In April, I had three ferns. They were scraggly and brown with only a scant 3-4 slightly rancid green fronds sticking up from the middle. They were very sad. I had neglected to water them.
So although my May was crazy, I bought one more beautiful, full, lush fern for a special place on my back porch. And then, I resolved to water all of my ferns... just to see what happened.
For one month and a half I have watered all four ferns every day. Guess what has happened?
Now, I have four, lush, beautiful ferns. Every time someone comes to my house, they compliment me on these beautiful ferns. Three of them have moved from the back porch to the front and now I have bought three more.
As I have watched the transformation, I have clearly seen a life principle:
What ever you water will grow!
You may not think that is an epiphany, but it truly is! You see, life is not in the heroic carrying of an enormous log up a hill. Life is more like carrying a gunny sack of small rocks up a hill each day. You take those small rocks and add them to the one's from yesterday and the day before. Before you know it, you've built a castle, or a home, or a classroom, or whatever you planned to build.
The great feats are in what you do a little every day. That is who you become. Benjamin Franklin had his virtues that he worked on. Did he become perfect? Not by any means. Did he accomplish a lot with his life, Yes!
I become what I water.
I become what I do a little every day!
So, accordingly, as I have made my summer list for both me and my children, I have put in the most important things that I want to become. We begin with the end in mind. With a clearer picture of who I want to be, I can put the things into my day that help me become that person.
I feel that I become stronger with time for introspection such as this. This summer I am full of so many things to do and I still rise early. However, I will water those things that are important to me so that I can become more, contribute a little more, and leave perhaps a little more of a legacy.
Each summer I set goals and I have them for the last three years. I know what I accomplished each summer and end the summer with a value and a pleasure of knowing what I accomplished. Prior to this goal setting, I would finish the summer feeling upset and unsettled that I hadn't quite put my finger on the pulse of what was important to me.
So, this summer, think about what you want to grow in your life.
If it is a good attitude -- surround yourself with people, thoughts, books, and blogs of those who are positive influences on you.
If it is a certain goal -- set the goal and work on it a little every day, taking time to work on it in bigger chunks as possible.
If it is to increase knowledge - set your goals appropriately, make a list of books, and begin.
If it is to have some true relaxation - plan it, get ready for it, and when you're there, turn off the phone, ignore bloglines, leave the laptop and truly breathe in the fresh breeze of life that you are meant to live. I include exercise in this for there is nothing in the world like harnessing the power of endorphins released by exercise to boost your mood and make you feel like a million dollars!
If it is to reconnect with those you love - whatever you water will grow. Spend meaningful time doing fun things. Abandon the fussing and nagging and come up with a way for them to do their tasks without your intervention. (I create weekly lists with choices for my kids. The list nags, not me.) Do things to build up your relationship. Build traditions and memories. Life is too short and family is one of the most important things!
Whatever it is, water the things that are important to you.
For it is one thing to kill a fern, it is entirely another to kill an attitude, a goal, a dream, your health, and your relationships.
Don't let the flux of technology make your curriculum irrelevant
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
I've begun my summer reading, and have completed my first book of the summer. Must Read for Literature and History Teachers
How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill is an absolute must read for any teacher of classical literature or history. This is the first of the "Hinges of History" series and is not for the person afraid of a robust vocabulary. My father recommended the series and this is one time I'm glad I didn't go with the Amazon reviews which only gave it three stars. I loved this book!
World Knowledge suffers from whiplash
I have had several paradigm shifts as I've realized that world knowledge has not been on a steady sloped increase. Every so often society suffers from whiplash as the rapid acceleration of learning is halted by a collision with unlearned or repressive political take overs of those who want to control minds or simply do not value learning.
In many cases, hunger and over population are great enemies of knowledge. As we know from Maslow's heirarchy of needs, if one is hungry, one will not ponder the meaning of life.
The loss of the library at Alexandria: From Books to Bathwater
The uneducated who care only for their safety and their next meal are more likely to view books as firewood rather than as kindling for the mind. As I consider the events which served as precursors to the Irish "saving" civilization, I think of the final demise of the most priceless contents of literature, science and engineering in the library of Alexandria. This library was founded near the end of the fourth century BC as a repository of the world's great books and at its height numbered almost a half a million works, many of them original. Although the Emperor Theodosius had much to do with the destruction of part of the library, in met its final demise in 640 AD, when Arab legions swept through Egypt. The commanding general used the books were used to heat Alexandria's public bathwater for several months.
I wonder if the barbarians learned anything as they swam in the last vestiges of works by Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes, or Aristotle? The Flux and Stasis of Education
This brings me to ponder the two words that have been the focal point of my thoughts for the last several weeks: flux and stasis.
Education thrives in stasis Education seems to do quite well in stasis. When things are orderly and quiet and there is time time for reflection, study, and lecture. However, when society enters states of flux it seems there is difficulty.
Technology is always in flux
This relates directly to technology. Technology by nature is in flux. Its very core is that of flux. This has thrown education on its proverbial ear as educators grapple with standards, best practices, and measurement tools to determine exactly the STATUS of our technological education.
Therein lies the problem: STATUS and Stasis share the same root. How can you determine the status of something not in stasis? Todays answer is irrelevant tomorrow.
Technological innovation IS FLUX. So how do we determine its status? How do we respond more quickly to innovation? Who determines whether an innovation is worthy of covering in the classroom? How do we continually make sure teachers are "educated" on current technology. Can an educated person become uneducated?
I am fascinated by a quote from one of my students last week as we discussed DOPA. One student responded to our classroom discussion by calling the Congressmen who supported this legislation "uneducated."
I ask, here we have Congressmen, many of who are at the top of their field, and a tenth grader is calling them "uneducated." Why is that?
Forgotten knowledge versus unlearned knowledge
I had three semesters of Calculus at Georgia Tech. Can I sit down and do it right now? -- not without review. That is "forgotten" knowledge because I don't use it every day. However, this is not a matter of forgotten knowledge but rather of learning new, current technology. It is a matter of continuing education in a more real way than we've ever known it! Education in a perpetual state of flux
If we are going to live in this state of flux created by our increasing dependence on technology, we are going to have to devise methods to "educate" the masses of people in this country and around the world.
It should not take two years to add information into the technology curriculum that will be outdated as soon as it is added. (I think a year is too long!) I believe that whereas the curriculum model may have worked relatively well for classical subjects, the technology curriculum (and technological tools used in the traditional core) need a delivery method that work well in a state of flux.
Ideas More blog readers - I am thankful for our many educational visionaries who "tell the story" and we would go a long way if educators would just read the blogs of leaders, but that is simply not happening right now. To respond better to the flux of technology, teachers must be attuned to it. As part of continuing education, could blog readership and subscriptions be required and counted as part of the assessment of such courses? What can we do to push relevant blogs to those who need them? Curriculum Wikis - I believe wikis are going to become more important as we create a compendiums of information on various topics: English technological resources, History technological resources, Technology Curriculum, etc. If curriculum writers and approvers could become involved with teachers and industry, I believe that we could begin to make curriculum more relevant in a more efficient time frame.
Streamline the process - With technology changing at the speed of your voice, it is vital that we create methods to work within the framework of education to create current, relevant, exciting educational opportunities for children. The bureaucracy that did so well in stasis is beginning to struggle and fight within itself as flux has thrown it into a tailspin.
The alternative
What happens if we do not make education relevant? What happens if we do not graduate students who understand the real world of technology? What happens if we do not engage our students?
We risk another societal whiplash as seen in the Middle Ages. Education is vital, paramount, and essential to our future as a society and the future of our world. So much knowledge was lost in Alexandria, perhaps even discoveries we have not yet made. What would be lost this time?
Now the secret to swimming with large waves is to know when to enter the sea. Go in too late and you get hit by the full force of the wave, which can knock you for six. Get it right and its like having your own personal carnival ride.
It occurred to me that this is a good analogy as far as using technology in the classroom is concerned, reading blogs such as Cool Cat Teacher, Ewan McIntosh's Edublog or EFL Geek I see teachers wading out to meet the huge changes that are rapidly approaching, preparing their students to deal with and even enjoy the such developments'
On the other hand those teachers and institutions that ignore the existence of such changes are going to hit doubly hard by the swiftness of the technological, economic and geopolitical wave that is coming our way.
Well said. Moving these important technologies into the classroom is important! Creating educated world citizens is important! Creating an intrisic value for education in our growing world society is vital to the very existence of education itself.
If you don't think it can happen, read your wake up call, How the Irish Saved Civilization. It is a wake up call for the modern day educator if I've ever read one!
Thank you to the many edubloggers for the best year of teaching I've ever had!
Now, if you are looking for something to do, the wiki how to has many random things that you can learn how to do.
However, if you want to do something meaningful, I suggest you speak out on DOPA, Read a good book, spend time with your family and for goodness sakes, blog about the things you've learned this year so the rest of us can be in the excitement.
Remember that we need a vacation just to remember who we are. You simply cannot pour water out of an empty pitcher. When we know who we are and are rested, we are better teachers in the fall.
So, fill up that pitcher. Rest without guilt and read with abandon. Blog, comment, and get some sun. Play frisbee and play with new technology. Prop your feet up and have a good laugh.
As I've been reading my first book of the summer, Thomas Cahill's "How the Irish Saved Civilization" I am reminded that when the Irish saved civilization, they also preserved their own. For as they copied books, they would get sleepy. To stay awake, they wrote limericks, poems, and cartoons in the margins of books. They left their mark on their profession and in the history of their culture.
