Teacher Talk

Tired of Learning

That's right, I'm getting tired of chasing edtech. While the technology is changing rapidly and it's incredibly exciting to be a part of these changes particularly as they relate to the world of education...I'm starting to tire of 'keeping up.' Please understand, I love the excitement and have always been an early adopter. What is exhausting is that sometimes I would just like to use the technology instead of understand it.

Image from Somadjinn. Spinning Disco Lamp. MorgueFile.

For example, I want to access all of my email from one location (Thunderbird works for me). So, what's the issue? The level of technical expertise I need to make this happen. So, I set up an account wanting to get my gmail to this desktop application. That's easy until I get a warning that says,

Mail server pop.gmail.com responded: Your account is not enabled for POP access.

So, I go to Gmail and look around for the link to the settings page so that I can enable my account for POP access. Hey look! I can FORWARD the email to another one of my accounts...this should meet my need. In fact, what a great idea! Done. Ooooh, and here's the POP access infor too...as long as I'm here, I may as well make sure it's all on.

Basically I over-engineered a solution and now recieve emails as well as copies of emails in Thunderbird. What's more is that it all stays ad nauseum in Gmail. My EdTechies friends and colleagues will tell me exactly how to fix this, the issue...I don't want to know how. And while I want it fixed, I don't want to fix it.

Deos Tihs Cgnahe Sllepnig?

Going through draft-posts that made a final-cut. Not sure why this one was waiting in the wings for over three years. Looks pretty good to me now so, here goes...

While exploring Joomla!  I caught the following commentary by Administrator written August 09, 2004 (yeah, see introductory note):

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

http://www.blogthings.com/howsyourvocabularyquiz/

Your Vocabulary Score: C-

Your vocabulary is average. You're not exactly a literature major, but no one's going to accuse you of being illiterate!

Try this tech-speak translation tool if you dare:
http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files/aolertranslator.html

Officials: Students Can Use 'Text Speak' on Tests
http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2006-11-13-text-speak_x.htm

AHA! Guess I figured out why this post was collecting dust. Needed 3+ years to improve my vocabulary score!

Your Vocabulary Score: A-

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

It's All About Me (Being a Professional)

Several weeks ago I declared this blog in need of a revamp. Since then I've spent a great deal of time reflecting on ed tech, social networking and my own professional development. Of course, all of the thoughts stay neatly tucked inside my mind.

I've been watching and learning from newbies to blogging (NB) as well as those who are blogging experts (BE).

What have I observed?

Trepidation & Innovation
Does it make me nervous? Yes, especially at first. However, I believe we need teachers who can model how this can be done professionally. (BE)

Intuition & Risk
I have great passion for what I do and am diving into the edtech professional development arena as well, in hopes of bringing the excitement of technology into more classrooms. (NB)

What have I learned?

Certainly, there are liberties I have as I'm not currently working in a school. In fact, there are benefits to not being employed at all.

• As long as I'm not prepared to fire myself, I've got "job" security (wondering if this isn't really "in" security).
• Morning is any time before noon.
• I generally agree and get along with myself.
• Ignoring bureaucracies that don't make sense to me.
• Setting the barometer for sense-making.

Does this mean I'm free to blog with random disregard? Absolutely not.

In addition to being accountable to myself and my family, I'm accountable to teachers, both instructors and customers. My participation in the education community, by default, necessitates and deserves professional representation.

In brief, trepidation, innovation, intuition and risk are a normal part of the blogging experience. Throw in a dash of my own good judgment and a sprinkling of support from people I respect and I can open up, letting those thoughts get a little air (of course, don't want to be TOO open-minded for fear my brain will fall out altogether, but that's for another post).

Child Safety

Over 3 Million Children are Safer

Thanks Yello Dyno!
When a child's life is at stake, this is what works.

The Yello Dyno Method™ is scientifically based on Nobel Prize-winning and internationally acclaimed research. Yello Dyno Methods™ activate children's "fight or flight" response. In fact, 80.8% of students demonstrate an increase in knowledge after one cycle of the Yello Dyno curriculum.

Generate proven results through the Yello Dyno curriculum and materials. Please visit the Yello Dyno web site to learn more about empowering the children in your arch/diocese's care take action. Safe & Sacred's children's curriculum partner, Yello Dyno, is an amazing influence in the lives of children ages 4 - 12.

"Unless children recognize deceptive behavior of Tricky People who mean them harm, it doesn't matter what safety rules they're taught."

- Jan Wagner, Founder of Yello Dyno

Safe environments provide a paramount foundation for learning. Children simply cannot learn, nor can teachers teach, if they do not feel safe.

Click here to learn about Professional Learning Board's
Partner in Safety

FREE Teacher Toolbar

FREE TOOLBAR

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Download this FREE Teacher Toolbar and keep the latest teaching and learning information at your fingertips. Updated automatically when you go to the Internet.

