Today -
Need to teach a new reading lab lesson, get together with V about student teaching, put together quizzes and reading guides for upcoming chapters, make a few phone calls to parents, enter a whole bunch of grades, and contemplate some writing assignments. Well, that's more of a laundry list, but I'd better hop to it.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Busy Day
So I need to update lots of grades, post next week's schedule, run a reading lab PSAE lesson, read ahead in Jurassic Park, call a few parents, and figure out how to bring more writing into the next few weeks. I'm definitely feeling a bit tired by now. February is a long month...
V is back from a few days' sickness and has piles of grading, too. Poor kid. Also, integrating the technology is a bit tough - though it simplifies grade recording and entry a lot! We need some head to head time, too. But in covering this week, I've fallen behind so it's tough to pull it all together. Well, I think I'll put grades in as first priority and make calls this afternoon.
Right now, I better grab coffee and get ready for reading lab.
BTW, some snags getting Vision up and running with the library. Also, looked at the new grade book and I'm told it will never, under any circumstances import grades. Great. So we have a content server on one hand providing assignments and scooping in grades. We have another asking us for the grades. But they can't talk?
Gotta get to work.
V is back from a few days' sickness and has piles of grading, too. Poor kid. Also, integrating the technology is a bit tough - though it simplifies grade recording and entry a lot! We need some head to head time, too. But in covering this week, I've fallen behind so it's tough to pull it all together. Well, I think I'll put grades in as first priority and make calls this afternoon.
Right now, I better grab coffee and get ready for reading lab.
BTW, some snags getting Vision up and running with the library. Also, looked at the new grade book and I'm told it will never, under any circumstances import grades. Great. So we have a content server on one hand providing assignments and scooping in grades. We have another asking us for the grades. But they can't talk?
Gotta get to work.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Nine Minutes
All I can give myself is nine minutes. It seems long gone are the days when I could try out any new initiatives. I'm just trying to keep the novel going and stay ahead of the kids with study guides and quizzes. Ay yi yi. I'd like to try out the team game with CPS for a review of the third iteration. But I'd need to plug in all the questions tonight. What are the odds?
I'm meeting about eSchoolPlus tomorrow to see how the teacher interface works. I'm not a big fan of the Sunguard software that we use now, so it's a bit ironic that I would pilot it. Nonetheless... I will. So I need a sub for the morning, I need to be ready to duck out to do a quick reading lab at the tail end of the presentation, I need to connect with V if she's in tomorrow (which will make sub-plans simpler), I need a Third Iteration Quiz (which would be the same question bank as the game if I ever pull it off). Hey, if I don't pull off the game it means I don't have a question bank which means I don't have a quiz! So then I'm really in trouble. Also, no study guide questions for pages 181-197. Geez, do I do anything around here? Ok, so I got grades updated today and taught and made materials and all that... Late start day, too, and we watched a demo of Noodle Tools. I liked one of the NoodleTools links on visual literacy. Where's that been my whole life... But really, I haven't done anything with vislit for about a year and a half. Seems like there ought to be more time in a day.
Off to pick up all the kids so gotta run. I never mention what I read on the Blog. Wonder why? I mean, it's tangentially related to education so really would fit on the site. Maybe I'll start next time. Michael Pollan - The Botany of Desire. But only for another day or so...
Later
I'm meeting about eSchoolPlus tomorrow to see how the teacher interface works. I'm not a big fan of the Sunguard software that we use now, so it's a bit ironic that I would pilot it. Nonetheless... I will. So I need a sub for the morning, I need to be ready to duck out to do a quick reading lab at the tail end of the presentation, I need to connect with V if she's in tomorrow (which will make sub-plans simpler), I need a Third Iteration Quiz (which would be the same question bank as the game if I ever pull it off). Hey, if I don't pull off the game it means I don't have a question bank which means I don't have a quiz! So then I'm really in trouble. Also, no study guide questions for pages 181-197. Geez, do I do anything around here? Ok, so I got grades updated today and taught and made materials and all that... Late start day, too, and we watched a demo of Noodle Tools. I liked one of the NoodleTools links on visual literacy. Where's that been my whole life... But really, I haven't done anything with vislit for about a year and a half. Seems like there ought to be more time in a day.
