Classroom in the Cloud

The Best Widget for your Blog

2010-05-27T11:07:00.009-04:00

I frequently praise the benefits of keeping a blog – to students, teachers, even my wife. Their initial fear and skepticism is the same as my own when I first started blogging more than two years ago. Simply stated, no one wants to put time and energy into a blog that no one is going to read. I even lamented about this in my first blog’s profile:

“If no one else ever stumbles across the blog, at least I’ll have it to fall back on when I’m too senile to remember even my own name. So have a look around. I hope you find my blog as profitable as I do. And leave your mark – there’s nothing worse than a lonely post without comments!”

It’s easy to peer into the crowd at a conference presentation, and see how many people are listening. It’s not so easy to do so with a blog. This fact almost discouraged me from starting a blog, until, that is, I discovered an incredibly useful tracking widget, FEEDJIT.

Feedjit is a free widget that displays a live report of all traffic arriving or departing from a blog. It tells where the visitor is located, how long he/she has stayed on your blog, and how they got there in the first place. It even gives the search terms used in the event a person arrived using a Google search!

While knowing this information may seem a bit narcissistic at first, it’s actually very helpful. I am continually amazed by my world-wide visitors (admittedly some viewing from countries I have never even heard of!), and it has helped me learn to write from more of a global perspective – or at least with a global audience in mind. Also, it’s nice to know when one of my posts gets picked up by social bookmarking sites such as Delicious or Stumpleupon. Paying attention to what type of posts become popular has helped me refine my blog, and hopefully improve its quality.

When I first started writing, nearly all of my posts were reflective in nature. This style of writing is personally important, however, other than the initial influx of visitors after it is posted, few ever favorite or revisit that post again. When I began posting how-to and tutorial pieces, traffic increased dramatically. Knowing this, I now try to keep an even number of reflective versus informative posts so that both myself and my readers can receive maximum reward from my blog.

That being said, here is a quick how-to for setting up FEEDJIT on your own blog.

1. Go to the Join page on Feedjit.com
2. Customize the color scheme and layout so the Feedjit widget will fit seamlessly with your blog.
3. Choose your blogging platform.
4. Log in to your blog.

In four easy steps, you can have up-to-second data about your blog!

Taking a Technology Approach to Vocabulary

2010-05-26T09:48:00.006-04:00

Several years ago, I taught the historical fiction book My Brother Sam is Dead. I did the obligatory vocab chart, and while the kids did well with the quiz, it was clear that they would probably never use those words again once the quiz was passed forward. But after the bell, I watched one of my boys, in a middle school attempt at flirting, knock a book out of a girl’s hand. As he sped past me with his crush in hot pursuit, he called to her “Have clemency on me!”

That was one of our vocab words, and this boy had taken it out of class and inserted it into his vocabulary. Pedagogically, vocabulary should be looked at as a skill and not content.

I used this example from 2005 to illustrate vocabulary ownership simply because I can’t think of a more recent example of this actually happening. I don’t think I’m an incompetent teacher; it’s just that there is no magic bullet for teaching vocabulary.

I have never been satisfied with students looking up definitions for unit-specific vocab words and then spitting those definitions back at me on a quiz. I’ve tried visual vocab techniques, word walls, sentence writing, etc, but nothing ever seems to embed those words into the students’ lexicon. That’s what I want – ownership of those words.

Last Friday during a required planning day for my department, I came up with a quick-and-dirty project for my students. The state science assessment is just over the horizon, so to help my team, I decided to have them review science terms.

Each student was randomly given two vocab words. They had to define these and then provide one supplemental bit of information – either a sentence in context, an example, or a description. So far, this was a typical vocabulary assignment, but the real excitement came in the form of the assessment.

Rather than a quiz, students were allowed to choose a location somewhere on the school campus to film a visual dictionary entry using my Mino Flip video camera. These were then uploaded to our team website so students could use them for review.

The results were intriguing. It was the first time I have ever seen students take an interest in vocabulary. Even more so, students could easily recall definitions because they now had an experience to pair them with. My team’s dictionary has 183 definitions, and while I doubt every student’s working vocabulary is now 180+ words richer, this was undoubtedly a better approach to vocabulary than rote memorizing.

I think I may try this with vocabulary next year and keep a running dictionary with my students. I was rushed to get my students ready to record almost 200 video clips and in some videos it shows. In the future I would push the kids to memorize their “script” rather than rely on a note card. Regardless, a Video Dictionary has some serious potential.

If you’d like to take a peek at our Video Dictionary, click here.

How to Try Ubuntu Linux for Teachers

2010-05-25T08:24:00.018-04:00

The conversation of open source software in education came up the other day while I was talking to our school tech integrator. Always happy to further the cause, I burned a copy of the most recent Ubuntu Linux release, and left it on his desk. I figured he would pop it in, see how incredible it is, and resolve to never boot up a Windows machine again. Instead, the next day when I asked him what he thought, he looked at me blankly and said that he didn’t even know what to do with the present I had left for him.

About a year ago, I wrote this post in the hopes of sharing my love of Linux operating systems with other teachers. Notice that exactly zero people commented? Me too.

Maybe I was being too assumptive about comfort level.

