Selling Ad Space on HS Exams

I found this article via The Consumerist about a teacher selling ad space on her exams in order to cover the out-of-pocket costs of teaching. The article briefly argues the pros and cons of such a practice. I've got to admit, it's a really good idea that I may consider should the circumstances persuade me. Do you think this is brilliant economics or a slippery slope?


This blog post sponsored locally by Cartridge World, the world leader in printer cartridge refilling!

Throwing Velcro Balls on a Stucco Wall

Have you ever tried throwing a Velcro ball onto one of those sticky walls? Most of the time it sticks. Every once in a while you throw it too hard or not hard enough and it falls off, but most of the time if stays on the wall. That is how school usually is for me. Whatever the class is, the information is thrown at my head at varying speeds and it usually sticks. This semester I’m taking a Medieval Literature course with a wonderful professor. She’s energetic, she knows more about the Middle Ages than a mere mortal should, and she’s a lovely person. Right now we’re reading The Showings of Julian of Norwich, and the balls are no longer sticking.

I’m having a difficult time digesting and relating to some of the readings from class, and I realized that this is because I have such a small knowledge base from which to draw. Sitting in class feels like I’m in the six foot end of the swimming pool trying to catch frisbees. I’m so glad I took this class. I was lucky/unlucky enough to coast my way through most of high school, and this class is giving me a glimpse into what some of my students will go through daily in my classroom. I can have “link to prior knowledge” pounded into my head several times a week, but it never made more sense than trying to catch those frisbees in College Hall today.

Blackboard in Your Classroom

How do you use Blackboard software in your classroom?

Some schools are encouraging (or enforcing) the use of Blackboard software. I know teachers here at Duquesne University and several surrounding high schools get training on it. some use it well; some don't. I've been given the assignment of "webmaster" of my senior secondary English education methods class. I have to figure out how we can utilize Blackboard for this class. I've toyed around with ideas and come up with a few. I'm interested in how you all use it. Just a digital home for your syllabus? An effective out-of-class communication tool? A collaborative learning community? A necessary evil to get through your mandatory to-do list?

How do YOU use Blackboard software in your classroom?

Ophelia on Facebook

Drpezz's recent post reminded me of another way my classmates and I were able to use social networking to create a learning activity that promotes character analysis and creativity. We created a Facebook page for Ophelia.

First of all, this was attractive to the classmates we instructed because the novelty of giving a character of Elizabethan literature a new millennium identity struck them as a cool idea. It has even reached several people we don't know, as strangers have friended Ophelia. If you have a Facebook account or can use a friend's, search for Ophelia TheDane.

More importantly, this really forces the students to think about Ophelia's character. Think about music. Would she like Amy Winehouse or Jewel? No Doubt or The Carpenters? Why? This also allows an opportunity for humor. We decided that Ophelia's hobbies included gardening and swimming. I did this for another lesson plan for The Scarlet Letter and my roommate and I came up with a dozen ideas or jokes without much effort. (Hawthorne Heights, Bad Religion, "Lady in Red," "Son of a Preacher Man," "Tempted by the Fruit of Another," Sherlock Holmes, Raising Ophelia...) Try it out as a warm-up or review activity and see what you get.

P.S. Why does Ophelia love Scooby-Doo?

Because he's a Great Dane!

Improv Skills Help!

One of the reasons I love theater and wish to teach it is because so many of its skills are applicable outside of theater itself. Character analysis helps with English assignments. Lights and sound break into physics. Building a set helps hone industrial tech skills (I totally geeked out when Teaching Theater had an article called "Gardner in the Scene Shop"!). A recent Teacher Lingo post talked about Improv...teacher style. Shortly after I found a CNN article via LifeHacker about improvisation helping in any workplace.

The article reviews three of the most basic rules of improvisation: yes...and, going with your gut, and teamwork. These rules can apply when working with fellow teachers or pulling students' thought during a discussion. Sometimes even overplanning falls through. This quick article is a good resource.

A Wish Radio

Many interesting ideas and people came together in 1993 to make the animated movie We’re Back: A Dinosaur’s Story. In this movie a bubble-producing gizmo that Captain Neweyes dubbed a “wish radio” is capable of tuning in to the wishes of children across the globe. Some want a toy. Some want to stop fighting with someone. Some want a friend. Fast-forward fifteen years. Since We’re Back we humans have developed the public internet, blogging, Twitter, and finally We Feel Fine and Twistori. The short story is that now we can track what we humans love, hate, feel, and wish. Do you want to see?

