So I Don't Know Everything

It's true! I should feel happy that my bosses (yes, I have more than one of 'em) mostly feel like I do know everything, but I don't. Take today for example. Our district offers free college credits for graduate classes that we offer in our district through a college. This is a wonderful form of staff development for our staff because we get to push topics that we want them to learn by offering them as courses, and our teachers get a free college credit while learning right along with their colleagues.
The problem? I am not in the least prepared to teach a class that I am supposed to teach beginning this Thursday! The class is on utilizing a Promethean board in the classroom. I was planning on teaching it with another tech consultant, but the enrollment isn't high enough to warrant two instructors. I was relying heavily on his expertise. Yikes!
Therefore, I am cramming tonight, and will be for the next two nights on Promethean skills!
Calling all readers: I will HAPPILY accept any and all links to resources for ActivStudio!
Note: This post contains an unusually large number of exclamation points! I thought about editing some out, but then you wouldn't feel my desperation!

Promethean Planet Widget
I found this nifty widget to post on my iGoogle page that shows the latest flipcharts posted on Promethean Planet.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

We completed our fall parent/teacher conferences this evening. I heard a few teachers say that there seemed to be a decrease in attendance. They were speculating that the web access to grades was probably the reason. Could it be that conferences will one day a thing of the past? This school year, we plan to email report cards. Seems sad to me that the student doesn't get the opportunity to rip open that envelope to see those grades. And what about all the community activities tied to bringing in a report card to get free video rentals, ice cream cones, etc? Times, they are a changin'!

Scriblink
I had fun this evening playing with Scriblink in between visiting with parents about that online grade access. Scriblink is an online whiteboard that allows many to interact. There is a built in equation editor, a chat feature, and the ability to print, save, or send files. Very straight forward and easy to use. Excellent for online or IDL classes.

I Have to Blog Today

I have to blog today! It was my goal at the beginning of the year to blog five days a week. I have missed two days in a row! I don't like it when I don't meet self-imposed goals. I need to get a better system so that I can blog even when the waves of work come crashing down on me as soon as I enter the school building!

Today's sites are online photo editors. Some fun, free stuff!

Dumpr

Upload a photo, choose cool effects at dumpr, including rubik's cube, photo-to-sketch, photos-inside-a-photo, or reflection, then save, print, email, blog or add to your social media account. A few of the effects are available for only for pro accounts.

FlauntR
Create photo frames, borders, digital scrapbooks, ecards, greeting cards, or invitations using photo filters, lighting, overlays and textures. FlauntR also has web storage for your photos. Upload all of your photos at once using Picasa, or one at a time. Options for photo printing available. Integrates with Facebook and others.

LunaPic

My son and I had tons of fun the other night with LunaPic. LunaPic lets you spice up your photos with their online photo editing tools in the form of a toolbar. Add cool animations like color change, reflections, or transitions to your images. The best thing is you can add an unlimited number of animations. Sign up for an account and get to share your artwork with friends or save it on your computer and start a collection.

What I Have Learned So Far

Wow! I didn't think that my wallflower post would get ANY comments, and I got five. Who'da thunk? I didn't write it for the responses, but I am so grateful for them. I got valuable advice from each one, and such encouragement that validates what I am doing. Now I am just craving more advice and tidbits!
Two years ago I attended the Laptop Institute held at Lausanne Collegiate School in Memphis. The keynote speaker was David Warlick. It was so awesome to hear him speak in his keynote address, and even more thrilling that he led a couple of smaller sessions. That summer was really my induction to the blogging world...the world of web 2.0, really.
From that conference, I have gained confidence in trying out new tools and sharing them with others. It took a couple years, but I finally figured out that I could use the tools to share them! Since that first experience at the Laptop Institute, I have sought out great bloggers. I learn new things every day from the many posts I read. Thank you all for helping me learn!

More blogs I read:
WNY Education Associates Blog
I have been following Angela Stockman for a few months on Twitter. She is the director of WNY Education Associates, a group that specializes in literacy coaching, writer's studios, and professional development.

ITLC
Integrating Technology in Teaching and Learning is a blog by Skip Zalneraitis, an English teacher from New Hampshire. He found me or I found him on Twitter a few months ago. I love his wake up tweet every morning, but love more the practical ideas and resources he shares in his blog.

The Connected Classroom
This blog is intended to capture the thoughts of an emerging edu-blogger committed to creating constructivist learning experiences for students. Authored by Kristin Hokanson, a "Teachnology" teacher and Classrooms for the Future Coach in PA.

Can You Ever Go Back?

