Have a Good Life

Well, it turns out that I will have a job next year. My school is overstaffed, and I will be moving to Fort Herriman Middle School. My principal thinks that I will like it there, although she wishes that I could stay at my current school. It has some neat technology bonuses that go along with it. I hope that I will be able to incorporate the technology in a good way. I am pretty excited about it. My principal did say that if there is another opening at my school, she is going to be very angry if I still go to Fort Herriman. It is nice to be appreciated, I must admit that.

This is the situation with my student blog class. They are coming along relatively well, but the students still need a little help understanding what it is all about and why they are important. Part of the problem is that I am not sure how to teach them how important it really is. I know that it is. I am sure of it, but it is difficult to get it across.

Another problem is that we only have six computers in our class. I have 23 students which means that four days out of five, students will be separated from the group working on their blogs. They are still getting used to the blog setup, and it takes them the whole period to do the assignments, and they are not that long. I have to guide them through each step for the whole time. It is not their fault. I sprung this on them, and they don't know how to do everything, so it is obviously partly my problem.

The real issue here is that while I am helping them on the computers, most of the other students are goofing off and not doing their work. That is really difficult. I can't be helping both at once, and I need to do better at this. I would really love a computer lab that I could use, but the one in the library is booked forever, and the other one has old iMacs that are really slow, and would not be very good. It is quite frustrating...if only I could have one of those mobile computer center so that all the students could be on at once at least once a week. I would really like to do my entire curriculum online and not have them turn in anything on paper. I think that would be great. I need to find a grant for that mobile lab.

This video is a little like the one I posted previously, but it is better and longer (about 8 minutes). The really neat thing about this is that it was made by someone at my school district. I need to get in touch with this guy, and see if I can't get him to help me get some better stuff going. The website he links to is pretty informative.

I am happy to say that I have started integrating technology into my classes more. I am starting with my Honors class because I can trust them a little more than my other classes right now. We have a start page through Google that we use, and a class blog site. This is exciting because I have wanted to get something like this going for quite some time, but never knew how to do it well. The host 21classes.com seems like a good fit since I can be the administrator of all the students' blogs and not worry about them wandering around in cyberspace.

My one problem was that on every page I visited on the blog site, there was an ad that said, "Are you Gay? Take the quiz and find out!" I am pretty sure that I don't want to my students to be learning about their sexual orientation in my class. So, I had to buckle down and start paying for this service, but it is only $9 bucks a month, and the school is paying for it, so it is not that big a deal.

The other interesting point about all this is that I finally found a use for my personal website. I have to own a domain for the Google Apps thing to work out. Since I have the domain name already, it is easy to incorporate that.

My curriculum professor, Dr. Cliff Mayes, defines synchronicities as those little things that happen that show that you are teaching some sort of eternal truth. He gives the example of a clock stopping in his class when he was talking about Time (not the magazine).

A synchronicity happened when I was discussing the rebuttal paragraph with my students. That paragraph refutes your opponents claims when you write a persuasive essay. My students were talking about how students should have cell phones in class, and I said, "Your opponents will argue that cell phones are distracting, so you need to tell them why they are wrong. You need to prove to them that cell phones can be in school without being a distraction." Right as I was finishing that sentence, my cell phone rang.

This is a video that was created by Karl Fisch, and modified by Scott McLeod (I am not sure if this is the correct link for Scott McLeod, and if it is not, I will quickly change it as soon as I know). Globalization and The Information Age is really what it is about. I don't know how many of these claims are true or correct, but that is not important. What I believe is important is the idea of what is behind this. The world changes fast. We need to be prepared for it and make sure that those over whom we have stewardship are well-prepared for it also.

As part of our Greek Mythology unit, we are watching Disney's "Hercules". Don't get me wrong, we already watched Jason and the Argonauts. During the whole movie, some of my students are talking. At any point during the movie, there is at least one student talking, not paying attention. However, there is a part where Meg sings about how she isn't really in love with Hercules. That was the only part in the whole movie where everyone was focused on the movie. Nobody said a word once she started singing. It was really interesting to watch how they were all mesmerized. They focused on her and the singing, and when it was over, they were able to talk again. I would say that it is the power of Music, and not sex, but during the other songs, they were not as interested in the movie. These 7th and 9th graders are experiencing "love" for the first time and I really believe that these segments in movies appeal to them.

Image source: http://lnx.ginevra2000.it/Disney/megara1/meg4.jpg