PLAN is a 4-letter word. . .

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I’ve had a lot of irons on the fire lately, doctoral program, teaching the best class I’ve ever had, but that’s all changed.  My husband fell while visiting friends in his hometown in Mississippi.  It was a week before Christmas and we’ve been in the hospital ever since.  He is currently a paraplegic and we’re at a restorative center in Memphis (near OUR hometown) trying to get off the ventilator.  Then there will be time in a rehabilitation center to try and get more mobility.  While we are all hopeful, there have been many setbacks and the whole process has been somewhat discouraging to say the least.

Not surprisingly, I have a whole new outlook on planning.  The plans for our family are tenuous.  There are worries about tuition, bills, money in general.  I have accumulated over 100 sick days, so I am able to stay here, in the hospital.  Since he is currently unable to talk, I feel that it is important to be here 24/7.  Doctors show up at all hours of the day and night and their lipreading skills are sketchy at best.  The nurses are doing better at figuring out what he needs/wants, but I’m still the expert.

The garden has strawberry patches that need tending and there are no stryfoam cups filled with dirt and seeds on the kitchen table.  That will all have to wait for those days that I can drive home to Ripley.  So far, they are few and far between.  I was home about 3 weeks ago to set up an aquarium I had received for my classroom through donorschoose.org.  I wish I could have been there to see the kids when the plants and animals were put in.  I know they are enjoying it and I am so thankful for the wonderful teachers and assistants who have been looking after them (children and aquarium creatures).

The generosity of the our community has been overwhelming.  We have had money, cards, visits, favors, calls, e-mails, Starbucks cards, snacks, toiletries, Facebook messages and more every day.  Friends are watching the house, delivering the mail and caring for the outdoor cats.  Our indoor cats have been put in foster care with our daughter (unbeknown to her landlord) and she has enjoyed their company.  Since we’re in Memphis, the kids can visit frequently without missing work or school (all 3 of them have jobs as well as college).

While none of this was anticipated, we’re muddling through.  The real disappointments come when I come up with the slightest thought of a plan: a walk upstairs to do laundry, a decrease on the ventilator, eating lunch – none of these seem to work out.  From now on, all is spontaneous.  PLAN is a dirty word I shall not use.  EVER.

A New Toy for Blogging

Well, it’s probably just new to ME, but Zemanta is a lovely add-on for Firefox which provides images, links and articles related to whatever you are posting. It all shows up in a sidebar as you work.  The appropriate citations seem to be

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linked in too, so there’s less fear of upsetting someone’s copyrighted material.  I just started using this 10 minutes ago, but I think we’re going to have a long, happy relationship!

Let’s Give ‘em Something to Blog About

Plinky

Need something to blog about?  Plinky may have the answer.  Like my favorite quickie daily inspiration, oneword.com, Plinky.com offers daily ideas for topics to blog about.  Of course teachers will find them useful to inspire students.  The

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prompt listed today suggests using third person to describe the scariest moment in your life.  Me?  I’ve got a humdinger about discovering that I had a fear of heights, AFTER I had reached the top of the Duomo in Italy.  Really bad timing!

Never a Dull Moment

Although it’s been a while since I’ve posted on THIS blog, I’ve been a busy girl.  I am always amazed at all of the new tech resources I discover every day.  This morning I’ve discovered/re-visited 3 fantastic resources:

TEFL Clips calling itself “a site dedicated to the possibilities for YouTube and other video sharing sites in the classroom. Every week a new lesson plan will be uploaded” this site is informative and insightful.  There is a great description of how to load youtube videos to itunes so you can use them in the classroom (where youtube is strictly verboten).  The lessons are useful and clever and include a lesson plan, student worksheets and video clip information.   This is definitely a site to be bookmarked and returned to over and over.

Ed Galaxy, A Cool Site for Nerdy Teachers speaks my language.  His MindMap is a wonderful example how to put fascinating tool to good use.  I found the TEFL site from here.  Check out the “Top Posts” section.  There are great ideas and tools for genuine technology integration.  So much to explore!

Kim Cofino offers a presentation called “Hardware is not Enough” which describes how a Technology Coach and a classroom teacher can create genuine integration of technology in the classroom.

What a wonderful way to spend a rainy Sunday morning!  It’s been a very enlightening couple of hours.  I’m very thankful to be able to advantage of everything these wonderful techies have to offer.

