Fun & Exciting Stuff

This is just amazing. 438 students are freshmen this year.

# Percentage of first-year applicants who applied online in 2003: 33%.
# Percentage of applicants who did last year: 89%.
# Year that an incoming Amherst College class first created a Facebook group so that they could socialize and otherwise get to know each other prior to arriving on campus: 2006.
# By the end of August 2008 the total number of members and posts at the Amherst College Class of 2012 Facebook group: 432 members and 3,225 posts.
# Students in the class of 2012 who registered computers, IPhones, game consoles, etc. on the campus network by the end of the day on August 24th, the day they moved into their dorm rooms: 370 students registered 443 devices.
# Number of students in the class of 2012 who brought desktop computers to campus: 14.
# Number that brought iPhones/iTouches: 93.

And I am running dittos and using a textbook. Sheesh. I have never felt like an old lady driving a 1970 Pinto in the slow lane of the 6 lane super highway. Teaching is passing us by.

I have written previously about the new Civil War course I am creating. In my research, I found this blog: Teaching the Civil War with Technology I hope I will be able to use some of the resources demonstrated there. Check it out!

I apologize for not posting anything for awhile.

We sold our house (in two weeks!! What housing crisis??), I went to Boston on a school trip to Whalewatch (highly recommended), planned our end of the year activities with my collegues, served on the Superintendent hiring committee, wrapped up the school year, graded Regents exams (Thank you conversion chart) and final exams, and cleaned up my room. I am sure I have forgotten something.

Now I will be involved with this workshop, teach summer school, move once, plan for a brand new class on the Civil War for the Spring ‘09, plan a field trip to Gettysburg, PA in Spring ‘09, and try to relax. Not to mention personal stuff. At least I am keeping busy right?

This is a great post, kinda long, but right on the money.

I am going to attempt to give you principles (not how to prescriptive steps) by which to guide your why approach to managing the needed changes in your schools and school systems.

This is a great idea for students. We are always saying we want to make dry boring history interesting, illustrating the ideas of communism and why the art director used this type of advertisement would be an interesting way to start a lesson. I knew a teacher who asked kids to make a CD case (I suppose now it would be an iPod play list) of Gandhi’s favorite music as a project. You had to demonstrate why the song would be one of his songs. It was just a different way of getting to the content.

Well, we are coming down the home stretch. There are 11 weeks left in the school year. A Regents exam is coming up for the 11th grade and a local exam for the 9th graders. Are they ready, I think they would be if they studied.

Exhibit A: Today as part of our Religions project, students needed to identify the founder of Islam. More than five 9th grade students throughout the day asked me who the founder of Islam was. As an outside observer, gentle reader, you would have thought that they had never heard of Islam or “the Islams” as they call this religion. Speaking as one who was there when they learned Islam and graded their tests, I know they were taught it, because I taught it to them.

Now, Is this because, it was 2 months ago, Mr. Potter is boring, history sucks and I have never passed a history class, I have a test tomorrow in science, I forgot to finish my project, I hate gym, this book is too heavy, I can’t find my notes, I won’t use this in the future, etc. etc. Not to mention there have been two week vacations since we learned this, my locker is jammed, my boyfriend isn’t speaking to me, my girlfriends aren’t speaking to me, I need to watch out for the mean girl after school, my parents are always fighting, I don’t have a pencil, my cellphone is going off and someone is supposed to text me directions to the party this weekend, etc.

or

Because their teacher didn’t use the material to properly teach it to them.

or

Because they don’t use the material regularly, we haven’t talked about the Muslim culture since January, they have lost touch with the material.

I don’t know, I can’t really help the first one. But I can work to fix the last two.

I think this post is very important to educators.

“Why do we have to write an essay?”

Ans: Well, these types of essays will be on the final exam, so these are preparation of a sort for the Regents exam.

Will you be asked to recite the cultural changes of the 1920’s in some future job interview? Maybe if it is for a job as “flag pole sitter” down at the “Chaplin & Capone’s Restaurant – Where silence is our business!” Probably not.

I don’t know that there is a correct answer to that question. I think there is a certain level of correctness, for lack of a better word, to my answer. In the immediate future, the final exam carries a certain weight. I can’t change the situation in 3 months, so they are going to have to answer an essay like that.

But I have been having an ongoing conversation with another teacher about how in “teacher” – as we know it will be obsolete within our lifetimes. From the perspective of a student, if, and that is a big “if” knowing some of the students I know, I wanted to learn about the US Civil War, where would I go for information? Would I cycle back through all the worksheets Mr. Potter handed out to me? Go talk to my history teacher? Or would I go here, here, here, here, or here. And those are just web pages. What about blogs, wikis, Twitter-ing a historical expert, etc. etc. And this is a five second Google search + Wikipedia. I could find a good overall gist of the situation pretty quickly.

I go into used book stores when I have time + cash. I think it is a national requirement that they have a copy of American Caesar. My thinking is always that I should buy it. It is something that I am interested in, but I don’t need to be an expert on it and have the background knowledge and be able to connect to the greater concept of WWII. But then one night I came home and did this. More information than I could possibly want. Most of it reliable, but enough that is that I can get a good overall picture of it.

I don’t know that you could become an engineer or a doctor based off of reading Wikipedia, but if you are looking for general information/content, then you could definitely use sources like those.

The skill of writing/communicating obviously has a level of importance. The ability to organize information has another level of importance. But content knowledge has been changing.

Our role as teacher has to adapt to today’s knowledge-level. I don’t know what that is yet, but it is getting late.

This looks very interesting and straight forward.

Download Video: Posted by teacherhacks at TeacherTube.com.

I am on a committee that deals with 21st Century learning skills. We have a plan in which the students are going to visit other local schools that have advanced farther than us down the 21st century learning skills path. We have (finally) come to the conclusion that we can only go to 3 local schools. The main problem at this juncture is transportation. We are coming to the end of the school year and the $ is not there for us to get 2 buses and go all over the county.

Now, I am thinking that since we are teaching 21CLS, there has to be a technological way to overcome this obstacle. Maybe a face-to-face with admin./teachers/students from other schools is the”old way” of doing things and since we are trying to practice what we preach, there might be a better way to do it. I brought up the dreaded Facebook/MySpace combo as a way to overcome this, but it was immediately shot down. YouTube is blocked by BESS. TeacherTube is blocked by BESS. Most wikis are blocked by BESS. Most blogs are blocked by BESS. Yes, we can unblock the filter, but we are trying to teach 21CLS, using 20th Century technology.

And we aren’t even on to some of the more complicated issues yet.