Good. Just testing to see if it gets through from Word '07
May 12, 2009
May 11, 2009
Whirlwind of activity
My car is fixed and it did not damage my wallet too terribly. I am getting ready to buy a new car though; I am tired of pumping money into my old one. All I need to do is line up the insurance and I should be ready to go.
School is winding down faster than I can keep track. I am trying to decide what final activities I would like to do for the end of the year. I wanted to try Type to Learn 4 before next year; however, I am experiencing technical difficulties getting it to work on all 32 of the identical in every way computers in my classroom. It is rather bizarre. I plan on calling tech support sometime this week. I had to take a cell phone away from a student during class today. The student was a third grader and she said it fell out of her pocket, however, she changed her story when I explained I saw her take it out, turn it on and start checking her call log. Who calls a third grader during school? This was the first time offense so she got to take it home but I assured her that next time her parent would have to come in to get it.
I am experimenting with Microsoft Office 2007. I decided to upgrade (thanks to a wonderful education discount) and apparently I can post to my blog directly from word. I am curious if this will work at school seeing as the filter tends to block EVERYTHING. I was amused to hear at a meeting that the high school students of a colleague technology teacher are using Proxy Servers to bypass the filter. I made the mistake of saying, "That's awesome" out loud. Frankly, I admire the creative efforts students take to get around teacher roadblocks. I am not saying I think they should be breaking the rules constantly but that same creativity can be harnessed to solve other problems. It is no small task to figure out how to consistently bypass the content filter. If I wasn't so afraid of losing my job I would consider it. I know that when I was in high school I was trying everything I could to find loopholes and I honestly think that has helped me to be the problem solver that I am today.
I understand the reasoning behind having a content filter for the internet at schools but I think there has got to be a better way to manage it. I think schools should have more direct control over the sites that are blocked as opposed to these global lists for the entire district. I think my main issue is that I hate having matters outside of my control and I would rather be able to choose what sites to block and when rather then have them blocked for me.
May 4, 2009
Car Trouble
My car broke down today...wishing I would have signed up for AAA. Hindsight is 20/20 though. I'm calling off work for a day while I wait for the verdict on the damage from the garage, plus I have no real way of getting to work and I hate to bug a friend to drive out of their way to pick me up. I am trying to look on the bright side of things in that I now have a day off to try and get ahead on some of the work that keeps piling up. I have 6 more weeks of school and I can not believe how fast this year went. I applied to teach for summer school, I am not sure if I will get a position or if it will be as a classroom teacher or resource teacher. Either way I think it will be a good experience.
It amazes me how some days with my third grade classes can be so good and others can be such a challenge. Today was a great day, they were on task, much less talking, and best of all they were engaged in the material. Third grade has been my most challenging grade this year, with fourth grade close behind. These are my larger classes so it kind of makes sense that I tend to have more classroom management issues. I don't see my classes getting any smaller in the future, however, so I guess I had better work on an improved way of starting class for my third graders.
It amazes me how some days with my third grade classes can be so good and others can be such a challenge. Today was a great day, they were on task, much less talking, and best of all they were engaged in the material. Third grade has been my most challenging grade this year, with fourth grade close behind. These are my larger classes so it kind of makes sense that I tend to have more classroom management issues. I don't see my classes getting any smaller in the future, however, so I guess I had better work on an improved way of starting class for my third graders.
April 25, 2009
In Search of Software
I forgot to mention I am in search of quality science and reading software that will meet a wide range of grade levels. I am looking for engaging software that allows the students to practice important skills and help them develop. I am wondering if any of you are currently using a system that you would reccomend for elementary students K-8 or just K-5. I am fond of online based programs so that the students can practice at home as well but I am open to any and all suggestions at this point.
T-10 to Launch
Friday seems like a whirlwind, I'm done with this week’s task of trying to train the classroom teachers to use our new online math activities at IXL. Friday, surprisingly, was my largest turnout of teachers this week.
