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Teach students Internet safety with iKeepSafe.org

August 26, 2008

Stranger Danger! Children are taught at an early age how to recognize a stranger in their community and how to respond appropriately. However, in the 21st Century our students are socializing in more communities, on and 0ffline, rather than just with their local neighbor. As many more of our students are becoming active participants in the community of the World Wide Web we need to teach them safe ways to interact without shutting them down.

iKeepSafe is a website full of ideas on how to keep our students safe online. They focus on the three main dangers students will face: inappropriate contact, inappropriate content, and inappropriate conduct. They provide great resources for parents on hot topics such as social networking and cyber-bullies. For educators, iKeepSafe has resources that can be customized to align with your state’s laws. The site also includes game simulations for students to put into practice what they have learned to keep them safe.

This site would be great to introduce to your parents during an open house or a family reading night. So the next time you are teaching your students safety rules, don’t forget the global community. Remember, as parents and educators we have a responsibility to our students to keep current, keep communicating, and keep checking! -MONIQUE ST. LOUIS

iKeepSafe

Get Blogging with WordPress

June 20, 2008

Looking for a platform for a school or classroom website? Have you always wanted to have a classroom blog that allows blogging between parents and you, or you and your students? If so, WordPress has everything you are looking for and a lot more - plus it’s the platform that powers Instructify, so you know it’s high quality.

WordPress is a free publishing platform. This site is extremely user friendly - in addition to being a quick sign-up, the site has great tutorials to help walk you through setting up your blog or website. All you need is a computer, Internet access, and an email address to get started. WordPress has more than 60 different themes for you to customize your blog to fit your needs. You can switch between your themes at any time with a few clicks of your mouse. You can also add event calenders, links and pages. Upload your own pictures, or included images from Flickr or Photobucket. Don’t forget to add a stats collector to your site that will give you instant statistics on the different visitors you have to your site.

The choice is yours whether to share your page with the public or a selected few. As for interactivity, WordPress gives you the freedom and security to allow you to have comments posted on your site with or without your prior approval. You can even set your site up to not allow any comments at all.

Blogging is a great way to keep parents informed about what’s going on in your classroom. If you blog with WordPress, you can allow parents to become active participants in your class activities. WordPress is also a great tool to allow students to collaborate on group projects. You can have as many blogs as you want. The sky is the limit. -MONIQUE ST. LOUIS

WordPress

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Relive Sesame Street’s 50 Best Moments

May 27, 2008

We almost put this in Monday by the Numbers, but Sesame Street deserves a post of its own. Babble, a parenting blog, presents the 50 Best Sesame Street Moments. It’s not just a list, either - there’s a video clip for every entry, so you can relive great Sesame Street moments like the “Rubber Ducky” song, Bert and Ernie’s fishing trip (”Heeeeere, fishy fishy fishy!“), and that pinball machine song that counts to twelve.

For years, Sesame Street has helped young kids learn about spelling, colors, the concepts of near and far, not to mention teaching them not to fear monsters. These are great videos to show to young students, or if you’re a parent, your own kids. If you’re a sucker for nostalgia like me, you’ll probably enjoy viewing these again yourself. Just try not to cry when you watch “Mr. Hooper Isn’t Coming Back.” -BILL FERRIS

50 Best Sesame Street Moments via Babble

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Help Your Struggling Spellers with These Great Tips

May 22, 2008

Do your students struggle on spelling tests? For every easy word like “cat” or “dog” you have tricky ones like “perceive” or “through.” It’s as if the English language were designed to fool people. “I before E except after C?” Capricious and arbitrary, if you ask me. And why would you have silent letters? Are they spares in case other letters in the word break down?

Education.com has a few spelling tips designed for teachers and parents in their article, The Fast Track to Spelling Success. One method they advocate is the “Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check,” method:

“Ask your child to write his spelling words in the first column, one underneath the other.

  • Look. Ask your child to look at the word and read it aloud. For example, “friend”
  • Say. Then spell the word letter by letter while continuing to look at it. “f-r-i-e-n-d”
  • Cover. Your child should now cover the word “friend” (either with her hand, another piece of paper or by folding that column underneath the others) and try to write “friend” in the second column, without looking at the first column.
  • Check. Now, have your child check her work by comparing the first column with the second column. If it’s correct, move on to the second word. If it’s incorrect, ask her to repeat the steps, this time trying to write “friend” in the third column.”

The article also has other ideas for different learning styles. My favorite, designed for the kids who can’t sit still, is to have them practice spelling while doing a physical activity, such as jumping rope, shouting out a letter with each jump (also a good way to burn off some of their extra energy).

All the methods listed in this article require lots of practice. However, if you follow their advice, that practice will be more productive - and more fun. -BILL FERRIS

The Fast Track to Spelling Success via education.com

Carnival of Education #171: Career Fair

May 14, 2008

ou_ags on flickrWelcome to the Carnival of Education Career Fair! We’ve retracted the bleachers and set up the booths on the gymnasium floor so these brave teachers can see what they might be doing if they weren’t teaching (perish the thought).