Let’s start over. Instead of agreeing to take the red pill and step out of the Windows Matrix forever, will you take a few minutes to just peek into what could be? This is absolutely hassle free – you lose nothing and make no changes to your computer. Here is how to get a glimpse into the world of Linux.

Part I – Download and prepare the operating system

Linux comes in a variety of flavors (just like there are different versions of Windows) with each having specific strengths, advantages, and features. Feel free to explore many of the popular distributions at distrowatch.com, but for this tutorial we’ll be focusing on one of the most popular, Ubuntu.

1. Go to http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu and download the most recent release, Ubuntu 10.04. This is a fairly large file so it may take a few minutes depending on your transfer speed.

2. In order for the computer to read this as an operating system and not just a folder containing a series of files, you will need to burn it onto a cd/dvd as an image. To do so, you will need a free program called InfraRecorder. Download this and install it.

3. Insert a blank cd/dvd into your burner and then run InfraRecorder. You will see a menu option that says “Write Image.” Click on this. If you are using a dvd, you can then click on the ok button to start burning. If you are using a cd, you will need to first click on the advanced tab at the top and select “allow overburning.”

4. When burning is complete you will have an entire operating system ready to use on a single disc! So far, so good!

Part II – Taking Ubuntu for a test drive

1. The beauty of Ubuntu is that you have the ability to boot and run the operating system from the cd. This means nothing will be saved, changed, or deleted from your computer. Testing out the operating system does nothing to your current computer configuration.

2. Restart your computer. You will need to tell the computer that you want to boot the contents of the cd rather than the operating system that is stored on the hard drive. To do so, you will have to access what is called the boot menu. When your computer first reboots, you probably see a splash screen that shows the brand of the computer (Dell, HP, ect). Somewhere on that screen there is a command that, when pressed, will let you change the boot options. It is usually either the Esc key or one of the function keys (I’m using a Dell right now, and the boot menu is accessed by pressing F12). Whatever key it may be on your computer, press it as soon as the computer restarts. If you see the Windows start up screen, you’re too late. Try it again.

3. Once in the boot menu, select the option the says CD-ROM. This will begin loading the contents of your freshly burned disc.

4. At this point your computer will start to flash commands that are reminiscent of The Matrix, however there is no need to be alarmed. Just sit tight and enjoy the show. When the start screen appears, choose Try Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. Do not choose the install option unless you want to permanently change the contents of your hard drive. Choosing the Try option will run Ubuntu off of the cd.

A Quick Note: You may notice that your computer may appear to be running slowly. This is not a fault of Ubuntu – in fact I actually find it to be as fast if not faster than Windows XP; however you need to keep in mind that you are demoing an operating system from a cd/dvd.

5. It’s time to explore! You will notice that the desktop is similar to that of a PC/Mac so it should be fairly intuitive to navigate. There are plenty of software packages that come pre-installed with Ubuntu – they are located in the Applications menu at the top right.

6. Ubuntu also has a handy feature called the Download Center. Rather than scouring the Internet for applications, the Download Center acts as a database for everything that will run hassle-free in this operating environment. Feel free to “install” anything you’d like. Again, because this is a demo, those applications will not be saved either to the cd or to your hard drive.

Conclusion

The whole purpose of this tutorial is to remove some of the intimidation and mystique behind Linux operating systems. Once the footwork is complete and you have a chance to explore Ubuntu as a user environment, hopefully you’ll realize that it’s not all that different from what you are currently using. Therein lays the advantage – why pay for Windows when you can have Linux for free?

How to Make Stop Motion Movies in 4 Easy Steps

2010-05-10T13:11:00.014-04:00

Despite stop motion video reaching its peak in the long-forgotten era of Gumby and Davey and Goliath, it is a film technique that is simple and powerful. It is very cheap to produce and requires creativity and problem solving skills – all excellent reasons to use it in class with students!

For my stop motion video, I used my Flip Mino, but really any camera capable of taking videos will do the trick. Here is how to make a stop motion video in four easy steps.

Step 1 – Set the “Stage”

Before filming, decide how the stage will appear. Choose props, characters, word bubbles (if needed), and background scenery for your movie. For my sample above, I used magnets on a dry erase board. I mounted my camera parallel to the board. The below example shows another possible method for setting the stage. I used a desktop microphone stand and a flex grip camera mount to position the Flip directly over the scene. Choose whichever method is going to make filming your scene easiest.

Step 2 – Record your Scene

Back in the early days of stop motion, every frame was photographed individually. This was laborious and often riddled with mistakes – the slightest bump of the camera would create a major discrepancy in the final movie. Today, thanks to digital video, there is an easier way. Instead of taking digital pictures frame by frame, simply press record on your video camera. Now move your characters every so slightly and then remove your hand from the shot. Wait a second and repeat. Pay attention to your shadow – you don’t want it inadvertently finding its way into your finished film!

Step 3 – Create Snapshots from the Raw Footage

Once you have inched your way through the scene, it’s time to create snapshots. This can be done with any video editor, but I found it especially easy using Windows Movie Maker. Simply import the video into the timeline and press play. Stop at any point where you want to create a snapshot, then choose “take picture from preview” from the tools menu. I saved my pictures in sequential order to make it easier to import later. The raw footage for my dinosaur sample was almost 8 minutes long, but after omitting shots I didn’t want I was able to condense it down into about 60 snapshots.

