Meg’s Musings

Free Rice has long been a favorite mind builder of mine. I could have said time waster but I figure it builds my vocabulary so it is a good thing. Besides, building your brain is healthy. The exciting news is that now you can help feed the world and expand your mind in many ways beyond vocabulary. The new freerice has multiplication, geography, grammar, chemistry, art, and even foreign language appliscations. So, don’t just sit there. Get learning!

     When I was little and would use some statistics to argue a point my father’s favorite reply was, “Figures lie and liars figure.” It took me many years before I really understood what he meant. There is a great article in this month’s Language Arts, NCTE Journal for elementary teachers, Learning to Read the Numbers: A Critical Orientation toward Statistics. Phyllis Whitin and David J. Whitin write about literacy in today’s data – driven world. They argue that literacy involves understanding what data counts and what to ignore.  They point out that if numbers are not analyzed and challenged, one set of data becomes as reliable as another.  In their conclusion Whitin and Whitin assert that “Teachers can play a key role in helping children to develop a healthy skepticism toward numerical information.”

                As a fourth grade teacher I guide my students in showing numerical information in a variety of ways. We use bar graphs, pie charts, and line plots. I teach them the importance of labels and titles. After reading this article, I realize I need to do more with getting my students to question data and to experiment with different representations.

 PBWikis just announced a great new resource for educators: classroom accounts for students without email accounts. Now you can easily include your K-8 students in a wiki without the worry of an email account.If you don’t already have or use a wiki, now is the perfect time to start!!

What can you do with a wiki?

Check out PBWiki’s Daily Peanut Educator’s Corner for more great tips and ideas.

Thanks to adinasullivan and cliotech for the head’s up on this great new resource!

Thanks to Jen Dorman and the CB (Central Bucks) workshop this week my wiki is well on its way to being widgetized. Unfortunately, the computer lab was slow due to summer upgrades. So, I haven’t been able to actually add the widgets to my class wiki. I am going to add a grazr widget with links to my DEN blog, quizlet http://quizlet.com/  for flashcards, and GCast http://www.gcast.com  to start. For more great Web 2.0 tools check http://www.widgetbox.com, or http://www.diigo.com/list/cliotech/web20 . Happy widgetizing!

Thanks to Jen Dorman for this leak to the presentations shared in Long Branch.

http://sites.google.com/site/denregionalinstitute2008/

I would spend it on all the cool tools and sites shared so far at DEN National Institute. The networking has been incredible (not to mention a lot of laughs and songs  “Silver Bells, Silver Bells…”.) We had a great tour of Washington DC and the monuments tonight. The night was lovely before the rain came strong and hard! One minor mishap but we believe all will be okay.  We all returned safely to the hotel but couldn’t pull ourselves away from some more networking over beverages and ice cream. Question of the chat: How does YOUR district handle Internet safety and appropriate use? When do they start? What do they cover? Share your thoughts.

Patty  Duncan and I are sitting next to each other as Steve Dembo wraps up his DEN blog presentation. we just figured out how to upload a picture in an appropriate size (see last post). We also learned how to add new widgets. In our celebration we tried to high five each other and realized that we are no longer functioning in the real world and need the html code for high fiving!

     The fun not only continued on day two but it ramped way up. I feel like I need to delete something from my brain to make room for all the new stuff I am learning! Today I went to super-cool sessions on Google Earth (Thanks Hall for the floating head!),  multimedia presentations (Who knew that learning homophones could be so much fun?!), and one of my favs so far….geocaching. Geocaching is a cool new sport – technology integration of modern day treasure hunting. It’s a great way to integrate fun, adventure, exercise, outdoors, technology…you name it. Thanks Bridget Belardi  (PA DEN) for introducing us to this!!  Stay tuned for Carnivale news…Which favorite DEN leader leads a second life as Zoldar? Who is the DEN leader with the best buns? These and other questions will be answered next blog. 

Hot town, summer in the city…. Friday night, I had the exciting opportunity to cool down at Alma de Cuba and chat with Animal Planet’s own Jeff Corwin, not to mention Lance, Martha, and other DEN Stars!! . Jeff was in town for Animal Planet’s big Expo in Coatsville, PA. As usual, DEN scored some tickets for us, their Stars! Jeff shared with us his most recent project, an investigation into amphibian extinction, most specifically frogs. He stated that at least 120 species of frogs have become extinct since the 1980’s and as many as half of the 6,000 remaining species are endangered. He called frogs “the canaries for our planet.” Visit Animal Planet to learn more about what you can do to help save these creatures. http://animal.discovery.com/features/expo/expo.html