For this reason, it is perfectly acceptable to blog about other things in the summer time. Consider them the limericks, poems, and cartoons in the margins of your professional book over time.
School is out and my students have begun blogging. My "blogging" students who have set up independent blogs on blogger and wordpress have plans to blog and share this summer as part of their learning experience. The first post of summer vacation is Book Reviews: Night by one of my now tenth graders. She has four or five blogs and is doing an excellent job. I hope that you'll encourage her.
My students have produced such excellent work over the past three weeks that I'll be sharing some of their insights well into June. They are such excellent learners and teachers.
Synopsis of their posts The most meaningful point that they have brought out for me is that they see wikis as a place to share information and they see blogs as a place to share opinions and discuss.
In their words Here are some of the more insightful answers.
Wikis and blogs are an essential part of a classroom. They are important because you can communicate with teachers and other students. Wikis are more of a way to share notes and homework with other students, while blogs are more of another way of to express your opinion on topics that they want to talk about. On wikis you can also have different pages on your hobbies, and blogs you can share information by your profile and you can talk about hot topics.
Wikis are very easy to use.They help you prepare for tests and exams. People can put the information you need to study on the Wikispace and you can print it out and use it to help you study. The downfall is two people can't make changes at the same time without one person's information getting deleted. Blogs are great if you want to comment on things other people have written about. The downfall is blogs don't help you study for tests and there is no spell check. Overall I like wikis better than blogs.
Wikispaces and blogs are similar in that they are both ways of communicating to other people. Blogs are more opinionated than wikis, because wikis are a collaboration of facts by every individual student. Both a part of the new Web 2.0 technology, they facilitate using the Internet. Blogging is more popular and more people are aware of it. Wikispaces are a fairly new concept which leads to not many people knowing about them. A wikispace is more of a discussion than blogging, because blogging is one person's opinion with other's comments on it. Wikispaces are also aimed more toward the "classroom" setting rather than personal home setting Both Wikis and Blogs are part of the Web 2.0 revolution and allow a user to edit pages and place his or her comments on the Internet. A blog is similar to a journal on the Web. A person can discuss their thoughts on many different topics like music, movies, politics, etc. A wiki, however, is a website that allows its users to edit the content on that page. It allows users to collaborate with each other to make Web pages. There are many similarities between wikis and blogs, infact many people would say there is no difference at all. This is not true, wikis are more like individual webpages, and blogs are just part of a webpage. Both can contain hyperlinks and pictures. Many people would say that wikis are mashups and blogs are not, but blogs can become mashups with hyperlinks. Wikis are also more organized. They are not just paragraphs of information like blogs. They usually have several different headings with the information for that little section underneath. Blogs and wikis are equally effective.
Note: I find it interesting how my students have incorporated the word mashup into their everyday language. They use this word now to mean anything from a variety of sources. I find it fascinating!
Wikis are I think alot more efficient than blogs. You can post and edit your homework and use wikis to study for test. The blog are great thing to write in but I think I would rather use wikis. For example, if someone else makes a study guide for the rest of the class to use and they leave something out you can go back and change and or put something else on there. Blogs are nice thing to use when you want other people from around the world to see, use, and or read . Wiki's are more of a class thing that I would not thing other businesses use because I have not seen any other people but students use them. I like both but if I had to pick it would be wikis. Wikis are used for sharing information and sharing views on things. Blogs are ways to talk about you and give opinions on certain things. My class uses blogs to share information about ourselves and talk about things that interest us and shows our views on things. We use wikis to help with group effort, teach our classes how to do certain computer lessons, and other things. Both Wikis and Blogs are used to bring people together and to share ideas over the internet. Yet, I believe blogs to be more advanced, though they do link you to people that you don't know. Blogging allows people not directly linked to you to access what you have to say. Though Wikis are ideal for classes and students, I suggest blogs for the everyday person to get his point across the internet. Between the two, blogs are more like newspapers. I would suggest blogs.
A wiki is a website that allows users to add, remove, or edit all content quickly and easily without the need for registration. A blog is like a journal entry where you can post entries daily about anything. One strength of the blog is that the most recent entry is listed first. One weakness of the wiki is that the content can sometimes be misleading. People add incorrect information on wikis. They are not always written by experts. A wiki enables documents to written together in a simple markup language. Wikis can be created and updated easily. A wiki weakness is that you do not have to register so people can mess around with your stuff.
Wikis and blogs are both very useful tools. They can help you organize notes and studymaterial or just post useful information. Wikis are usually better for organizing notes because it divides things into sections, but they take longer to make. The blogs are good for posting information because it is open to anyone with the Internet. The problem is getting other people to find your blog.
How I view wikis and blogs I see wikis and blogs as two complimentary tools in my classroom.
One gives them information (wikis) and one gives them a voice (blogs.)
Asking my classroom to choose between the two would be like me telling you that you had to choose between fork and a spoon for all of your dining needs. They both have a different purpose and are good for eating different things, likewise with wikis and blogs.
I think that educators are really hitting on the strength of blogs for writing and engaging students in conversation.
However, I think wikis are a great untapped resource for compiling information. Wikis are a vital part of my classroom now and absolutely essential to teaching. (They are also very easy compliments to classroom discussions and note compiling.)
As you learn new skills for your summer, wikis should be high on the list!
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During our last few days of school, we are going to discuss legislation that has currently been introduced in congress called the Deleting Online Predators Act. It is your final assignment to look at this act and state your opinion on DOPA. Support your position with at least three facts.
Using the internet is a priveledge. The government shouldn't ban certain things like myspace, blogging, and wikispaces. Doing this will hinder America in advancing technologically. The government should worry about teaching people safe ways to use the internet, not blocking certain things. Stupidity is to blame, not predators.
Blogging, myspace, and all the new technology's are not the problem. Just because the predators are out there does not mean that we should get rid of blogging and all the other things. If people just use their common sense and only trust the people they know then we won't have a problem.
Using the internet is not harmful if you use it in the right ways. Scanning the internet for young innocent girls or logging in to people's accounts, are ways the internet is used harmfully. In contrast, the Internet offers many other aspects in life. It enhances technology and can also allow parents to monitor their kids better than at the mall. The government needs to realize that they are catching predators better by the internet than by on the streets.
Using the internet is a privaledge. The Government needs to find ways to stop the predators and ask schools to teach their kids how to use the internet because a lot of kids do not know how. Stopping sites like Bloglines, Wikispaces, and myspace will hurt the advancement of new technology. So Congress needs to think about these things to try to fix the problem not to take away a need.
Although DOPA may have started out as a good idea, it is not practical. Myspace and facebook are just a few of the things they want to get rid of but they only have a few bad people on them. They can't just get rid of the whole thing because of a few bad apples. They can't just stop everybody from using the blog pages; instead, they should just monitor it more closely.
I don't support this because by passing this law the government in interfering with my rights. There are predators everywhere. So why should the governement be allowed to shut down a website or many websites? If they are going to shut down websites, they should also shut down skating rinks and arcades where kids also frequently go.
I do not support DOPA, because kids need to be intelligent enough to not give out personal information. Not everyone on the Internet is a predator. I don't know if the congressmen and congresswomen really know enough to justify passing this legislation.
I do not support DOPA. If the people who use Websites like Myspace were more careful and did not put personal information like their address and schedule on their pages, then it would not be as easy for predators to find them. Also, taking these Websites out of libraries does not do much good because they can get on them once they get home. If people did not do stupid things like agreeing to meet someone they don't even know, this would not be such a big problem.
The underlying theme of all thirty one students who have voted against DOPA in our class debate is education. They overwhelmingly feel that students should be educated not restricted.
Ignorance is more of the problem than predators.
What Congressmen and women must not forget is that many of these students will be voting in the next few years. I have a feeling that students will pay attention to the lawmakers who are involved in this legislation. In fact, I've seen many posts on myspace accusing DOPA of "shutting myspace down."
I hope educators will take time to weigh in during the summer months and will not tune out completely.
In part four of Stewart's and my discussion (1,2,3) of how we use the wiki at Westwood, we discuss authentic assessment and how it is used on the Westwood wiki. If you want to understand the nuts and bolts of how I use wikis in the classroom, it is worth a read.
If you're doing something different, often the questions from a good interviewer like Stewart help you self analyze and come to a better understanding of your own classroom.
Hyperwords This Firefox browser plug-in renders any text--on any Web page--clickable. Highlight a word or phrase, and a pop-up menu lets you submit the highlighted text to search engines, reference sites, online merchants, and more.
I think this will help me find resources as I read blogs and am researching.
WriteBoard For collaborative editing, you can't beat WriteBoard. It lets you create, edit, and share documents with others--directly in your browser. You can even compare versions to see changes.
I'd like to see how this compares to writely and how I can potentially use it in my class.
FreeMind Psychologists say that an effective way to take notes is to put them in a Mind Map--a free-form tree structure that mimics the way your brain works. FreeMind does exactly that. It acts like an outliner--except that, instead of working with headings and subheadings, you create nodes and subnodes that branch from a central point. Each node can contain text, pictures, special icons, or colorful formatting. FreeMind is useful for taking notes in class, outlining books, or even planning a route to world domination.
I LOVE mind mapping. I am definitely trying this out as an alternative to my talk and chalk version of mind mapping!
Celestia When the world seems too small after all, launch Celestia. You can zoom through the solar system--and beyond--for real-time or accelerated views of planets, moons, comets, stars, and even the Hubble space telescope. Heavenly!
My son is a budding astronomer, we'll definitely get some learning time out of this over the summer!
