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.

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.

School Supplies

I took my son to Wal-Mart last night to get a few remaining school supplies he needed for his Sophomore year. We bought some tab dividers, a zippered bag to put in a 3-ring binder to hold the graphing calculator that I had to sign a contract stating that I would pay $100 for if it got lost or damaged, and a 2-gig flash drive.
What ever happened to Big Chief tablets and the 8-pack of fat Crayolas? I didn't really mind buying the flash drive because I know it will make my son's life tons easier when dealing with homework; however, I sympathize with many parents out there that also have a child who is disorganized, to say the least. Although my child could also misplace a Big Chief tablet, it would be cheaper to replace, and it would be less likely that an entire semester's worth of school work would be stored on it when lost. Because it's minuscule size, it is almost a certainty that my son will lose his by Labor Day.
Any good ideas out there for helping a mom figure out a way to ensure that a kid keeps hold of his school work, short of duct taping it to his forehead?

Shelfari
Shelfari http://www.shelfari.com/ is a social book site that lets users build a shelf to display the books they've read, want to read or are reading now. The user gets to be the critic by rating and reviewing other user's books so their Shelfari friends can see what they think. Users can also create groups to participate in literature circles. For readers, it is an awesome site to share what they have read or learn about books they might want to read. For reluctant readers, Shelfari can spark new interests and help them find more meaning in what they are reading.