Or do you even want to? I am on the planning committee for my 25-year class reunion. It is coming up in 5 weeks. It will be fun to see old (emphasis on the OLD) friends and hear about what is going on in their lives. I attended Wichita High School South in Wichita, KS. While many classmates still live in Wichita, in a class of 500+ students, lots have moved elsewhere to more exotic places. Well, that is how I perceive it.
Still, I am looking forward to visiting with these friends who live in far-away places. I will enjoy every minute of my weekend of catching-up and reminiscing. I loved high school! However, I doubt I would really like to relive those days. I wish I didn't have to say that it has been 25 years already, (where did the time go?) but I am glad that I am at the place I am now, and not facing college all over again!

Taking You Back
What a great little resource, and sometimes a life-saver! The Internet Archive is a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital form. It provides free access to everyone, just as a public library does. My favorite resource on this site is the Wayback Machine. This cool tool allows you to retrieve a web page that no longer exists. As long as you know the URL, you can go wayback to find that page that you thought was lost forever! I typed in our district's site URL and it is funny to see how lame our district page was several years ago! Try it today and bookmark it for future reference.

Are you a blog wallflower?

I am a blog wallflower. There, I've said it! It is hard to admit that nobody out there loves you. I have been blogging for a few weeks now, and I have had one...ONE!...comment back. I am just a raving lunaTIC looking for link love. How does a girl find it?

Well, it might be easier if I would actually tell people about my blog. However, I am a timid soul. That seems like an oxymoron coming from a person whose job it is to teach. However, I have been taking my blogging cues from such greats as CoolCatTeacher and Angela Maiers. I feel like I need YEARS of practice before stepping away from the bleachers and into the bright lights of the streamer and balloon decorated gym so that others can actually see that I am here.

I am going to start by taking the plunge and sending my blog link to the teachers in my school. Hey, might as well start out by having everyone laugh at you as you walk down the hall, right? If I can survive that, or if at least one person says that they read something worthwhile, then I will trudge forward, continue linking and hope for the dreamy guy to finally ask me to dance so I will no longer feel dangerously irrelevant.



Color in Motion

Color in Motion is an animated and interactive experience of color communication and color symbolism. Set as a casting stage, the colors of the color wheel are introduced and each color's personality is described. Great for an introduction to color!



Light in Color

Light in Color is an interactive lesson that teaches about mixing colors, colors and shadows, and the color spectrum. Brought to you by The Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project

Cats and Dogs

This is the worst rain I have seen in years! The meteorologis on our local news station called it a "curtain" of rain. It has been one mighty curtain for sure! They have already cancelled afternoon kindergarten in my district. We are all hoping they will dismiss school early as well. Since our district is in a small suburb of Wichita, KS, most of our children are bused in from Wichita. Many road closings due to flooding will probably force the district to let out early to get all students home in a timely manner.

I dread driving home because I have my daughter's little Tercel today. I am not sure I would make it through a bit of high water. In honor of the rain, today's sites deal with the water cycle.
Note: It took me eight hours to write today's entry. Got interrupted at 10:30 by a call from the nurse at my son's school that he was sick. Went to get him, and on the way home, my hubby called and told me to pick up a sump pump! After scooping water for a couple hours, got the new sump pump installed. School did let out early; I would rather have been there!



Thirstin's Water Cycle
Thirstin's water cycle is a nice flash animation showing the water cycle.

NSTA Interactive
Water Cycle Pathways is an interactive that allows the user to explore the various paths a single water molecule can take as it travels through the water cycle.

H2O University
All things water-related at the H2O University. Information and interactives for grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-12. From the Southern Nevada Water Authority

I teach evening classes for Maize Recreation Commission. Last night I was teaching a basic MS Word class. I was covering spellcheck, readability statistics and the thesaurus. I told the group of women that were in my class that a fun way to help students increase their vocabulary is to have them type a paragraph or two in Word and then look at the readability statistics to see their grade level as rated by the Flesch-Kincaid Readability scale. Next, students use the thesaurus to try to up their Flesch-Kincaid grade level.

For some reason, this task is irresistible to most people. The group spent a good 15 minutes trying to "graduate" from high school with their paragraphs. In the classroom, it is important to not only have the kids try out the new words in their paragraphs, but to delve deeper into the words they choose to help them understand if the chosen word is the best word for the sentence. Combining a thesaurus and a dictionary often does the trick!



Visuwords

Visuwords is an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus. The words and their meanings are presented in a mind-map fashion so the user can easily see associations between them. The sourcecode can be downloaded for free.



Visual Thesaurus

Thinkmap touts Visual Thesaurus as a "3D interactive reference tool". Another graphical dictionary and thesaurus, but with a lot more meat to the website. With featured word lists, Word of the Day, contests, lesson plans, articles, and much more, this website packs a punch. It comes at a price, but well worth the money. A CD version is also available.



