I keep writing on here about things that interest me, but really this blog is about you all and not about me at all. So, what do you want me to write about next? Is there something that you don't understand from one of my presentations that you'd like me to elaborate on? Did you try something in your classroom and it was successful? Did it bomb entirely?
Please write me a comment and let me know what you're thinking. My next post could be tailored to YOUR needs.
Also - to those who asked at MAMSE - I am very willing to come and do inservices with your staff! I love talking with other teachers. Please email me here to discuss dates, topics, etc. Remember - I can talk on more than podcasting, too! :)
Happy Spring, everybody!
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, Education, Random
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
It's the most wonderful time of the year...
Or not. You know, whatever your preference is. As a part-time teacher, it is my LEAST favorite time of the year, as I wait to hear whether or not my district will give me full-time (if you are reading this Linda or Ted - pretty please???). Thus it is also the time of recruiting students.
For those of you "core" people - you don't have to worry about this. But us French people have to fight Spanish (not literally, although sometimes...) for every student we get. So I had my students make up posters for why you should take French. I did not tell them what to write on them, only to make them appropriate.
Over half of them talk about taking French because you get to use iPods.
Unsolicited from the mouths of the students themselves. This stuff works, people. You should have seen me trying not to leap for joy at their posters. Best of all? I was at the conference when they made them. Not only was it unsolicited, but I wasn't even THERE. Boom, baby. How cool is that? As my students would say, technology rox my sox.
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, Random
For those of you "core" people - you don't have to worry about this. But us French people have to fight Spanish (not literally, although sometimes...) for every student we get. So I had my students make up posters for why you should take French. I did not tell them what to write on them, only to make them appropriate.
Over half of them talk about taking French because you get to use iPods.
Unsolicited from the mouths of the students themselves. This stuff works, people. You should have seen me trying not to leap for joy at their posters. Best of all? I was at the conference when they made them. Not only was it unsolicited, but I wasn't even THERE. Boom, baby. How cool is that? As my students would say, technology rox my sox.
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, Random
Friday, March 16, 2007
NCLB: The Football Version
This is hilarious - but isn't it sad that it is so true that it's funny?- via Steve Dembo:
1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.
3. When players arrive at any game with remedial skills in football for any reason, their coaches will be penalized for their performance, regardless of how long the players have been on the team.
4. If remedial players do not achieve proficiency by the next statistically recorded game, their coaches and athletic directors will be put on probation. After several games of probation, coaches and athletic directors may be released. Coach and athletic director probation and release will not be conditional on the size of gains in the remedial players football skills; players must reach proficiency.
5. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. Coaches will use all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like football.
6. All coaches will be proficient in all aspects of football, or they will be released.
7. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.
8. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.
If no football player gets ahead, then no football player will be left behind.
Technorati Tags:
Education, Education of the Future, Random
1. All teams must make the state playoffs, and all will win the championship. If a team does not win the championship, they will be on probation until they are the champions, and coaches will be held accountable.
2. All kids will be expected to have the same football skills at the same time and in the same conditions. No exceptions will be made for interest in football, a desire to perform athletically, or genetic abilities or disabilities. ALL KIDS WILL PLAY FOOTBALL AT A PROFICIENT LEVEL.
3. When players arrive at any game with remedial skills in football for any reason, their coaches will be penalized for their performance, regardless of how long the players have been on the team.
4. If remedial players do not achieve proficiency by the next statistically recorded game, their coaches and athletic directors will be put on probation. After several games of probation, coaches and athletic directors may be released. Coach and athletic director probation and release will not be conditional on the size of gains in the remedial players football skills; players must reach proficiency.
5. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. Coaches will use all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability or whose parents don’t like football.
6. All coaches will be proficient in all aspects of football, or they will be released.
7. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th and 11th games.
8. This will create a New Age of sports where every school is expected to have the same level of talent and all teams will reach the same minimal goals.
If no football player gets ahead, then no football player will be left behind.
Technorati Tags:
Education, Education of the Future, Random
Thanks, MAMSE
Wow! What a great conference! Thanks to the MAMSE board for a well-run event! And Lakeview Middle - y'all are really lucky! I want your technology!
I want to re-emphasize to all of you that I am very responsive to email (available on my profile page here as well as on my school website), and to comments left on my blog. I love getting questions, and if I don't know the answer to yours right away, I will do my best to find an answer for you.
For those of you who are interested in having me speak to your school/event: I need you to email me with what you are thinking in terms of dates, etc. One of the perks of my job is being able to teach others how to use this "new" technology, but I have to make sure that my administration is willing to part with me for a day. :)
Thanks to all of you who attended my sessions. I hope you got something out of them. Please feel free to email/comment me with any questions or comments on my session. See you next year!
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, MAMSE
I want to re-emphasize to all of you that I am very responsive to email (available on my profile page here as well as on my school website), and to comments left on my blog. I love getting questions, and if I don't know the answer to yours right away, I will do my best to find an answer for you.
For those of you who are interested in having me speak to your school/event: I need you to email me with what you are thinking in terms of dates, etc. One of the perks of my job is being able to teach others how to use this "new" technology, but I have to make sure that my administration is willing to part with me for a day. :)
Thanks to all of you who attended my sessions. I hope you got something out of them. Please feel free to email/comment me with any questions or comments on my session. See you next year!