Pandora Don't play the same song until you're sick of it. Enter the name of an artist or song you like, and Pandora will create a custom "radio station" for you that plays similar music, right in your browser. This service makes surprisingly good choices, and it uses your feedback to refine them further. And if you get tired of one station, you can just create a new one.
Telling the story This is definitely one of those stories that we need to tell about the positive impact of social networking in schools. Cheryl talks about how the emerging "digital natives" that she is seeing in elementary school has caused the use of tools like think.com to "mushroom" over the past few years. Observations from Wesley's and Cheryl's podcast Here are some of the things that most impressed me about Wesley's and Cheryl's great podcast!
Positive things Cheryl has seen online:
She has observed great interactions from surveys and writing.
She starts very simply. (What is your favorite color, etc.) She talks about how surveys progress and as student results come from around the world from other students which give great opportunities for students to interact and understand people from around the world.
She has seen that after students start surveying in basic topics, that their use turns into more academic subjects. (Remember, she is talking about elementary students.)
She has seen significant improvements in writing abilities without any degredation into IM speak.
She is noticing a fascinating development in poetry writing where students around the world each write a line.
Problems: Her school has a "no strikes allowed policy." She allows no bullying and in the first year, she had three students lose theirprivilegess and think.com account. She did say that most of the comments were innocuous (on a scale of 1 to 10 she rated them a 1,) three students still lost theirprivilegess. She has seen no one lose their privilegess this year because of their immediate action.
Other Great notes!
Wes thinks it is important that kids need to make mistakes when adults are around so that they can get feedback and be steered correctly.
Wes also thinks it is so important to leverage the interest that kids have in using social tools to improve their writing.
On Selling the use of think.com to administration Cheryl has been using think.com for four years! Wow! She had difficulty selling it to administration at first. The explained how limited it was and how easy it was to shut down. She has the children and parents sign an internet use policy. Cheryl has the students sign out their permission form and gives the parent the option to shut down the page after the school experience was done.
Myspace Cheryl also talks about how she has recently handled myspace questions that have emerged from parent teach conferences and how she addresses the concerns.
Privacy Protection She also points out the think.com policy of no personal photographs on the site. Cheryl does enforce it (and I do to.) Every photo goes into the review queue and I have to approve them. That is where you stop the use of the photo.
Profanity Protection She also points out how it handlesinappropriatee words. Students get a notice that they've usedinappropriatee language and the teacher is notified that the student tried to use the word and what the word was. The list is quite long and you can look at it in Think.com if you really want to look at curse words!
Digital Citizenship They also have a great discussion on digital citizenship. She talks about how students from other countries may seem "rude" when they are typing in English as a second language. She also discusses the differing school calendars between hemispheres. I love think.com After a day of working on think.com with my students, they have responded very positively.
If your school is having difficulty with myspace and blogging, this is definitely a way that you can go!
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I thought some of the readers and collaborators out there might be eligible for this incredible award from the Mellon Foundation for non-profit open source software that benefits their constituency.
The Mellon Foundation is an amazing organization that does so many things to help others.
Studybuddy.info The first one I want to bring to your attention is studybuddy.info. If you have a student who is struggling with SAT words, this is where to send them.
One of my students reviewed this in her portfolio and she simply did an incredible job. She did a great job reviewing the site, so I suggest you read her whole review. In her review, Kyli writes:
Goodbye paper notecards! Studybuddy offers an easy and effective way to study without the use of paper notecards. It also offers a way to test yourself using "notecards."
To begin you have stacks, which are stacks of virtual notecards. You can create as many stacks as you need. To add notecards to the stack you click on the stack name, and then click on new card. When you click to create a note card, you then go to the card editor. The card editor allows you to create a notecard by typing a question and answer. Once you have made all your notecards, studybuddy provides a variety of ways to test yourself.
They include the review mode, the classic mode, the printable mode, the direct answer mode, and the multiple choice mode. The review mode is good for reviewing or farmiliarizing yourself with the information. The classic mode displays you the question and then requires you to "flip" the card, revealing the anwser. The Printable mode allows you to print your note cards. The Direct Answer mode displays you the question and requires you to type in the anwser. The Multiple Choice mode displays the question, and then provides four possible anwsers for you to choose from.
With all these options learning the information should be easy, but Studybuddy still offers you 8 reasons to use their virtual notecards.
Intuitive Learning and Analysis I am so impressed at her and the other student's abilities to analyze, review, and understand new technology. It is vital that they learn how to become intuitive learners. Notice that I did not "show" her how to use this website. She selected it from a list that I approved. Then, she had to set it up, use it, and analyze it.
It is so important in computers that we move away from scripting all of the answers and clicks and that we direct students to learn and teach themselves. I am very impressed with the outcome of this method of teaching and know that I have covered the subject more thoroughly than in my prior years of covering computer science. The use of wikis and blogs to discuss, summarize, and synthesize information is a very powerful tool. No more "black hole" of post-grade assignments The most exciting thing is that now, Kyli's hard work can benefit students around the world. No longer is knowledge lost in a knowledge "black hole" of already graded assignments. This work continues to exist and can be updated by others as more information comes to light!
I think I've found a new love! While looking for something to use over the summer for blogging (that requires less maintenance on my part than class blogmeister), one of the classblogmeister forum participants recommended think.com.
Think.com is a free service for schools sponsored by Oracle. It has a whole range of interactive tools that are so very easy for students (and me) to use!
Strict Authentication gives protection to students This is the part I like best, Oracle has a rigorous authentication process and a contract that the principal or lead administrator must sign about the school's use of their think.com account. I've been working on this for around four weeks now (it could take less time, but it is crazy right now.) The contract is extensive and requires a lead administrator's signature to execute. After spending a day setting it up and training students, it is worth every second!
Safety In a world gone crazy over profiles and social software, this is the safest forum I could find The Literature teachers and I will be using this to encourage writing over the summer.
How will we use this? Students who do not read and write over the summer go "backwards." That is why so many schools are taking stabs at year long schooling. We have resisted that trend at our school here and I see think.com as a forum where I can encourage intuitive learning on topics.
In my first entry, I asked an open ended question and expect them to research and answer the question. I'm using my last week to familiarize my classes with Think.com and giving several assignments on there. (I take grades until the day before school gets out! Time is too short to waste a day!)
Think.com is so fun that they are excited. I'm requiring 10 entries, but many of them expect to do so many more. I will have topics for their posts and have covered my expectations for their behavior (and privacy) online.
Introduction of key concepts I have thirty vocabulary words each year for each class that I emphasize. This is a technique emphasized by our curriculum director and it works very well. (I still have many more but we keep coming back to these thirty.) I will use these entries to explore ten of these words that I've designated for each class. (One word for each post.)
How do I get started on think.com? If you want to use think.com, just go to www.think.com and click Enroll now. You will then be given a temporary password and information to use.
Think.com will give you a temporary username and password for your students as well.
Student set up For students to activate their accounts tell them to: 1) Go to www.think.com 2) Give them the temporary username and password for your school. 3) Have them set up their information.
Then, you must add them to your school. 1) Go to www.think.com 2) Log in with your username and password. 3) Click on "Admin Tools" in the top right corner. 4) click on Manage Accounts (on the orange bar on the left of the page.) 5) Click on "Student Account Requests" 6) Check the students you wish to approve and click "Approve."
Add them to your class (if you're a teacher.) You can then go add them to classes by clicking on "My Class", and clicking on "My Students" in the orange bar.
Remember, you can add other teachers to your school so you don't have to set things up twice. If you're the administrator, just go to Admin tools --> Manage Accounts --> Add Teachers. You will then printout a username and password for the teachers you wish to add!
This is so easy and great! Once you're in, try to write something by clicking the write button. If you want to interact, then click the interact button. There you can do polls, post debates, post topics that will allow students to interact like on a message board.
Remember, that you can just allow your students to participate or you can open it up to anyone on think.com by clicking on "Edit Page Info" when you are looking at your page.
I think this is an excellent and safe tool (and did I say free, Oh, I think I did say FREE, but I just love FREE!)
I will still check the postings on think.com but I don't feel that I will have to watch it as closely because I'm not moderating every post and the world is not looking at their work. They will have a purpose and they will be writing (and learning.)
Engage them with new tools! If it is engaging and exciting and gets them to talk about a subject in the summer, it should be done. I often wonder why parents (and teachers) automatically suspect anything that is fun. I happen to think learning is fun. I've always loved to learn! This helps engage those students who don't have that innate desire to learn.
I will be fascinated to see the results of this nationwide study of the effect of ePortfolios on student learning, achievement, and engagement.
The study monitors about 5,000 high school students coast to coast and is sponsored by TaskStream, a New York-based software company that makes e-portfolios that students use for free.
The article makes it sound like the eportfolios are free, however, if you go to the website, there are subscription rates.
I do hope that the students are able to preserve copies of their ePortfolios. Imagine how demotivating it would be to create the portfolio and "lose" it somewhere along the way. (See my take on 100% digital portfolios.)
We need more research along these lines. I hope that neutral researchers at universities around the world are also looking at these topics so we do not end up with a lot of "hype." We need best practices (not just best software) amidst the maelstrom of Web 2.0 educational apps.
20. This bill will increase the technology gap. Blogging and the effective use Internet information is a vital skill for children to master. Only having access at home to these technologies will target our most at-risk populations by disallowing them to have access at all, since most disadvantaged kids use public libraries and schools for access to the very tools that will allow them to be competitive in the 21st century market place. Through this piece of legislation we will only further the chasm between the haves and have nots.