Step 4 – Import Snapshots

After you have your snapshots, you can delete the raw footage from the timeline. Before importing the snapshots, you will have to determine how long you wish each one to display for. Go to options in the tools menu and change the duration to .25 seconds (feel free to experiment with the length of time). Now you can select all of your snapshots and drag them into the Movie Maker project. If there are frames that you want displayed longer than others, you can manually change the length by clicking on the outer edge of the snapshot and dragging it to the desired length. When your stop motion video is complete, save as a movie just like you would any other Windows Movie Maker project!

Skills or Content? Which is More Important?

2010-05-06T12:46:00.005-04:00

New York State Exam Archive

We Take Technology For Granted

2010-05-05T13:07:00.012-04:00

For other typewriter-related posts, click here, or here, or here.

All Typewriters are not Created Equal

2010-05-04T12:50:00.009-04:00

Below is the 2nd of my series of posts exploring the use of old manual typewriters. Read the first post, here.

Using Typewriters in the Classroom

2010-05-03T12:52:00.006-04:00

Is it Acceptable to Teach to the Test?

2010-04-28T14:55:00.003-04:00

Today, my students finished the dreaded New York State 8th Grade English Language Arts exam.

We don’t score their work until late next week, but I took note of their behaviors as they took the test, and I'm hopeful as to their scores. I saw kids highlighting as they read, and the constant rustling of papers suggested that they all remembered to pre-read the multiple choice questions before reading the passages. On the extended response sections, kids were able to take the essay prompt and echo it in their introduction paragraphs. I even saw kids using my tip of going back and crossing out words to replace them with higher-level vocab. All of this leads me to one overwhelming conclusion:

I have done a very good job of teaching students how to take a state exam. I’m not sure how to feel about that, so I thought I’d weigh out my opposing views on the topic of preparing for generalized tests.

Argument Against Teaching to the Test
I remember one of my college professors standing stoically in front of the lecture hall announcing that good teachers, those who teach content and skills, will never need to resort to teaching to a test. I doubt many teachers will willingly step forward to dispute the need to focus on teaching content and skills, so this seems like a strong argument. Most district mission statements carry the underlying intent of preparing students to become productive contributors to society, and this can only be achieved with a strong foundation of knowledge and understanding.

Argument in Favor of Teaching to the Test
Much like communism, my former professor’s words of wisdom make sense in theory, but don’t apply smoothly in practice. For example, just because I have the skills to drive an automobile doesn’t exactly assure that I’m prepared to drive a tractor trailer. Skills change depending how they are applied. It’s the teacher’s job to not only teach the skills, but to prepare students for situations where those skills will be needed. The “test-taking tips” I witnessed my students using are all things that should be put into good practice when reading/writing anything – so what if they were taught in the context of a standardized test?

My Own Conclusion
A few hours before posting this I created this poll asking my 1200 Twitter followers to weigh in on the subject. So far, only 1 person has voted. Either this means I have fewer friends than I realize, or perhaps teaching to the test is something that teachers are a bit uncomfortable discussing. Do we all do it? As educators, is test prep or dirty little secret?

12 Tips for Better Classroom Management

2010-04-08T14:25:00.006-04:00

Last night I had a dream that one of my classes was out of control and I was unable to regain order. At about 3am while everyone else in the house slept, I laid awake thinking about this list. I’m no expert, but here are my tips for improving classroom management skills.

1. Know who is the real disruption
If you stop class to yell at a student, you have become a bigger disruption that the student. Are there times when the lesson needs to be put on pause? Absolutely. But if Little Jimmy is sitting in the back corner minding his own business while sticking erasers up his nose, you probably do not need to draw attention to it publicly in front of the class.

2. Choose your battles
You work with kids. By nature they don’t always follow the rules. If you can’t handle the fact that sometimes they are going to come to class without a pencil, then maybe you need to find a job working with adults (who, by the way, are just as likely to come to work unprepared).

3. Don’t make threats you can’t/won’t follow through on
Nothing strips you of authority like a student calling your bluff. Consequences are essential to a good class environment – just make sure they are something you can actually follow through with if the situation arises.

4. Never back a student into the corner
When a student is backed into a corner, his/her basic fight or flight instinct kicks in. If he/she chooses fight, then you have a real problem on your hands. Knowing when to push and when to lay off can be tricky, but is essential to effective management.

5. Clear and Consistent Expectations
I wrote this blog post regarding expectations and consequences. For good classroom management the students need to know where you draw the line in the sand and what happens when they cross it.

6. Don’t Disrespect your Name (AKA nicknames from students are bad!)
If your last name rhymes with dumpster, it isn’t going to be a problem unless you let it. Teachers lose a certain level of respect and authority when students start calling them by nicknames. I knew of one teacher who allowed his students to call him “Mr. Dude.” Let me ask you this – who you respect a guy named Mr. Dude?

7. Seating Charts, Random and Often
Seating charts serve two purposes – they separate troublesome student clusters, and they also force everyone in the class to get to know each other. It makes me sad when students are in classes all day together but don’t even know each other’s names. Building a school community has many, many advantages, but one is that it almost completely eliminates any kind of student conflict in your class. It’s a win-win, especially for classroom management.

8. Rapport
There’s one student currently on our team that can be quite a handful. He’s the boy I trade mix CDs with; the boy who stays after with his friends and plays Risk with me; the boy who comes to school early and does homework in my room before homeroom. Believe it or not, he is never a discipline problem for me during class.

