January 2010 Blog Posts (153)

Five Apps for Busy Educators

Staying organized during a hectic school year is certainly a difficult task. With hundreds of e-mails, phone messages, parent conferences, and meetings, staying organized can seem impossible. To help, I’ve put together a short list of helpful apps I use to stay on top of things. MORE...

Added by Shawn Roner on January 21, 2010 at 10:03pm — 2 Comments

Blog, Blog, Blog

What does a blog do that a discussion list or wiki can not do? This week in our course we have been discussing blogs. I personally prefer to use both wikis and blogs. I find blogs more difficult to get students to use. This is because blogs usually require more communication with language. I always think of blogs as online diaries. Who is really interested in reading your blog? The only people who will be reading my blogging during this class are my classmates, maybe, and the instructor because… Continue

Added by Carol E. Kubota on January 21, 2010 at 7:05pm — No Comments

Here it comes.... !

As anyone can see from this lovely cabgirl's expression, Educon2.2 is almost here! Educon is THE conference which takes place at The Science Leadership Academy in Philly. Attending this conference the first two years was like going to a party with my Tweets… Continue

Added by Durff on January 21, 2010 at 4:28pm — No Comments

Kellee Michelle

I am a sophomore on the Teacher Education program, K through 6. I love working with children, I am the Karabiner Kidz director at The Summit Church. I tutor a Kindergartener in handwriting two days a week and babysit a 3 year old once a week. I am an only child, but will inherit 8 brothers and sisters in June when I get married. I am engaged to Robert Gentry, and we will be getting married on… Continue

Added by Kellee Kuessner on January 20, 2010 at 6:42pm — No Comments

What do I hope to get out of the eLearning Assessment Course?

Why have you chosen this course, this university and/or this program?

Carol has chosen this course because it is one of the required courses that must be completed to receive the Graduate Certificate for e-learning. She is also quite interested in learning about the various ways to assess online learning and the learning of students in her face to face classes.

This was an interview conducted for the eLearning Assessment Course that I am taking.

* Tell me about… Continue

Added by Carol E. Kubota on January 20, 2010 at 6:23pm — No Comments

SMART Technologies: Multitouch Application Contest Announced for the SMART Table

SMART Technologies' Multitouch Application Contest Announced: http://bit.ly/6wnjoO

SMART Multitouch Application Contest Website

The contest is divided into two categories, commercial and academic. I think this would be a great project for high school tech. students! I think that to program an application for… Continue

Added by Lynn Marentette on January 20, 2010 at 4:36pm — 3 Comments

Week 1 Review

Yesterday we held our first class in the new semester for the CPED 2023 (Introduction to Educational Technology) course. As much as I thought I had most of my thoughts together prior to starting the course there were so many more things I felt I left out.

I would have liked to have painted a broader and yet more detailed… Continue

Added by Dave Eveland on January 20, 2010 at 6:30am — No Comments

Sensible Evaluations of Teachers... and More Farces from the Front Lines

Schools are so understaffed on the admin front that sensible evaluations of teachers that are thoughtful, timely and fair to all parties involved seem almost like a pipe dream.

Take my school, for example. We have 4 admins on our campus: a P and 3 VP's.

That's for something like 150 teachers.

So if each educator were to get 8 classroom visits (two per quarter; that doesn't seem unreasonable, right? I mean not if you are to reasonably try to gain… Continue

Added by Alan Sitomer on January 20, 2010 at 6:30am — 1 Comment

your middle name

is Nathaniel.

Added by Kelsey Watson on January 19, 2010 at 5:26pm — 2 Comments

Students Helping Haiti

Hi all - this is my first post, and it's an important one. In my role as Youth Outreach Coordinator for United Nations World Food Programme, I have been inundated with request from students and educators asking how they can help the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti.

So - WFP has put together a campaign and donation page dedicated to students. The page can be found here:… Continue

Added by Graham Bell on January 19, 2010 at 10:34am — No Comments

eLearning Assessment Tools

I would like to use this space to blog about my learning experiences with the University of Wisconsin at Stout. I decided to attend online classes in order to receive a graduate certificate in eLearning. The University of Stout seemed to have what I needed. I finished the first class in September which was very informative.

