Have a Good Life

In trying to free up some space on my hard drive, I deleted some language packs thinking that I would not need them anymore. I don't know how this happened, but my OS's language is slowly morphing into Spanish and Russian. While the latter is actually pretty cool, it is overwhelmingly difficult to try and determine what the Russian words actually mean. Some are pretty easy, but others are down right impossible. This picture is pretty easy, and it is sometimes clever the words they use to describe things. I guess "Frameworks" is not translatable.

So a couple years ago, I bought a domain name and made a website. The website is actually pretty stinkin' cool, but it takes a lot of work to keep it up to date. Well, in reality, it probably doesn't take that much, since I did all the original coding all that time ago. I really enjoy making and editing the website. It is a hobby that I will hopefully be able to further enjoy as I get better at it and have more time. I use the website mainly as a launching point for my school stuff. I just updated it to have a calendar complete with assignments for my students I am breaking a lot of web design rules by doing it this way, and if my web design teacher ever found out, he would probably throw a fit. jethrojones.com <- Go here and then click the FHMS link and it will take you to the web page that I recently blogged about. Then click on that first page to get to the calendar, and you can see what I am doing for the next couple weeks, kind of.

This is a very small side effect, but a worthwhile one nonetheless. And, I am sure I am the only one who did not foresee it. I am sure that others saw it as an important tool that we could no longer live without

 When everyone at your school is focused on learning and collaboration, they start to help each other learn different things. One teacher helped me out with something, even though there was no reason for her to think that she should help me. The PLC creates an environment of sharing. That is what is really important. When I found out from someone else that she needed help with something, I let her know how I could help her, even though it would cost me time to help her out. I must say it is very fulfilling to be in culture where competition against others is minimalized, and the overall success of the students is the goal. There is still plenty of competition, but it is healthy competition that engenders improving yourself not at the expense of others.  

The magazine Edutopia is geared toward generating/creating innovation in schools. I have a subscription to it, but I don't always read it. I like reading about doing things differently because my personality (as much as I try to fight it) is to reinvent the wheel. This article is about textbooks. I have never like textbooks, especially English textbooks. There is some good stuff there that helps some teachers (especially new ones) but at the same time, each teacher needs to do a lot of filtering to get to what he or she needs. I used the textbook last year for some parts because it had some better-than-I-had-time-to-make grammar exercises. Other than that, it was just as easy to make something as it was to go through the book and find the stuff that was relevant or appropriate for my state core standards (the stuff I must teach).

I would really like to develop a kit for new teachers so that they have something to use that is not the textbook. Time is a major factor for new teachers, and it would be really nice to get everything in one place, and actually be able to use it. I have thought that writing an appropriate textbook would actually help make teaching easier. Now, I am not going to do that, because there is no way that I have enough time for it, but I can dream, right?

Anyway, back to the point, the article above shows how insane it is to use textbooks from McGraw-Hill or the other large publishers. It would be much more effective to find a smaller niche supplier of textbooks. A publisher who published something for each state (or just for Utah) would be a great way to focus the textbooks better.

Okay, I am pretty sure that my new website is ready for takeoff. If you find any errors or something doesn't work, please let me know.

In other news, I read this blog post a couple days ago, and I love what is going on there. The idea of having a separate learning session for your kids is such a marvelous idea. I would love to be able to do that with my kids. I would love to incorporate some of these ideas into my classroom also. For example, we are reading Freak the Mighty, by Rodman Philbrick, and it would be great to host a Skype call with the author and talk about his motivation for writing the story and how he got his ideas, etc. That would be fabulous.

I recently got a new iPod Nano for my birthday/eating-tons-of-cabbage-soup celebration. It came with a game called iQuiz. The really neat thing about that game is that you can make your own quizzes, and it is very easy (or more complex, if you are interested in that kind of stuff). So, for our weekly department meetings we had to come up with pre/post assessment. The theory behind this is that we give the same test twice. We give it to them once at the beginning of the quarter, and then again at the end. This is supposed to show us how much they have improved. I am not sure I am sold on this whole idea, yet, but we will give it a shot. The iPod story comes into play because we have finished our assessment for 2nd quarter and are ready to administer it. I made a quiz (pictured above, download the txt file here, or in the sidebar to the right, at the top) for the assessment we are giving and I think that the kids will actually want to take the practice quiz because it is offered in a different format. It will help them to do well on the test, also. I think I might make a quiz to help them practice for the CRTs (state tests that are associated with NCLB) also. I remember when Apple announced that game, and I immediately thought of doing something like this.

This would work well for the students because many of my students have iPods. The only problem is that I am sure that many of them do not have the most recent iPods, the ones that you can play these games on. But, if they download the iQuiz maker (or we download them on the school computers) they can practice inside that program. There are still a few kinks to work out, but it would be really cool if this could work.

To see if your iPod will work with this game, go to this website and scroll up. The iPods above where the link takes you will work (with the only exception being the iPod Touch).

My principal came into my room to evaluate my teaching abilities today. I have never thought that evaluations were a big deal--last year I had someone in my room to evaluate me six times. I know I am a good enough teacher for those evaluations so I am never worried. Certainly I could be a much better teacher, but my worst days are usually still good enough for getting a good grade. A few minutes after the principal left, I got a note that said, "Please come to the principals office at 2:35." That is right after we get out of class. I have to have one more evaluation before he will actually need to meet with me, but I went prepared anyway. I was not prepared.

He told me and the other teacher he evaluated today that he was very impressed with how well we did. He said that we were in the top 10 of first and second year teachers he has evaluated in his long career. He told each of us only one thing that we needed to do better, and congratulated us the rest of the time. That fits in very nicely with the culture of the school. They focus on positive behaviors instead of negative consequences. It works even with teachers. I must admit that I went through what I did in my lesson and tried to focus on what I could carry over to other lessons. It was great motivation.