9. Be willing to laugh (At yourself and at each other)
The other day while teaching the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank, we began discussing the brewing romance between Anne Frank and Peter Van Daan and how it affected the overall plot. One boy in the back of the room called out “Anne and Peter hooked up. I’d consider that the rising action.” Hardy har. The class burst out laughing. I could have scolded him for the double entendre, but then a student would have surely asked what he meant, causing another round of laughter. By cracking a smile and rolling my eyes, I was able to move on with minimal disruption.

10. Kill one to warn one hundred
If a student does something that's unacceptable, make sure he/she knows it, as well as every student who witnessed the offense. This is why it's important to deal with issues immediately.

11. Listen
I don’t want to say teachers should eavesdrop on students because they sounds so invasive. Instead, let’s call it aural monitoring. If there’s trouble brewing between two students in your class, the hallways are going to know about it before you do. Keeping an ear out will give you the ability to be proactive to a problem instead of reactive once all hell breaks loose in the middle of your lesson.

12. Raising your voice should be a secret weapon
It happens maybe twice a year – Something goes so horribly awry that I momentarily lose my mind and start hollering. It's kind of brutish, but it gets the students' attention and puts them back in line (and pretty much guarantees that all my other classes will go well – news of a meltdown travels quickly). Why does this work? Because it rarely happens. If a teacher is always yelling, students just tune it out. Save your voice for when you really need it.

3 Reasons Why Teachers Deserve Adequate Pay

2010-03-29T15:34:00.004-04:00

Money and taxes are always topics of hot debate, but in light of the recent financial meltdown conversations surrounding these topics have become highly volatile. Take, for instance, Teachers are learning Economic Reality 101, an article that appeared yesterday in the Sunday edition of The Buffalo News. The comments on the online version were suspended less than 8 hours after the article ran due to "a high volume of submissions that violate The News’ guidelines."

If I can’t post comments on their website, I’ll do it on mine instead.

Reason #1 – Permanently or Professionally certified teachers in New York State have at least two degrees, one of which being a Master’s. It’s a simple equation – if you want highly qualified teachers, then you have to pay the going rate for a highly qualified professional. Some states (most, to be honest) only require a bachelor’s degree.

Reason #2 - New York State has extremely high expectations when it comes to standardized tests and the rigorous curriculum that it encompasses. I don’t expect gourmet when I order something off of the McDonald’s value menu (and I certainly know Curtis Stone isn’t the one preparing it). If you want a high quality product, it’s going to be reflected in the bill.

Reason #3 – While some may argue that this last point is a broad over-generalization, the sad truth is it is often too true – Teachers spend more time with your child than you do. We do more than teach the 3 Rs. It is in us that your child learns social skills, consequence, discipline, self-esteem, leadership, and a myriad of other skills that are needed to be a successful human being.

Teachers are worth Every Penny.

When Parents Put Sports Before Education

2010-03-26T12:27:00.005-04:00

A student came to me this morning asking if he could turn his homework in late. I asked him why it wasn’t done, and he responded by giving me a scene-by-scene rundown of his evening.

After school he had practice for the school's modified lacrosse team. He went home, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and then was driven over to the ice rink to practice with the town’s hockey team. After that practice, we immediately went to another hockey practice, this time for a travel team he plays for.

This boy left his house for school at about 7am and, other than a hasty dinner, didn’t return home until about 10pm. No wonder my essay didn’t get done.

Sure, I could have reminded him that I gave two days in class to work on it. I could have also told him that school should come before sports. I could have done a lot of things, but instead I gave him a pass to come up to my room and work on the assignment during one of his free periods. Why? Because it isn’t wrong (or abnormal) for a middle school boy to desire nothing more than living and breathing sports. What’s wrong here is the fact that his parents are letting him do it.

I don’t know all the details, and I’m certainly not going to put myself in the lose-lose situation of trying to explain to someone how to raise their kids, but this boy’s schedule just screams poor decision-making.

My students are reading Todd Strasser’s The Wave, and there’s a cautionary line in the book that we are discussing today in class. Interestingly enough, it fits this scenario nicely.

"This experiment involves young, impressionable kids. Sometimes we forget that they are young and haven’t developed the judgment we hope they’ll have someday.”

Audacity Tip Sheet for Students

2010-03-25T08:47:00.001-04:00

Audacity Tip Sheet

Introduction to Podcasting for Teachers

How to Register Multiple Users to One Email Address

2010-03-23T22:54:00.012-04:00

Here’s a familiar problem that teachers often run into when trying to use web 2.0 sites or services with students. Creating a user name and account may be fast and free, but most times also requires a unique email address. If you teach at a school where students are not given their own address, this suddenly gets much more complicated. Students can use their own personal email to register, but then you as the teacher do not have access to passwords in the event that someone forgets. Also, if your district filters email sites such as gmail, yahoo, or AOL, then students may not be able to retrieve lost information or even activate the account at all.

This one small hang up has prevented me from using sites such as Blogger, Weebly, Xtranormal, Aviary, and SlideRocket (to name just a few) with my students. Until now, that is.

This method takes advantage of a little-known but extremely useful Gmail hack. Gmail has a recipient sorting feature where a “+” can be added to an address to identify the intended target.