We Feel Fine collected snippets of our lives first. This video from the TED conference describes how Jonathon Harris created it. WFF is a bubble-producing gizmo that trolls the blogosphere for entries containing the word “feel” and posts those sentences in several graphic interfaces, some including photos. As you sit and watch, you are able to see how the English-speaking world is feeling right now. I cannot do it justice; WFF is really something you have to see for yourself.

Twistori trolls Twitter posts for what we humans love, hate, think, believe, feel, and wish! Spend thirty seconds with this real world “wish radio” and you’ll be pulled in to the stories that unfold in front of you. Some want a toy. Some want to stop fighting with someone. Some want a friend.

Many interesting ideas and people come together to make We Feel Fine and Twistori, and few of use are sure what to do with this information. At the least it shows more of the internet’s fascinating possibilities. At the most it is a glimpse into the collective human psyche expressed through the cloud. What if we had a wish radio for our students? Their parents? What can we educators do with these online radios? I wish I had a crystal ball…

Neat Free Word Wall Idea

I found a while ago a website featuring a Java applet that creates "word clouds" of any series of words you input. This turns statements, quotes, or lists into computer-generated word art. It's very much worth checking out, even if it's just for the cool factor. Visit Wordle.net to check it out.

I put this one together from a Scarlet Letter vocabulary list.

Here are some more examples.

10 Reasons I Love Being an Education Major

In no particular order:

1. Nobody will ever ask me "What will you do with that degree?"
2. No labs.
3. Learning about learning helps in all other classes.
4. Anything I learn in any class could somehow be used in a lesson plan.
5. Our professors know how to teach well.
   
6. We're graduating during an exciting time in education.
   
7. We have to know a little bit of everything - psychology, history, sociology, biology...
   
8. We stick together. We help each other. We want each other to do well.
9. We're all a bit crazy, and we bring that out in each other.
10. Being proud to tell people my major.

Who else has some answers?

Say NO to Barnes and Noble

It's that time of year.
That time of year when Barnes and Noble takes unknowing college students and squeezes their tiny wallets black and blue.
When those students unknowingly perpetuate the system that steals more and more money from them each year.
When that system annoys good professors and students by keeping the savings for itself.
When good professors and students finally Say NO to Barnes and Noble.

Barnes and Noble runs hundreds of college bookstores across the country. They like to seem that they have the monopoly on college textbooks. Especially to freshmen, they seem like the best or only way to get the books needed for class. B&N withholds information from students on their college websites, such as ISBN numbers, a full publisher name, and whether or not the professor actually cares what edition you buy. We must do a little extra research to prove to B&N that we are not stupid.

B&N overcharges for books while pretending to offer money-saving deals. Students can save money buying B&N used because other students sold their books back for pocket change. We must stop buying from and selling to B&N in order to help ourselves and our friends.

An educational psychology professor of mine told us that she worked with publishers to reduce the price of a three-book packet needed for the class. When the price was finally listed at the bookstore it was much higher than what she had spent time negotiating. B&N kept the profits of the work she did to help her students. We must not give our money to this institution.

I am not buying a single book from Barnes and Noble this year, and I will save hundreds of dollars doing it! Here are my ways of not dealing with B&N and saving money on my textbooks:

• Buy from websites like Abebooks.com and others offer cheap textbooks. Very often the book price plus shipping is less than the used price listed by Barnes & Noble.
• Borrow from the library. Don't you dare buy a copy of anything written by Shakespeare when your college library has 12 versions of it.
• Search for open-source literature is available for most older works. Project Gutenberg is a great source for this. You can print out your copy of The Scarlet Letter for cheap, or read it off the computer screen and download the audiobook for free!
• Visit local bookstores will help you out with a little bit of luck.
  
• Share with friends in that class. I've had to do this several times and have never been severely inconvenienced.
  
• Encourage professors to bypass B&N. During a theater history course our professor told us to buy online a book published in the 1970s. This good thorough textbook cost us pennies apiece!

UPDATE: SmartMoney posted this article on saving money on college textbooks.
LifeHacker posted Best Places to Save Money on College Textbooks

Little Actress's Success Story

I apologize for being absent for three weeks. My mom gave me a note that I gave to the secretary who gave me a different note to give to you. I was visiting a friend in Penn State, running an elementary theater camp and elementary morning day camp, and visiting family in Ocean City, NJ. All this will fuel the next few blog posts.

***

I want to start off with a success story just because it makes me happy. Danielle (fake name) is a seven year old girl who was in the first week of my morning day camp. Her twin sister stayed for all five mornings that week, but Danielle stayed for only two, because she got stomach aches from her nervousness around other people. She chewed gum when her stomach bothered her, but that wasn't always enough to get her out of the mini-van to the other kids.