RhymeZone

This site isn't as pretty and certainly less graphical than the above, but I think students would get a kick out of it. At RhymeZone type in a word, and choose to see its definition, synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, rhyming words, quotations containing the word, and much more. Very straight forward and easy to use. Bookmark this one today!

Keeping Up

Some days it is just hard to keep up! I would absolutely die without my Outlook calendar. It keeps me straight, if not on time, for all of my appointments with teachers, meetings, etc. Because we use Microsoft Exchange, I had to find a gadget to view/add appointments to my calendar when not on campus. There are lots out there, but I chose Google Calendar, a gadget to put on my iGoogle page. It syncs with my Outlook calendar whether I am on campus or not. I can also add appointments when I am away from work. And, of course, I can view it from any Internet connection. Now my whole life is straight! I just gotta be on time...



Google Calendar in the Classroom

http://monarchlibrary.wikispaces.com/LibraryCalendar This library media specialist added Google calendar to her wiki. She uses it to keep track of library classes and lesson plans. A teacher could do this and make it the student's homepage. The teacher sets the option to make the calendar read-only or collaborative. Students need not have a gmail account to collaborate. They get to see assignments and upcoming projects or add items themselves. This could also be set up for staff members to collaborate for PLC's, committees, staffings, etc. What a great idea!
More information here and here on how to set up your Google calendar and ways to use it.

Happy Birthday September

I am posting Monday's contribution early, because I don't want you to miss out on the beginning of the event, which is on Sunday, September 7.

If you are looking for a charity to donate to as part of a class project, check out charity: water http://www.charitywater.org/. In it's second year, this organization raises funds to provide clean water sources to third world countries. Founded by Scott Harris on his 32nd birthday, this charity should prove to become bigger and bigger to help those in desperate need.

Scott's 33rd birthday is this Sunday, September 7. On the same day, charity: water workers will begin drilling at Abenea Elementary School in Northern Ethiopia. They will post daily progress videos so you can watch the progress.



The September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

It is a rainy Friday. Great for the grass this time of year, but we have had a LOT of rain! The forecast holds more rain for the near future. I am not excited about that because tomorrow night we are supposed to attend a fundraiser at our local zoo, the Sedgwick County Zoo. If it rains, it will be a washout!

Bembo's Zoo
http://www.bemboszoo.com/Bembo.swf is a fascinating alphabet created by artist de Vicq de Cumptich. Each letter of the alphabet is represented by an animal, and each animal is created by the letters in the animal's name. An interesting way to learn the alphabet for younger students, and of interest as artwork for older students.

When the Honeymoon is Over

Our district is in its 6th or 7th year of doing state testing online. We also utilize the MAPs tests from NWEA in the fall. Our students seem to perform pretty well when completing a test online. Over the past years, I have attributed it to the "honeymoon phase" where the idea of testing using a computer was so new and appealing to students, they performed better. However, going on about 7 years now, I am wondering when the honeymoon will be over. What new device will we have to use to attract students to perform soon...an XBOX 360? Cell phone? How about a Dance Dance Revolution mat?

Quia
http://www.quia.com/ is a website that allows teachers to create or search for activities in game format or tests. It is a subscription site, but many of the games can be accessed for free. If you purchase a subscription, your students' subscription is free. You can create customized tests for students to take online, create or use games that others have created, and build a web page to share your links with your class.

ProProfs
http://www.proprofs.com/ is a website of free tools and knowledge exchange. Tools include a quiz maker, flashcard generator, and blog hosting. The knowledge resources include online training in CISCO, Microsoft Certification, SAT testing practice, to name a few. Tools can be integrated into your website, facebook, and other social sites. Worth a look!

Blogging and Exercise

I have determined that blogging is like exercise. If you skip a couple days, it's hard to get back into it. My goal is to post M-F when we have school. Last Friday, my computer was in the hospital all day, so I was truly out of sorts. Then yesterday, I was playing catch-up with emails all day, as well as tending to schoolwide testing.
Excuses, excuses! Today, I feel a renewed energy to type and to sweat! I have my websites to share as well as my workout clothes in my car waiting for the bell to ring at the end of the day so I can head to the YMCA!
By the way, my hubby is a city firefighter and is participating in a plane crash disaster drill. Today's websites are disaster-related.

Masters of Disaster
The American Red Cross has put together several lesson plans for grades K-8 that deal with natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods. There are lessons for Science, Math, Language Arts, and Social Studies, and all are matched to national standards. Check them out at
http://www.redcross.org/disaster/masters/educatorsmodule/ed-cd-main-menu-1.html

Facing Fear
Also from the Red Cross is a set of downloadable lesson plans covering a range of topics related to disasters or other crises including personal feelings, stress, preparedness and the media's role. http://www.redcross.org/disaster/masters/facingfear/. You have to fill out a form to go to the download page.