19. This bill will prevent the effective teaching of the Internet. It is vital that teachers educate their students that what they post on the Internet is in a sense permanent--the follies of youth will haunt you in your thirties. Young people sometimes do foolish things; like sharing revealing pictures of themselves on the Internet. They think only the one person they send it to will ever see it. They often do these things without thinking about the consequences. (They are, after all, children.) They need to be educated how to use and access the Internet responsibly. Where better to educate them on effective Internet literacy and use than at school? DOPA would deprive them of the education that is increasingly important in the digital age.
I added a little to those and expounded on a few points other authors had contributed. Here are those points:
17. This bill will limit the sharing of best practices among educators around the world. In a study commissioned by the National Governor's Association (NGA) in 2003, Harvard Scholar, Richard Elmore concluded that:
"Knowing the right thing to do is the central problem of school improvement. Holding schools accountable for their performance depends on having people in the schools with the knowledge, skill, and judgment to make the improvements that will increase student performance. (p 9)"
Educators, teachers, administrators, and others are journaling in online journals called blogs about their best practices in all facets of education. Because there is no standard platform for blogging but most educators use the free blogging tools available to them because they are fast, easy, and inexpensive. This bill would effectively remove the American public school teacher and administrator from reading about and sharing their best practices with the world. This would be to the detriment of American public school students who will be completely left out of innovations that emerge much more rapidly than they did even five years a go. Research papers are presented and conferences, published, and discussed via blogs all within days. This research would have to be disseminated via other means to public schools who wanted to improve based on the latest research. American education is in a crisis situation and our students need their teachers and administrators to be able to participate in the discussion. As leading educator, Robert J. Marzano said in his 2003 research paper "A Tool for selecting the 'Right Work' in Your school' , "The problem in low performing schools is not getting people to work hard, it is getting people to do the 'right work.'" (p 1)
By restricting access to blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds, efforts to keep children from being "left behind" will be stopped in their tracks as leading educators lose the valuable resources available to them through wikis, blogs, and other social networking tools.
16. This bill will prevent research into emerging technologies. The system that teaches America's teachers focuses on research based methodologies. The technologies of wikis and blogs are very exciting and have produced a lot of anecdotal evidence to show that they work effectively. Basic research into these technologies is just beginning and would be halted before it reached critical mass. In America, we simply must re-engage our students into the education system. By limiting one of the most promising technologies, we could also be setting aside a technology that has the potential to move us forward and become competitive again with the world.
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1. This bill will cause more predatory behavior because of the lack of education. When threats to the safety of our citizens arise such as the dangers of tobacco and the dangers of the not wearing seatbelts, our country wisely seeks to educate our citizens. In our free country, our citizens can choose to participate in harmful behavior, but we hope they will do it with open eyes and and understanding of their choices. We have a mechanism to reach the majority of our children about the dangers of Internet predators and privacy: the public school system. To neglect teaching safety to these children is to be contrary to the beliefs that most educators hold dear. Rather than restrict access, we should focus on educating students. Rather than forcing students to log on alone, we should guide them onto the Internet at school. This does not mean they will be doing personal activities on school time, rather it means they will learn effective, productive, and safe methodologies of harnessing the newest tools to learn.
Participate in the conversation! I've posted these because I hope that you've seen something that you're dying to change or add. If so, you can comment here, but if you really want to make a difference, contribute to the wiki! The password is DOPA. Don't be afraid that you don't know how to "wiki." If you can type, you can wiki, just go to the page and click edit. If you have trouble, let me know! I'm sure Mrs. Vicki will help you wiki! Contribute meaningful, research-fact based information I think this is about meaningful, fact based discussion. In college, I worked in Washington so I have a disdain for impuning the motives of others, for broad sweeping, emotional attacks. This is about what is best for children.
I really think there are a lot of people out there who are upset about what is happening in myspace. They want something done. It is the educator's responsibility to propose SOMETHING that will help improve the safety of children online. It is our responsibility to educate!
It is better to educate children about something that is not going away than to attempt an already-doomed effort to restrict access to something that is exploding in use. There are so many better ways to accomplish protection of the young than to ban myspace. Why every educator should care! Some ask why I care so much since I'm a private school teacher. Besides my convictions that these technologies improve the classroom and my desire for a better America, I learn so much from other teacher/edubloggers, most of which are public school teachers.
What would happen to our information exchange? What would happen to the knowledge I glean on a daily basis from some incredible teachers in the American Public School system?
Things are changing in education and edublogging has brought us closer. I would hate to see us step backwards. I would mourn for the lost potential I see in blogs and wikis to engage students in learning again!
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In the lesson, on the whiteboard, we started in a rocky terrain. You could see that it had been inhabited. Stone steps flanked by gnarled wooden railings led upwards to an ornate door. "Should we open it?" asked Tim.
"Yes," chorused the Year 6 children. The door slid back and, inside, the cave-like room was bathed with gold. That light flooded the classroom too and illuminated the children's faces as they sat enraptured by the images.
"Write down what you feel at this moment." They scribbled away. And so it went on as we traveled down corridors and eventually emerged on a cliff overlooking the sea. Should we climb into a pewter vessel that looked as though it was out of Jules Verne? We did and looked at the controls. An exploratory press on a button and the children gasped as the craft moved forward whooshing us over the sea to a nearby island. They scrawled their feelings and thoughts. The vivid experience jolted superb writing from the children.
What are they learning? Tim believes the quality of speaking and listening is raised. "They have a shared experience and, the way we work, 30 people can have a conversation without putting their hands up because they are listening to each other and respecting each other," says Tim. "They can observe the non-verbal communication. They are capable of taking turns.
When interviewed about this process, Tim says:
At first sight what Tim does is highly unconventional. "I am doing basic things in an off-the-wall way, but it gets results," Tim explains. "I am trying to create the magic, the enjoyment rather than just the basic skill.
The new Viper SRT-10: Obnoxious and irresistible I've been considering this for several days now, and then my husband, an engineer, sent me an article from the Detroit Daily News about the new Viper SRT-10 entitled: Obnoxious and irresistible.
The author does a beautiful job of describing this car:
Whoa! Have you ever fallen in love with someone you knew to be crazy?
Getting heated up over the Viper SRT-10 is something like that. It's sexy, attractive and thoroughly nuts. It is woefully impractical. It ultimately will take from you more than it will give, but you become so addicted to what it offers that you can't resist. You are pulled in by the obnoxious roar of its engine, replete with the loud pop-pop racecar noises emanating from exhaust pipes cleverly integrated into rocker panels right and left.
Harnessing the irresistible in the classroom. As I read the article, I was transported into how I picture Tim Ryland's classroom. I think Mr. Ryland has hit on something: he has harnessed the irresistible to teach.
Perhaps his children think they "shouldn't like to write" but he has used the irresistible (a video game) to engage his students in writing.
It seems to me that many educators fight the irresistible: the iPod, the cell phone, the laptop, the wiki, the blog, the podcast, and more. Instead, we should be harnessing the irresistible to engage students in writing, in reading, and in learning. The power of the irresistible: Video Games that Teach I've seen this in my own children. I have a ten year old who loves Civilization. (Read his blog entry.) In the course of playing this incredible video game, he has learned about all of the major forms of government as well as governmental structure. He has learned the importance of innovation in a society and about the balance required to run a government. Even more so, he has learned the importance of listening to advisors. I've played this game and it is full of meaning, learning, and is totally irresistible! Voila!
He is learning and he thinks he is playing! Its OK to have fun when you learn.
How else can we harness the irresistible to learn?
It seems to me that when we are working with children who have preconceived negative emotions about a subject, that harnessing the subject to "the irresistible" may serve as a magnet to draw students into the subject.
How Mashups became exciting to my male students
I recall when my students were discussing mashups. The boys in my class did not get really excited until they invented Hunter's Paradise. They looked at the various websites that they wanted to mash together and got very excited. These boys love hunting. Their love for hunting engaged them in a topic they were lukewarm about at the beginning of the class period.
That is harnessing the power of the irresistible for teaching!
It is happening all of the time. I'm reading stories about it in so many edublogs! I think this simple concept of transference is a powerful tool in the classroom.
I guess I've always used it from the early 1990's when I taught the Internet to older people, I would teach them to look up recipes, compare medicines, and look up health information. That was when they got excited! Teachers got excited about rubrics and gradebooks. Students got excited about myspace, iPods, and cell phones. What have we done to harness those tools to teach? (See my recent post on DOPA.)
How irresistible Legos teach programming!
I am seeing this as my students build robots with Lego Mindstorms as we conclude our year in Computer Science. They love Legos and their love of them transfers to programming.
The two or so intertwined that now they have practically self learned the concept of gear ratios as well as programming loops. Interestingly, seniors from last year (who are in their last three days of school) are taking time to show the juniors and sophomores techniques for improving the robots. They love the robots and are so very excited! The power of the irresistible to teach! How do you harness the power of the irresistible?
Stewart Mader has posted part 3 of our interview concerning the structure and activities on the wiki.
Eighth grade begins to wiki! I talk about how we use the wiki in computer science and computer fundamentals. I've also introduced the eighth grade to wikis this week. This is how I did it:
1) I added them to the wikispace and helped them join. 2) I created an 8th grade wiki work page and linked to their names. 3) I allowed them to edit and create their wiki and then go in and edit each others.
As things "happened" (simultaneous editing, for example), I showed them why that happened and how to look in the history. I showed them how to revert to previous wikis and how to compare versions. I also showed them the importance of putting comments on their editing.
