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This is an activity to help students roleplay and discuss bullying situations. Prepare and plan ahead to create awareness in your school but also note that you should understand the definition of bullying. Every time someone yells at another- it is NOT bullying behavior. Bullying implies unequal power in a relationship and relies on intimidation and is unfair. When two "equal" parties disagree you have a disagreement, usually. I do think that often the term bullying is overused to talk about tough circumstances that may or may not be bullying at all.
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World Environment Day collection
June 5 is World environment day. Here are some lessons and resources that you can use to talk to students about maintaining a healthy, sustainable world.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 05/26/2012
Friday, May 25, 2012
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock #teaching 05/25/2012
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I'm a celebrity French Version - to practice past - Resources - TES
There are some fantastic MFL (modern foreign language) resources that you can use - here's a celebrity gameshow to play in French class.
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World Environment Day collection
June 5 is World environment day. Here are some lessons and resources that you can use to talk to students about maintaining a healthy, sustainable world.
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African Music PowerPoint - Resources - TES
Another nice music powerpoint slide - this one on African drumming and music which includes some rhythm games. This particular teacher on TES has some very nice music resources and is worth following. What I do when I find someone that I like is to click the "follow" button and then you get notified when they upload new lessons.
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Film Music PowerPoint - Resources - TES
When I taught digital film, I had them create a silent movie and then add sound effects and a musical score. Each student used the same film but edited it differently. It was shocking to them how much difference a good soundtrack made. In this powerpoint, you can take students through great composers for film.
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 05/25/2012
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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Summer Break
I wrote this blog post about how to get the most out of your summer break. Here are some tips.
and am getting ready to make my "goal poster" for the summer. (I have goal posters from the last 5-6 years in my office - love looking at them.) Someone tweeted me that she was getting ready to make her goal poster and I thought I'd share this post with you for those preparing to "get out." -
7 Ways To Use Pinterest As A Writer
This post has some information on how you can use Pinterest. If you're a company or organization supporting educators and want to dissect that pin and know how to get the word out about what you're doing, here are some tips.
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Two Brooklyn Schools Examined for Cheating – SchoolBook
More cheating scandals begin to brew. When children transferring out of a school drop from 90th percentile to 30th - something is up and that may be test fraud. Read this new york times article and also, if you want to know how to find statistical anomalies that point to cheating - the first Freakonomics book is an essential read.
"According to The Times, last year P.S. 31′s “math scores were nearly perfect, and 90 percent of its students passed the English test, more than 40 points above the citywide average. To celebrate, staff members tied a sign to the building: ‘School Report Card P.S. 31 is #1 in New York City.’” The school has 550 students, in PreK to fifth grade.
At P.S. 257, where most of the preK to fifth-grade students are black or Hispanic and poor, “62 percent of the children at the school had a score of proficient or higher on the state English exam.” -
5 Things You Need To Know About The Chromebook | Edudemic
A nice write up about chrome books to help people understand about these tools. One important piece of advice: bandwidth is essential with cloud based computing - with no cloud you have no computing.
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TESiboard Interactive Resources Index - Resources - TES
An index of interactive white board resources that you can use. This list of free resources is a wonderful place to fill out your library for the fall. This would be a great place to spend during planning time as you download and organize resources for your IWB for the fall by standard. (Make folders)
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Is Agile the Future of Project Management? | EDUCAUSE
In Flat Classroom and with my students we use a Trello board which is a web app used for Agile development. This app makes sense for schools and for personalized learning projects like the Personal Project done by my computer students. I couldn't track all the little pieces without it. Scrum, Lean, Agile, KanBan - these are all terms for project management systems and I think that as educators implement projects, this is a great place to look to handle large complex tasks with teams of people in efficient ways. Meetings are often a waste of time and should be to do what you can ONLY do face to face.
This research posted on Educause's website seems to back up this assertion.