Click here to get the Teacher Toolbar today.

Got a suggestion for tools, web sites and other resources to be added?
Let the Toolbar Team know at toolbar@professionallearningboard.com.

Current Events in Education

There are few things more exciting than what I percieve to be outstanding use of technology in education. Andrew Pass' blog The Current Events in Education demonstrates such use.

Discussion Starters for both young and older children provide prompts that present often difficult subject matter in an enlightening manner and more elaborate vocabulary is called out for study.

Mr. Pass' has a gift for designing inquiries that draw thoughtfulness and debate while refraining from sharing his own opinions. Very commendable. We can learn a lot from his suggestions as well as from the manner in which he conducts himself. Thank you!

Get this widget!

Giggles for Learning

We love how these words summarize parenting (our dads love it too!) and believe there's a comparative teacher summation out there. So, here's the challenge:

1. Create a video that generates similar head-nodding agreement and maybe even a few laughs.
2. Post it at www.TeacherTube.com (like YouTube but expressly for education).
3. Submit a link to your entry here.

It's not scientific and there's no rubric but we'll give you a free course (up to $25 value) if you make us giggle. C'mon and tell your friends too!

Reading Resource: Spelling & Vocabulary PK-12+

Oops, almost forgot this great reading resource.
Dig around the site a little for Spanish, Hebrew and more language games and learning tools. Gracias y Toda Raba Jacob Richman!

Reading Resources

_________________________________________________________

Click Here for Preview
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ARTICLE: Read All About It  NEW!
Technology motivates students to read.
_________________________________________________________

When Kids Can't Read: A Guide for Teachers 6-12

_________________________________________________________

Students learn 90% more
with 72% retention.

http://www.vocabularycartoons.com
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Teacher's Top-Ten

A teacher's top-ten list of why Kimbo Educational products deserve serious consideration in teaching and learning strategies.

Nursery Rhymes are one of the best tools for helping children build phonological awareness (an ear for sound). Movement awakens and activates thinking. Between birth and three years of age, a child's brain is twice as active as an adult's. Toddlers are particularly receptive to developing both vocabulary and an ear for sound. Music decreases anxiety and reduces stress. Movement is a sensory experience that anchors thought. Exercise keeps us alert and enhances our memory. Nursery Rhymes teach the rhythm and patterns of language. Dancing enhances pattern recognition. Music and movement build a foundation for literacy. Vocabulary size and sound discrimination ability (rhyming words, alliteration, etc.) are the two best predictors of reading success.

Almost Free Magazines

When students ask this question, refer them to one of many leading industry magazines. This is also a great tool for keeping up on trends, direction and changes related to life-after-K12-education. No cost other than sincere interest.

SCRATCH This!

Okay, I must admit that I'm itching to play with SCRATCH, to create interactive animations, stories and games!

Local students at St. Paul Public School's Expo for Excellence Magnet School have been betatesting new software from MIT Media Lab, a programming language that lets kids create their own games, interactive arts and animations.

Kid's can program a dance, create a chase game and animate their name.

Plus, it's FREE and translates into many languages

If you think this is intriguing, there's more. . .

Find SCRATCH at MIT Media Lab web link at http://scratch.mit.edu.
Or DOWNLOAD SCRATCH now as a free download!

Usborne Books

Exclusive to Usborne Books

Parents! Teachers!

• Give the gift of learning.
• Create a Wish List today!
• Earn FREE books through an online eFair.
• Sell Usborne Books. Make money. Have fun.

Thank you for considering Usborne Books from Professional Learning Board to meet your child and student learning needs.

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Exclusive to Professional Learning Board

Teachers! Parents!

• Staff Development courses only $25
  (Positive Interventions and Teaching Reading courses are great for parents too!)
• www.teacheretools.com <-- Low cost websites, hosting, tools and more!
  (Don't let the name fool you...available to parents too!)
• Virtual Classrooms enhance classroom learning experiences.
  Get yours at www.nextgenerationclassroom.com/k12

Discover additional online learning and technology tools and resources.

Inviting Teachers...

Blog for Teacher Talk

Inviting teacher-authors and teacher-learners to contribute to the Teacher Talk blog. This is YOUR blog and open to the whole Professional Learning Board community. Please take a look around.

New to blogging?

That's okay. Write about anything related to education, teaching and learning.

Who'll read what I write?

Maybe no one. Maybe everyone. Your postings will be accessible across the World-Wide-Web, so don't write anything that you wouldn't want shared. Also, it's important to adhere to general data privacy and confidentiality regarding student names, etc.

Why?

While we can't offer to pay you, we can provide this opportunity to engage in the technology that is forcing changes in education we are only beginning to see. This is a forum and opportunity  for teacher-learners and leaders to experience the blogosphere and blogging in a somewhat moderated environment. Discover new ground, participate in self-publishing, develop skills, reach new audiences and share ideas, insights, stories, suggestions, helpful hints and successful practices.

