Mom’s unusual punishment

Parents today are lenient when it comes to disciplining their children. No video games or no desert doesn’t cut it, what Veronica Griffin a Michigan mother does to her high-school aged son is more like it. Check it out the video at CNN.com. Good for you Veronica.

Educational software

There are places on and off the net where you can find educational software, but where can we teachers get some for free? If any teachers out there want to help a fellow mentor, holler at your boy (or reply this message). Thanks

Defend it like David

Folks who write blogs with ‘wordpress’, seem to favor a particular sport a lot more than the other sports out there. Referred to as soccer in America, football is blogged about regularly by wordpressers. Yet, these blogs are about Arsenal, Manchester and other teams that play in England. This makes me wonder, ‘Is soccer in America a joke?’.

I guess we’ll have to wait until MLS plays out this season, then we’ll find out. No pressure Beckham. 

TMNT

I was reading up on Art History today. For a social studies project, how about dividing the class into four groups all named after the four members of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Groups will become experts about their  group’s assigned Italian Renaissance artist and will report to the class about what they have discovered.

DYK that Raphael and Michelangelo were rivals? Raphael was an outgoing, superstar that rolled with an entourage of about 50 people who helped him paint and party like a rockstar while Michelangelo was a loner who hid his work from everyone? They often talked smack about each other and if there were a Star Weekly back then, they would have been all over the covers. 

Stuff like this really gets students engaged. All we as teachers have to do is keep them interested and pump them full of knowledge.  

Cooperative learning

Group learning was first referred to as ‘progressive’ learning, now it is the preferred method of teaching with today’s teachers. Having students work with each other cooperatively in the classroom (as opposed to having students work competitively) towards the same goals, teaches our students that working together helps make work easier for you and also helps you make friends.     http://edtech.kennesaw.edu/intech/cooperativelearning.htm is a good website to check out for some more information on this subject.

Yankees Suck

In less than 12 hours I will be watching the men in pinstripes play at Safeco Field. To pump myself up I found a couple sites dedicated to the Yankees. http://www.yanks-suck.com/ is a good one, and they sell t-shirts explaining the websites values and theories. http://www.yankeessuck.com/ is another good sight, a lot of other baseball teams mentioned in this website, not solely focused on the Yankees.

The Mariners arent having a record book season this year but at least they have a beautiful ball park. I’ll be there tomorrow, beer in one hand, hot dog in the other.

Discipline Daniel San

A great  website for tips on how to use discipline in the classroom can be found at  http://712educators.about.com/od/discipline/tp/disciplinetips.htm. The author offers hints like avoiding confrontations and using a little humor with misbehaving students. It’s a good website for teachers to check out.

Powerpoint presentations

Mike,

No audio for the auditory learners. Maybe even low background music in the back would help keep interst.  The visual looks very professional. Good job.

Slide Presentations

When performing a slideshow, the presenter must first remember who his audience is. The presenter must ask ‘How am I going to connect with my audience?’. From there s/he can begin to layout their presentation. Guy Kawasaki suggests that our slide count remain low and I agree with him. Make the slides short, straight forward and memorable.

Elijah 

CIPA

The Child Internet Protections Act is a bill that has been passed to limit children’s exposure to pornography (and other stuff that may be considered controversial) on the internet.