My post “Ability Grouping” is up at the Faculty Room. Go check it out, and while you’re there, read the other excellent posts.
Tag Archives: education
Moodle
Have any of you used Moodle? What do you think of it? What do you like about it? Please share your comments; I am thinking about using it, but I would like some more information from users first.
Thank You, Betsy
As my husband increasingly needs to use our home desktop for his own writing, I found that I did not have enough time to work effectively from home or to pursue my various interests. I am not faulting my husband — in fact , it is precisely because I wanted to be supportive and encouraging of his burgeoning career as a journalist that I curtailed my computer use at home. I decided the only thing to do was to save money for a laptop, and I also decided that if this blog or any other information I had provided had been useful, perhaps donors would be interested in helping me save. I have been sitting on this announcement because I haven’t really set any balls in motion yet, but it is my intention to apply to go back to school and earn an masters in Instructional Technology. Therefore, it became more necessary than ever that I have a computer, preferably a laptop, in order to pursue my studies.
Several people made generous contributions, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciated them. However, a reader of my husband’s work, Betsy, had a laptop she no longer used and decided to donate it to me. I am now the proud owner of an Apple iBook G3. I believe that this laptop will enable me to do anything I might need to do for school, and it was always my hope that I might indeed be able to purchase an Apple with my savings. I had a website that sold used Apples bookmarked, and I had been saving with the goal of purchasing a used Apple — more affordable to me than a new one — from this seller. However, Betsy’s generous donation made all of that unnecessary. Therefore, I would like to tell those of you who donated towards my laptop savings that you have two options: 1) allow me to use your donation for other items I need for my classroom (supplies, decorations, etc.), or 2) request a refund for your donation. If you donated, and I do not hear from you, I will assume it is OK to apply your donation to other classroom needs.
I want to highlight a website called DonorsChoose.org. If you are like Betsy, and you have an item you no longer use and wish to donate for educational purposes, please check out this site. You may find a teacher who needs exactly what you have, and you can be helping not just that teacher, but also his or her students with your donation. You can also choose to contribute funds towards purchasing the items the teachers need. Your gifts are tax-deductible. You can also look for teachers in your state so you know your gifts will benefit students close to home. Please check out their site for more information. I would have used the site to request help, but it is limited to public school teachers at this time, and I am currently teaching in a private school.
Thanks again, Betsy for your generosity. I can’t wait to get to work!
Georgia’s New Graduation Requirements
Georgia is making changes in its requirements for graduation that will go into effect beginning with next year’s ninth grade class (the class of 2012). What follows is a table I adapted from my daughter’s school counselor’s publication for high school transition:
| Current Rule | Proposed Rule |
| 4 tiers with different requirements: College Preparatory (CP), College Preparatory with Distinction (CP+), Technology/Career (TC), and Technology/Career with Distinction (TC+) | One common set of requirements for all students |
| 22 total Carnegie units required for CP and TC, 24 units required for CP+ and TC+ | 23 total Carnegie units required for all students |
| 4 units of English required for all students | 4 units of English required for all students |
| 4 units of math required for CP and CP+, 3 units of math required for TC and TC+ | 4 units of math required for all students |
| 3 units of science required for all students | 4 units of science required for all students (the 4th unit of science can be used to meet both science and elective requirements) |
| 3 units of social studies required for all students | 3 units of social studies required for all students, all courses are specifically identified |
| 1 unit of health/PE required for all students | 1 unit of health/PE required for all students; 3 units of JROTC may be used to meet the requirements |
| 1 unit of computer techology and/or fine arts and/or technology career preparatory and/or foreign language required for all students; 2 units of foreign language required for CP and CP+ students | 3 units required from CTAE and/or foreign language and/or fina arts; foreign language is not required for any student to graduate, whether CP or not |
| 5-6 additional elective units depending on tier (CP, CP+, TC, TC+) | 4 additional units of elective units for all students |
Basically, Georgia is doing away with Technology/Career diplomas and building one set of requirements for all Georgia graduates. I would like to know more before I criticize the new set of requirements, but I have to say that I’m not sure this is a good idea. Tech/Career prep programs often provided a good alternative for students who didn’t plan to go to college. I have the following questions:
- Do the new requirements mean that Georgia is doing away with TC-level academic classes? Back when I was teaching in public school, there were “Vocational track” classes for students who didn’t intend to go to college. Therefore, will students who don’t intend to go to college still take what are essentially CP-level academic classes?
- Students entering college will still have to have two units of foreign language in order to get into college. I understand that these units will have to come from the electives requirements. Will this be a problem for students who have to take foreign language? What do our colleges think of changing this requirement so that foreign language is no longer required for graduation?
- What do my peers currently teaching in Georgia public schools (or elsewhere for that matter) think of these changes?
You can check out this section of the Georgia DOE website for more information.
Blanche DuBois Syndrome
Yet another female English teacher has made the news after having sexual relations with sexually abusing a student.
I’ve written about this problem before, but it occurred to me that at the time, I didn’t mention one of the reasons I am concerned about the issue, as the post is centered around the larger and more important issue of child abuse. But… is it just me, or does it seem as though an inordinate number of female teachers who victimize male students are English teachers? Or do I just have that perception because I notice it more when the teacher is described as an English teacher? I mean, sheesh, I don’t want my profession to become the butt of jokes — “she was an English teacher, wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?”