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, MAMSE
Thursday, March 15, 2007
MAMSE 2007
I am having such a nice time at the MAMSE 2007 conference in Battle Creek! The speakers here have been great, and the company, better!
As always when I give presentations, I get questions that spur me on to thinking about bigger and better things! Today I was asked if United Streaming could work with an iPod. I did some checking, and there are more than 4000 United Streaming videos that would work with a 30 GB iPod. So, the answer to that is, yes!
I also finally found a shareware that will convert youtube into iPod friendly format. It is linked on the beyond podcasting links page to the left of your screen. I've been looking for about 6 months, but as always, perserverence pays off!
I just posted a new file, too, that can create iPod quizzes, although I think you could use MoGoPop for nicer looking quizzes - and they could be longer, too!
I know, I know, I'm a techno-geek - and I'm okay with that. I hope that other people can benefit from my interests. See you all tomorrow!
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, iPods, podcasting, MAMSE
As always when I give presentations, I get questions that spur me on to thinking about bigger and better things! Today I was asked if United Streaming could work with an iPod. I did some checking, and there are more than 4000 United Streaming videos that would work with a 30 GB iPod. So, the answer to that is, yes!
I also finally found a shareware that will convert youtube into iPod friendly format. It is linked on the beyond podcasting links page to the left of your screen. I've been looking for about 6 months, but as always, perserverence pays off!
I just posted a new file, too, that can create iPod quizzes, although I think you could use MoGoPop for nicer looking quizzes - and they could be longer, too!
I know, I know, I'm a techno-geek - and I'm okay with that. I hope that other people can benefit from my interests. See you all tomorrow!
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, iPods, podcasting, MAMSE
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
MoGoPop
I just discovered this new fun toy for podcasting in the classroom! It is called MoGoPop, and yes - it is free! I love it. When you sign up, you get 50 MB (I think - it's 50 something anyway) of storage (yes, free), and then can make a text/audio/photo/etc file for your iPod. I am having a bit of a struggle to get it working, but I think it is MUCH more me, and not so much the software. I tried it - if you want to try to download my content and see if it works on your iPod, the link is off to the side of my page. Happy MoGoPop-ing! :)
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, iPods, Podcasting
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, iPods, Podcasting
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Teachers of the Future
It has been an interesting week for me to be an educator. This week, I was fortunate enough to have a teacher aide from the local college start with me. She is excited to start teaching, but I don't feel that she is prepared. She doesn't really know a lot about podcasting, but is excited about our penpals (yes, we still do them the old-fashioned way. It's hard to send gifts through e-mail). What are our universities teaching these kids? We MUST stop teaching these kids how to hand out packets and start teaching them that students ought to be teaching themselves as much as possible!
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to sit down with the State of Michigan Teacher of the Year. I thought it was an honor mearly to be able to ask her questions. Imagine my surprise when she starts asking ME questions! It was a lovely conversation - one I will never forget.
I say this not to gloat (well, okay, maybe a little), but rather to emphasize yet again that in order to teach Digital Natives (thank you Marc Prensky) we need to be open to change. Look at our solar system, for example. If you had told me when I was 8 that Pluto wouldn't be a planet in the year 2007, I would have said 1.) The world will end in 2000, so I don't have to worry about that, and 2.) Huh? Pluto will always be a planet. Facts used to be unchanging, but now I'm not sure that's true. Facts are facts until proven otherwise, and we need to keep as current as possible. Now, more than ever, educators MUST be lifelong learners. And universities and colleges need to keep up with the times, so to speak. Not only should every class deal with technology integration, they should have whole classes on it! And no, not on "educational technology" (I took that - we talked about WebQuests, Excel, and Word), but on real, everyday, kid-friendly technology. We need to speak Native, no matter what our tongue is. Parlez-vous technologie?
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, Education, Education of the Future
Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to sit down with the State of Michigan Teacher of the Year. I thought it was an honor mearly to be able to ask her questions. Imagine my surprise when she starts asking ME questions! It was a lovely conversation - one I will never forget.
I say this not to gloat (well, okay, maybe a little), but rather to emphasize yet again that in order to teach Digital Natives (thank you Marc Prensky) we need to be open to change. Look at our solar system, for example. If you had told me when I was 8 that Pluto wouldn't be a planet in the year 2007, I would have said 1.) The world will end in 2000, so I don't have to worry about that, and 2.) Huh? Pluto will always be a planet. Facts used to be unchanging, but now I'm not sure that's true. Facts are facts until proven otherwise, and we need to keep as current as possible. Now, more than ever, educators MUST be lifelong learners. And universities and colleges need to keep up with the times, so to speak. Not only should every class deal with technology integration, they should have whole classes on it! And no, not on "educational technology" (I took that - we talked about WebQuests, Excel, and Word), but on real, everyday, kid-friendly technology. We need to speak Native, no matter what our tongue is. Parlez-vous technologie?
Technorati Tags:
Beyond Podcasting, Education, Education of the Future
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