Third, we have two products for schools which are free with professional development trainings or available for sale. These products address many criteria of NCLB.
TeacherTeams, which has lesson sharing, collaboration, and communication tools so teachers can mentor and support each other. The reading specialist, for example, can add supplementary literacy material for students in math class, and do it online at his own convenience. TeacherTeams combined with the Question Group features make it easier to implement literacy across the curriculum initiatives, in class interventions, or even IEP’s–  special Ed teacher doing pull outs or insertions can use the same material with individualized tasks.
SchoolTools allows students to take LessonWriter lessons online. There are per student settings for automatic differentiation, automated assessment features, performance tracking  and data-driven instruction tools. SchoolTools also has multimedia (teach a video) features, student collaboration and communication tools, administrator and parent features.

My goal is to support the products by providing professional development, so please tell your administrators! Thanks for your interest in my work and feel free to ask any questions, make suggestions, or request features.”

I have had teachers use LessonWriter.com’s support links and they have been VERY responsive.
Demo videos
Differentiation

GirlTalk Radio:

Girls are talking. You should listen.

GirlTalk Radio is an innovative program of the Girls, Math & Science Partnership. GirlTalk is a mentoring initiative that encourages girls to explore science, math, engineering and technology – in their own words. GirlTalk Radio consists of a series of interviews with women scientists, conducted by girls ages 11 – 16, making their debuts as Pittsburgh radio hosts!

Welcome to GirlTalk Radio! Listen now!

A new season begins!
Girls are talking. You should listen. GirlTalk Radio is a show connecting girls with amazing women in Pittsburgh and beyond in math and science. What does a CIA agent really do? A marine biologist? GirlTalk Radio girls get up close and personal with women in edgy science careers. The Girls, Math & Science Partnership has teamed up with The Saturday Light Brigade to offer girls the chance to interview emerging and established female mathematicians, scientists, and engineers. Girls will learn multimedia production, audio engineering and recording technology first hand as they record and edit their interviews at The Saturday Light Brigade’s $250,000 state-of-the-art digital studios. The finished GirlTalk Radio interviews will be aired to over 70,000 regional families and available on CD and iTunes.

GirlTalk Radio premiered June 21, 2007 at the Carnegie Science Center. You can listen to the interviews on this site, as well as learn more about the girls and the inspiring women they spoke with. The interviews also aired Saturday mornings through August, 2007 as part of The Saturday Light Brigade, an award-winning weekly public radio program heard regionally on WRCT 88.3 FM, WSAJ 91.1 FM, WIUP 90.1 FM and WLFP 1550 AM, simulcast at www.slbradio.org, and archived in the “community section” of the SLB site.
http://www.braincake.org/girltalk/

TRAILS:

TRAILS is a knowledge assessment with multiple-choice questions targeting a variety of information literacy skills based on sixth and ninth grade standards. This Web-based system was developed to provide an easily accessible and flexible tool for library media specialists and teachers to identify strengths and weaknesses in the information-seeking skills of their students.
http://www.trails-9.org/

Word Warriors:

Here’s the Word Warriors’ 2010 list of sadly underused or overlooked but eminently useful words that should be brought back to enrich our language:
http://wordwarriors.wayne.edu/2010/
The opposite of this site:  Lake Superior State University’s Unicorn Hunters

NMSA09:

Got Student Leadership?
Session Description: Can you imagine a positive, contagious, and exciting cultural change in your school? This presentation introduces a vibrant/dynamic school wide student leadership program that develops life skills, enhances student voice, increases student spirit/ participation, and much more. In addition to participants walking away with fun, hands-on activities that teach life skills to their students, they will also leave inspired and motivated to initiate a culture changing leadership program in their school.
www.casaaleadership.ca
7-9 school dual immersion school
Student council didn’t get enough kids involved. adopt and adapt all of these thing to your school. That’s what they did.
opportunity for positive student voices start small and build 3-4 years to change the culture added music to theme
want to get positive voice going. retreat at the beginning of the year. 2 days.
create toolbox of soft skills.
handwriting write your name as many times as possible in 15 seconds debrief- fair to compare long names with short? do again with goal of writing one more letter than last time. again with switching hands. can also talk about motivation.
counting example count to 20 with no communication. count out loud
use co-captains instead of pres & vp leadership group with behavior. intramurals as a reward. monthly spirit activity- each committee takes 1 month and does spirit activities. events are to connect with the kids.
eye spy took picture of an eye of a staff member. Guesses cost $$- winner gets prize. RPS Rock Paper Scissor Leprechuan hunt- tags under chair- ice cream Sunday Monday
RAT – rise and tell – broke the code of silence. lots of talking to adults. see page 15 for guidelines on what can be done. interview process instead of elections. pull together all of the kids who applied explain who was chosen. letters are sent all. finger count
say it and do it. say opposite do opposite
Students as Mentors.

Events & Happenings:

NMSA News:

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 Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010. Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  • Second Life:
  • Google Teacher Academy for Administrators: “We’re very excited to announce our first ever Google Teacher Academy for Administrators.  Since many of you have been asking for a GTA for Admins for a while, we’ve decided to host the first one immediately preceding the ASCD conference, on Friday, March 5th in San Antonio, Texas.  As you might know, the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators is a FREE professional development experience designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative technologies. Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and learn how to apply examples from our innovative corporate environment.  Potential applicants include educational leaders or decision makers including (but not limited to) school principals, assistant principals, state, county or district superintendents, technology directors or coordinators, and CTOs who actively serve K-12 teachers and students.  For more information, please check out:  http://www.google.com/educators/gtaforadmins.html
    OR
    Apply before midnight, January 25th here:  https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dE1lYmFfTU4zN1RQWDBpX20wb3BsWXc6MA “

advisory, MSM, NMSA09, PodcastBy Troy Patterson

MSM-102-Happy New Year – Skype Frustration (Skype is soooooo 2009 …)

Jokes:

Things Not To Do During Exams

1. Bring a pillow. Fall asleep (or pretend to) until the last 15 minutes. Wake up, say “oh geez, better get cracking” and do some gibberish work. Turn it in a few minutes early.

