Last week, I found out that Senator Howard Stephenson would be coming to my classroom today. Each day, it seemed that the number of other visitors changed. I wasn't sure at all what would actually happen, and neither were the district people that were closer to the situation. Everything was shrouded in mystery.Yesterday, a rep from the audio enhancement company our school uses showed up to make sure that my microphone would feedback whenever I talked. I had turned down the high end because it was feedback city, and that took care of the problem. He came in (as a professional) and turned up the highs and seemed satisfied when it made the awful high-pitched scream. Silly man. I turned them back down in preparation for today's meeting.Senator Stephenson came into my room and observed with 5 or 6 other people. I was hoping that we could get my teacher evaluation out of they way today, but that was not meant to be. They sat there and watched me teach about online safety, and then left. They didn't ask me any questions, or interrupt my lesson, or anything. I wasn't expecting a highway being named after me, but I was expecting something. There was nothing. I almost took a nap during my prep period immediately following the visit.The sad thing is that they missed the best part. The kids made a KWL chart about being safe online in Google Docs on the wiki, and now we have a big list of everything that they know and want to know about being safe online. That part really was neat. It was hard to get my kids on task, because they were psyched out to be using the laptops.For a different view, you can read Darren's take on the whole thing (with a picture, even).

I have been on overload the last couple months, and everything seems to be adding up. When you get overwhelmed, you sometimes need to take drastic steps. Well, that is what I did. I whittled my 274 Google Reader subscriptions down to just 15. I wish that I would have taken a picture when it was so many subscriptions, but you get the general idea from the screenshot above.Since I still write for the The Apple Blog, I had to keep a lot of feeds that I use for that, and I put those on NetNewsWire, so it is a different place and a different mindset for me.In other news, I downloaded this cool program called slife from slifelabs.com. This program tracks what you do on your computer throughout the day. It keeps detailed records, allows you to set "productivity goals," and even can track what you do and where you go on the internet. This sounds a little Big Brother-ish, but I don't mind being my own Big Brother. I think that is important. Slife Labs says that they don't report anything back to them, and that it all stays on your own computer. I am going to use this program for a couple weeks and see what things look like. My wife is also using it, and it will be much more telling for her, since this is the only computer she uses.Have a Good Life.