For example: Let’s say my wife and I use the fictional email address MikulskiFamily@gmail.com. If you wanted to send a message and wanted to make sure it was clear that it was intended for me and not my wife, you could actually send it to MikulskiFamily+JOHN@gmail.com. This would still go to the same inbox, but I would see that it is specifically for me.

In three easy steps, you can create unlimited user accounts to any site with just one email address.

Step 1: Create a Gmail account
Gmail is blocked at many schools, so this will have to be done from home. Create an account specifically for your classes. If you are already a Gmail user, don’t use your personal email address.

Step 2: Forward mail
Under the settings menu, change the forwarding option to redirect all mail to your primary work address. This is very important for two reasons. First, you want to have access to activation/password emails in the classroom, but also so that all email is stored on the school email servers. You don’t want to find yourself in a tricky spot where an administrator is accusing you of handing out a personal email address to students.

Step 3: Assign “unique” addresses
When students sign up for whatever service you choose to use, assign them a number. Have them add this number to the email address (Teacher+1@gmail.com, Teacher+2@gmail.com, etc.). The website/service will identify it as a unique email address, but all mail will be redirected to your work email!

7 Things You Didn't Know About Me

2010-03-19T12:39:00.003-04:00

While browsing through @paulawhite’s blog this morning, I came across a post written last May. In it, Paula shared 7 things about herself that few others know. I thought this was a neat idea, so I'm going to give it a try as well.

1. I’ve never been on a rollercoaster. I don’t think it’s because I’m scared of them – I wouldn’t know because I never put myself in a spot to find out. What’s even more interesting is that I spent six summers during high school and college working at a local Six Flags amusement park. I was given countless free passes, but never once did I use one of them to wait in line for a rollercoaster ride. I like water parks though. Go figure.

2. Shortly after graduating from high school, I decided to celebrate my independence by bleaching my hair and then dying it blue. My Mom insisted it looked like a feather duster. It did, but that’s why I thought it was cool. Moms just don’t understand.

3. When I was 7 years old, I found a half-dead turtle struggling in the filter of a friend’s in-ground pool. I took it home and my parents – assuming it was chlorine-shocked and not long for this world – told me I could keep it. The joke was on them, though. It lived for 18 years. His name was Michelangelo. When he died, my youngest brother played taps while we buried him in the backyard.

4. I have a third nipple. Maybe it’s just a mole, but it lines up parallel to the others, and I’m told my uncle has one too. I never asked him though – it’s kind of a tricky topic to bring up during conversation!

5. When I was student teaching, my cooperating teacher gave me the unappealing duty of checking the bathrooms. One morning, I walked into the boys’ room down the hall to find an unfamiliar student standing in front of a urinal. He glanced back at me, and failing to recognize me as a student teacher, said “It’s cool” and then continued to smoke his cigarette. I was so stunned by his folly that I turned around and walked out of the room. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had tried to walk him down to the front office.

6. I’m distantly related to Maryland Senator, Barbara Mikulski. My grandfather’s side of the family originally settled in Virgina and he had somewhere in the neighborhood of eleven siblings. She’s from a different branch, but the same family tree. I also have great uncles named Wellington Weldon Mikulski and Winston Churchill Mikulski. What can I say – my great-grandmother had a way with names.

7. I am an English Language Arts teacher, and I have never read any of the books in the Harry Potter series. Some may say that’s like an art teacher who doesn’t recognize a Dali painting, but they just never interested me. I’ve never seen the movies either.

Top 10 Teacher Apps for the iPod Touch

2010-03-18T12:38:00.019-04:00

Searching for iPod Touch apps for teachers in Google results in close to a million hits, so what’s the harm in adding one more? Here is my list (some scholarly, some not so much) of apps that I couldn't do without.

1. Dropbox – This handy app compliments the dropbox.com file storage website. The service is an excellent alternative to uploading and sending files to your own email. The Dropbox app also allows for offline use, which is where it comes in most handy. It also has a built-in media player. If I’m in a hurry and need a media file but don’t want to wait interminably for iTunes to load, and then have to go through the laborious task of finding my iPod usb connector, this is an effortless alternative.

2. NoteBrainer – This is a must have app for any music student struggling to learn how to read both treble and bass clef. The app displays or (optionally) sounds the note, and then asks you to correctly identify it. It’s simple, but addictive (and much more interesting than rote memorization!). I've been learning how to play piano since August, and this app is great practice.

3. Pandora – Pandora is an Internet radio station that plays songs based on your previous song preferences. This is a must have for any English Language Arts teacher who is teaching a book/unit that takes place in a specific era. For example, if I was teaching S.E. Hinton’s That was then, This is now and I wanted to give my students a taste of music from the time period, all I would have to do is create a Pandora station based on the search term “60s rock.”
4. Stanza – This free e-book reader is not only intuitive, but effortless to use. The app contains a searchable database using e-book sites like Project Gutenberg, and downloads automatically so that they can be read offline. The latest version also features capabilities to highlight and annotate.

5. Instapaper – This app takes any website and converts it to “digital paper” that can be stored on the iPod and then read offline. This is particularly useful to me because many of the news sites that I enjoy reading are blocked by my school’s filter. With a little bit of foresight, I can convert the page at home, and then read at my own leisure during my lunch break!