2. Get a copy of the exam, run out screaming “Andre, Andre, I’ve got the secret documents!!”

3. If it is a math/science exam, answer in essay form. If it is long answer/essay form, answer with numbers and symbols. Be creative. Use the integral symbol.

4. Make paper airplanes out of the exam. Aim them at the instructor’s left nostril.

5. Talk the entire way through the exam. Read questions aloud, debate your answers with yourself out loud. If asked to stop, yell out, “I’m so sure you can hear me thinking. ” Then start talking about what a jerk the instructor is.

6. Bring cheerleaders.

7. Walk in, get the exam, sit down. About five minutes into it, loudly say to the instructor, “I don’t understand any of this. I’ve been to every lecture all semester long! What’s the deal? And who are you? Where’s the regular guy?”

8. Bring a Game Boy (or Game Gear, etc. . . ). Play with the volume at max level.

9. On the answer sheet (book, whatever) find a new, interesting way to refuse to answer every question. For example: I refuse to answer this question on the grounds that it conflicts with my religious beliefs. Be creative.

10. Bring pets.

11. Run into the exam room looking about frantically. Breathe a sigh of relief. Go to the instructor, say “They’ve found me, I have to leave the country” and run off.

12. Fifteen minutes into the exam, stand up, rip up all the papers into very small pieces, throw them into the air and yell out “Merry Christmas. “If you’re really daring, ask for another copy of the exam. Say you lost the first one. Repeat this process every fifteen minutes.

13. Do the exam with crayons, paint, or fluorescent markers.

14. Come into the exam wearing slippers, a bathrobe, a towel on your head, and nothing else.

15. Come down with a BAD case of Turet’s Syndrome during the exam. Be as vulgar as possible.

16. Do the entire exam in another language. If you don’t know one, make one up! For math/science exams, try using Roman numerals.

17. Bring things to throw at the instructor when s/he’s not looking. Blame it on the person nearest to you.

18. As soon as the instructor hands you the exam, eat it.

19. Walk into the exam with an entourage. Claim you are going to be taping your next video during the exam. Try to get the instructor to let them stay, be persuasive. Tell the instructor to expect a percentage of the profits if they are allowed to stay.

20. Every five minutes, stand up, collect all your things, move to another seat, continue with the exam.

21. Turn in the exam approximately 30 minutes into it. As you walk out, start commenting on how easy it was.

22. Do the entire exam as if it was multiple choice and true/false. If it is a multiple choice exam, spell out interesting things (DCCAB. BABE. etc. . ).

23. Bring a black marker. Return the exam with all questions and answers completely blacked out.

24. Get the exam. Twenty minutes into it, throw your papers down violently, scream out “Forget this!” and walk out triumphantly.

25. Arrange a protest before the exam starts (i. e. Threaten the instructor that whether or not everyone’s done, they are all leaving after one hour to go drink)

26. Show up completely drunk. (Completely drunk means at some point during the exam, you should start crying for mommy).

27. Every now and then, clap twice rapidly. If the instructor asks why, tell him/her in a very derogatory tone, “the light bulb that goes on above my head when I get an idea is hooked up to a clapper. DUH!”

28. Comment on how sexy the instructor is looking that day.

29. Come to the exam wearing a black cloak. After about 30 minutes, put on a white mask and start yelling “I’m here, the phantom of the opera” until they drag you away.

30. Go to an exam for a class you have no clue about, where you know the class is very small, and the instructor would recognize you if you belonged. Claim that you have been to every lecture. Fight for your right to take the exam.

31. Upon receiving the exam, look it over, while laughing loudly, say “you don’t really expect me to waste my time on this drivel? Days of our Lives is on!!!”

32. Bring a water pistol with you.

33. From the moment the exam begins, hum the theme to Jeopardy. Ignore the instructor’s requests for you to stop. When they finally get you to leave one way or another, begin whistling the theme to the Bridge on the River Kwai.

34. Start a brawl in the middle of the exam.

35. If the exam is math/science related, make up the longest proofs you could possibly think of. Get pi and imaginary numbers into most equations. If it is a written exam, relate everything to your own life story.

36. Come in wearing a full knight’s outfit, complete with sword and shield.

37. Bring a friend to give you a back massage the entire way through the exam. Insist this person is needed, because you have bad circulation.

38. Bring cheat sheets for another class (make sure this is obvious. . . like history notes for a calculus exam. . . otherwise you’re not just failing, you’re getting kicked out too) and staple them to the exam, with the comment “Please use the attached notes for references as you see fit. “

39. When you walk in, complain about the heat.

40. After you get the exam, call the instructor over, point to any question, ask for the answer. Try to work it out of him/her.

41. One word: Wrestlemania.

42. Bring balloons, blow them up, start throwing them around like they do before concerts start.

43. Try to get people in the room to do the wave.

44. Play frisbee with a friend at the other side of the room.

45. Bring one pencil with a very sharp point. Break the point off your paper. Sharpen the pencil. Repeat this process for one hour.

46. Get deliveries of candy, flowers, balloons, telegrams, etc. . . sent to you every few minutes throughout the exam.

47. During the exam, take apart everything around you. Desks, chairs, anything you can reach.

48. Complete the exam with everything you write being backwards at a 90 degree angle.

49. Bring a musical instrument with you, play various tunes. If you are asked to stop, say “it helps me think. ” Bring a copy of the Student Handbook with you, challenging the instructor to find the section on musical instruments during finals. Don’t forget to use the phrase “Told you so”.

50. Answer the exam with the “Top Ten Reasons Why Professor xxxx is a Terrible Teacher”

For your classroom:  http://www.mathteacherstore.com/middle/midlpost/5-8/155101main.htm

On Our Mind:

Reading List:

  • The Alphabet versus the Goddess – Shlain
  • Catching Up or Leading the Way – Zhao
  • The Dumbest Generation- Bauerlein
  • Why Students Don’t Like School – Willingham
  • How People Learn
  • Super Freakonomics – Levitt

Letter:
Mr. TB:  Thanks for letting us know we’ve been out of contact. We had an issue with the xml file which is now fixed.

