Nov
22
2009
Twittering, podcasting, blogging, posting, reading, researching, keeping up with the news and sports, finding and communicating with friends, making new friends, buying and selling, comparing, writing, mashing, googling, binging, banking, investing, learning, sharing…. While reading my tweets today, I was reminded how much is available to us through technology. Take a few minutes to view a few of these links:
Nov
08
2009
Project Gutenberg is an Internet site that allows you without cost to read online or download (to your computer, iPod, Kindle or other device) over 30,000 ebooks. The books are ones whose copyrights have expired. There are other sites listed here http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Partners,_Affiliates_and_Resources and libraries like one of the oldest at the University of Virginia that also offer this resource.
How long as it been since you have read Goethe’s Faust or another classic? There is no need to leave the comfort of your home; just visit one of the sites to read it online or download it.
Sep
27
2009
Although we have PC’s at work, I am an Apple person at home. My latest discovery is a drawing program for my Mac called Seashore, available as a free download from SourceForge. No artist am I, but I have had such fun exploring the program and making my first drawing.
scenic view
The PC’s at school have drawing programs such as Paint and FireWorks, for which we have a site license. Imagine the creativity you can unleash in your students by allowing them to use the technology available to enhance their assignments.
Jun
14
2009
As a parent and an educator, I am outraged at the lack of common sense exhibited by the Virginia Department of Education in its refusal to grant a waiver to the SOL requirements to Ms. Lauren Cootes at Frank W. Cox High School in Virginia Beach. Please read the following article if you are unaware of the situation involving her illness and inability to take an SOL test. “Give the girl her diploma.” Does anyone at VDOE have any common sense? Is there no compassion in Richmond? What in the world is wrong with educated people in power that they have no ability to use common sense in an exceptional situation?
Congratulations to Kerry Dougherty of the Virginian-Pilot for shedding light on this travesty. SOL standards have been established to ensure that our graduating seniors have a minimum amount of knowledge as they leave our high schools; certainly this is not the case here. I have asked the governor to please “use [his] influence to overturn the decision made by some idiot in the Virginia Department of Education. Failure to graduate Lauren Cootes from Frank W. Cox High School would be a mockery of what we in education expect of our students.”
Jun
14
2009
It is a busy time of year for all of us in education; but it is difficult to believe that it has been almost a month since my last post. The last weeks have been filled with a variety of activities including:
prepping for SOL tests and enduring the testing process (ongoing, as we are in the midst of expedited testing);
identifying, moving, and surveying 56 old computers, cleaning up the tables for the new ones; receiving the new computers, getting them to the proper locations, and continuing to set them up — they arrived with Office 2003, so now they need 2007 installed on all of them;
coordinating the Awards Assembly for our student body, fortunately with a co-chair and a great committee;
and finally, preparing for the new Renaissance Academy with new orders arriving almost daily, where each box must be opened, verified, resealed, and put in storage, and working on the Web site for the new school.
Developing the Web site reminded me of ways to integrate technology. The new Web site has an embedded Animoto short video of pictures taken with my Blackberry Storm after a tour of the new building under construction; free technology online is engaging — capture the attention of your students with a short Animoto video to introduce a lesson! One of the treasures here is the ability to integrate technology with little work or time involved on your part; or better yet, have your students take the pictures and create the video! I also worked with the new Renaissance Academy logo in FireWorks 8, a powerful program for editing graphics; our school has a site license of an older version, which is still very powerful.