Christmas before Halloween

Oh lookie, there’s a present under the pumpkin! What could it be? It’s Domo Animate! Kevin H. sent this lovely little demo through the Tech friends Ning. Follow the link and have a look.

DomoNation.com: A gathering of Tech Friends by dogtrax

Like it? Create your own at DomoNation.com. It’s free and fun!

Blogging to Learn

Pontydysgu – Bridge to Learning gives a great guide for using blogs in education. There are additional links for further information.

Lifehacker and Easy Peasy

I enjoyed the presentation Ben Davis gave at UT-Martin yesterday.  He always has so much to share!  He off-handedly referred to Lifehacker.com and of course, I’ve already found lots of interesting stuff there.  I’ve visited before but had forgotten about the smorgesbord of information about everything from preserving herbs to making shelves to nice little downloads like Easy Peasey.
“Easy Peasy aims to require little or no additional tweaking or app installation beyond what you first get. Right out of the box, you can browse the web, organize media, watch flash video, and more. Easy Peasy includes Firefox, Pidgin, Skype, Transmission BitTorrent Client, Open Office, Banshee Media Player, Picasa, Cheese Webcam Booth, and the Open Office Suite, among other free and open-source tools.”

I’m thinking of getting a netbook, so it’s nice to have some options to whatever comes with my sweet new machine!  Thanks Linux.  Thanks Lifehacker.  Thanks Ben!

Presentation Information UTM 9/12/09

In my neverending efforts to keep myself from losing things that I’d like to keep track of by putting them on this blog, I offer some of the links I used in today’s presentation regarding Blogging and Voicethread: Give students a reason to write and an audience.
Parent information letters from Bud the Teacher
New Zealand Student Bloggers
Room 24 Colorado
Mrs. Heaton’s Class, South Carolina
Mr. Smith’s 4th grade, Hannibal, MO
There are many more terrific education/classroom blog examples in the world. Google them. Check on wordpress. Follow the links offered by the educators above. The possibilities are endless. Educators are a creative, innovative bunch of people! Hooray!
A few free blogging options:
WordPress.com
Edublog.org
Blogger.com
Xanga.com

Kevin Hodgson highlights student creations on

his blog.  The create a variety of different movies

throughout the year.

Mike’s Grade Fives offers examples of students and teacher carrying on educational discussions via their collaborative blog.

For a terrific collection of different Voicethread ideas, please scroll down to the Voicethread entry or click here.

Making Techno Books with Children

Creating books with students is always a terrific experience. They enjoy the process of creating their own publication as well as the product. Here are some terrific ways to use technology to create books with children from Farr-Out Links to Learning. I can’t wait to try them with some children I know!

If you can type, you can make a movie.

That’s the slogan for Xtranormal.com. This looks like a FANTASTIC tool to help students publish their dialogue, stories and writing. Users choose the setting, the characters, ambient background noise and music and just type in the dialogue and poof! Instant movie! What a great way to motivate my wee writers or writers of any size!

Voicethread: K-12 examples

Voicethread offers wonderful opportunities for students to share, collaborate, write, practice speaking and learn. Colette Cassinelli has created a wonderful wiki packed with examples from each grade level as well as resources for how to get started. I was delighted to see Voicethreads from Kindergarten including student artwork. Directions are provided for a variety of different methods. Watch these. Try one yourself and, if you like, you can upload your example to this wonderful wiki.

Technology Projects for Students preK-12

Kim Cofino offers a variety of ideas on how to integrate technology into classroom lessons and learning in an imaginative (yet very doable) way. I plan to include Voicethreads in my classroom this year but never thought about posting photos of plant growth for student response. Her suggestions (actually they are examples of what real classrooms have done) demonstrate the many ways technology can help motivate student response, assist with pre- and post-assessment, and connect students with each as well as students throughout the world. These are terrific projects worth adapting for any classroom.

Web Quest anyone?

I like web quests to familiarize my 2nd graders with some of the tools and information available on the internet. It’s great to have some to choose from/adapt for the purpose at hand. Here is a nice collection of web-based projects from the University of Richmond to get started with.

And another thing. . .