From the Twitterverse:

Advisory:

Pamela Chandler’s students recently completed an activity in which they took a survey about the stressors in their lives. “Students were amazed at how many stressful things they deal with on a daily basis,” said Chandler. After the survey, students brainstormed ways of dealing with those stressors.

Last fall, before parent conferences, Stern asked her advisees to fill out a form designed to gather information about how students felt about school and how they thought their parents would respond to the upcoming advisory conference. “Included on that form was the question What would you like me to discuss with your parents that you feel is difficult for you to address?” said Stern. “Students have brought up the need for privacy, how they are trying hard even if they are not meeting with the results they would like, and that even though they like and respect their parents, they need to try things out for themselves. These can be difficult issues, and parents and the advisor can then discuss how to deal with them so that everybody is happier.”

Things that happen in one minute:
http://www.insurance-quotes-for-you.com/20_Things_That_Happen_In_One_Minute.html

Webspotlight:

Free Books:

This collection features free e-books, mostly classics, that you can read on your computer, smart phone, or Kindle. It includes great works of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. To learn how to download these ebooks to your computer/mobile device, please visit our eBook Primer.

http://www.openculture.com/free_ebooks

LoudLit:
Literature for your eyes and ears.
http://www.loudlit.org/

Top Documentary Films- Free
An aggregation site for documentary films. They don’t host them. Well organized and easy to use. You’ll probably need to download the films.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/

Newspaper Headline
Create the banner and lead article for your own newspaper.
http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

15 TED Talks for Teachers to Watch Before 2010 by Free Tech 4 Teachers (Richard Byrne)
OK so we’re a little late- you can still watch them.
1. John Wooden on Winning vs. Success.
2. Clifford Stoll Teaches Physics to Eighth Graders.
3. Don’t Eat the Marshmallow
4. Bill Gates Talks About Mosquitoes, Malaria, and Education.
5. David Merrill Introduces Siftables
6. Tom Wujec – 3 Ways the Brain Creates Meaning.
7. Jimmy Wales – The Birth of Wikipedia.
8. Julian Treasure – 4 Ways Sound Affects Us.
9. How Cell Phones, Twitter, and Facebook Can Make History.
10. Matthew White Gives the Euphonium a New Voice.
Update: Lead Like the Great Conductors.
Bonus: David Pogue on the Music Wars
Update #2: More reader suggestions
Pranav Mistry – The Thrilling Potential of Sixth Sense Technology.
Benjamin Zander – On Music and Passion
Dan Pink – The Surprising Science of Motivation

http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/12/10-ted-talks-for-teachers-to-watch.html

NMSA09:

Integrating Open Education Resources into the Middle School Classroom

Session Description: As school districts struggle in today’s restrictive budget environment, administrators must find innovative options for providing high-quality, standards based curriculum. Open education resources are becoming a viable alternative for how school districts use electronic curricula. The integration of free content not only enhances existing curriculum but also provides educators with a wide array of additional instructional options. This session will demonstrate how teachers and educators can work together to modify, improve, and enhance the material and then share it with other educators.
Very personalized
Based upon curriki. http://www.curriki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome
Teachers need time to spend playing. It’s not the end but the process that is important.
Teachers generally don’t get time to play. This is the advantage that kids have.
Have teachers evaluate sites.
The World is Open by Curtis Bonk.
The Machine is Using Us – You Tube The Machine is (Changing) Us – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPAO-lZ4_hU&feature=channel Curriki: Free membership – just need to register. Use the advanced search to limit searches down quickly. Several different filters are available.
3* – Collection gets a 3, then each individual lesson gets a 3 also.

Digital Manipulation:
http://www.iwanexstudio.com/
Porfolio | Mouse over the images (one is inappropriate for school)

RW7

John Collins Writing
John Collins presenting.  Had a chance to talk with him.  Great introduction.
Make a note of any chapters or topics we will cover in the next few weeks:
idioms
5 paragraph essay
Improving Academic Performance:  What assignments are best?
1.  4-6 paragraph persuasive essay
2.  Friendly letter
3.  Summary
4.  Process paper- explaining how to do something
5.  Personal narrative
6.  Lab report
7.  Compare and contrast essay
8.  Research paper- proving a point with sources
9.  Literary analysis-analyzing literature
10.  Other . . . .
My pics from the list
4-6 paragraph persuasive essay
Summary
Personal narrative
John’s ‘Right Answers’
Compare & Contrast
Persuasive Essay (not supported by research)
Summary
Other:  Vocabulary Cards  (think Frayer Model)
Avril Coxhead

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

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 Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010. Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  • Second Life:
  • Google Teacher Academy for Administrators: “We’re very excited to announce our first ever Google Teacher Academy for Administrators.  Since many of you have been asking for a GTA for Admins for a while, we’ve decided to host the first one immediately preceding the ASCD conference, on Friday, March 5th in San Antonio, Texas.  As you might know, the Google Teacher Academy for Administrators is a FREE professional development experience designed to help K-12 educational leaders get the most from innovative technologies. Each Academy is an intensive, one-day event where participants get hands-on experience with Google’s free products and other technologies, learn about innovative instructional strategies, receive resources to share with colleagues, and learn how to apply examples from our innovative corporate environment.  Potential applicants include educational leaders or decision makers including (but not limited to) school principals, assistant principals, state, county or district superintendents, technology directors or coordinators, and CTOs who actively serve K-12 teachers and students.  For more information, please check out:  http://www.google.com/educators/gtaforadmins.html
    OR
    Apply before midnight, January 25th here:  https://spreadsheets.google.com/a/google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dE1lYmFfTU4zN1RQWDBpX20wb3BsWXc6MA

advisory, MSM, Podcast, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM-98 NMSA09 Follow up 3 Get Your Wave ON!