6. Free RSS – This app is exactly what it sounds like. Again, similar to instapaper, I appreciate that this app stores posts from a blog’s RSS feed so I can read them when I am not connected to a wifi signal.

7. Office² Plus – I wrote about using Zoho on the iPod Touch as a portable word processor, but this is only possible when within range of an Internet signal. Office² Plus is a suitable alternative. Files are saved in .doc format and can be emailed to a desktop computer for further editing and printing.

8. Paper Toss – Fine, maybe this isn’t very educational, but if I am making a list of my favorite apps, this has to be on it. Paper toss is a game that challenges you to do exactly that – toss balls of paper into a trashcan. It sounds lame, but it is dangerously addictive!

9. Wink – If you have an iPhone with a built-in camera, then this app is especially useful. Wink allows you to take pictures stored on your iPhone, or from Flickr, Facebook, or Shutterfly and organize them into a photo strip. Then, for $2.50, that strip can be printed and sent via snail mail. This could be a great way to creatively document field trips or in-class activities.

10. Wikipedia – Maybe it’s a bit of a cop-out to put this on an app list, but there’s no denying how important Wikipedia has become. In fact, a recent study has shown that more than 80% of college students turn to the source when beginning research. Of all the apps on this list, this one offers the greatest potential simply because of the extraordinary amount of information that it contains.

The Fine Line Between Acceptable and Inappropriate Behavior With Students

2010-03-15T10:59:00.004-04:00

In my school, teachers are allowed to celebrate the weekend early by dressing down on Fridays. I choose to do so by wearing jeans instead of my usual dress pants, and to compliment the casual look, I also lace up my favorite pair of Converse All-Stars. This has come to be known among my students as “Cool Shoes Friday.”

I don’t feel like this is inappropriate – my role in the classroom doesn’t get disrupted, I don’t look ridiculous, and my students don’t see me as any less of an authority figure because of it. If anything, my coveted pair of low tops actually helps me. My Friday attire humanizes me in the eyes of my students; those shoes serve as a gentle reminder that I’m not a robot that gets plugged in next to the laptop cart after the dismissal bell rings. Plus, my choice in footwear comes across as pretty hip. They don’t call it Cool Shoes Friday for nothing.

But there is a fine line to be walked between casual and unprofessional.

Take, for example, the recent incident involving North Carolina Social Studies teacher Rex Roland. His name hit mass media outlets Yahoo, AOL, and the Telegraph (to name just a few) this past weekend after repeatedly calling students “losers” both verbally and in written comments on homework assignments. His argument was that his informal banter was just part of his laidback teaching style, but this certainly seems like a thin excuse for such unprofessional behavior.

I sort of understand what he’s trying to get at though – relate to students by using their language. Perhaps he watched Dangerous Minds or The Principal a few too many times. Regardless of motives, you just don’t call your student a loser no matter how “real” you’re trying to be.

Much of what I wrote is assumptive – I don’t know what goes on in Mr. Roland’s classroom on a daily basis, and I certainly don’t know what was going on in Mr. Roland’s head when he wrote “minus 20% for being a loser” on a student’s homework. I actually emailed him requesting an informal interview for my blog so that he would have an outlet to explain some of his actions, but it was not been returned. My guess is that his silence is the result of a gag order imposed by the school district. Perhaps they should have suggested he keep his mouth shut before this incident took place.

The Great American Mail Race

2010-03-12T13:25:00.005-05:00

Last week I received a letter from Tami, a 14-year-old student from Butte Valley Middle School in Dorris, California. The letter was simply addressed to “Any 8th Grade English Teacher” and began by explaining that her class was participating in The Great American Mail Race.

After reading her letter and the accompanying note from her teacher, I wanted to learn more about this project. I was surprised to find an absence of an official website, but Google helped uncover the basic premise of the Mail Race. Students from around the country use the computer to find the address of a faraway school and then write to them sharing information about their personal interests, and their school and community. The class who receives this letter is encouraged to respond to it, and then find a new school to write to. The Great American Mail Race is like an educational version of a chain letter.

The problem with correspondence sites like e-Pals and services such as Skype is that the difficulty is in finding someone willing to participate. I love the idea that the Mail Race removes this barrier.

I’m planning on having my students participate in The Great American Mail Race. I’m going to randomly assign the state, but each student will be able to choose two different schools to write to. I figure this will double the odds of receiving a return letter. As a team, we’ll be mailing out over 200 letters – I’m interested to see the number of replies we get in return.

Guidelines for this project appear to be flexible and not really documented on any particular site. Some schools have students write friendly letters, others mail out formal surveys. It’s usually encouraged that the teacher mail a letter along with the student’s to help explain the project, but even this seems to be optional.

If you’re interested in participating in The Great American Mail Race, feel free to use my handouts as a model for how to approach it with students, and also how to formulate your own teacher letter.

The Great American Mail Race - Teacher Letter

The Great American Mail Race - Student Directions

Take Time to Be a Dad Campaign

2010-03-11T12:39:00.007-05:00

Last night my wife and I loaded our kids into the van so that we could surprise my mom and brother at the airport on their return trip from a week’s vacation. Never to be without a treasure, my 2-year-old daughter, Sophie, asked if she could bring something along for the ride. My wife told her she could take one special toy with her. She chose the painted noodle necklace she and I made together last week during an impromptu craft session at the kitchen table. I couldn’t help be feel a little proud that my craft beat out her usual picks - an Abby Cadabby doll or her pair of plastic flower-rimmed sunglasses.