Our summary activity for keyboarding As a summary activity, I also have them take the 8 concepts of effective keyboarding and they are making up a story reinforcing those concepts.
To do this, I broke the class into two sets: writers and designers. The writers took index cards and my magnetic board and magnets and invented the story on the index cards. They used the magnets to hook them on the board in order.
The graphic designers looked through the Internet to find non copywrited graphics to use on the story. It is going to be a fascinating story when we're done! It also has had them talking about the concepts of effective keyboarding and serves as an excellent review of the semester.
All of these are things I've done before using PowerPoint or other tools. Collaboration has never been so easy. Learning is so very exciting using the wiki! It is very rare to find students off task using the wiki. Intrinsic in the wiki is a sense of being part of something bigger than yourself!
What is amazing is that after two days of classwork, they are virtually through with this project!
Look at their new wikibook about keyboarding! (We were having trouble with some graphics, but we should be getting those worked out tomorrow!)
Should the DOPA (Deleting Online Predators Act) (click here for PDF) pass, all access in public schools to ’social networking’ sites on the Internet would be banned.
Newsweek says:
The campaign to crowd out predators from MySpace.com is gathering steam in Washington. House of Representatives lawmakers proposed a bill on May 9 that would block access to social networks and Internet chat rooms in most federally funded schools and libraries.
I'm taken back to the early 1990's when I offered adult training classes on the Internet. A well meaning "little old lady" in town gave me her thoughts on my class:
"How can you call yourself a Christian and teach about the Internet? It is just terrible!"
My answer to her was, "Mam, how can you call yourself a Christian and go to Atlanta, there are prostitutes in Atlanta and people get killed there too?"
I proceeded to explain to her that there is not a difference between the two. Both are places. A place as big as Atlanta or the Internet is not inherently good or bad necessarily, however there are good and bad things that happen there.
Her mentality is the same one that now says, "How can you love children and give them access to myspace?"
Predators and the dishonest always congregate to places where there is not a lot of regulation.
With the birth of any new technology, a gray area of pseudo-non-regulation is born that attracts those who wish to hover below the surface of legality.
Additionally, predators and pedophiles congregate where teenagers congregate unsupervised. Period. (Whether it is the mall or myspace!)
When we have concerns about students getting assaulted, we teach them self defense, we would never dream of tying them to their beds! (Assault and tying to the bed are both considered abuse.) Likewise, we should teach Internet "self-defense" and not flagrantly restrict access to an environment they need for their future.
We must not mistake the content with the communications channel. If you have a cell phone, you can use it to call an older person and cheer them up or you can use it to play mean-spirited prank phone calls. Same channel, two very different things.
It is easy to cast stones at a communications channel like "chats" "wikis" "cell phones" "text messaging" "blogs" because then it is easy to regulate. It becomes a proverbial on off switch. It is also something that will not hurt many adults and is very misunderstood at this point.
Ban paper! Perhaps we should ban paper. Many bad things are printed on paper!
Why can we not use content filters and let them do their job?
Wikis and blogs are incredibly wonderful, engaging tools that really breathe life into the educational experience in the hands of a good teacher.
They are a vital communications medium that they need to understand and know about. We are supposed to be creating global citizens who can work in a global workplace, and we are not going to educate students on the tools that will let them cooperate with their counterparts around the world?
I am quite floored at this well intentioned but uneducated effort at protecting kids on myspace.
Wikis have transformed my classroom into a more engaging, more effective place. Blogs have restored a love for writing and made it more relevant for many students!
Its also about personal things being done on personal time.
Yes, kids should not be myspacing at school. But myspace could be blocked. Facebook can be blocked. It is similar to the difference between work and personal. Businesses frown on personal work being done on company time. Likewise, students should be discouraged from "personal things being done on school time."
However, I think to completely block the medium is short sighted. Last week I actually unblocked myspace for a day so students could print out their blogs from myspace for their computer science portfolio. They had some good entries and I was glad I got to read them.
Bookburning to Blog Burning? You would think that we could learn from book burning that the medium is not the problem.
Through such shortsighted broad brush practices in the Dark Ages, we lost many great works of literature and history.
If we are concerned about content, then let's put in a rating system and filter for content. I think people misunderstand that because it is called social software does not mean that the software is being used for socializing. (Perhaps we educators should rename it collaborative educational software if lawmakers cannot get past semantics.)
This debate of the "evil of technology" has been around since scientists were called heretics for having new discoveries that contracticted modern thought of their era. It is easier to condemn something and get rid of it than to understand it.
Parents should be involved in myspace
I will say that I'm disgusted at some of the myspace websites of my students. I've called some parents to make them aware of what their students are doing. I guess I'm most disgusted that parents allow their children to operate unsupervised in an online world. It is the disinvolvement or perhaps just the "technology gap" between parents and their children that has caused some truly tragic happenings in myspace.
What hurts more kids, tobacco or myspace?
Since I'm waxing rhetorical here, I'm also disgusted that some of my students also smoke. When we learned of the dangers of tobacco, did the government ban all tobacco? No, we raised the age for tobacco purchase and we put a lot of money into educating the public. How many more students are killed by tobacco than myspace? The world didn't end with Y2K!
What websites would be banned? According to a great article over at SEGA Tech, the following websites would be banned if this bill were to pass:
JASON Project Online: This amazing hands-on science website allows students to chat in real-time with scientists out in the field, discuss issues they are having with data and experiements, post their work, and ask questions to experts via chats, live broadcasts, and forums.
Blogger & Wordpress: These are the two largest blog-hosting companies on the web, and provide teachers and students with easy access to blogging - allowing them to engage in online discussions, post work, and speak to a real audience. More and more teachers are moving to blogs as their class website solutions. (Hey folks, that would mean that you could no longer read the coolcatteacher blog!)
Google Pages: teachers with Google accounts can create websites for free - easily and quickly, without software downloads.
WebCT, BlackBoard, or Moodle: these services offer email, forums, and chat to class participants
Google Talk, Trillian, Yahoo Messenger, etc: These chat programs often allow teachers to quickly communicate with each other in the building, or discuss issues with experts in thier county (such as tech support, admins, etc). Students can use these to chat with experts in the real world or work collaboratively in different parts of the school.
I have asked Class Blogmeister users (almost 2,800 teachers & 27,000 students) to try to find some time and write about the learning experiences that their children are having, and to be specific about what their students are learning, that they weren’t learning before. I will blog these stories as they come in, but would also be willing to make them available for other campaigns to tell this new story about teaching and learning in the 21st century.
I’ve just started a new blog, Online Community Works, where I’ll post the stories as they arrive.
First and foremost, we have to teach. Not our kids, but our teachers...It’s the perfect opportunity to try to contextualize what’s happening “out there” and try to help them understand why they should be thinking about this stuff and asking these questions. And we should all look at this as an opportunity to move these discussions into wider circles, because, as I’ve said before, this is less an education issue as much as it is a cultural/societal issue.
Will has created a dopa wiki for us to edit and work together to create a letter to legislators. Doug Johnson prints a copy of his own letter. He makes three points that are worth repeating.
Children are best protected by:
Having adult supervision during all online activities.
Engaging in effective training programs for children, parents and educators that stress safe and ethical behaviors
Developing life-long strategies for insuring personal privacy.
Telling the story has never been more important. It is vital to share the successes and excitement of students who are being exposed to blogs and wikis. It is important that adults, educators, and lawmakers know that there are viable, important uses of these technologies.
Otherwise, we are about to enter the new Dark Ages when blogs are burned instead of books. Tell the story, it is more important than ever!
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The Search by John Battelle (I’m finishing this one up right now, and it provides an interesting and valuable look at information “search” as an industry.)
For my educational reading, I will be reading a lot of work by Robert J. Marzano. He has several books that I will read this summer:
As well as all of his research papers that are available for free on the Internet.
This is for several reasons, but mostly because educators that I respect and admire are touting his work. His work predominates several masters in education programs that I've been following. If you're an administrator, you should consider reading his SCHOOL LEADERSHIP THAT WORKS: From Research to Results (Paperback) published in September of 2005.
In one of his research papers, Marzano proves the high correlation between effective leadership and higher test scores. His work is amazing and practical. (I can also understand his writings, which I like!)
I also love to read biographies of famous people. Last summer I started by reading about Peter Marshall in his wife's book A Man Called Peter and proceeded to read all of Catharine Marshall's writings. I enjoy pulling out authors who were popular from 20-30 years a go just to gain perspective that life hasn't changed quite as much as we think it has. People are people.
I am planning on reading the Hinges of History series. I am fascinated with people who did the right thing throughout history when the "world was going nuts" around them. Those who persevere and overcome. The Hinges of History series is about those things that truly changed lives. I plan on starting with the one about the monks who saved history during the dark ages by copying many of the great works in solitude.
I'm also going to set up my students on think.com so they can blog over the summer in privacy without as much involvement on my part.
I also plan on making my blog into a blook, writing a few articles about using wikis to teach, and some other writing projects I've been wanting to work on. I also have to work with installing a new computer lab in my room, ordering some new textbooks, and potentially working with the setup of our new gradebook/ information system for the school. Besides this, my top priority is spending time doing fun things with my children. We love the mountains and the outdoors so I will be spending quite a bit of time away from the laptop!
Washington State has an online high school that is making the news.
While many schools now offer some online courses, the Insight School will be the first to allow students to graduate without ever setting foot in an actual classroom. The school plans to target a variety of students who might thrive in this type of program, such as home-schooled children, children with physical disabilities and those who have dropped out or had a hard time staying in traditional public schools.