Jokes:

Real Teachers:

  • cheer when April 1 doesn’t fall on a school day
  • Clutch a pencil when thinking
  • never teach the conjugations of lie and lay to 8th graders.
  • can’t walk past a group of students without straightening up the line.
  • have disjointed necks from constantly looking around 180 degrees
  • can eat lunch in under 3 minutes
  • can predict exactly which parents will show up at Conferences.
  • know the shortest route to the office, bathroom (all of them) and caffeine
  • know that secretaries and custodians run the school.

From the Twitterverse:

Advisory:

Pictures of our World. Have students take pictures of “their world”. Have the students narrow down their choices to 1 picture. Discuss why the picture is important.

On Our Mind:

MAMSE: Contact your local MAMSE board member and volunteer to be a Regional Coordinator!

Charter Colleges: Marvin Olasky proposes charter colleges to further democratize education.

Grown Up Digital by Don Tapscott

Webspotlight:

Students live in a Digital World. Are schools ready to join them?

Seale and educators across the country are employing an array of digital tools—blogs, wikis, videos, and social media—to tap into their passion for collaborating, creating, and sharing.

“It’s about initiating higher levels of engagement,” says Seale, “and making the learning more self-directed and self-motivated.” “Let’s face it,” she adds, “being literate today means more than reading words on a printed page and writing an essay.”

“I don’t think we yet have a handle on what it really means to be literate in the 21st century,” Fisch acknowledges.

So don’t throw away your copies of To Kill a Mockingbird; even the most fervent Web evangelists believe there is still space for the Great Books. But the bottom line remains: We can’t stop there. Our students are living in a different world.

http://www.nea.org/home/35939.htm

FastPencil: Turn your blog posts into a book. http://ow.ly/E8z3

One of the laments of librarians and English teachers about blogs is the lack of permenance. Once the electrons go away, so does the content. FastPencil can turn blog posts into chapter books for paper books.

What happened to Second Life? BBC questions current model of marketing in virtual environment.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8367957.stm

ANKI:

Spaced Repetition

Anki is a spaced repetition system (SRS). It helps you remember things by intelligently scheduling flashcards, so that you can learn a lot of information with a minimum amount of effort. (Available for Mac/Linux/iPhone-iPod Touch/Windows)

http://ichi2.net/anki/index.html

NMSA09:

Strategies That Motivate Students

Mark McLeod

*Notes from Todd Williamson who took much better notes than I (any errors in transcription though are mine alone):

Session Description: Student engagement is the key to learning for middle school students. This session will explore many teaching strategies and techniques that encourage students to get excited about learning. The presenter will model various strategies that can be used immediately in the classroom. Both veteran and new teachers will leave this session with many powerful, yet practical strategies to motivate today’s middle school students.

Idea of emotional bank account Attitude is the most important thing. There are 2 feat which interfere with success:

• Fear of Embarrassment

• Fear of Failure

Personal life needs to be in order. The kids bring enough baggage. Kids need to be involved or the drop out later. What is the #1 Quality you want in your students?

• • •

Positive Attitude Treat Others with Respect Motivated to Want to Learn

Am I treating everyone in here with the attitudes I expect?

We can’t change other people, we can only change ourselves…so make sure you do that and enjoy what you do.

No one forces anyone to have a great attitude. It’s your choice.

Has everyone spend a few minute encouraging others…return to seats when we hear YMCA, and do YMCAtogether. FUNTIMES!!

Teachers have to be willing to step out and take risks. Take ideas, tweak them to work for yourself, and take the chance to use them.

Many teachers are afraid of embarassment and failure, so they never take risks.

BIGGEST MOTIVATOR: RELATIONSHIPS

Kids bring enough baggage, teacher doesn’t need to bring more into the picture. Make desposits into kids emotional bank accounts. Are we making deposits or withdrawals from our kids accounts? These are not accounts we want closed.

You can’t change what’s in the past, so don’t let it stop you. If you’ve made too many withdrawals in the past, don’t dwell on it, just start making deposits from then on.

Sometimes we have to INTENTIONALLY make deposits until it becomes habit. WE ARE SO INGRAINED AS TEACHERS TO LOOK FOR THINGS TO CORRECT, SOMETIMES WE JUST NEED TO FOCUS ON WHAT ALREADY IS GOOD.

Developing positive relationships doesn’t just happen in the classroom, we have to do it everywhere in life so it becomes habit.

It’s not the teacher that sends students to the office, it’s the environment. Free time and inappropriate conversations happen when positive relationships aren’t established.

AGREE WITH A TWEET BY @MSMATTERS…MARK MCLEOD IS GIVING GREAT ADVICE FOR LIFE AS WELL AS THE CLASSROOM

Students AND Adults both need deposits into their emotional bank accounts. What are some ways to make deposits into students emotional bank accounts?

1. ATTEND GAMES

2. GIVE JOB IN CLASSROOM

3. POSITIVE PARENT CONTACT

4. DISCUSS INTERESTS

5. PRAISE

6. RECOGNIZE BIRTHDAYS

7. STICKERS (haha)

8. REWARDS

9. FOOD

10.NOTICE THINGS FROM OTHER CLASSES SUBJECTS

Adults

1. FOOD

2. SHOW UP FOR SIGNIFICANT EVENTS (DEATHS, ILLNESS, WEDDINGS)

3. LISTEN

4. REWARDS

5. KNOWING WHO KIDS ARE

6. RECOGNITION

Practice attention getting strategies in the classroom…bells, sayings, etc…don’t just tell them, actually practice it.

Students don’t know how to make deposits…we have to help teach them. “Cha-ching” shirts…on the back “Have you made a deposit today?”

2nd Biggest Motivator: Success

Set up students for success…self-motivated students blurt out because they want the thrill of victory

Don’t worry about the blurtter-outers…they’re self-motivated and will learn anyway. Target the kids who never raise their hands and set them up for success.

#1 Questioning Technique to add Tension: Ask, Pause, Call…Tension keeps all engaged, don’t start question with “Suzy, what is…” everyone else tunes out and learning stops. Random name generators add to tension as well. This keeps kids engaged…and no one has to know for sure who’s name is pulled out if you really want to call on a particular student.

