Teachers' Lounge

Minimalism to the max

Sickening

Eye opening

Revealing/and-or/disturbing

Definitely disturbing

I'm excited too!

I'm excited to find a third grade teacher blogging about issues of concern to me... Mark's edtechblog - thoughts on technology from a third grade teacher in Seattle, Washington.

And, I'm excited to read why Mark is is so excited. Mark is excited because The Random Thoughts of Louis Schmier is now a blog.

Exciting, isn't it?

Okay, that came off a bit flip, but, um, I couldn't help myself. Seriously, I am excited.

Manage your classroom

I ran across this site this morning. Haven't had a chance to look at everything, but I do like what I've seen so far. I like the green wallpaper, too. Ms. Powell’s Management Ideas for Teacher

I noticed that the Amazon ads (left side of page) are targeted towards me, based on, apparently, what I've recently viewed on Amazon's site. So when you visit, check the ads on the left and see if they're targeted to you. (Assuming you've been to Amazon, and who hasn't?)

Been there

I was looking forward to giving these educators a civic tour of cyberspace, including YouTube and several social networking sites. But when I clicked the link to the “macaca” video, a message appeared on my screen, informing me I was trying to access content that has been deemed “inappropriate.”

The room went totally silent for a moment, then erupted in laughter. Here we were, a group of educators participating in a professional development seminar trying to discuss the role that Web 2.0 sites can play in civic education - at a presidential library, no less - and we were denied access to the information and tools we needed to have that discussion. My hosts at the library did their best to override the filters, but no one could figure out how to do it. I literally had to pantomime some of the video clips to give them a sense of what I was going to show them - and obviously, I couldn’t do any of them justice. One teacher then offered a tip to the group: if you ever get blocked, ask your students for help - they can show you a number of ways to get around the filter and access YouTube.

I never thought I would hear that - a teacher openly advocating to her colleagues that they should ask their students for best practices on how to violate school policies.

Read the whole thing... Do Internet Filters Undermine the Teaching of 21st Century Citizenship?

Note to LCPS - Please unblock Google Images.

streaming consciousness

Tiny brown ants (Oh, Ant of Destiny!) are crawling, no, swarming over my two habanero plants and there on the ground are five still-born still green pepper pods and not one to waste valuable foodstuffs I grab a large pot and dump into it a cup of olive oil and a couple cans of chili tomatoes and a can of chicken broth and one still frozen chicken breast and the five habaneros and a couple onions and some carrots and some crushed garlic and then I discover four frozen sausage patties so I throw them in and then I run to the garden and pick nine sage leaves and tear each into three pieces (because I'm really getting into numbers these days, today being 8/5/07, the current time is 4:15 a.m. and I'm trying like hell to finish this post but I keep finding bugs) and I throw them in and I bubble and stir and add some smoke seasoning and some balsamic vinegar and a big splash of lemon juice and now there's too much liquid so I toss in a can of tomato paste, a bag of lentils and the remaining half bag of brown rice and I bubble and stir and I know this is going to take a couple hours so I sit down with my just-purchased Take It to Your Seat learning centers (Literacy, Math, Phonics, Writing, Vocabulary) and I'm cutting and laminating and shooing Artis (one of three) off my newly Feng Shuied kitchen table and I'm listening to Keith Jarrett's Radiance and I'm thinking how Wabi-Sabi will come in real handy the next few months. As will the dollar store.

Two-and-a-half hours later... I've made five learning centers, while bubbling and stirring and crying habaneros and taking a work break and I'm reading Jeff Berg's article and my habanero tears get mixed up with the other kind and I dash off a Bravo! to Jeff and I don't mention the fact that he never did speak with Little Coches and so I'm left with the hope that This American Life buys into my pitch because I don't want to be the only person on the planet who's discovered Little Big WoMan living right here in my fair city, Las Cruces, and the people at This American Life said it might be six months before I hear back and so I'm girding my loins and guarding my lions and shuffling my deck.

An hour later... the food is simply wonderful. I freeze the rest for school lunches. I consider watching a movie, or playing Castlevania, but I instead drop into bed and I'm talking to Little Coches who's making big roll sandwiches behind a lunch counter and I ask her how she's been and she says real good and she really does look good, younger and healthier than I remember, and I get an idea, because she's fixing these really good looking sandwiches, so I ask her if I can take some of her sandwiches and jack up the price and sell them in the mall and give her the profit, and she says she'd really like me to just stick around and help her clean up the place. And I wake up at 12:30 this morning and I have a lot on my plate... do my weights, water the vegetables, sketch the waning moon (I'm keeping a visual record), clean the litter box, do some yoga, lower my cholesterol, raise my kundalini, pull some weeds, get on the net, and then, while I'm on the net and trying like hell to finish up this post, I remember I still haven't delved into Scott McLeod's mind, so I browse his top posts and I particularly like what he has to say in narrowcasting and my mind jumps the track and I really need to upgrade my mojo cause my Mac is now 10 years old and I don't even have a podcast yet and tell Faylee I'm still trying to catch that butterfly and I wonder if my phone will ever ring again.