Agent SmithChallenging the matrix of traditional, boring education.

These are my links for September 26th through September 30th:

• Picture This! – I teach photography skills to my middle schoolers- What better subject than my favorite place in the world – Walt Disney World!
• Respect – Love, love, love the Playful Learning Blog. The author of that blog wrote this wonderful article on teaching children respect which can be easily adapted for classroom use.

• Please vote for my grant app on We Are Teachers! http://bit.ly/G0sMV (i’m on page 33) #

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• getting ready for 5th grade typing class- let those fingers fly! #
• @imcguy i feel your pain… #
• rt @coolcatteacher Happy! Punctuation! Day! Really? Yes! #

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These are my links for September 24th:

• Domo Animate – Create animations – create animations and cartoons with DomoKun!
• Math Apprentice – math game that shows how math is used in the real world.
• FRONTLINE: growing up online | PBS – PBS Frontline series about online teen behavior. Can be very powerful for students. There are some touchy subjects, however, so make sure you prescreen before playing these in class.

I drive by this church sign every day on the way to work.  It makes me laugh.  Because I am CRAZY busy!  I must have a pretty strong faith!  But seriously, yes I am busy.  This year, in school, I have the following list of duties:

• Teaching 19 classes per week.
• Writing original curriculum for 14 classes. (some of my classes are split, so i teach the same lesson 2x)
• Grading student work
• Entering grades in headmaster
• Updating homework blog
• Homeroom duties
• Fixing lab computers on a daily basis- minor things (terminals not starting up, internet cache clogged, mouse malfunctions, updates, crashes, freezes, kids deleting desktop icons or lab folders by accident, etc.)
• Laptop Maintenance and send-out for repairs
• Network maintenance
• School computer maintenance
• Integration and support for teachers
• Chapel powerpoint
• Chapel tech (i run the powerpoint and soundboard for our weekly Chapel service)
• Website maintenance
• New website make-over
• Administering email accounts for school/childcare teachers
• Email training for childcare
• Installing new equipment

And that’s just the things I can think of off the top of my head. There are countless details that pop up during the day.  The thing that I have been working on most is my curriculum.  I spent most of my summer working out new middle school curriculum and trying to integrate in new web 2.0 technologies, collaborative learning, and other 21st century skills.  So here’s what our plans look like for the rest of the year:First Semester:6, 7, and 8th grade will all study the same three units, on different scales appropriate to their age and abilities:

1. Internet and Email Usage
2. Research, Evaluating, and Using Information
3. Privacy and Security

Then, in the Second Semester, each grade will focus on a different topic.6th:

1. Parts of the Computer (they will get to take apart and re-build a computer)
2. Computers in Society (career applications, social impact, etc.)

7th:

1. Software and Operating Systems
2. Networking
3. Video Production

8th:

1. Digital Citizenship
2. Problem Solving, Programming, and Algorithms

I think it’s a pretty good plan, and I can’t wait to see how the year unfolds.  I based these ideas off of the NETS standards, and also the MD State Tech Curriculum.  Now that our first month of school is over, we’re really starting to get into the meat of our first unit, and the kids can’t wait to use their new emails to start collaborating with other classrooms around the world.  Contact us if you are interested in a collaborative project!

I just noticed that in my RSS feed, my delicious posts say they were written by Steve Dembo.  How in the ?

These are my links for September 18th:

• That’s Not Cool – Opens up a great discussion about bullying/pressuring via technology…
• www.weareteachers.com – Home – I just submitted my grant proposal! I’m so excited!!! Keep your fingers crossed for my deserving K-5 students!
• » Brainstorming around Smart Work — sacha chua :: enterprise 2.0 consultant, storyteller, geek – Love Sacha’s simple, easy to understand illustrations. I plan to show this to my students when we get to our Social Media unit.

These are my links for September 17th:

• Produce for Kids – Get your kid to “play with their food!”
• YouTube – Digital Dossier – How aware are you about the tracks you leave behind?
• Online Audio Editor – Aviary.com’s Myna – No Mac? No Garage Band? Don’t want to download Audacity? Try Aviary’s new service- Myna.
• Conquering Technophobia – Web 2.0 is highly interactive, accessible and collaborative. Learn how to utilize it in your classroom with free videos, activities and more from CDW-G and Discovery Education.

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These are my links for September 12th:

• Stixy: For Flexible Online Creation Collaboration and Sharing – Collaborative site combines ?Post-It? style notes with photos, documents, even to-do lists.
• » Protect Yourself from Email Hoaxes | bNetS@vvy – stop the madness of chain emails!!!
• Lessons | Welcome to NCS-Tech! – Kevin Jarrett… another inspirational tech teacher! check out his blog: Welcome to NCS Tech. It’s wonderful.
• Mr. Byrne Teaches – I love seeing what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, and Mr. Byrne is one of those great teachers I get inspiration from. I love his classroom blog! lots of good information! Other teachers in my school use schoolnotes, but I’m thinking about going to a blog format.
• teachingwithted / FrontPage – I love TED talks. I’m not sure my students love them as much as I do, but every once in a while I get a “wow!” or “Cool!” out of them. This wiki has some good ideas for how to use them.
• Make Five – fun math game