"Gartner predicts that by the end of 2012, agile development methods will be used on 80 percent of all software development projects. Project Management Institute’s research shows that agile project management tripled from December 2008 to May 2011, and can help decrease product defects, improve team productivity, and increase business value. -
Oracle Loses In Patent Case Against Google : NPR
When will we see an end to all of these court cases - are these companies really that bad or are they just fighting for existence? I doubt that the 150,000 fine will even pay for the lawyers on both sides not to mention the cost to the federal government. I think these companies should have to start footing the bill for the federal judges and people whose time they are monopolizing.
"A federal jury ruled Wednesday that Google didn't infringe on Oracle's patents when the Internet search leader developed its popular Android software for mobile devices.
Wednesday's verdict comes about two weeks after the same jury, with two additional members, failed to agree on a pivotal issue in Oracle's copyright-infringement case against Google. As a result, Google Inc. faced maximum damages of only $150,000 — not the hundreds of millions of dollars that Oracle Corp. was seeking. -
Were you trained in data and assessment? – DEN Blog Network
Ginny Washburne on her Discovery Education blog shares how she doesn't feel that teachers are prepared for data-driven instruction. In my opinion, we should have a good interpretation interface on the back end of the data to help teachers understand the areas where they need to improve. It shouldn't be rocket science to realize that your students don't understand mitosis.
"Everyone agrees that we are asking more and more of teachers, to “wear several hats” if you will. One of those “hats” is being able to drive instruction using data. Do you think you were adequately trained to interpret the data you receive? -
More Parents Are Saying No to Pearson's Field Tests – SchoolBook
There is a growing resistence to standardized testing as parents get organized, this New York Times article gives an overview of some of the things happening.
"Resistance also appears to be growing more organized. Groups like Change the Stakes are helping to spread information about opt-out procedures and have created a spreadsheet to help parents navigate the field testing landscape.
ParentVoicesNY has created a boycott form letter that parents can download, sign and then submit to their school. The group also has direct connections with more than 20 schools, according to Kevin Jacobs, a public school teacher who is one of its active members."
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock #teaching 05/24/2012
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Cool Cat Teacher Blog: 10 Tips for Getting the Most Out of Your Summer Break
I wrote this blog post about how to get the most out of your summer break. Here are some tips.
and am getting ready to make my "goal poster" for the summer. (I have goal posters from the last 5-6 years in my office - love looking at them.) Someone tweeted me that she was getting ready to make her goal poster and I thought I'd share this post with you for those preparing to "get out." -
Special Educational Needs resources, SEN resources, lesson plans, TES Resources
Those who work with kids with special needs will appreciate this organized list of resources that you can use with students. Bev Evans, one of the lead curators, is a teacher and Mom with a heart for kids with special needs. Her special touch of empathy for teachers and students comes through in everything she does.
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TESiboard Interactive Resources Index - Resources - TES
An index of interactive white board resources that you can use. This list of free resources is a wonderful place to fill out your library for the fall. This would be a great place to spend during planning time as you download and organize resources for your IWB for the fall by standard. (Make folders)
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New teachers' resource collections - Resources - TES
As you prepare for new teachers next year, here is a collection of resources that you can use with new teachers - induction materials, behavior management, and other advice.
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I think that over the summer one of the best things you can do is to engage in conversation with other teachers at your level. Here is a set of a forums for the elementary and kindergarten level organized by topic. This may be a great place to engage and start talking.
Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 05/24/2012
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Desmos | a beautiful, free online graphing calculator
Such a great online graphing calculator. Desmos. I like how you can draw things and add interesting shapes to them.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Teach to Last
- What is the last impression I'll leave the kids of this school year?
- I'm so exhausted right now, how can I possibly last in this profession?
- I am now one year closer to my last year of teaching (whenever that is) and I wish I could do this forever.
- I have too much to do -- how can I last?
Reciprocity
As I ponder the word "last", "reciprocity" hits me as an apropos word for today as well. An excellent school year -- one that lasts in the hearts and minds of a student and the teacher is one where both of them learned from each other and gave energy and effort to each other. A great relationship of reciprocity emerged in a great school year.