It is great to have alternatives. I tend to think that the future of education is somewhere in the middle between a high school campus and a computer screen.
The bane of education is parents who do their children's work. These parents already have a high school (or college) education. They are well meaning but they are either compensating for a lower performing student or being manipulated.
We've all seen it, papers that could not have been written by an eighth grader, using words such as capitulate and manipulate, when the child cannot even spell cap and man correctly in person!
Yes, plaigarism may be a concern, but I think the greater concern is parentarism.
There are checks and balances placed on us teachers every day. In a world of standardized testing, we are literally "put to the test" each spring as children are tested into mindlessness for a week!
Who is going to ensure that these children are truly being educated? Who will verify the identity of the person doing the work?
Yes, this is an issue with wikis and blogs now. However, I feel that with a balance of in classroom work and out of classroom assignments, that work not done by the student is very easy to spot. (Or its even more obvious, as in the parent who called me two weeks a go and said, I needed to explain Web 2.0 to her so she could help her child with the wiki. I politely said ask your child.)
I personally think that two way video or some other authentication methodology is vital to such a virtual education. We also must not forget that much of life is about dealing with people. Offline support groups and organizations are important to supplement the video screen and provide students with social interaction.
On site testing at critical benchmarks during the year or some other form of assessment that ensures that the student actually understands the material.
Unfortunately, it is extremes such as this that make the news and sometimes cause problems for more moderate applications that would work.
We'll have to wait and see. I'm always for good education and believe that in a democracy that educational choice is a good thing. I hope this is virtual going to be a good education for children and not a way well-meaning parents can misuse the system.
How a failure was known as one of the greatest minds in history
Thursday, May 11, 2006
There is this strange little man who loved music. He was way too dramatic (and airheaded) to be a conductor.
Let's talk about just some of the things wrong with him. When the musical score was soft, he'd hide and crouch so low that the members of the orchestra had trouble seeing him. When he wanted the orchestra to get loud, he'd leap into the air and yell at the top of his lungs like a banshee!
He was so uncoordinated that during one piano concerto (during which he played), he knocked the candles off the piano. At another, he knocked over a poor little choirboy.
Worst of all, sometimes he lost count! (Conductors must never lose count.) One time, he leaped high into the air to bring the orchestra in on a loud entrance, however nothing happened. He'd lost count again and didn't "Look before he leaped!" He leaped too soon!
In addition to his dramatic tendencies (which distracted terribly from the music), his lack of coordination, danger to choirboys, and inability to count, he started going deaf.
When this fact became known, the musicians began to ignore him and watch the first violinist. This had poor results and after much trepidation, the musicians finally begged him to go home and give up his conducting career.
Failure at one thing, success at another I have just described a person who many would call a failure. But Ludwig van Beethoven, although a failure at conducting, was the most successful COMPOSER of all time. The Austrian-born British musician and writer Hans Keller pronounced Beethoven "humanity's greatest mind altogether".
However, Beethoven learned, as we must, that no man (or woman) is good at everything.
We must learn to explore and use our talents. We must do what we're good at and enjoy. We must also know that when we "fail" that it does not mean giving up what we love to do.
"Failure" does not mean anything except that we may have found one thing that we do not do well.
What if Beethoven got angry, stormed out, and quit music altogether? We wouldn't have Beethoven's fifth and a plethora of sonatas, concertos, and his only opera.
Instead, when he went almost totally deaf, he would play the piano with his head laying on the instrument so that some of the intonation could penetrate his dulled sense of hearing.
He did not quit his love of music when he failed at conducting. He did not quit his love of music when he went deaf. He pursued his passion. He learned from his failings.
And he learned that no one is a genuis at everything!
Wise lessons for us all! Wise lessons as we dole out end of the year grades.
Recently, I blogged about a great conversation that Stewart Mader and I had concerning wiki technology here at Westwood. He has blogged his latest installment in the series where we discuss how the westwood wiki got started.
Cool Resources for social science teachers and statistics NUTS (like myself): Hat tip to Stephen Rahn at Stephen's Untold Stories
Statemaster: This statistical database lets you compare a lot of data between US States. The data comes from the US Census Bureau, the FBI, and the National Center for Educational Statistics.
Even more so, it does more than just spit out numbers but produces some pretty cool maps, flag images, state profiles, and more in charts.
This is a GREAT resource for those end of the year Geography projects!
Nationmaster This sister site allows you to access data from CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD. They also have some pretty powerful maps.
They have a great map on "the most educated." This plots the length of time citizens spend in school. Here's the top 10.
#1
Norway
16.9 years
#2
Finland
16.7 years
#3
Australia
16.6 years
#4
United Kingdom
16.4 years
#5
New Zealand
16.2 years
#6
Sweden
16 years
#7
Netherlands
15.9 years
#8
Belgium
15.8 years
#9
Iceland
15.8 years
#10
Denmark
15.6 years
Where's the US? #14 at 15.2 years.
In Conclusion Such resources are great tools to promote discussion. You may even learn something new like I did!
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Kathy Sierra has pointed out another mind blowing concept:
Eleanor Roosevelt said"Do one thing every day that scares you."
I don't know about the every day thing, but taking risks takes practice, and if we keep doing the same things we already know, in the same way, our willingness to dare to be different atrophies. ... Most of us don't want to be labeled "risk averse". We don't want to take stupid risks, but we don't want to be all Who Moved My Blackberry either. So consider this my quarterly reminder (to myself, more than anyone else) to--as Eleanor Roosevelt also said:
You must do the things you think you cannot do.
I love this!
This is part of keeping life exciting and staying young! Kids are always doing something scary and new! It is adults that lose the desire to try new things and do new things! That is why I so love the Internet and the blogosphere. Although I live in my small town of 5,000 I am exposed to the best in thought!
I can listen to podcasts to teach me new things. Last week, I learned how to make multi page posters in Excel. I've used it three times in the last week, it is really cool! After I got past the, "Why would I do that?" and "It is so stupid to want to do that!" I got to "Wow! I can really use this!"
When we do things that are scary we can better relate to our students. It is scary to get out of our comfort zone. But we are grateful to those who guide us into new territories that we need to explore.
Teachers must continue to learn. Learning can be scary. So, get out there and learn something scary.
Here are some options guaranteed to get you out of your comfort zone:
If you're writing a technology plan or planning your curriculum for next year you should STOP EVERYTHING and print out this free book for everyone on your team. Then, before you go any further, read it. (It is only 92 pages.) What is the background of this book? Educational guru Ewan Mcintosh has blogged about his participation in a new evolutionary electronic book entitled: Coming of Age: an Introduction to the new world wide web. (Adobe Acrobat Format 1.9MB) The editor is Terry Freedman and this book is excellent an excellent resource!
Administrators, teachers, leaders of all kind simply must print out this book and distribute it to those who need to know. (I think this includes administrators, technology coordinators, teachers, and librarians.)
How can I contribute to the evolution of this book? They have also created a wiki in to allow changes and contributions to the book so you can add your expertise in as well! What topics are covered in this book? Some of the headings in the table of contents that catch my interest are:
An outlining of the tools available on the New web (p 21-23
What are RSS feeds and why haven't I heard about it? (RSS Feeds from an educator's perspective)
Blogging
PhotoSharing
Blogs and special needs children
ELGG and Blogging in primary education
Podcasting Resources (and how to subscribe to them and do it)
Video Blogging in Schools
Wikis in Education (They link to our Westwood Wiki!)
Forums, Instant Messaging and Other Ways to Participate
This is what Web 2.0 is all about! Thank you visionaries!
This is the type of wiki-based best practices book that can serve as a model for the next iteration in effective global education. This is a global group of collaborators with a useful, salient message for all visionary educators.
Folks, this is what Web 2.0 is all about! This is the future we're preaching! I've never met Terry Freedman but I am so impressed that I cannot contain myself.
Read this book, add to the wiki, and most of all, tell the story! Print it out and share it in your circle of influence. It will be the best free thing you ever did for your school system!
Blake Handler has written a Parent's Guide to Myspace with useful information on recommended settings and options that can be used to protect student privacy. I plan on copying these and handing them out. (Hat tip to Alfred over at Computer Science Teacher in his post - A Parent's Guide to MySpace)
This may be a useful link to post on websites and blogs for parents and students. I plan on posting it to the Westwood news blog tonight.
Listen to this article
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Sometimes teachers are so impressive. Today, I've spent some time looking at Clarence Fisher's work and blog. I was first drawn into his work by a quote from amazing Anne over at Amazing Anne at her post Learning from Blogs where she quotes Clarence Fisher from Remote Access:
This is exactly one reason why I want my kids to blog; and just as importantly, to read the blogs of others. Blogs are doors to the rest of the world. This is a powerful explanation of what we try to do. We “invite other people to know our lives,” you “read others’ blogs and discover their lives in other places.” This is why I am adamant that my kids link to, read, and comment on the blogs of people who live in other parts of the globe. I want them to hear from Australiankids, from Brazilian kids. From kids who live in major urban centres, and from those who live in small towns just like they do. They need to learn about their differences, see their similarities, and understand about how, on this ever - shrinking globe, they are a generation of people who will have many problems to solve when they inherit what we are leaving behind.
Clarence is an award winning educator in Canada and has been written about extensively. So, I wanted to see exactly what Clarence was doing. Here is what I found:
Professional Blogging - Clarence blogs professionally at Remote Access.
He Aggregates his student blogs - He has created a suprglu of all of his student blogs.
I've been wanting to do this for a while with mine and will definitely do it next year. This gives one stop reading of the classes information and I think allows for better pattern spotting in conversation. Otherwise, students read their friend's work and it becomes a little cliquish.
