Fun & Exciting Stuff

How do we get here?

I see something like this and wonder how far  behind we in Brigadoon really are.

Perhaps the most telling response on the subject of PLNs is from my student Hope, who says, “My iGoogle page is very helpful and helps me keep things organized. It lets me know when my agenda changes.” The fact that a ninth grader would talk about her own research agenda gives a glimpse into the power of the PLN; she is using a term here that is often reserved for grad students!

After sitting through a staff development on our new web page, and getting sheets of paper that are clogging up my desk. I read this post from Will Richardson.

This was the kicker for me:

It all reminds me of the time last year when I got to an event and the person in charge had copied, collated, stapled and distributed six paper pages that she had printed of my link-filled wiki online to 50 or so participants.

“It’s a wiki,” I said. “You can’t click the links on paper!”

“I know,” she replied. “I just need to have paper.”

Um, no. You don’t.

That’s going to be us. I am just sure of it.

That was the discussion last week when I gave a quiz to the 10th grade global class on imperialism. They had to name one colony and one imperialist country. The colony = Asia or Africa. The imperialist country = Europe. So I threw the same question out to the 11th graders. Too many of them didn’t know it either. That’s one of those basic facts 100% of the students should know. I am not worried about higher order thinking skills. I am worried about basic content.

Granted they don’t use that type of knowledge regularly (what teenager is asked “Is Europe a country or a continent?” regularly?) But it is basic common knowledge that they should know so that they don’t look like a moron regularly.

I was born 20 years too early. I was not a Rhodes scholar by any strech, but I had a good dose of common sense and I paid attention. If you are a high school senior today and have a basic understanding of specific knowledge, you are already head-and-shoulders above many of your peers.

I now have: Personal/Professional, Building, Student Achievement and Department goals. None are the same and all are odd. They don’t directly tie to the content, but they are school related in different ways.

What books are important to read for a regular level, high school, US history class?

Stephen Colbert interviews Nick Carr about the net and the future of humanity.

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.

As part of thier “back-to-school” posts, many blogs are listing different tools for students. Lifehacker has this nifty looking tool called StudyRails. Only $5.00 a month.