February 2008 Blog Posts (82)

My First Blog

With all the demands on educators now, what motivates young people to go into education? When I started years ago there were no state tests, no standards based education and teachers could be creative. The public (parents) tended to support and respect teachers. It seems that now days that is no longer the case. Why do you want to become a teacher or why do you want to stay in teaching?

Added by Leslie Austin on February 29, 2008 at 12:28pm — 2 Comments

MS Surface with games … but give us Educational Content too!

Kind of a neat little game … but it REALLY could do so much more …. something more along the lines with what we are doing with Edusim http://edusim3d.com involving 3D direct manipulation of 3D learning objects .. employing the Edusim theory of “Rich-Immersive Learning… Continue

Added by Rich White on February 29, 2008 at 9:00am — No Comments

Where do I start?

I'm doing a 3 hour workshop on Web 2.0 tools. I have three hours. Where do I start?

Added by Nathan on February 28, 2008 at 8:42pm — No Comments

Teacher Potluck Carnival

Submissions for the next Teacher Potluck Carnival are due today! Posts about food, classroom recipes for success, and other food for thought are all welcome. Send your submissions in today!

Added by Donna Hebert on February 28, 2008 at 6:20am — No Comments

Mind maps and social software

Added by Donna Hebert on February 28, 2008 at 2:19am — No Comments

University of California Releases RFP for Course Development

If you know of a company that wants to create courses for the UC system, have them go here:

http://purchasing.ucsc.edu/suppliers/uccp-rfp.html

The contact person for questions is: Ms. Nancy F. Nieblas, nnieblas@ucsc.edu

Go For It! Have Fun!

Added by Lee Allan Sanders on February 27, 2008 at 10:08am — No Comments

Creating a Class Blog

Using a blog with my service learning students has been a challenge. I want to say failure, but I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet. Besides, failure is something to celebrate (like in Meet the Robinsons)--failure means there are lessons to be learned!

What's gone wrong? Here's the short list (warning to fellow English teachers, these will not be parallel or grammatically correct):

Students don't understand the difference between a blog post and a… Continue

Added by Lee Ann Spillane on February 25, 2008 at 12:16pm — 1 Comment

Roadblocks to Social Networking in Classrooms

What do you feel are the biggest roadblocks to using social networking tools in education?

Added by Meg Ormiston on February 24, 2008 at 1:11pm — 8 Comments

Ubuntu on Dell - Good news. I think.

(Cross posted from the Free & Open Source Software group)

Dell is now shipping consumer computers loaded with Ubuntu 7.10 and an assortment of applications. I see this as a good thing - it exposes a large consumer base to Open Source computing, and also presents an alternative to that greatest of horrors, Windows Vista. At present there does not seem to be any savings over similarly configured Windows boxes, but it means that the consumer is getting a machine with all the correct… Continue

Added by Ed Hitchcock on February 24, 2008 at 11:50am — No Comments

¡Hola!

Well, this is a wonderful day because somehow I managed to find a promising place that inspires me. Thanks a lot to all the people that has been contributing to this pages. Day after day, new devices and new technology helps us to teach better and in a more effective and easier way! But we must work harder getting to know it! This page permits us to get that knowledge and to get in contact with other people doing the same job. It's very important not to go alone, but do this task helping and… Continue

Added by Al on February 24, 2008 at 11:40am — 2 Comments

Kindlelab - Cell lesson/project - software for your Wiimote whiteboard

Grab it here - http://labs.greenbush.us/kindlelab/Cells_Lesson.001.pr
http://kindlelab.com

Added by Rich White on February 22, 2008 at 9:52pm — No Comments

Cells and Cell Parts Edusim Lesson is Now Available for Download

http://edusim3d.com

Added by Rich White on February 22, 2008 at 9:51pm — 2 Comments

Happy Days - eMINTS laptops have arrived!

This afternoon, our school's technician called and informed me that I needed to stay late and help unload the laptops and put them into the cart. Loading two carts of laptops for two different classrooms took a lot longer than I expected. We still have to set up the access points and get things tested and make sure they are working, but the excitement is beyond anything I experienced in the classroom in a long time. Our electronic boards and sound system are supposed to be installed sometime in… Continue

Added by Glen Westbroek on February 22, 2008 at 8:28pm — 1 Comment

Web 2.0 in a 1.0 World

My interest is in the communication possibilities of the "Web 2.0" tools. I am fascinated by the possibilities of networking and global ties.

Unfortunately, I live and work in a 1.0 world where the static page is king and students are passive miners of information. The fear in the school system is that any kind of dynamic, interactive contact will..... Well, I don't know what the fear is. I DO know, however, that the mere mention of contact - email, chat, blog, wiki - strikes fear… Continue

Added by Bill on February 21, 2008 at 1:30pm — No Comments

New technology/ web ideas

I am very new to all of this. I currently teach middle school math and am very interested in using technology to enhance my classroom. I currently have several items in place, but I am new to using the web as a classroom tool. Well, outside of doing research anyway. Any help or ideas is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Added by t1492t on February 20, 2008 at 9:16pm — 1 Comment

Need help - anyone read Hebrew?

Hi all,

I'm looking for some translating help - no heavy lifting, I promise!

I've had a Hebrew blog link to two of my recent blog posts and I'm just really curious about what they say! I don't need a word for word translation, but if anybody does read Hebrew, and can give me the gist of it (bad or good!), I'd be in your debt ;-)

Here are the posts:

תהליך - ולא רק תוצר…

Continue

Added by Sylvia Martinez on February 20, 2008 at 11:00am — No Comments

Spelling Lists: An Antiquated Waste of Instructional Time.

Spelling Lists: An Antiquated Waste of Instructional Time.

I must begin this conversation by saying of course DON’T PANIC. I do believe that spelling should be addressed in schools. I must also disclose that in my first year of teaching (admittedly a short time ago) I too thought the students must memorize spelling words each week. What I discovered that year and through subsequent research (including the article No More Friday Spelling Tests? by Kelly A. Loeffler) was that I… Continue

Added by Mr. Balcom on February 19, 2008 at 10:18pm — 3 Comments

The Savvy Teacher’s Digital Tool Kit:<br/> Screen Capture Programs

By Alix E. Peshette

Cross-posted from EdTech Gold Rush

Many educators create their own instructional materials. The reasons can range from a textbook that is above the reading level of English Language Learners and Special Education students to instructional materials that are so out of date that they are irrelevant. In California, the textbook adoption cycle is every seven years per subject area. A lot can change in seven… Continue

Added by Alix E. Peshette on February 19, 2008 at 7:30pm — 4 Comments

Wizards at Widgets!

Since this is round two of teaching my semester long "Web 2.0 Technologies" class, I've found myself making some changes in the curriculum and, whenever possible, "tweaking it" where necessary. This semester, my students are catching on to concepts so much quicker .... read more

Added by J Black on February 18, 2008 at 10:00am — No Comments

Peck, Peck .... Look Around

I'll never forget the time I watched a baby chick hatch from an egg. It took quite a while for it to peck through its shell and emerge into a new world. It was quite an effort. I wanted to help it somehow, but I knew that anything I did would only cause harm. I had to just watch. It was a miracle, really.

Can you imagine the perceptions of that chick? It had only known the inside of a shell, and now it was breaking that shell apart and trying to escape it. It was exhausted by the… Continue

Added by James E. Schwartz on February 18, 2008 at 9:16am — No Comments