Twitter version: Guided reading is the best thing I can do to help my students. How can I do it better?This summer, not only was my internship amazing at helping me prepare for my future job as a school administrator, but it also taught me how to be a much better teacher. My classroom management skills have increased so much, I didn't know I could be this good. My desire to be a great teacher has increased, and my ability to do the same has also increased. I am more dedicated and more professional. I work harder and smarter, and I am able to do some amazing things. Thank you Mrs. P.The PhilosophyOne of the things that I saw at the elementary school was guided reading. Guided reading is where a teacher takes a group of students who are at about the same reading level, and reads with them to help them become better readers. The teacher helps with fluency and comprehension. Seeing guided reading in action changed me. I knew as soon as I saw it that it could be the single most important thing I could do as a Language Arts teacher. I had heard of it, but I thought it wasn't that big a deal. As soon as I watched a great teacher actually do it, it was amazing, and I knew that I had to do it, too.The best benefit is that I would be able to know how well my students are reading. I would be able to focus some time on each kid, if only just a little time, and help them read better. I sold it to the kids like this:"You guys must read well. If you don't, your whole life will be miserable. If you can't read well, you will have a harder time finding a good job, and you might never get married! [dramatic pause] If you can't read well, you will not be able to understand the love notes that your boyfriend or girlfriend writes to you, and they will stop liking you!"Maybe that is not entirely true, but to a bunch of 7th graders that are just learning that the other gender is attractive, this statement set off a round of giggles and sideward glances that made my heart happy.Guided reading works really well in elementary school where you only see 35 kids a day. It gets harder in middle school where you see 35 kids six periods a day. Taking time to read with all your 200 students in one day is impossible.How it WorksWe did our first round this week. I spent the entire period Monday describing how the rotations would work and stressing the important things that they needed to remember as we rotated on Tuesdays and Wednesdays:The guided reading part with me is the most importantWe will rotate through the stations quickly and effecientlyEveryone's best behavior is required, no excusesEach student will bring a bookAfter stressing each of these things for a full 46 minute period, the students understood how serious I was about it. As I explained, we rotated every couple minutes so the students could understand how it worked. Spending that time on Monday was vital to the success on Tuesday and Wednesday. The kids knew what was expected, and for the most part, everyone behaved appropriately.To help it run smoothly, I invited the parents of all my students to come and help. I got quite a few responses, and some really great parents showed up and were invaluable helpers.The hardest part of this is the work that goes into it. It always bugs me when teachers go home with a ton of stuff to correct and spend their entire lives working. My workload this year is way more than it ever has been, and I am trying really hard to get everything done at school. It doesn't always happen. To help me find balance, I go home and make sure that I play and read with my kids each night, and after I put them in bed, I stay up pretty late getting everything ready and organized. This first week was probably the easiest one to prepare. Having parent volunteers every week is the only way I will be able to do this all year. Those kids need someone else there to help guide them along and keep them on task. We had seven stations. The first station was reading with me. That was pretty much it this time, because I wanted everyone to get an idea of how it works. After reading with me, they work on a worksheet relating to the book that they are reading. Then the third station is our technology station. This week, they just played some language arts games online, and jumped on freerice.com for a little bit.The next station was an introduction to the iPod Touch. I got a grant from our PTSA that bought me three of them, and so I wanted the kids to know the basics, so we watched the guided tour (more on this later, because it is going to be awesome). After the iPods, they work on a writing assignment that we are doing at the time. The sixth station is another writing station, where we will focus on elements of writing (smiley-face tricks, 6 traits, figurative language, etc.). The final station is where the students read to get ready to meet with me. The ChallengesEach rotation is only 10 minutes, so the kids have to really get on task right away. My challenge is creating something worthwhile for them to do for ten minutes that will teach them what they need to learn, and also allow them to create and learn something worthwhile. The time challenge is fitting all that preparation time into my one 47-minute prep period. It is not easy, especially considering my other responsibilities (tech committee, steering committee, redesigning the school website, engaged classroom, and more). I certainly am not complaining because I love everything that I am working on right now.The skill challenge is that I don't know how to do this guided reading stuff. I don't have a reading endorsement (though I will start on one as soon as time permits). I am majorly lacking in this area, and I didn't even know what this was until the 2nd to last week of my internship! I do have a great language arts consultant or specialist or whatever she is at the district level. She came out and gave some great suggestions about some things I could do, including having the kids read a driver license exam and talk about strategies for reading that difficult text. I will rely heavily on her. The QuestionWhat can I do with guided reading to make it more effective for my students, easier for me, and more beneficial for everyone? I am open to all suggestions.Have a Good Life.

Dang! I can't discredit this excuse anymore. 10 months old and she is full after just 1/4 of a paper.

After two long years of slipping undergrad courses in with my graduate classes*, I have finally obtained my Utah Educator's Level I License. As Staci says, I don't need a piece of paper to show that I am a good teacher. (While that may be true, I do need a piece of paper to keep my job, not necessarily good teaching skills. Is that backwards? Yes.)Anyway, I am glad to have my license, so only three more years of evaluations and I will be able to be a "career" teacher. Yippee for job security, if I make it that long!*For those of you who don't know, I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in English, with an emphasis in professional writing, and a minor in Russian. After graduating, I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, and so I went through Alternative Routes to Licensure. The program lets me take a bunch of classes while still having a real teaching job. Personally, I learned far more on the job than I ever learned in the classrooms, and I think I am a better teacher for it. Someday, I'll give my ideas for what a real teacher preparation program should look like.

As part of the Engaged Classroom project that our district is sponsoring, we got a sweet document camera, the AverVision 300AF+.It is perhaps the best piece of technology that I have added to my classroom. Here is why:It is easy to useEveryone can use it at the same time (by looking at it, not directly touching/using it)It allows me to modelI can record videosI can take pictures of what the camera is seeingThe students know exactly what they need to write down at each stage of an assignmentStudents (in Language Arts class) can receive immediate feedback from all students on their workIt is easier for students to keep up and stay engaged in the lessonIf you go to my school website, you can see some videos that I have made of reading strategies. They are pretty boring to watch, but my kids love it when I am doing it live.I did a small, very unscientific test, to see how well using this worked. In one class, I just gave instructions on an assignment with the document camera, and the students understood, had fewer questions, and paid attention for the entire time. With the other class, I delivered the same instruction, but didn't turn on the document camera. That class was more distracted, had more questions, and did the assignment at a lower quality.The document camera is a simple thing, but it makes a big difference in student understanding.Anybody else use a document camera? How do you use it? How can I use mine better?Have a Good Life.

