Jim Lerman's Page

Hi Jim. I was wondering if any of your students would be interested in participating in a nationwide SAT Vocab Video Contest @ MIT university. If not, perhaps you have some other educator contacts you could direct me to. You can view contest details at BrainyFlix.com Please let me know. Thanks!

Hello,

I'm sending out messages to everyone I know right now, and this virtual Ning network is no exception. My name is Ellen Chisa. I am a 20 year old student from Olin College of Engineering (near Boston). I am a part of a group of six Olin students who are taking a year off to pursue our interests in education, entrepreneurship, design and technology, bringing us to the logical project of a business that designs collaborative software for schools! I found you in a search for "middle school", and since our project is specific to middle schools, I thought you might be interested. Our project is called AlightLearning, and this is our "short" project description:

We are working under the assumption that within ten years, the landscape of modern education will have fully integrated what we now define as new classroom media and tools: video, online collaboration, open source curriculum, and internet-based software. We hope to pioneer a web software tool that acts as a platform for this new media, bringing the power of the web and its tools to students, teachers and parents in a secure, comfortable and innovative environment. More importantly, and unlike many of our competitors, our software will empower teachers to better integrate higher level thinking skills, individualized learning, goal setting, reflection, and effective feedback and evaluation. Our goal is to have our free software at a pilot middle school by April 15th, 2008, continuing to develop and coordinate with our users to create a product that other schools and individual teachers will want to use to improve their students' learning in and out of the classroom.

Our team is currently trying to win an idea competition on Ideablob.com You can find us at http://ideablob.com/3975. We would love your support in the form of a vote within the next couple days, but more importantly we'd love your feedback and comments. Our description on Ideablob is short, and even the one above hardly gets at many of the issues we would like to take a stab at solving, but at least it's a start. Note that winning this contest will raise $10,000, a large and useful sum of money for a web-based company running on “sweat equity” and minimal costs.

Feel free to email me back, post on my profile, check out alightlearning.com, or do anything you like!

Thanks,
Ellen Chisa
ellen.chisa@students.olin.edu

Dear Jim
I was exicted when i saw your mail, i appologise for replying this late...being so busy with work.
The economy here in Nigeria is relatively stable although we still have alot of unemployed people.But its good to know ur doing well and the family is great...however the economy is in the US,Jim dont forget that you will always excel,coz u've got God on your side!
My regards to your student from Nigeria,please tell him i wish him all the best..

You may be interested in the film series, Adina's Deck ( www.adinasdeck.com ) which is perfect for the increasingly more tech-savvy middle school students. The films are short, entertaining and extremely "watchable" and are educational for kids, teachers and parents. Episode 1, the cyber bully pilot episode, won best student film at the International Family Film Festival. Episode 2 is the Case of the Online Crush, and touches on the dangers of online predators. Episode 3 in the Case of the Plagiarized Paper the deals with the consequences of cheating. The writers, directors, and lead cast members participate in live discussions when they have attended dozens school assemblies and film festivals. They are booked to appear at many more locations this school year. Like in Episode 1, the story-lines of Episodes 2 and 3 create a lot of "who-done-it" suspense, with plot twists that are sure to promote a lot of discussion on these real, timely topics. The students really get into the discussion topics, and want to know what the characters will do next. Adina's Deck is a valuable and socially important tool.

Thanks Jim,
Yeah, am really making progress and am finding it interesting too, I don't have a digital camera yet but i do have a cell phone.
I wil be teaching in a new private school PIAE in Abuja, Nigeria and we shall commence by September...
i hopefully will be teaching the age range of 14 and up!
Thanks once more for keeping in touch Jim!

I served as an attached staff during my youth service in the Human Resource Dept. of an Insurance Company for a year -'06/'07, so my present employer decieded to give me a chance!
Am presently learning how to effectively use the over head projector, how to tape documentaries from a public TV for my students and getting also acquinted with the CD-Roms and web-based students projects....guess am gonna need your help on this....
Thanks Jim

I thought as much, well am presently developing myself on technological approach to teaching, i mean how to effectively use it in the classroom.
I already have a Bsc (Ed) in Biology and i plan to teach age level 14 and up.
All the best in your work Jim!

Hey Jim, just thought i should ask how work is going?
You have been so busy lately i guess?
hope to hear from you soon.

Hi Jim,
Thanks for the invite!
Smiles,
Ana =)