#2 Questioning Technique is “Volunteers”…This gives a bad sampling because you get the same volunteers every time. Ask Pause Call with random name generator causes more thinking, from a larger number of students, and allows you to climb up Blooms.

#3 QuestioningTechnique: Choral Response…Have a signal when you want students to respond together, otherwise they won’t know when to start or stop.

#4 Questioning Technique: Signal Response…Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down/Windshield Wiper… Whiteboards…SHOWING WHITEBOARDS WITH A HANDLE, MARKER, AND 4 DIFFERENT COLORS.

Notes: Ross Burkhardt on Writing for Real Reasons

Quote: “Our sincere interest in students’ lives and their opinions is one of the strongest motivators we have. Nothing on earth is so irresistible to a writer as the knowledge that her writing might actually influence someone else’s thoughts or feelings.”

CEU code: EQ7

Why are we using writing as punishment? (Cartoon reference)

NCTE quote: “Conventions of writing are best taught in the context of writing.”

NCTE quote: “When writers actually write, they think of things that they did not have in mind before they begin writing.”

“Writers need a classroom culture that supports writing, a culture in which everyone, including the teacher, is part of a writing community.” Vicki Spandel

“You can’t be what you can’t see.” Dr. Joycelyn Elders, Nov. 2003 in an Atlanta Speech.

The Teacher As Writer

“Almost nothing does more to sustain a culture of writing than a teacher who writes with students, thereby underscoring the importance of writing, and also allowing students to see the process.” Vicki Spandel

“Save all drafts!”

What Ross did in his classroom will not work in our classrooms.

Adapt these writing strategies to your own:

Students

style

setting

Take out a sheet of paper . . .

Activity: Letter of appreciation or acknowlegement.

On the sheet of paper, identify three people that are important to you and why.

It doesn’t matter who they put down on the paper.

Letter to Jack Berckemeyer . . .

Share/Pair instructions

Decide who goes first.

First person shares – 1 minute

Switch

Second Person shares – 1 minute (or so)

Teacher reads a letter of gratitude and then seals it in an envelope.

Real audience

Real person

Shows authenticity

Choose principal, AP, fellow teacher, etc.

Send the student to the person in the sealed envelope that they saw sealed and then point out that they came back empty handed.

Assignment

You’ve identified three people, now write a letter like this to one of those three people.

“Grade is an A. I will not read it.” “If you’d like me to read your letter to help with your grammar and punctuation, I will read it.”

“Tomorrow I will be at the door. Have your letter ready to go when you walk into class tomorrow. Your grade goes down from there if you didn’t turn it in.”

Part Two:

Make three columns on a piece of paper.

Put the number 8 at the top left column.

Put all the things you did (best stuff) in a column. Things you did in 8th grade.

Wherever you stop, draw a line. Write down the best stuff from 7th Grade.

Go around the room and mention one thing. Kids can add as each contributes.

Do the same for 6th Grade

Look over the entire list and pick the three best things you ever did in middle school.

Identify the staff member who was most responsible for making that activity happen.

It’s the last week of school kids, you have a list in front of you the best stuff in middle school and the people who made it happen. What could we do with that information?

Assignment: Write two letters of acknowlegement to staff.

If they want to write to you, they have to write a third letter.

HMP: Holiday Memory Piece

Monday before Friday before Christmas Break.

“Kids, I’m going to read you something and then I’m going to ask you some questions”

There are no questions, lol!

Christmas Eve Exchange . . .

Questions are a little bit about the story . . .

“Ok kids, we’ve got a holiday coming up . . . ” shows a list of holidays.

“On Friday of this week you’re going to share one of your holiday memories.”

Let the Jehovah’s Witness kid talk about not celebrating holidays.

Can’t fail because they can pick from any memory.

They’ve experienced it and it has already happened.

Tell them that they are going to create a public piece of writing.

GOW: Gift of Writing

identify three people who are important to you and briefly describe them.

Share a model of what this writing will look like.

“Tears on the Turnpike”

“In what way is your experience different than your experience of the story?”

She’s in it. She’s a participant.

He gave this piece of writing to his sister as a gift.

Assignment:

Your job is to create a gift of writing to give to an intended audience.

Letter to Self: LTS

The Grade is a B and I will not read it.

Minimum of two pages on the next 5 topics.

Put the heading at the top of the page and you turn in two pages in to me at the door.

Want an A? Turn in three pages.

This honors the narcissism of the adolescent.

This could address the GLCE about creating writers who “want” to write.

Belief informs Action

The 10 Assertions.

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:

NMSA News:

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 Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010. Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.

“The Prince, the Wolf and the Firebird”

By Jackson Lacey

Directed by Pam Cardell

December 4, 5, 10, 11 at 7PM

December 5, 6, 12 at 3PM

School Matinees: December 9 and 10 at 10:00 am. Tickets $4.00 for students and every 15 students gets a chaparone in for free.

  • Second Life:
  • No Events specified. Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled. See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.
  • Video: Educational Uses of Second Life

advisory, MSM, PodcastBy Troy Patterson

MSM 94: What Conferences Will Come: And That’s Why We Like Faygo!

Shawn & Troy discuss advisory ideas, share some shout outs, spotlight a few web sites, and look forward to the NMSA09 conference.

Jokes:

Computer Class

For a computer programming class, I sat directly across from someone, and our computers were facing away from each other. A few minutes into the class, she got up to leave the room. I reached between our computers and switched the inputs for the keyboards.
She came back and started typing and immediately got a distressed look on her face.
She called the teacher over and explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen. The teacher tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking red-faced.
I started to type, “Leave me alone!”
They both jumped back, silenced. “What the . . . ” the teacher said. I typed, “I said leave me alone!”
The kid got real upset. “I didn’t do anything to it, I swear!” It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. The conversation between them and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five minutes.
Me: “Don’t touch me!”
Her: “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit your keys that hard.”
Me: “Who do you think you are anyway?!” Etc. Finally, I couldn’t contain myself any longer and fell out of my chair laughing.
After they had realized what I had done, they both turned beet red. Funny, I never got more than a C- in that class.