On the way to the airport, I spotted something upsetting. There was a billboard depicting a man and his son bouncing happily across a grassy knoll. Above them was a simple directive – Take time to be a dad today.

Maybe it was the fact that my daughter was sitting directly behind me playing with her cherished daddy-daughter necklace, but this billboard offended me.

The display gives the over-generalized message that fathers don’t spend enough time with their kids. And to make matters worse, the organization that commissioned the ad, fatherhood.gov, is government sponsored. My taxes went to a billboard announcing that I was insufficient in my role as a dad!

Maybe I’m blowing this a little out of proportion. I understanding that nuclear families aren’t exactly the norm these days, and many times it’s the male figure that’s absent. But nonetheless, maybe there’s a better way to facilitate father-engagement than erecting large sweeping statements on Rt 33 heading toward the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

It’s also surprising that a campaign of this nature hasn’t been faced with more opposition. Motherhood.gov doesn’t even exist, but if this fictional organization decided to promote a Take time to be a mom campaign, you can bet that the uproar would be earth-shaking.

Introduction to the Holocaust

2010-03-04T12:36:00.007-05:00

The New York State curriculum for Social Studies is bursting at the seams. Unfortunately, the students have no other option than to get a shallow understanding of a lot of information. Take, for example the topic of World War II. The Holocaust could be a full-year course in itself, but it is usually stripped down to little more than a tangent lesson from the war.

As an ELA teacher, I try to do my part by teaching something with Anne Frank, or a novel like Wiesel’s Night or We are Witness by Jacob Boas. This year, however, I am taking a different approach. Instead of teaching the content of the Nazi horrors, I decided to focus more on the context in which these horrors occurred. I want my students to understand not only what happened, but why it happened. I want them to understand the power that Hitler had as an authority figure, and how everyday, good-hearted people allowed for the extermination of their friends and neighbors.

To start this conversation, I asked my kids a simple question: Why do we follow the rules? In every class, I received similar answers – It’s the right thing to do; We have rules to protect from harm; Breaking rules means facing a consequence.

I then shared this story about a prankster who called public places under the guise of an authority figure and persuaded people into dangerous and disruptive acts of vandalism. After they listened to the audio clip, my students were asked to explain what this prank illustrated about obedience. They were beginning to understand that people do not necessarily follow the rules, they follow the person telling them the rules.

To reinforce this idea, I then moved on to Dr. Stanley Milgram’s famous shock experiment from the early 60s. If you’re unfamiliar with this study, Wikipedia has a pretty solid overview on Milgram’s work in understanding why we obey authority figures. The actual experiment footage is over three hours long, but I managed to find a 9 minute overview that the kids found fascinating.

To end the lesson, I again returned to the original question, Why do we follow the rules and asked the class to think about what they had just learned and then answer the question again. It was amazing how firmly they grasped the concept that following rules is something that is inherent in all of us, and when prompted by authority, we will do things that go against our better judgment.

I going to continue this conversation with the novel The Wave by Todd Strasser. It doesn't take place during 1940s World War II era, but I think it will tie in easily to best show how Hitler was able to convince Germany to commit such atrocious war crimes.

Here is the Prezi presentation I used with my kids to guide them through the lesson. Feel free to use it yourself and share with others!

Why do we follow the rules? on Prezi

Philosophy of Classroom Management

2010-02-24T12:58:00.005-05:00

About a month ago, I was pulled from my classroom to attend a full day department meeting. Behavior problems in my room are almost non-existent (or at least as non-existent as possible for middle school), so I’m never too worried about having a substitute cover for me when I have to be out. But when I returned, I found a note on my desk explaining that all of my classes were excellent, with the exception of one student who was disruptive and disrespectful.

This particular boy has a good relationship with me and has never been a problem in my room, although is occasionally trouble for other teachers. The next day when I saw him, I pulled him in the hall, read him the sub’s note, and promptly assigned him a week of lunch detentions.

Here’s my philosophy on classroom management:
I’m pretty loose with what students can and cannot do in class. I don’t have lists of rules posted around the room, and I certainly know the importance of choosing my battles. But my kids know that there is a very clear line drawn in the sand. They quickly learn to stay behind that line. If it is crossed, there is consistent and immediate consequence.

Yesterday I called in to work to help my wife take care of our brood of sick children. It was an unplanned absence but I emailed lesson plans and work in for the sub so I was not anticipating problems. This morning, I arrived to find a familiar note on my desk. It was a different sub, but the same boy, and same defiant, disruptive behavior.

When I pulled him in the hall, he said he knew why he was in trouble and he was aware of the consequence for his actions. He’ll again be enjoying my company as lunch partner for the next week.

But this got me thinking. I always assume that clear and consistent consequence is the way to deal with behavior problems. But if that’s the case, then why did he act up again when he saw a substitute sitting in my chair? Is punitive consequence ineffective, or is he just a little too impulsive and thick-skulled for it to work after only one instance?

What is your philosophy for effective classroom management?