Off to pick up all the kids so gotta run. I never mention what I read on the Blog. Wonder why? I mean, it's tangentially related to education so really would fit on the site. Maybe I'll start next time. Michael Pollan - The Botany of Desire. But only for another day or so...
Later
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
So the story continues..
Sorry for the month off (me). I don't think that the time saved by not blogging was necessarilly of equivalent value. In other words, it was a mistake to take time off. The blog as to-do list is useful, even when it's painful to look at.
As I mentioned, I have a student teacher now, which will free up a bit of time after a bit - though in the early stages there's a lot of tet-a-tet daily interaction that is needed. Teaching Jurassic Park for the first time requires a lot of basic maintenance - writing study guide questions and quiz questions, etc. I'm behind on grading study guides and just getting the quizzes out as I go. My goal within this unit is to work on writing skills, but I can't even get the pretests coded! My short term goals include making an interactive "catch-up" assignment to review the story so far, reviewing and revising their old paragraphs, writing a mid-term paragraph assignment, designing a post-JP research paper, and finding a system for evaluating writing to measure change. I have a day out on Thursday for tech stuff, so I can only plan some kind of activity tomorrow or Friday. Tomorrow is ideal. In order to run that, though, I'd need to have study guide questions and quiz questions ready to go and that means working through the periods today. OK. So get tomorrow's quiz and study guide done. Then - create a review activity for tomorrow. In the background - get caught up on study guides and paragraphs.
Break!
As I mentioned, I have a student teacher now, which will free up a bit of time after a bit - though in the early stages there's a lot of tet-a-tet daily interaction that is needed. Teaching Jurassic Park for the first time requires a lot of basic maintenance - writing study guide questions and quiz questions, etc. I'm behind on grading study guides and just getting the quizzes out as I go. My goal within this unit is to work on writing skills, but I can't even get the pretests coded! My short term goals include making an interactive "catch-up" assignment to review the story so far, reviewing and revising their old paragraphs, writing a mid-term paragraph assignment, designing a post-JP research paper, and finding a system for evaluating writing to measure change. I have a day out on Thursday for tech stuff, so I can only plan some kind of activity tomorrow or Friday. Tomorrow is ideal. In order to run that, though, I'd need to have study guide questions and quiz questions ready to go and that means working through the periods today. OK. So get tomorrow's quiz and study guide done. Then - create a review activity for tomorrow. In the background - get caught up on study guides and paragraphs.
Break!
Welcome Back
Okay, so it's been a long time. And I've gone and privatized the Blog, which I think is the worst thing ever. I've got 1/2 a mind to undo that move. My student teacher did it and then I thought, well, nobody ever comes anyway... so why take a chance on somebody getting upset or something about what's posted here. But I think the benefit of an open society outweighs the potential for personal offense or embarrassment. The ability to search the inner-thinking of others might be essential to rapid expansion of a knowledge-base. Though blogs can be faulted for being unpolished, it is the unselfconsciousness of the media that allows people to postulate and experiment with ideas publicly without the pretense or presumption of expertise. In my case, I'm working on experiments on a small scale using new but relatively unsophisticated software. Ideally, I'd come across others doing something similar and we'd share information. However, since it's new and there's not a large profit-incentive, there's probably a small and unprofessional group of people working at my level or a close proximate. Since none of us is likely to publish the "Small Scale data collection and so what if we did" manifesto, the only conceivable way to meet so far would be to blog and leave our blogs open to the searches of others. Perhaps from there we form a community and make some serious progress.