Interested?

If you'd like to be given blogging privileges, Send Murray an Email. Please include your name and why you would like to contribute to Teacher Talk.

Tags: blog, teachers, ed blog, teach

Free Online Tutorials

Learn skills at your own pace -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week -- with these FREE ONLINE TUTORIALS: GCF Global Learning^® is a web-based community of learners from all over the world. Membership is completely FREE! And, take the first lesson without giving out any information!

Visit the Tutorials page to see tutorial offerings, including Computer & Internet Basics,  Microsoft Office 1997 - 2003 (Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Access), OpenOffice.org (Writer, Calc, Impress) <FREE alternative to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint and Life Skills including Math, Money and Career Basics.

 

Constitution or Citizenship Day

Every educational institution receiving Federal funding is mandated by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, to hold an educational program pertaining to the United States Constitution, on September 17^th as Constitution Day and Citizenship Day. Commemorating the September 17^th, 1787 signing of the Constitution*.

U.S. Constitution Workshop, a "self-service" online workshop for teachers

The National Archives’ documents

Library of Congress 

National Archives research facilities and presidential libraries

*When September 17 is a Sunday, as this year, Constitution Day is to be held during the preceding or following week (September 11^th – 15^th or (September 18^th – 22^nd).

Teachers Overpaid and Not Professional?

According to research conducted by and cited in a Virginian-Pilot Online article teachers are well compensated and perhaps, it implies, even, overpaid:

Throughout the nation, teachers' hourly earnings rival or exceed that of accountants, librarians and engineers.

As state employees, teachers receive retirement and health benefits that surpass many professions in private business. Plus, teachers work almost two months less a year than most other college-educated workers.

The article continues:  
 

Teachers are widely envied for having summers off. On average, professionals work 232 eight-hour days a year, including paid holidays and vacation, the federal survey shows. Teachers work an average of 187 days, 7.5 hours a day.

Wait! Did you read that?! Go back to that last section and read it again.

So, in addition to stating that a career teacher receives a comfortable living with job security, time off and a sizeable retirement check, teachers are not professionals?

Woven through the data and commentary in this article, it is this much more subtle discount of teachers as professionals that irks me the most.

The word rose, no matter how it's spelled, does not smell.

Although inconsistent in how they're spelling it (text-messaging vs text messaging and eMail vs  e-mail), the messages from all three are the same.

USA Today reports:
Text-messaging replacing eMail among youth
In the era of instant gratification, students and recent graduates are used to being plugged in 24/7, and view eMail as a slower, less convenient means of communication...

Associated Press reports:
'E-mail has become the new snail mail' as younger set goes with text messaging

Mercury News reports:
SITES LIKE MYSPACE OFFERING `INSTANT' SOCIAL SCENE, FAST MESSAGING ATTRACT YOUNG USERS, STUDY SHOWS

CHICAGO -- E-mail is so last millennium. Young people see it as a good way to reach an elder - a parent, teacher or a boss - or to receive an attached file. But increasingly, the former darling of high-tech communication is losing favor to instant and text messaging, and to the chatter generated on blogs and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. 

Email is FORMAL correspondence?

That said, no one is predicting the death of e-mail. Besides its usefulness in formal correspondence, it also offers the ability to send something from "one to many," says Anne Kirah, a senior design anthropologist at Microsoft who studies people's high-tech habits. That might include an announcement for a club or invitation to a party. 

Many college students are logged on 24/7 and the shift is starting to creep into workplace communication, too.

Chintan Talati, who is 28, often uses instant message with other younger peers at his work, a California-based Web site that provides automotive information to consumers. He prefers IM over e-mail. "It's a way to get a quicker answer," he says.

And how do we help students make transitions to college and the world of work?:
 

"Nine to 5 has been replaced with 'Give me a deadline and I will meet your deadline,"' Kirah says of young people's work habits. "They're saying 'I might work until 2 a.m. that night. But I will do it all on my terms."'

Selling Out Parent Involvement

During the recent ASCD Conference at least one sold-out workshop focused on parent involvement. The Lessons Learned: Actively Engaging African American and Hispanic Parents" workshop led by Bre Peeler Sanders.

Sanders quickly found that the first critical question she had to resolve was "What exactly constitutes successful parental involvement?"

According to the blog entry,

"This led her to explain how educators define parent involvement."

Unfortunately, I did not have an opportunity to attend the conference and only have the above statement on which to rely. The posting shared how both African American and Hispanic parents responded to defining parent involvement. What was not apparant is the following question: How do we as educators define parent involvement?