Faygo Commercial:  YouTube

From the Twitterverse:

Advisory:

One Letter off Movies:  #oneletteroffmovies

  • Urbane Cowboy
  • A Streetcar Named Desirex
  • Where the Mild Things Are
  • Sat VI
  • Boy Story

Longer Temper:
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/10/22/i-like-this-lesson-because-it-make-me-have-a-longer-temper-part-one/

On Our Mind:

Shout out to March Wells III:  Still on dial up….2 hours to download our Podcast.  The Dedicated Listener Award goes to . . .
Shout out to L.C.:  Thanks for the idea- Snag jokes from Reader’s Digest (so you know they’re funny) and then put them into cartoon form.

Should the National Middle School Association change its name?  This was brought up an annual conference or two ago . . .

Oscar the 3 legged wonder dog.

Webspotlight:

Comparison of cell sizes:

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/begin/cells/scale/

Schoology

Schoology combines social networking with course management to enable students and educators to manage classroom work while having the ability to seamlessly communicate and collaborate through a safe and secure network.

Schoology offers both school-wide implementations and individual subscriptions.

Schoology is an alternative to other course management systems on the market.

As a web-based application, Schoology is able to offer services at a lower price than traditional systems. Being a fully hosted and fully managed system means less headache for your users and support staff. This allows you to spend your time using the system, instead of maintaining it.

The social networking features of Schoology compliment the course manager by allowing for seamless and effortless communication of information.

There is always 100% accountability and 100% transparency. Student actions are always affiliated with a physical student. Anything done on Schoology can be compared to performing this action in person.

https://www.schoology.com/home.php

SlickPlan

SlickPlan is a web-based sitemap/flowchart generator that allows for the creation of free sitemap and flowchart design. SlickPlan was handcrafted with PHP/MySQL and jQuery by the Dayton website design team at Atomic Interactive.

http://www.slickplan.com/

WatchKnow:

The Internet is full of useful information, but it’s disorganized and often unreliable. Despite its problems, the potential of the Internet for education is especially huge. Imagine tapping into that potential. Imagine collecting all the best free educational videos made for children, and making them findable and watchable on one website. Then imagine creating many, many more such videos. Just think: millions of great short videos, and other watchable media, explaining every topic taught in schools, in every major language on Earth.Finally, imagine them all deeply and usefully categorized according to subject, education level, and placed in the order in which topics are typically taught.WatchKnow—as in, “You watch, you know”—has started building this resource.WatchKnow is both a resource for users and also a non-profit, online community that encourages everyone to collect, create, and share free, innovative, educational videos.WatchKnow is now officially launched, after being developed for over a year. Whether you’re a student, a parent, a teacher, or just someone who cares about the education of children, you can now use our service and get involved to make it even better. Please sign up! (But did you know that you can add new videos to our system without signing up? They’ll have to be approved first.)There is no better online cause than the future of our children. And just imagine how fantastic it would be if there were a resource online we could go to, or send our kids to, that would explain every topic they study in school instantly and reliably. Many of the resources needed for such a site already exist online; they just need to be organized.

http://www.watchknow.org/

News:


National Middle School Association’s Annual Conference November 4-6, Indianapolis, IN.
http://www.nmsa.org/annual/

Stress, Control, and the Deprofessionalizing of Teaching:

By Thomas Newkirk

Until fairly recently, psychologists accepted the common-sense view that job stress was directly related to the significance of the decisions being made. The top executive jobs, by this logic, were the most stressful because so much was riding on decisions. And the lower-level positions—the clerks, custodial workers, and receptionists—were less stressful because decisions had less impact. There was less to worry about. All this made a kind of sense.

But it was exactly wrong.

A key word in the advertising copy for these systems is “easy.” Check it out. There is the regular promise that by minutely directing instruction, these systems will relieve the teacher of the stress of planning and decisionmaking and create great results.

It is a Faustian bargain. When teachers lose control of decisionmaking—when they prepare students for tests they have no role in designing (and often no belief in), when they must abandon units they love because there is no longer time, when they must follow the plans designed by others, when they are locked in systems of instruction and evaluation they don’t create or even choose—they will not be relieved of stress.

It will surely be argued that I am too optimistic here, that only a small percentage of teachers can or will take on this more creative work.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/21/08newkirk.h29.html?tkn=SLXFVNI0pzgQlNmS03dWjNd3b5GbnRR0ra9D

What Ted Sizer Meant to Us

By Patrick J. McQuillan
The death this month of Theodore R. Sizer leaves an immense void in the American educational landscape.
Coming at a time that A Nation at Risk would lay a foundation for neoliberal philosophy to dominate U.S. educational policy, Ted Sizer offered an alternative approach to the shortcomings of American education, one rooted in the vision of John Dewey and progressive reform. Based on the research he conducted in high schools across the country that resulted in Horace’s Compromise, Ted highlighted the “compromises” teachers endured while adjusting and adapting to an ineffective system. They were responsible for so many students that they assigned little substantive work. Lacking time to know students well, teachers leveled their expectations to perceived student abilities. To ensure that they “covered” the entire curriculum, many topics were addressed superficially.
Well aware that students were key to any successful reform, Ted advocated “personalizing” student-teacher relationships, ensuring that “faculty knew students as people and learners,” as he would say.
Ted trusted teachers to organize their curriculum and educate their students. Our present emphasis on high-stakes standardized exams sends teachers and students a set of very different messages.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/29/10mcquillan.h29.html?tkn=PPLF+9RZuGGEuUfRwqevXDYZDDbIdJzHfqkX

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:
NMSA News:

  1. NMSA’s Annual Conference:  NMSA ‘08 Technology Focus Video.  NMSA ‘09 Invitation Video:  Indianapolis, IN Conference  November 5-7, 2009.  Individual Registration is now open.  September 30th early registration deadline is approaching  (Use MAMSE09 as your source code.)
  2. Dan Pink is keynoting the conference.  Here’s a teaser at TED.
  3. NMSA 09 Housing Information now available.  Some hotels are nearing full if not so already.  Special housing rates end October 5th.
  4. NMSA 09 Conference Connection:  Stay connected before, during, and after the conference!  Start your packing lists for the conference using packwhiz.com!

