Sickly Sweet Romantic Crap

I love the old television series Seinfeld. I love the themes of love, acts of kindness, humanity and humility that are portrayed each week by the characters Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer. Take, for example, this episode where Jerry shows his affection for his girlfriend by calling her a pet name.



How sweet is that? I looked up the word shmoop, sometimes spelled schmoop, on the Urban Dictionary site. It defines it as

Lurve. Sickly sweet romantic crap.
To be schmoopy is to make others vomit with your cavity inducing displays of affection. To want schmoop is normal, don't be alarmed. Submit.

If you don't have schmoop in your life, watch some Seinfeld and feel the love.

OR!

Shmoop
OK, this is one of the coolest sites I have seen all week, if not all month! I feel much shmoop about (towards?) it. Shmoop is a beta site put together by PhD and Masters students at Berkley, Stanford, Yale and Harvard that offers wonderful help for middle/high school students to make a lot of sense of what their literature and history teachers are trying to teach them. At Shmoop, students can get help figuring out what to write on a paper, read summaries of those great literature titles they are asked to read, get an overview of a historical period is a concise, understandable way. Some really good poems are covered too, if you are a lover of poetry, or need to analyze a poem for an assignment. There is already a lot to choose from, but being so new, they have many topics/books/poems in the works. Check out all the shmoopiness and fall in love with literature and history!

On the Road for Learning

I have to write this quick so I can get to bed early tonight. Tomorrow I have to get up at 3:45 to head to NE Kansas for an instructional coaching training. This year the other Tech Consultants and I are spending the year learning about coaching. Although technology is ever-changing, many of our teachers are able to use it in their classrooms without day-to-day help from us. As we strive for "true integration" by our teachers, whatever that means, it is time for us to expand our bag of tricks and help teachers in another way.
Instead of continually trying to show them how to incorporate technology into their existing curriculum, perhaps it is time to help them change the way they teach so that technology use occurs in a less contrived way. It is a learning curve for us all. My focus for the past several years has been technology alone. Now I need to spruce up on curriculum, strategies and all of the other buzzwords that come along with coaching. I look forward to stretching my mind for the next two days and then spreading the enthusiasm on to my coworkers!

Museum Box
This is an incredible site that has been all the buzz on Twitter lately. If you haven't already read about it on another blog, check it out here. Students can use the tools to create a virtual box of items, audio, images, video and text to support an argument, illustrate an event, add depth to a character - historical, fictional, or living, to name a few ideas. A school can register so that students can identify their boxes with it. Registration is free. One of the coolest integration sites I have seen in awhile!

Clips
Like Museum Box, Clips is a another tool from E2BN, a National Education Network (UK) provider. Clips is a video publishing host for students who want to put their videos on the Internet. Teachers can rest assured that when students visit Clips, they won't come across any videos that are questionable in nature because the site is moderated.

Trick or Treat

I love Halloween! Besides Christmas, it is my favorite holiday. When my kids were young, I would always make their costumes. I wasn't going to have them go through the embarrassment of wearing a cheaply made store-bought costume like those I always had to wear as a kid. The best costume I made was for my daughter when she was about 4 years old. It was a jack-o-lantern made from a big orange sweatshirt and some black and green felt. I will always remember how cute she looked in it!
I think I used to get just as excited as my kids about going trick-or-treating. Our Halloween tradition has always been that I cook chili for the first time of the season for supper. Then, back in the day, I would take the kids out in search of the best treats while Dave, my husband, stayed home and passed out candy. Once home, all the candy went into a big bowl for all to share. I loved walking around with the kids and a few neighbors. I miss those days now that my kids are big.

History of Halloween
Check out everything Halloween at http://www.history.com/. This site has the history of the holiday, videos to watch, games to play, information about Halloween around the world, and more. The site also highlights other holidays as well.

Hands-on Halloween Science
Check out Steve Spangler's site for some fun Halloween related science activities.

Countess Blood's Spooky Midis, Wavs and Mp3's
Cool site for students to visit to jazz up a spooky podcast or movie. Audio files in midi, wav, and mp3 format.

Integration

We often refer to "technology integration" as if it is a task in itself. My job title even has the phrase in it. However, the quest shouldn't be to integrate technology into the curriculum, but to use technology to integrate the curriculum.
If schools were to take this approach, it might not seem so daunting to teachers. Maybe it would even free up some time for teachers to learn new technology skills and search for resources if they were integrating subjects. Just how to integrate is the tough part though. In an elementary setting, teachers are concerned about teaching students the basics; as well they should be. In the middle and high school settings, teachers are concerned about teaching the standards for their specific curricular area so that the schools make AYP. When does one have time to integrate, and why should a teacher do another teacher's job for them?
Teaching the whole child should be the job of every teacher. Just like doing crunches alone won't get rid of that spare tire, doing math facts alone won't make an accountant. Letting go of the fear of falling test scores if you take time to teach about careers in your math class is tough for teachers. However, doesn't it make more sense to take a class period to talk about a career in math so that students see the connections between what they are doing today and where it can take them in the future, than to have the counselor come in at any random time to talk about many different careers in a 30 minute lesson? Doesn't seem like rocket science to me. But then hey, I teach P.E. so I don't have to worry about it!

Math Mastery
Math Mastery is an online math curriculum that utilizes videos to teach students in grades 2-8 math skills. The videos are engaging and interactive. The curriculum does have a cost. The cool thing I found at this site is the Daily Brains Library which is free. The library has hundreds of word problems that are categorized by subject area. The problems are relatively short and make for an easy way for math teachers to integrate science, history, geography, health, and language arts into their lessons.

Google Lit Trips
This site utilizes Google Earth to combine literature, geography, and history for a wonderful cross curricular experience for students.

Technology - Gotta Love It!

My first classroom presentation of the new school year bombed! I was supposed to show the new sixth graders how to logon to the network. 25 fresh faces watching me expectantly, and eacher to try out the new "responsible" middle school way of getting connected.
Land mine number one: a power strip in the laptop cart was not turned on. Eight of the little babies wouldn't turn on.
Land mine number two: Server glitch just as the students were choosing their new passwords that they would use to login to the network all year long.
It really didn't bother me whatsoever, except that I could see the disappointment in many fresh young faces. Little do they know that by the end of the year, they will be wondering, "What was I thinking when I chose THAT for a password? It is so babyish!"

Talking History
Virsona is a site that I am anxious to share with Social Studies and English teachers. http://www.virsona.com/ Students can create and interact with "virtual personas" of living, historical or fictional characters. The virtual community environment appeals to middle schoolers to help them learn more about the person or character they are studying. There are also lesson plans available.