I don’t like to give up and quit. I very rarely do that. But, this time I am claiming defeat by a higher source. My computer won. I couldn’t compete.
I have been working for several days trying to get my sites merged. But, the more I worked, the more my computer was determined not to budge.
So, instead of moving here, I’m staying at the old site.
Maybe the next time we talk, I will have my confidence up and not feel so dejected by a computer.
Until next time ~ Danita
Hopefully, you found me since I moved from my original blog.
I hope you join me regularly for good conversation and the sharing of ideas.
Until next time ~ Danita
Originally posted in my first blog on December 11, 2006
We tend to forget what we ask our students to remember. See how well you do on this mock 8th grade test.
I promise, it’s not a trick, but definitely an eye opener.
Originally posted in my first blog on December 11, 2006
Recently my feelings were hurt. Not, the you’re a terrible person kind of hurt. It was the you’re trying your best to help someone and they don’t appreciate it kind of hurt. I know, I know, this sounds like a poor me rant – which none of us want to listen to. But, I do have a point if you will bear with me.
I had a teacher (or two) complain to one of my assistant principals that I was sending too many emails. So many that they weren’t even reading them. I admit, I do send a goodly amount, but I always put in the subject area the curriculum area to which the email relates.
At first when he shared this with me, I agreed with him that maybe I should send out the information in groups and not to the entire faculty. But, after I thought about it a while, I decided that no, there are teachers out there that want to do interdisciplinary activities (Hmmmm, novel idea) and read what I send. So, I told him thanks for the suggestion, but if there were teachers who didn’t want to read what I sent, it was their prerogative to delete the emails.
I have been struggling for some time how to disperse the websites, links, and ideas that I find to my teachers. I’m using del.icio.us, but like I said in an earlier post, I need to work on the organization. How do other technology facilitators handle this dilemma?
Today, I stumbled upon a blog that hit my pity party on the head.
From Media By Sistrunk
Here are some tips on how to cope with critics.
After reading these, I felt a bit better. I know I won’t please everyone and most of the time shouldn’t even try, but I am conscientious about doing a good job in this new position. I also think the route to be good teacher is to share and listen when others share.
What does brighten me is that when I am working at the other middle school (I’m going to decline to say which school had the disgruntles) I have teachers stop me in the hall and thank me for sending everything that I do. The teacher who told me this today (and I swear I didn’t prompt her) has been teaching at least 30 years. She said she was very thankful and kept everything I sent that dealt with math.
So, to end my pity party, I’m going to keep on keeping on. I will tone down and be conscientious of the number of emails I send though. I hope that someone who reads this will have an idea of how I can share what I find, but not overwhelm the teachers. I want to make their jobs easier. Teachers definitely don’t need something else added to their overflowing plates.
Until next time ~ Danita
Originally posted in my first blog on December 9, 2006
From my friends at Teachinghacks
Great image and should be given to all teachers.
Until next time ~ Danita
Originally posted in my first blog on December 8, 2006
WOW! We received the 8th grade computer test results for 2 of my middle schools today. One school, that is finished testing all their students, scored a 70% passing. Now, that might not excite you, but last year we only had 50% pass. See, why I’m so excited!
The other school, that is close to being finished, had a 40% pass rate last year and this year it is up to 72%. I am so proud of the kids and the teachers for their hard work and dedication! We’re still looking for ideas to help our Latino population. I know that language is the major difficulty these students are encountering. Ideas you want to share?
As I was reading through the hundreds of blogs I read, I found this quote which I think is completely appropriate for my edublog.
“If we teach as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”
–John Dewey
Is that great or what? What I find interesting, is that John Dewey did most of his work in the late 19th and early 20th century! Unfortunately, some teachers are still teaching in a similar manner with the teacher being sole holder of knowledge. That’s unfortunate for everyone involved.
I found a few new websites that I think you might find interesting.
Snap is a screen preview pop-up that you can add to your blog. I hope it’s working for you as you mouse over the links in my blog. I thought it was one of the neatest sites I’ve seen in awhile.
RSS Calendar allows you to insert a calendar into your blog. What I like is that it updates on its own. I don’t have to change the itinerary. I have it in my side widgets. You can have a public or a private calendar.
Podbean is a free podcast site. I haven’t completed a podcast yet, but the site assures us that it only takes 5 minutes. One of our county’s ITF’s shared this with us today. Thanks Lee.