Motivational Speaker
Mr. D at I Want to Teach Forever agreed to sport a freaking mohawk as long as his students worked hard, which was about three weeks. Sadly, his motivational experiment has concluded. Long live the mohawk.

Camp Counselor
As a kid, my wife got to go to Space Camp and Marine Science Camp. Had Tisha Kulak and American Consumer News been around back then to point out how to save money on tuition to summer research camps, I might’ve been able to go, too.

Productivity Consultant
Instructify-favorite studenthacks.org has some great tips for students who want to learn how to write a research paper.

Pro Athletes
The Jose Vilson uses Derek Jeter as an example of how nurturing students’ talent and leadership ability early on can reap great results.

And over at Jay P. Greene’s Blog, the author talks about the importance of identifying students’ talents, whether they’re a left tackle or potential honor student.

Economist
ESL teacher Larry Ferlazzo knows that money is the international language.

Translator
Melissa B. at The Scholastic Scribe provides a handy-dandy English-to-Eduspeak dictionary.

Director
Mathew Needleman at Creating Lifelong Learners takes a proactive approach to managing disruptive students during a class movie project.

Advice Columnist
Let’s Play Math! has some advice on teaching math to a struggling student.

Detective
OverwhelmedMom gets to the bottom of problems that gifted students face.

Investigative Reporters
The proprietor of a voice from the middle knows the means to discovery is asking the right questions.

In addition, eduwonkette responds to a Wall Street Journal article about the criteria used to evaluate teachers.

Game Developer
Alvaro at SharpBrains shares a few games to stimulate your temporal lobe.

Diplomat
Coach Brown tries to reach an understanding with hostile parents.

Nutritionists
At Homework. Dinner. Life. Angela points out that good nutrition habits ought to be maintained year-round, not just a few days before the test.

Meanwhile, Chanman at Buckhorn Road says all that caffeine students drink can’t be good for them.

Cartographer
Dan Callahan, a.k.a. geek.teacher, harnesses Google Maps for a lesson in community mapping.

Librarian
@EDU takes the work out of student research by pointing them toward Google Alerts.

Politician
Jane Artabasy at Golden Apple Teaching Excellence Network unloads the loaded word of the day, “elitism,” showing it’s nothing to be frightened of - especially in schools.

The folks at Golden Apple also mull over the differences in races and learning styles.

Astronaut
HowDoWhy asks, what is a solar system, anyway? Furthermore, just how big is ours?

Human Resources Specialist
Over at Right on the Left Coast, Darren discusses the sticky situation of a teacher dating an 18-year-old student at a different school.

Mentors
Allison Jones at Entry Level Living wants to revamp the way young people think about leadership.

The folks at the Efficient Leadership Files have some ideas on that as well.

Statistician
Lead from the Start crunches the numbers about the disconnect between teachers and EdSector.

Strategist
Seth Pearce at NYC Students Blog has an intriguing idea on how to overcome schools’ non-stop test preparation.

Lobbyist
PZ Meyers at Pharyngula has some news about a disturbing bill in the Oklahoma legislature regarding religion in schools.

Road Grader
As the great homework debate rages on, Shabam School makes a good case for grading homework.

Kindergarten Teacher (sorry, I couldn’t come up with anything else)
Kiri at Elbows, Knees, Dreams shares her thoughts (and asks for others’ opinions) about early entrance to Kindergarten.

Photo credit: ou_ags on flickr

NY Times: Technology Raising Student Anxiety Levels

May 12, 2008

In a May 4 article titled “I Know What You Did Last Math Class,” the New York Times explores one unfortunate side effect of technology in schools. The article examines how parents are taking advantage of services that connect them with student progress reports, including attendance and grading information. And though no one can deny that better-informed parents can be tremendous allies for teachers, the Times notes that parents who take this information to extremes can end up causing significant stress in their children’s lives:

Denise Pope, a Stanford lecturer who consults with secondary schools, worries that these programs can aggravate student anxiety. “When the focus is on the grade so much, you’re saying to kids, ‘It’s more important to get the grade, by hook or by crook, than learn the material,’” she said. “And that leads to the rise in rampant cheating.”

The article raises interesting questions about the ethical use of tools that allow parents more access to the classroom, but may provide less context than an actual visit or conversation. According to the article, ” Many districts do not educate parents about how to use the programs in a measured, judicious fashion with their children.”

Is your school or school system using a service like Edline, ParentConnect, or PowerSchool to connect parents to classrooms? If so, drop us a note in the comments section and let us know how it’s working. –ROSS WHITE

I Know What You Did Last Math Class via The New York Times

Panwapa - Should I Ask for Some Fries with That?

April 21, 2008

The web is a wonderful place, full of exciting activities, and interesting information, but like many a Golden City, it has it’s potholes, and those become really noticeable when you teach primary age students (five to eight year olds here in the States). There are lots of sites that are safe, and many that are interactive, but there are few safe, non-commercial sites for kids to meet other children in a social network. The folks at Children’s Television Workshop are neatly filling this void by providing Panwapa. You may be wondering, what do I mean by social network? Social Networks are places like Beebo, and MySpace. Now, you’re wondering how could this be useful for education and safe enough to use in the classroom? Don’t worry about it, it’s all been designed with education in mind.

