NC TEACHER PAY

There has been much debate over whether or not teachers in North Carolina should get a full check in August when they haven't worked the whole month.  This has an impact on the teachers in our state.  The issue is how our salaries will be paid to us.  I received this info earlier today and thought I'd share this with the public.
http://msg4svc.net/wsbq/466749/55/12835/0/H/N/0/rgcj.jsp

Teaching Technology to 21st Century Parents

We must remember that in order for our students to acquire 21st century skills we must also assist their parents with acquiring those skills as well.  There are parents who do not necessarily keep abreast of current technology trends and subsequently are not comfortable or even able when it comes to assisting their child with at home assignments and projects.Google has come to the rescue!  According to Google's Jason Toff, "TeachParentsTech.org lets you select from more than 50 basic how-to videos to send to mom, dad, your old college roommate, your neighbor, or anyone else who could use a little help with tech tasks – whether it's how to copy and paste or how to share a big file."  Educators or students can select various videos on a formatted note, send them to a recipient of choice, and post about it on Facebook, Twitter, or Google Buzz.  Hopefully, we can help parents so they can help their children.

Rubrics with Rubistar

Project-based learning is an instructional method centered on the learner. Authentic, performance-based learning is a great way to make learning meaningful to students and to encourage them to be creative, innovative, and constructive.  Educators will find that the best way to assess students are by using rubrics.  Most rubrics consist of objectives, performance characteristics, and points or scores that indicate the degree to which the objectives were met.  Rubrics should be introduced to the students at the very beginning of a project unit -- either present the rubric to the class or collaborate with the students to structure the rubric.   Rubrics allow students to understand the criteria for assessment before they start the project. Rubrics also help to make the evaluation of the project more objective and consistent by listing the criteria, or what counts, and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor.

 I have found a great site to help teachers with designing rubrics.  This website is RubiStar.  This is a free tool to help teachers create quality rubrics.  RubiStar is a tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have time to develop them from scratch. RubiStar provides generic rubrics that can simply be printed and used for many typical projects and research assignments. These generic rubrics can also be customized to fit your specific needs and saved online. Once you have used the rubric for your classroom project, you will be able to analyze the performance of your whole class, and insure that the
subject was clearly understood.  If you are not already using rubrics, you may want to start using Rubistar.

Toondoo

ToonDoo is a comic-creating tool that allows you to create your own comic strips with just a few drag, drops and mouse clicks! Toondoo has been extensively used as an educational tool with children and is the a tool used by many educators.  Once you have an account, you will first probably want to create a fun avatar for yourself using Traitr. Later you can use your character in comics.  You can then create a Toon Doo cartoon, publish your cartoon on your blog or elsewhere, add a Toon Doo widget to your blog and/or create a ToonDoo book of cartoons.The best way to learn is by just playing with the program.

You will be surprised how quickly you can make a toon you like. As they say, “Some people are born with a natural ability to draw cartoons, for everyone else, there’s ToonDoo!”   It is very user friendly and they even have created a very helpful ToonDoo Wiki.  Here is a link to guide you through making your first cartoon.

Virtual Teaching

This semester I am co-teaching with a teacher I have never met in person.  I am one of hundreds of exceptional children's teachers in North Carolina who is participating in the North Carolina Virtual Public High School Occupational Course of Study Blended Learning program.  The NCVPS OCS Blended Learning program is a collaborative effort between the NCVPS teacher and the face-to-face (f2f) OCS teacher to teach OCS courses in high schools throughout the state.  It has been challenging to say the least.  I am teaching Algebra 1 and Biology.  These happen to be End of Course (EOC) tests.  I am hoping to provide others with more information on this educational endeavor.  For more information go to:

NCVPS OCS Blended Learning

Webquest

I wanted to find a site that I could use in my English class.  I foundone that I really liked.  The name of the website is CyberGuides:  Teacher Guides and Student Activities.  This website is sponsored by the San Diego County Office of Education.  The web address of the webquest that I plan to use with my lesson is http://www.sdcoe.net/score/mufaro/mufarotg.html.  I chose this webquest because it is based on a book that is grade appropriate.  This book is read in the third or fourth grade.  The book covers another culture and fits perfectly in our unit on fables, folk tales and myths.  This story lends itself particularly well to teaching students about diversity. Typically students are only exposed to Anglo-European tales.  Upon reading this tale, it is a good idea to begin by reading the story of Cinderella to the class.  Then have students participate in a whole group discussion about the similarities and differences between the two stories. The teacher should emphasize the similarity in the themes of the two stories. These stories are perfect for exploring the common theme of "good always wins out over bad.”  I further selected this particular webquest because although the backgrounds from which the stories originate are different, this assignment shows that all human beings in all cultures have a sense of right and wrong, a sense of justice and kindness.  I see this as a fun way to expose them to another culture as they learn the characteristics of a folktale such as The characters are all good or all bad, There are magic or make-believe parts, there is a lesson or moral and the story takes place in a long-ago setting.

     This incorporates technology into the classroom, gains and maintains student interest and engagement, and helps to meet many standards.  This webquest does not require many changes.  One of the changes that I did have to make dealt with finding a new website because there was a commercial on that link and the website was too busy and easy to get off track for elementary students.  It appears that the current link would be difficult for elementary students to be able to complete activity two especially if they had some issues with reading.  A more child friendly website is needed.  Otherwise, the links are all working and up to date, pages are attractively laid out and free of spelling, grammar and technical errors.  The tasks are engaging and requires higher level thinking.

TED.COM

I believe that we must encourage our students to dream.  We must motivate them to accomplish beyond any limitiations.  Ted.com inspires us to acheive the impossible.  This is a great website for teachers to share with students.  I shared the journey to the South Pole with my students and they were blown away by the commitment of the men.  Be intrigued.  Visit Ted.com