Gliffy is for those of us who are artistically challenged. Gliffy allows you to:
Babelfish a translation tool. Many people have recommended this site. I don’t have enough sidebar widgets left to add it to my blog I figured out how to add the widget 
I wish edublogs would allow more than 9 widgets.
Newsmap is a bit tough for those of us who are easily distracted (politically correct way to say I’m ADD). But, is a great way to read the most current news aggregates from Google.
I’m still looking for ideas on how to organize my del.icio.us bookmarks. I find so many websites that I want to send to my teachers. I need some way to organize them in an easily searchable format. I think that adding to my wiki is probably the answer, but I haven’t had the time to do that yet. I’d really like to make a wiki page for each of the content areas with lessons according to each goal. If you have any ideas, please share.
I’m excited that I can now see the locations of the people who are reading my blog. I still find it interesting that anyone is reading, but it is cool! I hope to make new friends in new countries. I’ve linked up with a teacher in New Zealand. We’re hoping to collaborate on a wiki. Think of the benefits to our students!
Until next time ~ Danita
Originally posted in my first blog on December 4, 2006
I couldn’t help, but to pass this on. From EduBlog Insights:
Did you see NCLB–The Football Version?
Author Unknown
l. 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. Talented players will be asked to work out on their own without instruction. This is because the coaches will be using all their instructional time with the athletes who aren’t interested in football, have limited athletic ability, or whose parents don’t like football.
4. Games will be played year round, but statistics will only be kept in the 4th, 8th, and 11th games.
5. 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 child gets ahead, then no child will be left behind.
Originally posted in my first blog on December 4, 2006
Today was an interesting day. It started with me reviewing for the computer skills test at the alternative school in our county. Everything was going fine, until I was walking the students to their next class. I had 5 kids in front of me and had one behind me tying his shoe – or so I thought. When the student (I’ll call him Joe) didn’t join us in a few seconds, I went looking for him. Well, he was running across the parking lot! I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Joe’s first day. Wow, I wasn’t expecting that to happen.
After the Joe incident, the reviews went well with the other classes. Unfortunately, most of these particular students don’t have access to the Internet at home and most have rough home lives. It breaks my heart to hear these students talking about not wanting to graduate high school.
After attending the NCETC conference last week, I was excited about the new web2.0 I was learning. Today, I had reality smack me in the face. I realized that these students that were talking about not needing to graduate, absolutely meant it. I tried to convince a particular young lady that she truly did need to learn how to use a computer. But, I can tell I didn’t convince her. Oh, how I wish these students knew what I know about education.
I did have a highlight today. I spent the afternoon after school introducing Gaggle.net to the faculty. They were like kids playing. It was great! I love to see teachers excited. Even the principal was right in there with them. If you aren’t familiar with Gaggle, it’s a safe email program for students. Not only can the students email, but they can also blog, chat, and message on a message board. Great tool!
I found a wonderful wiki on using blogs in education. Weblogs in education from TeachingHacks.com explains what blogs are and gives tons of examples of using blogs across the different curriculum areas. I plan on sharing this wiki with my teachers. I’m still trying to convince more of the teachers to take a chance and try blogs and wikis in their classrooms. The problem is that the teachers already have a full plate and can’t add anything more. Been there and done that.
This weekend I had an opportunity to download a trial version of the new Microsoft Office 2007. Wow. A lot of changes. Gone are the tabs for file and edit – here are the icons. Which, for a visual person like me, is great. It did take me a bit longer to make a Powerpoint than usual, but I finally got the hang of it after playing a bit. Just like anything in life – change is good, but sometimes difficult.
My dad called tonight and said he had been reading my blog. How cool! He was definitely born in the wrong time. He’s as big a computer geek as I. I can’t even imagine what he would have done with computers if he had born more recently. Isn’t it wonderful when the older (sorry dad) generation gets involved in the new technology. It completely befuddles me to imagine what the technology will be like for my niece and nephews. Unlimited possibilities. How exciting!
Until next time ~ Danita
Originally posted in my first blog on November 30, 2006
Whew! I didn’t realize how tired I was until I returned home to 2 very excited four legged girls. They had been without momma for 3 days (which is eternity in dog years). The NCETC conference was everything I had dreamt and more. I learned so much. Now, I have to find time to disseminate all the information. I don’t know where to begin.