This year has been another great one but in my exhaustion this week some moments I wonder, "why do I do this?" "Does it mean anything?" "Do I make a difference?" It feels pointless and I feel worthless.
Sometimes I wonder why teach at all -- it takes everything I have -- but then a child comes to me and gives me a hug or says thank you and I remember.
Some great men are carved on mountains and monuments but great teachers carve the future on the hearts of children. We cannot underestimate the importance of what we do in our classrooms.
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| My Granny Martin always said "sometimes you gotta tie a knot and hang on" - this time of year is knot tying time! |
Don't give up on yourself or teaching
I'm asking you to suspend judgement on your year and yourself for a bit. Wait until you're rested and have a bit of the spark back in your spark plug.Don't give up on yourself. Margaret Thatcher said:
"You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it."You may have to reinvent yourself many more times before you become the great teacher the good Lord intended you to be. Every year there are some great things and some things I didn't like. There are things I cherish and things that are rubbish. There are things I want to remember and other things I want to forget. Such is the nature of teaching.
The Real Classroom
If you're looking for perfect, go buy the most expensive diamond you can find, go in a dust proof room with the best magnification glass you can find and look at that diamond. You'll find that the diamond has flaws because the only perfect diamonds are fake-manmade diamonds. Likewise, the only perfect classrooms are fake, manmade classrooms on the pages of books and blogs that surgically remove the unsavory aspects of teaching.
The fact that teaching is an imperfect endeavor doesn't detract from the fact that teaching is one of the most important endeavors that the world undertakes.
So many people shake their heads and say, "I could never teach" but I always respond, "Well, I can and I love it."
But I can't let the fact that I'm not perfect make me want to quit. I can't let the fact that I'm exhausted make me want to go to sleep and never wake up. If I want to last in this profession, I have to get ready to REST.
Rest is something
Rest is not doing nothing, rest is most definitely something. I shared a recent infographic on my blog that shows that teachers work 99% of the hours of other professions but in 25% less time. There are many of us that do far more than that.
Here very soon I'm going to be going to the mountains.
- I'm going to take off my shoes and wade in bitingly cold streams.
- I'm going to do some white water rafting in a ducky all by my little self.
- I'm going to hear the roar of water falls in my ears and hear the laughter of children sliding down a sliding rock that has a bump at the end that is enough to tear up your hiney if you hit it just right. I'm going to tube down Deep Creek in a wooden-bottomed tube and do all kinds of things that people say a 40 something year old woman can't do.
- I'm going to lay down on the ground and take photographs of the tiny little mushrooms that grow up in the dew of the morning and get as close to a flower as I can get and still focus for some incredible macro shots like I love to take. I'll frame some more and hang them in the kitchen.
- I'm going to sit on the back porch and drink coffee as the kids roll down the steep hill and slide on the grass until their knees are green.
- I'm going to rate splashes on a scale of 1-10 as kids jump in the pool and get me soaking wet.
- I'm going to find some new music to listen to and play it so loud that no one can hear in the kitchen.
- I'm going to cook some awesome new food that my husband will love.
- I'm going to read some amazing new books and make some new friends on Twitter.
- I'm going to finish writing my second book and get it off to the publisher and continue working on my third.
- I'm going to lay on the couch under a blanket and watch old episodes of Little House on the Prairie, Andy Griffith, and every old Star Wars movie I own. I'm going to cry watching Chariots of Fire and Secretariat and throw in a few movies where everything gets blown up for good measure.
- I'm going to redo my workout area to find some things I can do now that my knees are bothering me so I can work out every day and get this weight of the last few months back off me.
- But amidst all this going to I'm going to rejuvenate my soul.
Build the habits into your summer routine to accomplish your goals
For now, be careful out there.
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| My oldest son and me at a friend's lake a few years back. |
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Elearning and global competency #flatclass #globaled 05/23/2012
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PodOmatic | Podcast - Eracism project
Italian students have conversations (in Italian) about their participation in the Eracism project and what they have done. These three podcasts are recorded in Italian (and some English).
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