On the first day of theater camp the next week, Danielle comes to the amphitheater chewing gum and holding her mother's leg. That day I kept an extra eye on her and hoped that she would be engaged in what I planned that day, which were mostly social get-to-know-you and get-on-stage activities. I told the rest of the counselors to keep their fingers crossed.

She didn't chew gum the rest of the week.

On Friday during our final showcase, her stuttering but full of smiles Magic the Owl was my favorite performance that day. Her mom said that she'd never memorized anything before, but went home after camp every day and tried her hardest. I am so happy and proud that she was able to keep breaking at her shell through theater camp!

I am not trying to gloat, but I wanted to show Danielle to the world and I figured I could at least show her to you!

What Will I Need?!?

I recently found what do new teachers really need?, a post from a very good writer and teacher that answers its eponymous question. According to him and his responders, new teachers need time and mentors. I reflected in a journal last night that there's little I can do now to definitely gain time or a mentor for when I am teaching. I can't search out for elders in a school placement I haven't gotten yet and Google is still working on that 25-hour day. I figure the best I can work on now are time management skills and supportive college cohorts.

I started looking for what other people say new teachers need. Here are some more answers to the original post on Musings from a Not-So-Master Teacher:

• Mentors - in the form of experienced teachers, possibly full-time mentors (Betty's Blog)
• Support - help from the administration and again, veteran teachers (Ed.gov)
• Experience - live and learn (So You Want To Teach?) (Athena)
  
• A Survival Kit - a practical guide (So You Want To Teach?)
• Resources - the "stuff" that you need (thanks, natalie! - DedicatedTeacher)
  

Other articles that address the topic: Scribblers Den

This post will grow as I find more answers.

So We Really Want To Teach?

As soon as I came across this article and website I knew it had to be my post for the day. The site is So You Want To Teach?, a down-to-earth blogger who combines experience and humor without the "2 teach is 2 touch 4ever" sugary coating. He writes for current teachers and future teachers. It's exactly what I was looking for in an edublog. I got immersed in it for an hour or so just like I get immersed in Wikipedia.

The article I'm highlighting is called Do I Really Want To Teach? It lists 10 "ways to tell if teaching is really your thing." Anyone slightly interested in education should review this quick list. I found it encouraging and accurate

Addition:
Right before I was going to log off, I found this other gem of educational realism:
Fifty-One Minutes. It's a realistic portrayal of the lives we chose.

In Defense of Free Choice

When I was in 7th grade, my English teacher, Mr. Z, provided us with a monthly assignment called Free Choice. Its purpose was to encourage writing and teach its processes. Every month we had to turn in a piece of writing - story, poem, song, a few recepies or haikus - with all of the steps of the writing process attached. You could submit anything. This freedom led a lot of students to create things they would not have otherwise. A soft-spoken classmate Sara later said that she was really able to express herself through this assignment. My friend Max, who may not have written anything since then, wrote these stories about the Spoon Empire. I (and some followers) wrote song parodies. Max and I would discuss our work at recess, replacing a normal ritual of trashball. Our collaboration lead to a website that sparked my interest in claiming my spot on the internet. I performed a parody for the talent show and that undoubtedly helped launch my theater career. We all learned the steps of the writing process and learend them well, but the reprecussions of our writing are what stuck with us long after some of us forgot what PQS or FATP means.

My middle school later cancelled Free Choice shortly after NCLB spread itself across the country. There was a unique teachable moment in each one of those projects that each student submitted. I might be overdramatic by saying that Free Choice changed my life, but then again, the evidence is before you.

Writer's Block Cures

This is an article I found on the TechLearning blog about writer's block. Essentially, if you have writer's block, you're not trying hard enough. It's a good read, enough to make you stop whining and start creating.
Writer's block? There's no such thing


As I mentioned in the mission statement, I want to discover more about educational technology, so send me something you find interesting. One of my favorite finds is a freeware mind-mapping software called FreeMind. If you've used Inspiration, this is a similar software that allows you to visually map out ideas. This is another way to defeat writer's block, as it lets you spread out your thoughts. I still may prefer pencil and paper, but I could get used to this.

Mission Statement

My name is Joe Jasek.
I am studying secondary education, English, and theater.
My recent interests include personal and educational technology, ecology, and tinkering (crafting, hacking, building, creating, etc.).
This is my first venture into blogging.
This will follow the standard blogging format until I find a new direction for it.