Wikipedia’s article “Sexual harassment in education” has some interesting and appalling statistics.
Saving for a Laptop
I have begun saving for a new laptop, as I cannot find any teacher laptop initiatives at the current time. Until I have saved enough money to purchase a laptop, you will see a link at the bottom of my posts. If the spirit moves you, you can follow the link to help me save for a new laptop. By no means should you feel obligated to help, even if you have downloaded one of my free handouts or used free lesson plans. If I wanted to make this site a paid-content site or if I wanted to raise money through advertising, I would have done so by now. I haven’t ruled out offering exclusive content for a small fee, but that is some time down the road. A new link also appears in the sidebar to a page detailing the reasons why I am interested in buying a new laptop.
Thanks for reading. I am always amazed by the feedback I receive from my readers, and I truly appreciate being part of the edublogger community.
The Next Education President
I admit I am still a bit on the fence about who I plan to vote for in the presidential election. We still have plenty of time to decide. I will, however, be voting for the candidate who demonstrates he or she truly cares about education and is dedicated to improving education in America.
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(hat tip to The Daily Grind)
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As the parent of three children (two of whom are served by special education) in America’s public schools, I am concerned about the education my kids are receiving compared to the one I received.
I’ll share more in future posts.
What I’m Reading
If you haven’t happened upon Nick Senger’s blog Teen Literacy Tips, you need to check it out. Nick provides valuable content in every post. I am subscribed to his RSS feed through Bloglines, and I invariably bookmark his new posts so I can return to them when I have time (what’s that?).
I recently finished Making Classroom Assessment Work by Anne Davies (read the first edition rather than the updated second, which I linked). I read it as part of Blackboard Online class I took through a local public school system. Frankly, not much new here to anyone who has read Understanding by Design. If I can be allowed to vent for a minute, the reason I took the course in the first place is that I need six more SDU’s (PLU’s or whatever you call them where you live). I submitted my transcripts and all the necessary information to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, but they would not accept anything I had done since about 2004. I suppose I can understand why they might not want to accept professional learning I have participated in at my own school, even if I thought it was a valuable experience; however, I do not understand why they wouldn’t accept Mel Levine’s Schools Attuned. I worked extremely hard to earn the 4.5 PLU’s I earned for that course. I didn’t work a tenth as hard to earn the 2 PLU’s I just earned for reading Anne Davies’ book. If I had known Georgia was not going to accept the credits, I wouldn’t have worked so hard to finish the course online last year. Lesson learned. I will simply take a two-credit course online each year to meet my recertification requirements. At least I should then be assured that my courses will count for something. I have a non-renewable certificate that is good until the end of June, by which time I will have earned those six credits.
My husband sent me an article about a Wisconsin teacher arrested for praising the Columbine shooters on a blog. First of all, I’m not sure what the teacher said constitutes a threat, but to be fair, we’ve punished students for the same type of behavior. Second, once more we have a reminder that sarcasm does not travel well on the Internet, and it would probably be best to avoid it in any situation when it can be interpreted with any ambiguity. Third, and most important, teachers who post anonymously are not really anonymous; you can and might be found, and when that happens, you might be in trouble for what you say. In my opinion, the smarter and safer route seems to be to post openly and don’t say anything that you wouldn’t print on a billboard on the local interstate highway. Aren’t we also trying to teach our students that lesson? Finally, does this incident violate freedom of speech? I contend it does. If the remark was intended to be sarcastic, it missed the mark. If it wasn’t, it was incredibly ignorant, mean-spirited, and disrespectful. But I thought we had a right to be ignorant, mean-spirited, and disrespectful out loud in America. The teacher has learned a valuable lesson: Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui. He won’t be charged with a crime, but the district where he has taught since 1994 has not yet decided what to do about his job.
Time
I never have enough time to teach everything I want to teach — at least not the way I want to teach it. I have found myself frustrated this year after writing some very good UbD units, only to find I have to cut out parts in order to finish the work in the amount of time I have available. I have also had to contend with Jewish holidays, our peculiar school schedule, and shorter class periods. When I taught public school, each class period was at least 50 minutes long. My classes work out to be 45 minutes long each day (one day is a double period of 90 minutes, but we have class only four days of week, so the average is 45 minutes). Five minutes doesn’t seem like a lot, but over the course of a week, that’s an average of nearly a half hour. I just don’t feel as though I really do justice to some of the topics I teach as a result.
How do you cope with the time crunch?
The Best Laid Plans
Some weeks ago, I shared exciting news that my students were collaborating with a girls’ school in Israel on a joint wiki writing project. Just as we got our wikis off the ground, a teachers’ strike in Israel put our plans on hold. The strike has now lasted more than a month. If it is not resolved before the winter break in about three weeks, the project will be on hold indefinitely as my students will be writing a research paper from January to March.
I know that the teachers I am working with are saddened about this turn of events, and I think we all agree that the timing of our collaboration was unfortunate in light of the strike. However, I think our situation poses an interesting lesson for all of us who are interested in embarking upon global collaboration in our classrooms.
What do we do when the best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft a-gley?
And what does it say about the project that the kids are still chatting through the discussion area of the wiki and friending each other on Facebook even though the project is on hiatus?