The class I am taking now is eLearning

Assessment. The first week included reading various articles on assessment and some interesting ways of really getting… Continue

Added by Carol E. Kubota on January 19, 2010 at 10:31am — No Comments

Who's to Blame?

I'm only in my second year of teaching. It's rough. This year's group is horrible when it comes to behavior, and having an 18-day Christmas break (yes...18 days) seemed to have been retroactive to their behavior. Any semblance of control I had before break has yet to be regained. I'm starting to wonder if it's me....

At what point do you stop saying, "That teacher has to send kids to the office because they're godless heathens" (though that can be said about one class in my… Continue

Added by Jessica Eitzen on January 19, 2010 at 8:37am — 1 Comment

Don't you love how everyone feels as if they can do your job better than you can do it yourself?

Whenever any other adult walks into my classroom, things change. Why? Cause classrooms are fishbowls and when a new species enters the tank, the environment changes.

Sure, in some ways, things will revert back to normal. Especially if I, at the front of the room, keep an even keel, and keep rolling on with business as usual. (Which I usually do. I have sort of given up on dog and pony shows a long time ago... but when you are a young teacher and you think that your job is… Continue

Added by Alan Sitomer on January 19, 2010 at 6:30am — 2 Comments

What the students want

I asked the student to tell me where we could use the new sites over the next few chapters. A couple of students have respond with some good ideas on how and where to use the sites. Most haven't respond yet and a few acted like they had no idea what I wanted. I guess if you have never been asked what you would like to do in class, then you wouldn't really know how to respond. It will be interesting to see what the others come up with for suggestions.

Added by Matt Carley on January 18, 2010 at 8:07pm — No Comments

New! OER Center of California Launched in January!

The OER Center of California provides support for community college educators to find, create, remix, use, and share openly licensed learning content. Together, as knowledge workers, we can learn to share...and share to learn.

Stay tuned for futher details.

Added by Judy Baker on January 18, 2010 at 6:27pm — No Comments

Data is the Question

Over the past few years I have watched the wave of Data Driven Instruction and the companies that are making a great deal of money from the NCLB mandate. I feel as though I am in a production of the "Emperor's New Clothes" But where is the suit? That is my question.

My school district got on the band wagon.. and we are continuing to go down the chute. From a school in needs of improvement to a district in needs of improvement quite frankly I believe it is a system in needs of… Continue

Added by Deborah Boatwright on January 18, 2010 at 5:20pm — No Comments

Give away - three promo codes for the red apple

If you have a US itunes account and are interested in seeing our multi-lingual app on the iphone or ipod touch for use in the classroom leave you email here.

thanks

neal

Added by Neal Hoskins on January 18, 2010 at 3:59pm — No Comments

Tech Tools for Teachers on a Tight Budget: My Presentation at FETC

For those who couldn't attend this year's FETC (Florida Educational Technology Conference), you truly missed out. Actor and activist Ed Begley Jr. kicked off the conference by speaking on this year's theme, "Doing More With Less." (I posted some footage on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b35lvvjv2Lo. The expo hall was incredible and there were several very informative sessions. I presented at this year's… Continue

Added by Andy on January 18, 2010 at 8:10am — 3 Comments

Was I just caught with my pants down?

The other day the Principal and a Vice Principal came into my room un-announced. Why? To do "informal observations".

I was given no notice, no inkling -- didn't even know they were in this wing of our school.

And still during the middle of 6th period they popped in, each took a position on one side of the room -- checksheet in hand -- and they observed.

I was at the front of the room at the time just having finished up giving a cloze quiz about the… Continue

Added by Alan Sitomer on January 18, 2010 at 6:30am — No Comments

ISTE SIGMS "Technology Innovation Award" now open

The ISTE Media Specialists SIG (SIGMS) announces the 3rd annual “Technology Innovation Award”. All teachers and librarians are invited to apply. You do not need to be a member of ISTE to apply. This award is quickly becoming recognized as a premier award to honor school librarians and teachers for their outstanding work in integrating technology into teaching and learning in their schools. Sponsored by Linworth Publishing, Inc. and Follett Software Company, the award will be presented to two… Continue

Added by Lisa Perez on January 17, 2010 at 8:39pm — No Comments