I believe it is it is vital that you have a separate blog for your students to read and to write professionally. Some may want to use wordpress and have categories, however I think this would be confusing. I also blog this way with my students.
Cooperation with other classrooms - He hyperlinks to other classroom blogs, specifically two in Australia and another in Brazil.
He uses wikis - He has a class wiki for collaborative projects.
His classes use podcasts Interesting are the comments from his students now that their time of podcasting /vlogging is over. Amanda says:
No more podcasts the seven weeks went by so fast. to think of it I kinda miss doing the podcast’s. I am used having to work on them. In the mornings during the week. Me and drew had ended out podcast’s with questions about our podcast from the past. Althought our podcast’s and vlogs in our class are still going to be able to be heard and seen. At www.ourmedia.org/user/64328 . Our podcast have been downloaded like 1 387 times and viewed 71 000 times that is crazy I was not expecting that many downloads and views. When our teach told us I didn’t belive it so I had to check for my self.
His student blogs are very good looking and it seems the students have learned to post meaningfully!
I have learned several things from Mr. Fisher that I'm going to do differently next year in my class blogging. My students do love blogging but I think I can do more to promote the conversation through tools like Suprglu and perhaps using some tools similar. I do think he could mashup his suprglu onto the front of his wiki and create a one stop place for information for his students. That is probably the only think I'd add to this great formula!
In Conclusion Have you taken the time lately to look at what other teachers are doing?
Have you delved into their classroom and seen the conversations they are having, the tools they are using, and what their students are saying?
Do you hyperlink to your classes and wikis from your professional blog? (I'm going to go back and check my links here.)
Anniversary of the Four minute Mile Some things are worth celebrating! Today is the anniversary of Roger Bannister breaking the four minute mile. In honor of "the Miracle Mile" the BBC has posted video of this record breaking race.
Experts said it couldn't be done Prior to this time, "experts" had stated that it was physiologically impossible for man to run a mile in faster than four minutes. Within a month another person had broken the record.
So, although his record only stood for one month, Bannister will be forever known as the man who broke the "physiologically impossible" record. Bannister knew that the race was one of the mind as much as of the body.
The target of the four minute mile then came into view. It was talked about in the '30s, and the Swedes got very close, but it had just taken us after the war to gradually come down to a time closer, and in '53, which was the year, if you remember, when Everest was climbed by a British Commonwealth team, I ran 4:03 and I felt the next year it should be possible. It was my last year anyway, and so I trained hard through the winter with two friends, Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher, Brasher from Cambridge, Chataway from Oxford, and they helped with the pace making and really made it possible, because you could only break a time really by running evenly. It's a question of spreading the available energy, aerobic and anaerobic, evenly over four minutes. If you run one part very much too fast, you pay a price. If you run another part more slowly your overall time is slower. So that was really the secret.
Belief precedes accomplishment So to reach his goal: he planned it with friends and had people to push him to become faster and more evenly paced. It wasn't an accident, but I find it interesting that the year before he did it, he BELIEVED it could be done. That was the difference.
The desire to prove experts wrong. Sometimes experts know what they are talking about. Sometimes experts are wrong about the attainment of lofty goals, but we'll never know it unless someone believes it can be done and sets everything on accomplishing that goal.
The Miracle Mile in the Classroom
I often run "the miracle mile" with some of my students. When someone says "this student cannot be taught" or "this student is hopeless" the goal is set. Or sometimes the four minute mile is self-caused when a student tells me "computers hate me" or "I hate computers." The mark is again set.
Do I always achieve my goals to help students? No, not always. But more often than not, breakthroughs happen with students and it spills over to other classes.
Partner with other teachers Usually, it is several of us teachers who have agreed with one another to not give up, to persist, and it is together that we reach the insurmountable psyche of a student who becomes educated and emerges with a renewed self worth and changed life.
Though one teacher (eg. Roger Bannister) is credited with the breakthrough, there are often two or three others in the wings that partnered towards a common goal: Reaching the unreachable.
Teaching is about running four minute miles every day!
Today The current fastest mile record is held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj, who ran a time of 3 minutes 43.13 seconds in Rome, Italy, on 7 July 1999.
It all started with Roger Bannister on May 6, 1954.
The College Board, which runs the SAT, has sent a letter to college administrators saying that they are seeing a decline of 4-5 points across the Critical Reading and Math sections as compared to last year's scores.
This is in response to inquiries from puzzled administrators, who have seen an even larger drop. They are further mystified because they have seen a rise in many other statistics correlated with the quality of the applicant pool, and which in the past have correlated with SAT scores (as reported by Inside Higher Ed).
As Kevin points out, though, many of us in the field, myself included, are seeing a more significant drop.
I work with a rigorous SAT prep program that typically helps our kids gain well over 100 points. We do work before and the Monday after the test, I always debrief.
Here is what I have observed: 1) The math section is significantly harder
Curriculum will affect your scores more than ever. The College Board says:
Math content expanded to include topics from third-year college preparatory math
Quantitative comparisons eliminated
Previously, our Math AP-track students could feasibly max out on the test at the end of the sophomore year. Now, the advanced track students should know most of the material by the end of their junior year. Our non-AP track students will not have everything covered until the end of our senior year, not in enough time to do very well on their SAT's which need to be completed by November of their senior year.
Bottom line is that the test doesn't really test reasoning anymore, with these changes in the math, the math score is MORE strongly reflective of curriculum and advanced placement.
The method of stating questions is somewhat misleading:
One of my tenth graders came to me with this question -- How do you solve f(x) problems? Here was an example of the equation.
f(x) = x + y What is x?
Well, if it had been stated y=x +y, most of my ninth graders would know that x =0. However, this simple slip into functions tripped them all up. This doesn't test reasoning, but again, curriculum.
2) Changes in the critical reading section.
Paired passages Previously, I have found that the SAT only had one or two of the infamous paired passages and I prepped my students as such. Several of them reported on this SAT 3-4 sets of paired passages with one stand alone passage!
They used to go in order where a student could read one passage and answer questions concerning passage one, then read the second and answer questions concerning passage two. Then, draw conclusions and compare. (The way most of us read articles to compare them.)
Now, the passages are paired and they have jumbled up the questions. Additionally instead of 2-3 questions comparing both passages, many of my students reported having more than 3/4 of the questions comparing the passages.
So rather than answering fundamental inference, main idea, and vocabulary in context question, every question turns into a double question -- about conclusions drawn on each passage. If we're not going to teach students to compare passages in their minutia, I think testing in this manner is a bit extreme. Yes, some comparisons are fine and necessary, however, in college you don't read books side by side but one at a time before comparing them.
Removal of analogies Many post graduate tests use analogies to reflect reasoning abilities, however, the SAT has removed analogies. This, of course, made the test harder but I think is a disservice.
Let them eat...something! In every location my students took the test, they were not allowed to eat. They arrived at 7:30 a.m. and did not finish until after 1:30. The official snack policy of the SAT (now posted on their website) is:
Snack Policy
Although for security reasons, neither food nor drinks can be opened or consumed in the test room, students are encouraged to bring snacks in a book bag on test day. These snacks are easily stowed under desks or chairs in the test room and can be consumed outside of the test room during breaks.
Here is the problem, proctors are not letting the students have a break unsupervised and require them to stay in the room for fear that they will discuss the test.
My students were not allowed to eat! I think this made me angrier than most anything that happened to them on that day. For those who at at 6:30 in the morning that is 7 hours without eating.
Pre-test innefficiency The test is too long, however, much time is wasted in non testing issues. Most students didn't start actually taking the test until 9:15. That is one hour and forty five minutes of prime testing time spent bubbling in demographic data and other information that the SAT has already collected. Consistently administer the test If it is going to be a benchmark, the same bench must be used to make the mark! Some proctors notify time remaining, some do not. There are other differences I blogged about in January. Who's steering the boat? Should we change our 9th grade curriculum to teach students f(x)? Do we alter things so they will do well on the SAT or so they make sense. Who put the SAT in charge of curriculum anyway?
I'm not sure that I agree at all with why the SAT selected the items that they did. There selections, however, are causing many schools like ours to analyze our misalignments and "plug holes" to teach things that "they" deem are important.
There is something distinctly wrong with this picture.
In Conclusion I am finding more and more students dramatically opposed to taking the SAT again. They are asking to take the ACT and seeking alternatives.
One very bright Junior told me yesterday that not taking it again because she's "happy with her score" and the benefits of being STAR student do not outweigh the test!
I'm seeing a backlash within the students and animosity that is unlike that I saw with the old test. I've been doing this for a while and know that things are different with this new test. For kids who have trouble taking tests, this test has truly evolved into torture. (Trust me, I've counseled them after the new test in tears crying that they thought they just couldn't go through that again.)
Bottom line is that I believe that the College Board is not following best practices on administering the test. They are so concerned about recent "cheating movies" that have emerged that they have clamped down to the point of being abusive to the kids they are trying to test. Most kids (mine included) are not superstars but just average kids trying to go to as good a college as they can get into. (And what about all the kids who don't have someone like me helping them? What about kids who are at schools who don't make them take the SAT?)
What results is increasingly vehement resentment and opposition from students.
But what ultimately results is students' lives who are being adversely affected because the College Board has made a mistake in proctoring and administering this once-useful test.
I've always been a fan of the SAT, but we've honestly had discussions about switching to the ACT as our focal test. There has got to be a better way of measuring the reasoning skills of students in a three hour test.