I have ordered my bottle rocket launcher and a new bike pump for my 4th grader's bottle rockets. I have started collecting bottles from teachers at school and even told the kids that if they have any they should bring them in for class. I explicitly told them NOT to buy soda bottles just for this project. The last thing I want is the classroom teacher or myself getting phone calls from parents asking why their kids are telling them they have to buy soda bottles. I am still going to have to buy a number of bottles myself. But it is soo going to be worth it. My kids were filled with questions I couldn't answer them all before class was over. I told them we would be starting next week but I like to give them something to look forward to between classes. This will be much cheaper than robots and should take about three class periods to get them created with one more class period to do the launches. Even if we need extra classes to finish, for whatever reason, we will have plenty of time to complete the project before school ends. If I time this just right I should have time to end the year with an extra lesson in internet safety. I know that I am going to miss my fourth graders once they leave and I feel like I barely had any time to teach them all I wanted. But I guess that is the nature of being a teacher, I will have a lot of refining to do for next year to pack more lessons into the limited time I have.
I am going to try to partner with some of the other teachers to do another one of my favorite experiments. I figured that since I am going to be buying some soda I might as well buy some diet soda and mentos and make good use of the soda. If you have never tried what is called the "Mentos Experiment" It is an awesome experience. Just add mentos to any bottle of soda and stand back and enjoy the fountain of soda that follows. The students in my younger classes should enjoy watching that. We can time the blasts and possibly estimate height and create an excel sheet of the results.
In other news I will be missing my first day of school all year on Tuesday. My principal would like me to receive training on the new SMS --- student management system for BCPSS and I will be out of the building all day. I asked my principal if I should plan to have a sub or cancel class and we both agreed that we were torn on the idea. I explained that I was skeptical about having just anyone in my classroom and coming back to a years worth of hard work down the drain. The usual subs that we have are not what you would call tech savvy or remotely youthful. I am hoping to persuade them to just cancel class so I do not have a mess to clean up. I am probably worrying too much about nothing, but, we will see.
I have ordered my bottle rocket launcher and a new bike pump for my 4th grader's bottle rockets. I have started collecting bottles from teachers at school and even told the kids that if they have any they should bring them in for class. I explicitly told them NOT to buy soda bottles just for this project. The last thing I want is the classroom teacher or myself getting phone calls from parents asking why their kids are telling them they have to buy soda bottles. I am still going to have to buy a number of bottles myself. But it is soo going to be worth it. My kids were filled with questions I couldn't answer them all before class was over. I told them we would be starting next week but I like to give them something to look forward to between classes. This will be much cheaper than robots and should take about three class periods to get them created with one more class period to do the launches. Even if we need extra classes to finish, for whatever reason, we will have plenty of time to complete the project before school ends. If I time this just right I should have time to end the year with an extra lesson in internet safety. I know that I am going to miss my fourth graders once they leave and I feel like I barely had any time to teach them all I wanted. But I guess that is the nature of being a teacher, I will have a lot of refining to do for next year to pack more lessons into the limited time I have.
I am going to try to partner with some of the other teachers to do another one of my favorite experiments. I figured that since I am going to be buying some soda I might as well buy some diet soda and mentos and make good use of the soda. If you have never tried what is called the "Mentos Experiment" It is an awesome experience. Just add mentos to any bottle of soda and stand back and enjoy the fountain of soda that follows. The students in my younger classes should enjoy watching that. We can time the blasts and possibly estimate height and create an excel sheet of the results.
In other news I will be missing my first day of school all year on Tuesday. My principal would like me to receive training on the new SMS --- student management system for BCPSS and I will be out of the building all day. I asked my principal if I should plan to have a sub or cancel class and we both agreed that we were torn on the idea. I explained that I was skeptical about having just anyone in my classroom and coming back to a years worth of hard work down the drain. The usual subs that we have are not what you would call tech savvy or remotely youthful. I am hoping to persuade them to just cancel class so I do not have a mess to clean up. I am probably worrying too much about nothing, but, we will see.
April 21, 2009
Going Zero Base
Lots of meeting this week, I had a staff meeting yesterday about my schools alternative governance choices. We have opted to go zero base and I will be reapplying for my job sometime in the near future.I know that I want to stay at my school, not only because I enjoy my current classroom but because I think my school has a great deal of potential and all it needs is a push in the right direction. Time will tell if going zero base is a positive or negative push. Several of my colleagues are pretty shaken up about the whole process but we have been talking about it since September so I am not sure why they are so 'surprised'. I have come to the conclusion that if you want something bad enough occasionally you are going to have to fight for. I do not want to leave my school so I am more than willing to prove why I am a valuable asset. All in all I think that this has the potential to be a breath of fresh air and to help shake up some of the "entrenched" teachers.