According to the press packet,

Panwapa, which means “here on this earth” in the Tshiluba language, aims to foster the foundation for global citizenship and community activism in young children, ages 4 to 7. Featuring an entirely new group of Muppet characters, Panwapa consists of an interactive website, www.panwapa.com

Wow, they get to share their interests and culture, learn about other kids’ interests and culture, and get some geography on top of it! The site is set up for a high degree of safety. Children are assigned a word number combination based on their country (like USA15431). This does mean that you need to remember to print out the confirmation page for each student, so they can re-access their account. This may be a pain, but it means it will help you make the case for safety when you discuss using this site with parents and administrators. -ALICE MERCER

Panwapa

Gifted Students: Thankfully, They Could Be Lurking Anywhere

February 28, 2008

Exceptional ChildNot to toot my own horn, but at a very young age, I was identified as AG (Academically Gifted). I spent my first few years in school in a separate class with other AG students, doing artsy things, solving puzzles and doing lots of creative writing. I think, for the most part, this was very helpful in my academic development. I often noticed, though, that I felt very out of place as I progressed in school. I felt somehow disjointed from many of my peers, and so I often only put in the bare minimum amount of effort to get me by. Nonetheless, I’ll be forever grateful for those teachers who were willing and able to provide me with instruction that gave me the stuff I needed to succeed and later go on to college and finally apply myself in the capacity I knew I was capable of. Sure, I’m smart - but we all know that; its the next generation that we need to keep an eye on.

TeachersAndFamilies.com brings us this guide - The Exceptional Child - to help identify and nurture gifted students at an early age. There are charts and resources to help parents and educators explore what makes a child exceptional and how to nurture them in both the home and the classroom. Be sure to check out the guide of ways to make gifted students feel less ostracized by their peers. Additionally, there are links to other resources on the web to help facilitate the education of gifted and exceptional children. If you suspect you might have a baby genius in your home or classroom, take a look here and see how to prepare yourself and the budding Einstein. -JEREMY S. GRIFFIN

The Exceptional Child

Sound Off: Georgia School District Switching to Single-Sex Schools

February 19, 2008

Greene County, Georgia students are going to have to make some different plans for next year’s prom. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, all Greene County schools will be single-sex starting next year.

The article states that Superintendent Shawn McCollough made the move in order to improve student achievement in Greene county, where only 67 percent of freshmen go on to earn a diploma.

Predictably, parents and administrators are divided on the issue. Some say it’s unconstitutional or that it won’t work. McCollough and supporters say it’s perfectly legal, and that research supports his contention that grades will improve.

What do you think about this hot-button issue? Do we have any readers who went to a single-sex school growing up? Let your voice be heard in the comments. -BILL FERRIS

Ga. county going to all single-sex public schools

Raise Money for Your School with BoxTops4Education

February 6, 2008

Raid your pantry for snacks and educational funding. Since 1996, General Mills has raised more than $200 million for K-8 schools with their BoxTops4Education program. For every box top your school sends in, it will receive a dime. Hey, that adds up - a couple box tops each from faculty and parents can earn your school some serious cash. Cooler still, you can track your school’s progress at the BoxTops4Education Web site.

This is obviously a project that will work best with parental cooperation. Now you don’t want to come across as a shill for General Mills - if parents think they have to revamp their entire shopping list, they might lose interest. So instead of telling parents to run out and buy lots of Cheerios, remind them they’ve probably got a lot of these General Mills box tops in their homes already (click here to see a list of participating products).

Before you throw out that empty cereal box, take a peek at the top of the box. You might be throwing away free money. -BILL FERRIS

BoxTops4Education

What does your school do for fund raisers? Let us know in the comments.

Swap your Stuff at Zwaggle

December 18, 2007

They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Well, if you’d like to get at said treasure without trekking across town to yard sales or digging through garbage cans on the side of the road, You might want to take a look at Zwaggle.

Zwaggle works like an online swap meet. Post stuff online that you can’t use but don’t want to throw away. Browse the inventories of other folks with the same idea. You can also find electronics, sports equipment, DVDs, books, and lots more. Because of the inherent difficulty of determining whether a baseball bat is a fair trade for a Laser Tag set, Zwaggle demystifies the shrewd science of haggling with Zoints. Zoints are a point system designed to avoid using cash, and the inherent drawbacks it would bring (PayPal fees, people trying to make a profit by selling whatever random junk they have lying around, etc.).

A lot of the stuff listed isn’t classroom-specific (video games and baby clothes, for example). But Zwaggle might be a good resource to pass along to parents. If you can make their lives easier by showing them where to find Christmas presents on the cheap, they might make your lives easier by encouraging Little Johnny to buckle down and try a little harder for his nice teacher. You’ll at least get a bigger smile during parent-teacher conferences. And a good relationship with parents is something most teachers wouldn’t trade anything for. -BILL FERRIS

Zwaggle

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