Online Timer
Many uses for a timer in class. Use it for standardized testing, physical education activities, bus evacuation and so forth.
Keynote objects
Get a few objects for Keynote and iWeb.
Take a look at Math Playground
Here’s a great link for math activities for elementary and middle school students.
What are your thoughts?
I recently was told that “concept mapping is obsolete”; this from a teacher in another district. There is still a need to represent our thoughts visually. Do you agree?
Using Wordle
The website Wordle.net is a site that can be used for classroom project title pages, spelling words, book report facts, synonyms and antonyms, etc. Make a “word cloud” for yourself. It is easy to do. The page may be printed. I took a screen capture shot of it and turned it into a jpeg. Due to Java, I used Netscape as the browser of choice for this.
End of the Year Ramblings
The end of the year always brings mixed feelings. When I was in the classroom I was already looking ahead and planning for the new school year. I was usually one of the last teachers to leave for the summer. One year ended and it would be a new beginning. Now, I am in a job where I must walk away from whatever tasks are incomplete. They have to wait until I return to work in August. It feels different…never seem to finish, multitasking has taken on a new meaning.
This coming year will be more difficult due to budget cuts. Decisions are being made regarding salary, benefits, using in house staff before substitutes are hired. Spending per child is down statewide. Florida depends on sales tax revenue. No surprise that it is at an all time low. Even the lottery money that was supposedly going to help education amounts to about $5 per child.
A teacher popped her head in my office this afternoon and said, “thank you”. I said, “for what?” Her reply was “for always working so hard. I never see you slack off.” Compliments aren’t always easy to hear. That one made my day.
Leopard 10.5.3 will be released shortly. I cleaned 35 iBooks today and ran updates for Safari 3, Quicktime, 10.4.11. More to do tomorrow. The machines are 7 years old. Can’t replace them at this time. Must accept the things I can not change.
As Annie says, “the sun will come out tomorrow.”
Working with Leopard Server
I’ve set up the Leopard Server 10.5.2 and am using iWeb for the school web page, intranet page, and “back to school” page. Three web sites easily built in one program. I have been able to set up the blogs for users and have three individuals who created pages thus far. The teachers have expressed that they like having access from home and can manage the page themselves. Others are interested, but there just isn’t time for more training this year. I’d like to see some team/teacher pages using iWeb. With Easy iWeb Publisher, http://www.plyxim.com/free, teachers can easily upload their pages to the server at work.
Class configurations and team members are changing for next year, so it is a good time for the teachers to make the transition.
Our old WebStar server, running OS 9.2, lacked the memory and capability for Web 2.0. I am having trouble setting up Wiki’s on the Leopard server. Any suggestions?
Online Video Converter
Yesterday a classroom teacher asked for help ‘downloading’ a video from You Tube…Neil Diamond’s “Coming to America”…to use in class. I did a quick Google search and discovered vixy.net. At home last night, one of my Tweets suggested I use Zamzar to convert the file. I did try it and just needed to fill in a couple of blanks, The link was emailed to me , I downloaded the converted video and I now have a copy for the teacher to use for an educational purpose. Yes, at the moment, You Tube is accessible here at work, but she wants to show it in May. Who knows if it could be pulled up directly from You Tube at that time.
What changes are needed in education?
I heard a report the other day that schools in the USA were beginning to use Singapore Math. I heard that Florida is going to demand 30 minutes of daily consecutive PE. I heard that Science and Social Studies are two subjects that are increasingly absent from daily lesson plans in the elementary school.
What needs to change? Perhaps it is time to revisit the length of the school day? Summer vacation? School calendar?
Has technology really saved teacher’s time?
PhotoBooth and Pages
I’ll be working with K-5 students on new MacBooks during the next couple of weeks. It’s an introduction to the Leopard operating system and to the new set of 16 MacBooks recently acquired. I polled the staff using Google Forms to discover who would like to participate in this activity and to find suitable times for classes to meet with me in the media center. We will use digital images captured using PhotoBooth and insert them into a specified template in Pages to record personal information. Students will print to a specified campus printer and be able to take their ‘page’ with them. The action research I hope to collect will show that all ages can participate in one technology lesson and be successful with the desired outcome.
