21st Century School Teacher

More ways to cheat?  Check out ChaCha!

Okay, so I signed up to be a member of Classroom 2.0—which I’m really glad that I did.  It is an awesome site where you can network with other teachers from around the world.  I knew it was a Ning, but I wasn’t really sure what a Ning was… I just thought that Steve Hargadon was a genius—not that he’s not, it’s just that I hadn’t realized that the application was available to me and you and anyone who wants to set up a network.  I think that this has great classroom potential!  So for fun, since I’m not teaching but blogging a lot, I set up my very own bloggers’ Ning just to see what it was like--pretty cool...

If you want an ad-free Ning for your classroom, here are the instructions from Steve's website...

      D.C. List Shows 90 Teacher Vacancies Rhee's Office Puts Number at 42, Says Shifts Will Be Made
by Bill Turque… Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 29, 2008

Turque points out that several schools in the D.C. area are understaffed, and suggests that this is due to the 270 teachers that were let go over the summer. Well, that makes sense…  Apparently, 200 teachers were not able to get the certification that they needed to teach under NCLB.  They were unable to pass the ever popular PRAXIS, some missing the mark by just one point… So, they were let go. 

I’m not sure if Michelle Rhee should be blamed if teachers can’t pass the PRAXIS in their own content area.  In fact, I believe teachers have more than one try at the exam, and know well in advance when their certificate expires or what certification requirements need to be met to teach the content area they are assigned to. 

 Teachers in D.C. have to bear the burden for not having enough educators on staff—some teachers currently have class loads of over 40 students.  Other teachers have to teach during their prep periods…  Seems to me that this isn’t Rhee’s fault, rather it’s a symptom of legislation (NCLB) that creates hardships as such.  Finding highly-qualified special education teachers is a bear—across the country.  And teachers that don’t have proper endorsements for their subject areas have to go back and take exams like the PRAXIS.  I obtained a K-8 certificate with a Masters in Education.  But under the NCLB legislation, I am only highly qualified to teach social studies and language arts, as that is where I had been teaching before the law was passed.  So if my principal wanted me to teach math, let’s say, I would have to pass the PRAXIS in math, or I would need to take 45 credits to get a math endorsement…  The burden that NCLB put on our education system as a whole should be receiving more press.

It is unfortunate that Rhee is getting the blame for this one.  Rhetoric could sink this ship...  I'm going to keep an eye on D.C. 

II guess it's time to add Quick Shout to my blogroll.  I've visited quite a few times, and Nic Peachey always seems to have something interesting to look at...  I'm a fan. He looks primarily for ESL type applications, but many of the sites and tools he finds work for native speakers as well.  One of his latest finds is one I didn't want to pass on sharing:

I've just been playing around with a really nice site for kids. It's called Shidonni is a website targeted for kids--it is similar to a paint program and lets kids to draw animals. Once they've completed their illustration, they can bring them to life...

Kids can create an entire habitat for their animals--even visit other planets... You can watch a movie to see how it is done Fun with potential for younger kids...

If you have your own site or blog, you might want to consider trying Entrecard to build your clientele.  I've been using the site for a few weeks, and it has been pretty fun.  Basically, once you sign up, you begin to campaign for your site by advertising your avatar on other peoples' site.  I just used a photo from my website as my avatar (I suppose I could have put a little more time into it--but hey, it's working). And then other people advertise on your blog.  People will visit your blog to earn points so that they can advertise on someone else's site.  Pretty cool.  I do campaign, but I particulary like the directory aspect of the site.  I have spent several hours learning about other blogs and categories--eye opening.  It makes my blog look kinda hockey in comparison, but then again, I'm not trying to make money off my blog like so many others in the biz.   You can see my widget  below for today or follow advertisers on the sidebar thereafter.  I'm going to keep on playing here--it is kind of fun to see who visits and revisits. 

Have you checked out Project Gutenberg?
 
There are over 25,000 free books in the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog. A grand total of over 100,000 titles are available at Project Gutenberg Partners, Affiliates and Resources. There are many uses for this site.  If you are having a hard time finding a story for class, if it is out of copyright, you'll likely find it here.  There are also several sound files associated with many popular selections...  Take a look at Poe's page--short stories, poems, sound files--most if not all of his works are available...

There seems to be more and more distractions of lately.  Gram and gramps are staying with us, and though I want to spend more time surfin' the net looking for cool teacher stuff, I haven't been able to.  They leave in a week, so I should be back to normal soon...  In the meantime, I've decided to start a new blog--one that has nothing to do with teaching and everything to do with what is happening in my life right now (and other good stuff).  I' ve only posted once, but feel free to check it out.  www.kissinkate.com

Just for fun, if you haven't taken a look at the cool websites page on this site, take a peek... teacherwebit

Tolerance.org

Tolerance.org is a principal online destination for people interested in dismantling bigotry and creating, in hate's stead, communities that value diversity.

I love this site!  It provides a wealth of information, and additionally, you can order several DVDs and teaching materials for FREE!  They say there is no free lunch, but these materials may challenge that.  I also ordered a set of posters from which to teach.  They were a nice addition to my classroom. 

My favorite of all their available resources is "One Survivor Remembers," about Gerda Weissmann a Holocaust survivor...  Pretty powerful, and can lead to so many different teaching avenues.  If you teach history, or even a novel set during World War II, this teaching video and materials won't disappoint.  They sent me a series of primary source materials (copies) of pictures, postcards, documents, etc.  I hope that you take a peek!

Recently, my husband's computer quit working--he tried to get it working, but someone from his corporate office was eventually dispatched to fix it.  It looks like his hard drive is fried--which I'm not very happy about... Foolishly, we've kept most of our baby pics and videos on his computer.  I've some back-up disks, but not everything has been saved elsewhere.  Which brings me to my new find...  OOSAH
If you need a place to safely store your media files, you can get 1TB free storage? Yes, a terabyte--you can link to your Flickr, Picasa, Youtube, and Facebook files from your OOSAH login.

I uploaded some pictures from my computer tonight--it was super easy, and it gave me piece of mind to know that all of my remaining baby pics were stored safely somewhere other than on our computers or in our house...

I can see other applications for use in the classroom.  A few years ago, I was getting in trouble with the district for storing too many Audacity sound files on the district server--enter OOSAH--a great place for students to store their media files--1TB!

It's time to say good-bye to the old stompin' grounds.  Tomorrow I'm headed back to the desert and my baby girl (and hubby, too--oopsie).  It has been good for the heart to be here, but going home to my own space will feel fine!  I've got a few more commitments before I leave, so I likely won't have much time for blogging till Tuesday...

Till then, here is an application that you can play around with...
Dipity is a really cool web 2.0 timeline application tool.  Dipity looks great and allows for embedding images, links, videos, commentary… Clutter to your heart’s desire!

There is also a flipbook feature that imitates Apple’s Coverflow. It’s worth spending some time here.  A must-see 21st century teacher tool!