Other News:

  1. 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.
  2. The Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010.  Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  3. The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Annual Conference is coming up March 4-5, 2010 in Dexter, MI.  MAMSE will be celebrating its 40th Anniversary!
  4. Theater Education Opportunity:  Eastern Michigan University’s Quirk-Sponberg Theater has announced their Fall 2009 Season.

    “The Prince, the Wolf and the Firebird”
    By Jackson Lacey
    Directed by Pam Cardell
    December 4, 5, 10, 11 at 7PM
    December 5, 6, 12 at 3PM
    School Matinees: December 9 and 10 at 10:00 am.  Tickets $4.00 for students and every 15 students gets a chaparone in for free.

  5. Classroom 2.0’s Live Calendar.
  6. Classroom 2.0’s Ning Blog:  Archived content is available. 
  7. Second Life:
    • No Events specified.  Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled.  See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.
    • Video:  Educational Uses of Second Life

advisory, MSM, Podcast, TechBy Troy Patterson

MSM 93: The Show Name in 140 Characters or Less . . . or Your Money Back.

Jokes:

Rene Descartes went into his favorite ice cream store and the clerk asked, “would you like your usual ice cream soda, Monsieur Descartes? ” Descartes replied “I think not” and promptly disappeared.

How do we know that the following fractions are in Europe? A/C, X/C and W/C ?

Two Physicists were riding in a hot air balloon and were blown off course sailing over a mountain trail, and were completely lost.

They spotted a jogger running on the trail and they shouted “Can you tell us where we are?”  After a few minutes, the jogger yelled back “You’re up in a balloon.”

One physicists said to the other, “Just our luck to run into a mathematician”. “How do you know he was a mathematician?” asked the other.

“Well, in the first place he took a long time to answer; second, his answer was 100% correct and third, ,it was totally useless.”
If a ham sandwich is better than nothing and Nothing is better than Life, itself, does that mean that a ham sandwich is better than Life itself?

Three statisticians went duck hunting. A duck was approaching and the first statistician shot,And missed the duck by being a foot too high. The secondshot and was a foot too low.  The third cried, “We hit it!”

From the Twitterverse:

Advisory:

What’s My Line? Cartoon Edition:  http://www.worldmag.com/articles/16000
Take the cartoon, erase the text and let students then create text to fit a scene.  It doesn’t have to relate

On Our Mind:

One of the biggest classroom management mistakes teachers make is that they take disrespectful behavior personally. To quote Tom Hagen speaking to Sonny Corleone in the classic movie The Godfather, “This is business, not personal.”
http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/2009/07/31/how-to-handle-disrespectful-students/

Webspotlight:

Create easy flow charts (for Free):
http://www.slickplan.com/

Google Apps for Education Lesson Plans:
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/lesson_plans.html#utm_campaign=en&utm_source=educators_newsletter&utm_medium=email

Museum Virtual Box:
Welcome to Museum Box, This site provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie. You can also view and comment on the museum boxes submitted by others
http://museumbox.e2bn.org/index.php

The CU On-line Handbook:
So while online is not a cure-all or “magic bullet”, it does have the potential to revolutionize how we think about, and deliver education. The future is here. The question is only, “What should we do about it?”
https://www.cudenver.edu/Academics/CUOnline/FacultyResources/Handbook/Documents/2009/CU_Online_Handbook_2009.pdf#page=50

News:

Stress, Control, and the Deprofessionalizing of Teaching:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/21/08newkirk.h29.html?tkn=SLXFVNI0pzgQlNmS03dWjNd3b5GbnRR0ra9D

Twitter Lessons in 140 Characters or Less

By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo
“It’s not a research-based tool,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. “The most important thing to remember is that we have no idea what impact these tools have on learning, and it will take a decade to answer that question.”

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/10/21/08twitter_ep.h29.html?tkn=XTSF0PfbwZav1%2BekG07b5iRl6u4Y9q5vJbpA

Nearly half of Dallas 5th-graders not ready for middle school

As Dallas schools focus on getting all students ready for college, they face a daunting challenge uncovered by a new district tracking system: Almost half of fifth-graders are not even ready for middle school.
To be considered ready for middle school, fifth-graders had to pass the state TAKS exams in reading, math and science, and could not fail more than one core academic class, according to the district’s formula.
“You don’t just get on the college track in high school. You’re really on the college track well before that,” Dahlander said.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/102209dnmetfifthgrade.3d3bdd1.html

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentary/65330407.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUsZ

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:
NMSA News:

  1. NMSA’s Annual Conference:  NMSA ‘08 Technology Focus Video.  NMSA ‘09 Invitation Video:  Indianapolis, IN Conference  November 5-7, 2009.  Individual Registration is now open.  September 30th early registration deadline is approaching  (Use MAMSE09 as your source code.)
  2. Dan Pink is keynoting the conference.  Here’s a teaser at TED.
  3. NMSA 09 Housing Information now available.  Some hotels are nearing full if not so already.  Special housing rates end October 5th.
  4. NMSA 09 Conference Connection:  Stay connected before, during, and after the conference!  Start your packing lists for the conference using packwhiz.com!

Other News:

  1. 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.
  2. The Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010.  Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  3. The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Annual Conference is coming up March 4-5, 2010 in Dexter, MI.  MAMSE will be celebrating its 40th Anniversary!
  4. Theater Education Opportunity:  Eastern Michigan University’s Quirk-Sponberg Theater has announced their Fall 2009 Season.

    “The Prince, the Wolf and the Firebird”
    By Jackson Lacey
    Directed by Pam Cardell
    December 4, 5, 10, 11 at 7PM
    December 5, 6, 12 at 3PM
    School Matinees: December 9 and 10 at 10:00 am.  Tickets $4.00 for students and every 15 students gets a chaparone in for free.