I did accomplish a task that I didn’t think I could – and couldn’t have before David Warlick’s session on Tuesday morning. I created a page on my blog of notes from the sessions I attended. Then, I linked it to my wiki. Look at me go! Not nearly as difficult as I had thought. But, if you had suggested I do that last week, I would have laughed and said I couldn’t possibly achieve such a thing. Look how my life has changed in just a few short days. My blog is blogging right along, David Warlick has quoted me twice in his blog, and coolcatteacher commented on my blog. Never, ever would I have thought this brand new ITF from a small county in North Carolina would have this attention.
Although the first three days of the conference were very interesting, Thursday was a much more productive day . I finally was able to attend a session by Patrick Crispen. Of course, being the dork that I am, I was busily typing my notes when music from a webpage started playing. Silly me forgot to mute my speakers. UGH! How embarrassing. I apologized to the people around me and couldn’t for the life of me mute it fast enough. I did get a tongue click from the lady across from me. Again, I’m very sorry, but I was so excited with hearing Patrick’s presentation that I went to jello and couldn’t do anything. Talk about brain freeze!
After starting my day with Patrick Crispen, I ended it with 2 sessions by Tammy Worcester. As I wrote in my Thursday notes, she’s wonderful. She’s definitely a teacher’s teacher. Real life examples that we could take back to our classes to use tomorrow. Great stuff. The only problem I had was not being able to type as quickly as she spoke. I did have my speakers muted this time. I took many notes and you can find them on my page titled Thursday Conference Notes. Make plans to catch her sessions at the next workshop. She’s well worth it.
During Tammy’s session, I emailed my Technology Director and asked her if we could purchase Tammy’s 4 book set. Not only did she buy our department one copy, she purchased a copy for each of the county’s six ITF’s! Cindy is great. She catches our enthusiasm and lets us run with our ideas. Pretty tough job when you have someone like me going a thousand miles an hour. Sometimes, it’s even hard for me to keep up with me!
The finale of the conference was a comedy presentation by a group called Wavelength. Funny, funny, funny. They are an impromptu comedy group that aims it’s comedy toward education. We laughed and laughed. Of course, what teacher doesn’t enjoy someone poking fun at the school board and the superintendent? One brave principal even participated with the group as they were joking about No School Left Standing (that’s the educators version of No Child Left Behind). Definitely make plans it see them if you have the opportunity.
I know I haven’t talked about all the sessions, but I’m a bit on the tired side. I have to teach 7th graders how to make spreadsheets at 8:00 in the morning. I don’t know where the time went, but I truly enjoyed my first technology conference. If you get the chance, read my conference notes pages and my wiki.
Until next time ~ Danita
Originally posted in my first blog on November 29, 2006
I have created a page of the notes I took during the Wednesday sessions. Good links included.
My day began with an interesting presentation on school news production – Make ‘em, Shake ‘em, Wake ‘em. The presenters had great ideas, but they were using MAC products. Ugh! I would like to research this more, but since our district only uses PC’s, we will have to find something compatible. I do think that our middle schoolers would do well producing a news broadcast.
As much as I hate to admit, I committed the Cardinal Conference sin with my second session. The presenter handed out a copy of her Powerpoint slides before the session. Not a good idea. Because if you do, people will leave, as I did, right after I received the handouts. So, I ventured to another session. Who would have guessed, this presenter had all her Powerpoint slides on the Internet and gave us the website before the presentation. You know what I did, don’t you? Yep, you got it.
I finally went to a session from an experienced presenter. Tammy Worcester’s session on Beyond Cutting and Pasting to Build Integrated Technology Projects. Great ideas! I especially liked the “Who Am I” project. She used a Powerpoint slide to do a picture cover up while giving clues about the person. After each clue, she would uncover a part of the picture. Neat idea.
My next session was with David Warlick and was absolutely fabulous! We, as a class, taught each other. I love it! I listed all the websites we discussed on my Wednesday notes page. Check it out. Too many to list here in my blog. David did quote my blog in his blog last night. Me – can you believe it? I’ve only been doing this for a couple of weeks.
The last session I went to was about reviving up your presentation. We finished early, so I went to the end of Tammy’s presentation on using Powerpoint. I wish I had gone to that first. But, I did buy her book after the session. I look forward to spending time reading through her ideas.
The sessions thus far have been well worth the time away from work. I have learned a great deal and still have another day to go! I haven’t gotten to go to any of Patrick Crispin’s sessions which is disappointing. But, maybe the next time. Still haven’t had time to work on the wiki – maybe this weekend ….
Until next time ~ Danita
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