Williams and Hellman (1998) measured the self-worth of 214 entering first-generation college and found strong correlations between three strategies and first semester GPA. Finishing homework assignments by deadlines, concentrating on school subjects and studying despite distractions were found to be highly correlated with first semester GPA (Pintrich, 1995).
100% Digital portfolios? Why I like diversification
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
I love it when students interact and ask questions, it makes me a better teacher. It teaches me as they take me to places I would never have gone in a one sided discussion with myself.
Likewise, I appreciate the comments on blog postings. I take each one and look at it, often drilling down into the blogger's profile to read about them and what they are blogging.
Hi Vicki, This was very interesting. I totally agree with you around walking away from exams. Authentic assessment is starting to become very important to me, and I am preparing to deploy a portfolio solution for my ESL students. (I teach business English in Mexico City.)
I'm curious: have you ever used a 100% digital format for your portfolio work?
How do you introduce the whole concept of portfolios? I would really love to learn how you do/did it from start to finish.
Thanks, Aaron in Mexico City # posted by Aaron Nelson
Aaron asked a couple of great questions about portfolios which are part of the genuine assessment philosophy that is so important. I don't profess to know all the answers, but I'll share what I've found to work in my classroom.
Have you ever used a 100% digital format for your portfolio work?
The answer is no. I know that many of my former students as well as my sister at Savannah College of Art and Design report that they are seeing an increasing use of 100% digital portfolios, I've always told them to make sure they have a copy of it for themselves for a couple of reasons:
A) Can they afford to lose it?
A great deal of work and creativity goes into college and high school projects that are as comprehensive as a portfolio. So, although I require them to create wikis and the majority of the portfolio is online, I still have them print it out to retain in a binder. I use a different binder for each year I teach them and each year has a slightly different purpose.
Why a print copy? OK, I admit it, around the middle to the end of 1999 -- I did A LOT of, well, Y2K consulting. (There the secret is out!) One thing I and many others did learn from that misunderstood chapter in computing history is to ask ourselves --
What if our computer evaporated -- could we still run our business? Could our organization still function? Would we still exist?
Redundancy is part of any good technology plan. Redundancy is always a good idea in anything dealing with computers. I teach backup principles to my computer science class and the fundamental question of assessing backup needs is:
"How much data can I afford to lose?"
In terms of their resume and the amount of time and creativity invested in their portfolios, I believe it is too important to afford to lose. Yes, they can lose the paper copy. However, the onus is on their shoulders, not mine!
My husband is an engineer and although they use CAD and automation for everything, the absolute modus opperandai for engineers is the printing of a hard copy of plans of any kind. Final plans are printed and archived, always! This is because computers and software changes and this is the only way engineers can ensure that they have an original print available. In other words, they cannot afford to lose the original.
Likewise, I think if the portfolio is meaningful and relevant, it is irreplaceable and a hard copy should be used to document what was produced digitally as much as possible.
B) Am I willing to maintain the software/ system used to time infinitum?
Quite simply, no! After a school year is up, I will make every effort to keep things for students, but invariably as upgrades, swapouts, and maintenance occurs - data is lost. Sometimes I switch services and in some cases, the service on the Internet ceases to exist. (Besides the obvious fact that I may not be in my position forever.)
In fact, last week one of the Web 2.0 sites that a student signed up to assess, did just that "ceased to be maintained." It happens.
Some of my portfolios take literally a whole year to create. Although most of my students go on to college, many of them have to work their way through college and countless have used their portfolio to secure a job.
How do you introduce the whole concept of portfolios? I would really love to learn how you do/did it from start to finish.
JW Fanning, one of the founders of the Leadership Georgia program used to always say:
"If you see a turtle on a fencepost, you know somebody had to put him there."
In this case, the person who can take credit for the portfolio is a pioneer in computer education -- my mother! (She opened the computer lab in 1990.) Much of what I do has evolved from her original portfolio projects. The assignment changes every year as we make sure the students are doing the things most relevant to the education they need in technology. When do I introduce it? At the begining of the year or semester, I let the students know there will be a portfolio and the importance of saving on their memory key and their folder on the server. During the year, I have certain major projects earmarked for the portfolio, and I let the students know that when we do them.
When do I give out the assignment? It is a balance when to give them the assignment, I usually give it out 6-8 weeks in advance. I also make sure that the majority of the portfolio has been created during the year. The portfolio is never less than 30% of the 8 week grade and never more than 40%.
How important is appearance? I do stress appearance, particularly in the Computer Applications class. The fact is, most of us unconsciously grade portfolios that look better in a more positive light. This is also reflected in the business world as presentations with "pizzazz" tend to get rave reviews. I expect my students to use the color theory, font theory, and graphics techniques that I've taught them.
How much class time do I give? The use of milestones? If you give a huge portfolio to a high school class and never check a portion of it, I think you will probably be dismally dissappointed. It is our jobs to teach them how to complete such projects. The key to procrastination: break it down into smaller pieces! (See my 9th grade planning wiki.)
I take each portfolio and "break it down" into mini due dates. At these due dates, I review the section at hand giving feedback, marking errors, and giving suggestions. It is not a formal grade. If it is complete at the beginning of the class period when it is due it is a check plus (103), by the end a check (100), if it is almost there but a little is missing a check minus (89). I do let them show me late, however, I usually deduct 5 or 10 points depending upon the level of the class. (I am a firm believer that zeroes don't benefit anyone. I give them if necessary, but not without a fight!)
This shows me if the students are on track and if I need to get parents involved. It also gives me grades and forces me to give them feedback and discuss each section with them. My first year I did not do this and it was tough. Now that I do project milestones, I rarely have students who have late portfolios and never have them that turn them in. Do I give class time? I do give time in my classes for portfolio work. (Not the whole six weeks. Spring is great for this with the spring sports!) Not all students have computers at home or printers. Also, when work is done at home, sometimes parents get a little too "helpful." (A pet peeve of mine.) When they work in my classroom, I know the work is original and it is done. I NEVER allow students to tell me they have it at home -- I want it done in my classroom and if they don't have the work, they will work on something else for the portfolio.2q1
I make sure each milestone is reasonable and I monitor the room and make sure students are on task. Portfolios are definitely not "hands off" time for me, but rather, somewhat exhausting.
Most importantly, although I'll answer some questions, this is not the time to reteach something a student "should have gotten." Teaching students to be intiuitive learners is part of the process. I'm the "guide on the side" not the "sage on the stage." Some "helpless handraisers" try to get me over a barrel to do the work for them. (Often these are the students with the "over helpful parents.") If they should know it, I will point the direction but I will not drive the truck! Often, they are putting on and using such complaints as procrastination techniques.
These portfolio assessments are something that my students are always proud of and always keep!
How about grading? I use a grading rubric that assigns points to each section. It also defines how much bonus is available for each portion. (I believe in giving incentives to rise above.) I work hard to make the grading of these portfolios non subjective and very fair as it most often determines the academic awards for my class. Scholarly articles on portfolios and genuine assessment:
Of course, this may be skewed by those who actually know HOW to ping Technorati. It also may be skewed by how much those who are speaking Japanese value the use of the blogosphere. The fact is, English has traditionally been the predominant language of the blogosphere and now there is astounding growth in other languages.
With much of the Internet birthed in the United States, I have to wonder if we will not yet again export our most valuable and useful technologies because of an inability to see its potential. We can put too much into these stats as I'm sure they are not statistically valid in terms of the whole blogosphere, however, since it is virtually impossible for any one company to get "arms around" the blogosphere, these are telling stats, nonetheless.
Second language opportunities abound Finally, I am struck by what great immersion-like second language experiences reside within the blogosphere now! What great opportunities to learn about culture and interact with those who speak other languages. What a great way to get students to realize the humanity of people in other countries and to allow them to see that they have much in common though they may reside a world apart.
The responsibility of education I have to believe that while some of the growth of the blogosphere has to do with social issues -- myspace growth, etc. I have to wonder if a large proportion of its growth is directly attributable to the educators within the colleges and high schools of a country. I'd like to know what portion of the growth is coming from the education field.
Observing the resistance of some educators, I have to wonder if like those with the railroad, forgetting they were in the transportation business -- some people confuse the medium with the business.
Likewise, one cannot directly connect textbooks, pen and paper with education. Those things are a communications medium. The educational process is a transferrence of knowledge and is independent of the medium used, as long as the transferrence occurs.
Good education remains intact as long as accurate knowledge flows along the medium, whether that medium is printed page or electronic networks.
I see many people spending far too much time arguing against a medium that can engage and enlarge the educational process! Wikis, blogs, chats, and many electronic mediums are excellent opportunities to improve education!
I am 100% for the process of education. I believe that there are many good educators out there who can be enlightened to understand the benefits of these new technologies if there were less fearmongers trying to prey on the minds of those who do not understand.
It is the responsibility of those who do understand to "tell the story" as David Warlick says.
This is fascinating. My sister at Disney said their advertising department has been abuzz about the "eagle cam."
These folks (obviously for an advertising dollar) have put a web cam and microphone on the nest of a bald eagle sitting on her eggs. They are getting over 10 million page views a day and report an extreme demand on their servers. With the hatch date some time this week, I expect this will increase.
The advertising model of blogging seems to be an emerging one particulary when combined with something of interest to people.
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by Thomas Cahill is an absolute must read for any teacher of classical literature or history. This is the first of the "Hinges of History" series and is not for the person afraid of a robust vocabulary. My father recommended the series and this is one time I'm glad I didn't go with the Amazon reviews which only gave it three stars. I loved this book!