National Board Certified Teacher Adds Accountability to Teacher Continuing Education

Minneapolis, MN March 21, 2006 –– State and Federal legislation has increased demands for teacher accountability over the last few years. Most notably, Federal No Child Left Behind legislation requires that all teachers be “highly qualified.” Professional development is a critical component for teachers to achieve the “highly qualified” status in the legislation. http://professionallearningboard.com [Professional Learning Board™] courses enable teachers to learn from master teachers while providing evidence of learning the course content.

Ms. Paxton, MEd, National Board Certified Teacher and company founder commented "I learned a lot going through the http://www.nbpts.org [National Board of Professional Teaching Standards] process. Providing these courses to my colleagues enables me to demonstrate my learning and holds me accountable for doing so." These same reasons are given by Paxton as to why teachers “love” the courses. Each certificate has a unique code which school personnel can validate automatically, at no cost and online through the Professional Learning Board web site.

Ninety-nine percent of teachers enrolled in online continuing education courses from Professional Learning Board have successfully demonstrated their learning and earned certification. After completing the courses, teachers must pass an online test with at least a 70% score in order to earn a certificate.

The Internet-based continuing education courses model best practices in online instruction while providing research-based and real-life strategies to improve student learning, in the classroom and online. Additionally, activities and downloadable resources reinforce teacher learning.  Ms. Paxton states “Our goal is to help teachers learn strategies and obtain resources that they can apply in their classrooms immediately to increase student performance.”

Teachers and schools have given accountability, Professional Learning Board and its courses an enthusiastic two-thumbs up. Over 90% of first-time customers say they would enroll in another course and public schools, districts and private schools recommend Professional Learning Board to their teachers.

A Teacher Teaching

“Who am I?” you ask.

“My name is Ellen”

“And what is it that you do?” you ask.

I smile and say, “I teach.” And add, “I’m also a mother and wife. Oh, and an entrepreneur too.”

“And what is it that you teach?” you ask.

“Aha! I know this,” and I say, “I teach children. And adults sometimes too.”

Content with my reply, I reflect upon our chat and I'm struck as I recognize:

I use teach as a verb describing what it is that I do as a teacher and nouns to describe who I am as a mother, wife and entrepreneur.

I ask myself:

"Why did I not state my tasks, roles or responsibilities? Does it matter whether I say, 'I teach.' or 'I am a teacher?'"

“Hello” I say. “My name is Ellen and I am a teacher.” 

Yes. It matters, to me. A teacher is who I am.

What's New is Old Again

Could it be that the human brain is morphing into something different and more powerful in children born starting in the late 20th century.

"One might even call it a "singularity" - an event which changes things so fundamentally that there is absolutely no going back.  This so-called "singularity" is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century."

Late 20th and early 21st century computer and communications technology has revolutionized and democratized the distribution and acquisition of information. When I grew up there was essentially one phone company, three TV networks [that stopped broadcasting at around 1 am] and a handful of national magazines. I remember the absurdity of thinking we would ever carry a telephone with us and when we did, it was aptly named a car phone and that's precisely where it was located most of the time. By mid-childhood we also had microwaves, music television (MTV) and VCRs.

In high school I learned to type on an IBM Selectric, for our younger teachers...this would be an antique machine called a typewriter. The following year, in college, I was required to use a computer to write and <gasp> send my reports (you're right, we still called them "papers").

Enough reminising. Students graduating high school in 2006 were, on average, born when I graduated from college. By the time they reached first grade, the public Internet had more than hit the scene. People logged into the Internet with dial-up modems at speeds of around 9.6-14.4k using large desktop computers that had approximately 100MB of storage.

Today, elementary and high school students carry cellular phones as small as the [fictional]communicator Captain Kirk carried in Star Trek, circa 1967. And, these phones do more than talk with an imaginary spaceship in orbit. Today's phones enable us to take pictures, surf the web, communicate via instant message, read and send email, record videos, watch TV, pay for stuff and play music. In fact, we have more computing power and speed in our cell phones than computers had in the early 1990s.

Oh yeh, we can also talk on them from virtually anywhere to anywhere for a tiny fraction of the cost of phone service back when there was only one phone company.

It's no wonder that 24/7 access and stimulation by technology and media has an impact on teaching and learning today.

According to Pew Internet research, 57% of U.S. children age 12-17 (or 12 million) create their own web content via blogs, web pages and more. This year's college grads are harnessing the Internet and communications technologies to create communities and personal networks unlike anything even the most outgoing among us could imagine.

Our challenge as teachers is to constantly learn and incorporate new ways of reaching our students. The good news is that best practice techniques from as far back as a century (or more) still have application with today's technologies. As Marty McFly in Back to the Future learned, what's new is old again.

A Journey Worth Taking

I invite you to learn about one of the best professional development experiences available in the teaching profession - National Board Certification!

National Board Certification challenged me to examine my own practice against the highest standards in the teaching profession. The process changed how I view and value teaching every day. It's a journey worth taking!