The rest of my week will be dominated by a professional development that I am leading. My principal wanted me to provide training to the teachers about two of our new online resources and I figured if I offered three different days to attend it would result in more teachers attending and less excuses/no shows. Hopefully today is not an indication of things to come. I only had four teachers in attendance.The two new online resources are IXL and PD360. IXL is an online math set of activities paired to the Maryland state standards. Each teacher creates a roster of their students allowing them to sign into the website. This allows the teacher to track TONS of data about what the students are working on, how many skills they are mastering or need more work on. The site generates detailed reports for teachers to highlight troublesome areas to reinforce during normal instruction. The students are able to do the activities anywhere they have an internet connection which means they can work at home. To help motivate the students they will be earning "rewards" on the web site for meeting various criteria like how many problems they have solved or how long they have been online. The rewards are posted in a sort of digital stamp book of pictures that they can print. PD360 is our schools new on demand professional development video database and teacher forum to help us take control of our own professional development. The teachers at today's session were very excited about IXL once I started showing them all of the features. Now I just have to find a way to entice more teachers for the next two sessions.
Things are going well in class with my students, My younger classes are amazed by the laser printer that suddenly has come to life in our classroom. The Reading Blaster software allows the students to find various coloring pages and treasure pages that can be printed to color as a reward for doing well on the reading activities. I allow the students to each print one page each time we have class for free and if they want they can print more pages for one lion loot per page. Lion loot is given out by all teachers as a positive reward system. The teachers have been telling me that the students are so excited to share their pages that they printed from class when they get back to their rooms. NetSupport School is making my job easier by limiting students ability to just hit print over and over again. It sends their print request to my workstation so that I can approve or deny. This is handy since every time a student presses the print button in the game it instantly tries to send a copy to the default printer.
The rest of my week will be dominated by a professional development that I am leading. My principal wanted me to provide training to the teachers about two of our new online resources and I figured if I offered three different days to attend it would result in more teachers attending and less excuses/no shows. Hopefully today is not an indication of things to come. I only had four teachers in attendance.The two new online resources are IXL and PD360. IXL is an online math set of activities paired to the Maryland state standards. Each teacher creates a roster of their students allowing them to sign into the website. This allows the teacher to track TONS of data about what the students are working on, how many skills they are mastering or need more work on. The site generates detailed reports for teachers to highlight troublesome areas to reinforce during normal instruction. The students are able to do the activities anywhere they have an internet connection which means they can work at home. To help motivate the students they will be earning "rewards" on the web site for meeting various criteria like how many problems they have solved or how long they have been online. The rewards are posted in a sort of digital stamp book of pictures that they can print. PD360 is our schools new on demand professional development video database and teacher forum to help us take control of our own professional development. The teachers at today's session were very excited about IXL once I started showing them all of the features. Now I just have to find a way to entice more teachers for the next two sessions.
Things are going well in class with my students, My younger classes are amazed by the laser printer that suddenly has come to life in our classroom. The Reading Blaster software allows the students to find various coloring pages and treasure pages that can be printed to color as a reward for doing well on the reading activities. I allow the students to each print one page each time we have class for free and if they want they can print more pages for one lion loot per page. Lion loot is given out by all teachers as a positive reward system. The teachers have been telling me that the students are so excited to share their pages that they printed from class when they get back to their rooms. NetSupport School is making my job easier by limiting students ability to just hit print over and over again. It sends their print request to my workstation so that I can approve or deny. This is handy since every time a student presses the print button in the game it instantly tries to send a copy to the default printer.
April 18, 2009
The customer is always right.
My fourth grade class on Friday finished presenting their PowerPoint presentations with about 15 minutes left so we decided to brainstorm some ideas of what they want to learn about. I realized that there is not much time left in the school year and I wanted to give them a chance to tell me what they want to learn about before they go to the middle school. They had some amusing ideas :
1. How to build a robot and program a robot to function.
2. Lasers – how to make one, how they work
3. Internet – how to explore freely
4. How to make/build a website and publish
5. E-mail, how to create a personal account.
6. Jet Packs – how they work, how to create
7. Flying Cars – will they work, should they work and how to make one.
8. How to create your own computer games
9. How to create a virtual football (sports) player. Create a team
uniform and players.