Professional Development VS. Personal Development

2010-02-22T15:51:00.003-05:00

Last year I made the New Year's resolution to learn how to play piano. I found a quaint music shop that offers lessons, and every Wednesday I wait along with the other students (most being about half my age) in the lobby with lesson books in hand. I don't teach music, but the experience has reminded me what it's like to be the one whose job it is to learn, not to teach.

It's important to always be learning something new. If we forget what it's like to learn, then how can we expect others to learn from us? We hear all the time about professional development, but I'd hope that we are aware of personal development as well.

Can the personal and professional merge? They better, or else you may be in the wrong profession. Take, for example, my most current New Year's resolution. I've always wanted to learn how to create Flash applications, and with the help of my Instructional Technology department I now have a fresh copy of Adobe Flash CS4 Professional installed on my teacher workstation. While – and I'm aware that this is an awfully nerdy thing to admit – learning this is mostly grounded in recreational purposes, I can see Flash-based web apps, games, quizzes, and even iPod Touch apps to be something that could be integrated into my daily class activities. How cool would it be to create my own iPhone app and then host it as a free download to students through iTunes?!

I'm not there yet, but I'm learning. Here is my first Flash project - It's a pickle navigating through a maze. Okay, maybe it's lacking in educational value.

But hey, we all have to start somewhere.

Justin Bieber Penny Drive Winner

2010-02-09T12:41:00.000-05:00

Back in mid December, I mentioned that my school was participating in a local radio station penny drive to raise money for Women and Children’s Hospital. The school who collected the most would win a private concert by teen heartthrob Justin Bieber.

Wouldn’t you know it – we actually won.

57 local schools participated in the contest, raising more than $150,000 (or 15,000,000 pennies) for an important and worthy cause. Almost $17,000 of that came from our students. The fact that we won is near incomprehensible, but even moreso is the thought that in the past month and a half 1.7 million pennies have passed through our hallways.

Yesterday, our building (along with the support of Kiss 98.5) held a celebratory pep rally for the kids, and while the kids’ excitement over Justin Bieber was clear, something even more important was obvious. All the work they had done was for charity, and they knew it.

The feeling that nearly 1000 screaming preteens crammed into an auditorium evokes can be contagious. Even the boys who had previously cursed the name Justin Bieber sang along to his song as it played from the stage speakers. They realized that the pep rally wasn’t to celebrate Bieber, but to celebrate our ability to come together as a school and do something truly amazing.

My Online Footprint

2010-02-02T14:32:00.001-05:00

My first efforts at consistent blogging were not here, but at a blog that preceded it called 100 Days with the Eee PC. I received an Asus Eee PC for my birthday in November of 2008, just before the term netbook became a household word. Since they were still a fledgling technology, I decided to try a little experiment – to only use the Eee PC as my primary computer. I figured it would be a pretty clear case study to show the potential of the tiny machine.

My experiment was a success, but it came with a residual effect – I realized the excitement (and importance) to blogging. The blog you’re reading right now is a direct result of my netbook experiment.

The 100 Days blog has sat dormant for almost a year now, and I haven’t had too much need to go back to it – until yesterday. I was looking some source code I used about this time last year to create a online quiz for my students. I couldn’t remember where I had downloaded it from, but I did remember that I had blogged about it. I Googled my old blog to see if I could find the link.

What I found instead was sobering.

On the first page of results was a message board posting that someone had started about my blog. In it, they explained who I was, the purpose of my writing, and what subject area and grade level I taught. He then went on to question the legality of something I had written about. All of this information was easily obtainable through my blog or in my Blogger profile, but it was vexing to see it written by a stranger.

I once wrote that blogging is an open journal, but this Google search made me realize how true that is. There's a valuable message to share about your online footprint - If it's online, someone will find it. If it's something even remotely questionable, someone will question it. And unlike a footprint in the sand, what is said online is never washed away by the inevitable rising tide.

4 Easy (and Free) Ways to Convert Doc to Docx

2010-01-25T14:20:00.001-05:00

Microsoft has made some mind-boggling product decisions in the past few years. While many of you are thinking specifically about the Vista operating system debacle, I’m referring to the seemingly unexplainable choice to change the default file extension in Word 2007 to the docx format.

This has added some degree of difficulty to the student practice of typing up work at home and then bringing it in to school to finish. Not all online conversion sites support the new format, and some that do have tried to capitalize on Microsoft’s inability to make their own proprietary format backwards compatible.

Here are several quick and cost free ways to convert docx to doc.

Shortly after the release of Word 2007, Microsoft figured out that it had become its own worst enemy, so it released a compatibility pack allowing older versions to play nice with the docx format. Click here for information on installing the service pack.

OpenOffice is the free productivity suite of applications that rival Microsoft Office in features and capabilities. OpenOffice 3.1 and higher can open docx files. There are plenty of advantages to OpenOffice beyond this one (here is a previous blog post on the subject), So I encourage you to give it a spin.

Zamzar is a ad-supported service where a file can be uploaded and converted. A direct link is then sent via email. This works well, however, there is usually a delay between when the file is uploaded, and when the email arrives to the inbox.

If you have a following on Twitter, chances are very good that someone will have access to Word 2007. Email them the file and they will save it as a doc file and then send back to you. I tweeted for help on a conversion, and I had the correct file in about 10 minutes. This is less time that it would have taken to install the service pack or OpenOffice, or to wait for an email from Zamzar!