I need to thank Sue Waters for is the Clustr Map I’ve just added at the bottom of the widgets (I’ll move it up when I get some red dots). I’ve always wanted a Clustr Map but didn’t know how to get one. Now, thanks to Sue Waters, you do too. Ain’t blogging grand?
Update: I’ve got some dots! The Clustr Map is right on top thanks again to Sue from down under!

Mistakes

Sue Waters has a handy-dandy top five list of common blogging mistakes. I wish I’d read this BEFORE I started blogging. Since I’ve been proselytizing about blogging lately, I thought it might be nice to warn my converts. Consider yourself warned. You are are now free to make the same mistakes, learn from them and rest assured that I would NEVER say “I told you so” because well, I can hardly remember what I said 15 minutes ago much less. . . What was I talkin’ about?
Blog! Make mistakes! Blog some more! Forget to blog for a while. Redeem yourself by blogging again!
And by the way, under #4 blogging mistake regarding pingbackNOW I know what a pingback is! Thank you Sue Waters!

Twitter Goes to School?

David Warlick just tweeted about iTweet,a site where you can check your Twitter account from school. Well, I’m at home so I can’t check if it works right now, but I’m clapping my hands and shouting “I do believe in fairies, I do, I do!” as Peter Pan has oft requested. (Love the Pan Man)
I’m not much of a tweeter, but I’ve been following some really smart folks on twitter. One of my frustrations has been not being able to check it at school. While my daughter tweets from her phone, I’m not quite willing to go there. itweet.net does not keep all your tweets, but it does allow you to check on recent tweets from school (I hope).
I’ve been trying to convince the superintendent to start tweeting. If this really works, it should seal the deal! Thanks David (said with familiarity even though you’re a complete stranger).

Google Earth Lessons

I love Google Earth! It’s such a cool toy. Here’s a great site that not only helps you get started, with some how-to help, but it also includes lessons to turn this great toy into a fantastic educational tool! I’ll be incorporating Google Earth in an even more productive way thanks to Google Earth Lessons. Don’t forget to check out the blog and other pages at this site. It’s chock full of resources!

Alleviating Zoo Guilt – Zoo Borns

ZooBorns contains photos of all different types of baby animals from zoos and aquariums all over the world. The pictures are priceless and the captions are very informative, e.g., an adorable baby owl is described as being very capable of attacking humans. How preciously dangerous! What a great way to prepare for a trip to the zoo, research life cycles and share a respect for captive animals.

DoGo News

Oh yeah! All the news that’s fit to be read by children! The editors of this site include children and adults. One of the editors is a 14-year-old whose claim to fame is his great duct tape ties! This would be a nice safe homepage for your classroom desk top. I’ll be asking my student of the day to choose their favorite “news” story to report on. This could be a great idea generator for writing and research. These may not be the current headlines, but they are definitely news.

G-mail Accounts for Students

I have not tried this myself, yet. I would check the acceptable use policy at your school before putting this into use. The method came from one of the groups I belong to:An additional description of this method comes from Kim Cofino who suggests using this for elementary students.

Gmail for Student Accounts

The problem that many teachers face when having students create user accounts for web applications is that most applications require a valid e-mail address to create the account. There is a solution that I learned from Alice Mercer about harnessing Gmail to create “fake” accounts that applications will recognize as legitimate.

Create a legitimate gmail account at http://mail.google.com/. (e.g. username@gmail.com). Then, you can use that base account to “trick” web applications that require e-mail address to create user accounts. The way it works is that you add a + and a student name/alias after the gmail user name (e.g. username+sara@gmail.com, username+tom@gmail.com, username+chris@gmail.com, etc.)

The web applications will recognize those addresses as real e-mail addresses, but students never see an inbox. They cannot send nor receive e-mail because you haven’t actually created an e-mail account for them; they don’t have a password to sign into Gmail. Any e-mail (i.e. registration confirmations, etc.) that are sent to the username+name@gmail accounts will be delivered to the Gmail inbox that only you can access.

I have used this to register students for blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 applications. The one catch is that it does not work when registering students for Google applications, like Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Notebook, etc.

Here are those instructions as steps:

1. Create a legitimate Gmail account at http://mail.google.com/. (e.g. username@gmail.com).
2. Add a + and a student name/alias after the Gmail user name (e.g. username+sara@gmail.com, username+tom@gmail.com, username+chris@gmail.com, etc.)
3. Start registering students for web applications
4. Check the inbox of your Gmail account periodically