10. Create your own television and videos
I told them that I would use the list to try and find some new activities for us to do before school ends but that I do not think we would be able to cover all of them. Robots and Jet Packs caught my eye. I found a website that will let the students build 'bots' and program them in a game. There are puzzles that they have to complete that introduces them to programming. It has a drag and drop interface that lends itself to kids learning the basics behind giving computers and robots instructions. I am leaning towards breaking my classroom into centers where there will be a different activity about robots or programming. I want to have four stations and I would one of the stations to be a chance for the students to actually create some sort of robot. I am getting ahead of myself, I sometimes wonder who is more excited about the activities we do in class, me or the kids. I am looking for ideas of any sort of kits that I could use that won't cost me my paycheck. The kids enjoy using the computers but I know that we are all longing for some hands on activities. I found that LEGO has some cool robot kits but they get expensive fast. I don't think it is going to be feasible to let every kid build their own robot but the LEGO kit would allow me to work with small groups to create robots to complete a task.
The jet packs idea caught my eye next, no... I am not going to be building jet packs and strapping students to them for testing...not till I am tenured anyway :-) What I was thinking we could do is create water bottle rockets and collect data about how well they fly, how long, how high and record this information along with taking some pictures and video and create a presentation to share with the other grades. I am thinking about letting them work in teams to choose a design and build a rocket from cardboard fins and soda bottles. I built a launcher 3 years ago when I was working at a day care and it worked pretty well, the kids loved it. The best part about bottle rockets is that if I have them work in teams it will be much easier on my wallet. I am thinking about having lotteries for each team to see who would get to take the rocket home or just tell them that no one can keep their rockets. I have a lot to think about and very little time to waste. If anyone out there has any experience with classroom robotics and bottle rockets I would love any tips or suggestions.
1. How to build a robot and program a robot to function.
2. Lasers – how to make one, how they work
3. Internet – how to explore freely
4. How to make/build a website and publish
5. E-mail, how to create a personal account.
6. Jet Packs – how they work, how to create
7. Flying Cars – will they work, should they work and how to make one.
8. How to create your own computer games
9. How to create a virtual football (sports) player. Create a team
uniform and players.
10. Create your own television and videos
I told them that I would use the list to try and find some new activities for us to do before school ends but that I do not think we would be able to cover all of them. Robots and Jet Packs caught my eye. I found a website that will let the students build 'bots' and program them in a game. There are puzzles that they have to complete that introduces them to programming. It has a drag and drop interface that lends itself to kids learning the basics behind giving computers and robots instructions. I am leaning towards breaking my classroom into centers where there will be a different activity about robots or programming. I want to have four stations and I would one of the stations to be a chance for the students to actually create some sort of robot. I am getting ahead of myself, I sometimes wonder who is more excited about the activities we do in class, me or the kids. I am looking for ideas of any sort of kits that I could use that won't cost me my paycheck. The kids enjoy using the computers but I know that we are all longing for some hands on activities. I found that LEGO has some cool robot kits but they get expensive fast. I don't think it is going to be feasible to let every kid build their own robot but the LEGO kit would allow me to work with small groups to create robots to complete a task.
The jet packs idea caught my eye next, no... I am not going to be building jet packs and strapping students to them for testing...not till I am tenured anyway :-) What I was thinking we could do is create water bottle rockets and collect data about how well they fly, how long, how high and record this information along with taking some pictures and video and create a presentation to share with the other grades. I am thinking about letting them work in teams to choose a design and build a rocket from cardboard fins and soda bottles. I built a launcher 3 years ago when I was working at a day care and it worked pretty well, the kids loved it. The best part about bottle rockets is that if I have them work in teams it will be much easier on my wallet. I am thinking about having lotteries for each team to see who would get to take the rocket home or just tell them that no one can keep their rockets. I have a lot to think about and very little time to waste. If anyone out there has any experience with classroom robotics and bottle rockets I would love any tips or suggestions.
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