  5. Classroom 2.0’s Live Calendar.
  6. Classroom 2.0’s Ning Blog:  Archived content is available. 
  7. Second Life:
    • No Events specified.  Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled.  See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.
    • Video:  Educational Uses of Second Life

advisory, MSM, Podcast, TechBy Troy Patterson

Podcast 88: It’s “Talk Like a Pirate, Teach Like a Pro” Day

Jokes:

What’s a pirate’s favorite TV show?  E ARRRRRRRrrrrrrgghhhh!
3.14159% of sailors are Pi Rates …
September 19th is also National Cheeseburger Day.  (All the pirates will be at HAarrrdee’s.)

Pirate Name Generator
Shawn’s pirate name: Frownin’ Tad Hacke
Troy’s pirate name:  Cowerin’ Joe Smythe

Shout outs:

From the Twitterverse:


Webspotlight:

Ten Totally Random Tips for Teachers:
http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2009/09/ten-totally-random-tips-for-teachers.html

Online Conference:  Smithsonian
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/professional_development/conference/2009/climate_change/index.html
(From AK Jenny)

Lesson Plans for Literacy:
http://www.readwritethink.org/

What’s on our Mind:

Mindset by Carol Dweck
http://www.mindsetonline.com/

Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
http://www.danpink.com/

Start of school:

Advisory:

Advisory idea:
1.  Pirate Name Generator
Shawn’s pirate name: Frownin’ Tad Hacke
Troy’s pirate name:  Cowerin’ Joe Smythe

2. Video – Silent Beats
Video on Prejudice. Interesting point of views.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76BboyrEl48

3.  Word Teasers: Idioms
The Word Teasers idiom edition has a “skit” activity that could make for a quick energy game to get kids ready for the day.  Visit them at http://www.wordteasers.com/.

News:

Bait & Switch – Vouchers

For almost two decades, Milwaukee has been home to the country’s oldest and largest voucher program—a beacon of hope for voucher supporters who want to use public dollars to fund private schools. But Milwaukee has now become the latest in a string of setbacks for vouchers.
The Milwaukee study reaffirmed what public school supporters had argued for years: that the problems afflicting urban schools are grounded in economic and racial segregation and the power structure’s willingness to abandon central cities because they are disproportionately populated by low-income people of color.The Milwaukee study follows a number of disheartening developments for voucher advocates.
There is little evidence that voucher or choice programs have succeeded in fostering the emergence of high-quality options.”
Similarly, it is only common sense that voucher students take the same standardized tests as public school and charter students, and that each voucher school release its results, just as public schools provide a school-by-school breakdown. Regardless of the shortcomings of the test, and there are many, such a requirement is essential if all schools that receive public dollars are to be treated equitably.
While private voucher schools cannot discriminate in admitting students with special needs, they are only required to give students those services that can be provided with minor adjustments. As a result, voucher schools have few special ed students.

http://rethinkingschools.org/archive/23_04/bait234.shtml

Blocking Facebook – Balance
Last week, we made a conscious decision to block Facebook from being accessed on our network. …while arguably brimming with educational potential, is most often used for nothing more than recreational interaction among participants.
Rather, it’s a matter of fighting for balance and the cognitive attention of our students.
http://www.techlearning.com/blogs/23300

The Dragon of Chaos (and How to Slay it)
Tips for getting the school year off on the organized foot.
http://cossondra.blogspot.com/2008/11/mighty-dragon-of-chaos-when-you-are.html

Events & Happenings:

Calendar of Events:
NMSA News:

  1. NMSA’s Annual Conference:  NMSA ‘08 Technology Focus Video.  NMSA ‘09 Invitation Video:  Indianapolis, IN Conference  November 5-7, 2009.  Individual Registration is now open.  September 30th early registration deadline is approaching  (Use MAMSE09 as your source code.)
  2. ATTENTION Michigan Association of Middle School Educators & Friends: MAMSE is putting together a bus for the trip to the National Middle School Association’s Annual Conference in Indianapolis, IN this fall.  Ride down to the conference in a luxury bus.  With all the conversations with middle school teachers on the bus, I wonder if we could call this a mini-MAMSE conference?  There’s nothing like getting together with people who love the people we love:  our students.  Getting together with folks like that is energizing and priceless.  Email Teresa Sutherland for information and details.  Don’t forget to mention you heard about it on Middle School Matters.
  3. Dan Pink is keynoting the conference.  Here’s a teaser at TED.
  4. NMSA 09 Housing Information now available.
  5. NMSA 09 Conference Connection:  Stay connected before, during, and after the conference!  Start your packing lists for the conference using packwhiz.com!
  6. Bob Spears does an interview on the Evolution of Advisory on NMSA’s podcast.

Other News:

  1. 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.
  2. The Ohio Middle Level Association will hold their annual conference February 18 & 19, 2010.  Jack Berckemeyer will be keynoting.
  3. The Michigan Association of Middle School Educators Annual Conference is coming up March 4-5, 2010 in Dexter, MI.  MAMSE will be celebrating its 40th Anniversary!
  4. The Wisconsin Association of Middle Level Educators is holding their Annual Conference October 8-9, 2009.
  5. Theater Education Opportunity:  Eastern Michigan University’s Quirk-Sponberg Theater has announced their Fall 2009 Season.

    “The Prince, the Wolf and the Firebird”
    By Jackson Lacey
    Directed by Pam Cardell
    December 4, 5, 10, 11 at 7PM
    December 5, 6, 12 at 3PM
    School Matinees: December 9 and 10 at 10:00 am.  Tickets $4.00 for students and every 15 students gets a chaparone in for free.

  6. Classroom 2.0’s Live Calendar.
  7. Classroom 2.0’s Ning Blog:  Archived content is available.  This week’s session:  “Web 2.0 Tools Demonstration Using Prezi” by Steve Dembo of the Discovery Education Network.
  8. Second Life:
    • No Events specified.  Regular Tuesday meetings are scheduled.  See the board on the ISTE Island for up to the minute details.
    • Video:  Educational Uses of Second Life

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