So, I've convinced myself to open this back up. The drawbacks, I think, are the possibility that students and parents and community would stumble on this blog, or at least I guess that's the thinking. Teachers are private citizens with unique public personae and must follow some unscripted rules. I couldn't (and wouldn't) talk about specific students or even events from class that would seem unprofessional, so that's not really a concern. I might say - period 7 shows a 4% gain from... to .... but that's not something I think that could offend the masses.
Also, it's funny to think it, but I probably can't let the public Mr. Moore express political views because this posting is about my teaching experiences and research. I would venture to say that I could (in theory) create a very political blog as Stephen Moore - resident of the world. Luckily, I don't really want to do that, so who cares that it would lead to controversy. I will say, however, that it's insane that many courts have decided that becoming a teacher in the public life means that I have given up my right to the freedom of speech in my private life. For the purposes of this blog, however, that's neither here nor there.
So I think my biggest concern, and the reason I went private for all of one day, is that I'm honest about my day to day accomplishments and failings and such information could be used against me. That is, I type things like - "I finished that quiz, but still need to grade all those paragraphs. I really need to catch up on grading" and a person could say - "See, that teacher admits himself to being delinquint in his response to student writing...." I'll even say things like - these absences are killing me - which implies that my teaching and research is compromised by the ongoing sickness of one of my children. Well... They are. C'est la vie. The degree to which we engage with any one thing affects the resources that we can devote to all other enterprises. Everyone with a family who also exercises is selling quality time with his mate and/or kids in order to serve his own well being. I'm not criticizing that decision - just opening it up for comparison. The fitness buff who replies - "by exercising I have more health and energy to share with my family" has made my case for me. When I know all is well with my family, I can serve my students with peace of mind and without resentment. Similarly, it gives me a more compassionate mindset for working with students. As the business of school is secondary to the care of my family, the business of today's assignment is secondary to understaning and meeting the complex needs of my very unique students.
So, that's my defense for unprivatizing the blog...
In the next entry I'll actually blog...
So, I've convinced myself to open this back up. The drawbacks, I think, are the possibility that students and parents and community would stumble on this blog, or at least I guess that's the thinking. Teachers are private citizens with unique public personae and must follow some unscripted rules. I couldn't (and wouldn't) talk about specific students or even events from class that would seem unprofessional, so that's not really a concern. I might say - period 7 shows a 4% gain from... to .... but that's not something I think that could offend the masses.
Also, it's funny to think it, but I probably can't let the public Mr. Moore express political views because this posting is about my teaching experiences and research. I would venture to say that I could (in theory) create a very political blog as Stephen Moore - resident of the world. Luckily, I don't really want to do that, so who cares that it would lead to controversy. I will say, however, that it's insane that many courts have decided that becoming a teacher in the public life means that I have given up my right to the freedom of speech in my private life. For the purposes of this blog, however, that's neither here nor there.
So I think my biggest concern, and the reason I went private for all of one day, is that I'm honest about my day to day accomplishments and failings and such information could be used against me. That is, I type things like - "I finished that quiz, but still need to grade all those paragraphs. I really need to catch up on grading" and a person could say - "See, that teacher admits himself to being delinquint in his response to student writing...." I'll even say things like - these absences are killing me - which implies that my teaching and research is compromised by the ongoing sickness of one of my children. Well... They are. C'est la vie. The degree to which we engage with any one thing affects the resources that we can devote to all other enterprises. Everyone with a family who also exercises is selling quality time with his mate and/or kids in order to serve his own well being. I'm not criticizing that decision - just opening it up for comparison. The fitness buff who replies - "by exercising I have more health and energy to share with my family" has made my case for me. When I know all is well with my family, I can serve my students with peace of mind and without resentment. Similarly, it gives me a more compassionate mindset for working with students. As the business of school is secondary to the care of my family, the business of today's assignment is secondary to understaning and meeting the complex needs of my very unique students.
So, that's my defense for unprivatizing the blog...
In the next entry I'll actually blog...
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