Due to a grant by our PTSA, I was able to purchase 3 iPod Touches for use in my classroom. I was going to do some unboxing pics, but I was too busy watching Heroes last night to worry about totally geeking out. But, I did get a chance to snap a picture of the three iPods.Last school year, I talked about my dream of having these in the classroom. I still think it is a good idea, and I think that it will be beneficial for my students.I bought a bunch of applications, though most of them were free. I have a few that I have been thinking of writing myself (shh, don't tell my wife, she thinks I have too much on my plate already) but I probably won't ever get to it, because it takes so much time to learn something so new to me.The cool thing is that the kids love it. They would do any assignment I asked of them, just because it is on an iPod. So, where does that leave me?Here is my philosophy: I don't know what it is yet.I am bouncing around a few things.Students should use technology to do things that they would do anyways. For example, my students do a quickwrite every so often. Today, they entered their quickwrites in a form on our wiki and all their stories are in a spreadsheet on Google Docs. Students should use technology to do new things that they haven't done before. In other words, this should change the way I teach and the way they learn. For example, I made a video and put it on the iTouches for them to watch, and they received instruction by watching a video so that they could perform their next task.Students should use technology so that they are engaged and that is the only reason why.I am amazed at how my students have reacted to the technology in our classroom. They love it. They are much more willing to do what I ask when they get to use technology.I enjoy their enthusiasm for the technology, because it is something I share, also.Will you help me clarify my philosophy about technology?Have a Good Life.

In the last post, Lynda asked a bunch of questions about the iPods. I want to answer them here, because it will help me reflect more.1) How many students are sharing these 3 iPods?The students are arranged into guided reading groups of 5 or 6. They rotate to different stations around the room, and they use the iPods and share them during that station. So, two people share an iPod.2) What apps are loaded on the ipods?eReader - an e-book reader app.Stanza - another e-book reader app.Wurdle - A Yatzhee-type of word game.Word Whirl - You get seven letters and you have to make words that are from 3 to 7 letter long.World Wiki - A wiki for every country in the world.American Heritage Desk Dictionary - Apparently a pretty popular dictionary. Who knew?Declaration and Constitution - Some historical documents that most people feel are pretty important.iFlipr Lite - Flashcard app.Flashcards - A good flashcard app that allows you to add pictures and photos to the flashcards. Very much worth the $2.99Kid Book Envi - This is a cool app that allows you to read kids' books. Very cool.There are a lot of great apps and I will probably buy more, because there are so many neat things.3) How long is an ipod "session"?They get 10 minutes at each station, so 10 minutes on the iPods.4) How do you decide who uses the ipod? Is there a schedule? Is it time-based, or project-based?That is, does a slower student get more time than a quicker student?This is a good question, and I think that the students feel the best about the situation when they all get equal time on the iPods. One of the apps on there is a book reading app, and I may use that more in the future with the guided reading.5) Is time on the ipod used as a perk or reward?This is a touchy area of using technology. Technology is a privilege, not a right. I really want to use technology, and it is easier and more enjoyable for me, and so I try to not take it away. Well, these guided reading groups are not really easier, but they are worth it. I have had to take away the reading groups from one class, and I made that the punishment, not taking away the iPods.6) What is the ideal ratio of students per iPod?Ideally, I would want to have 1 student per iPod, but I don't think that is the best way to do it. I think having 2 kids on each iPod is good because they keep each other on task.7) Does the student do work on the iPod? On a computer? On paper?They do work on all three. Most of the work on the iPods have been watching instructional videos, where I am teaching something that I recorded previously and loaded onto the iPod.8) Do you download podcasts from the iTunes store?I have downloaded a movies from iTunesU that relate to the book that we are reading, Freak the Mighty. There are a lot of useful things from the iTunesU K-12 section that I will use, I am sure.9) Are the students creating their own podcasts? If so, are they audio only? Video?They eventually will create some sort of podcast, but that probably won't be done on the iPods unless I can get some microphones that work.I hope these answers are satisfactory for you. If anybody has any ideas, feel free to let me know.Have a Good Life.

The above video clip is a public service announcement about the Digital TV transition that will take place in February, 2009. Since the clip is from Hulu, I don't think you can view it if you live outside the US. I can't say I know how that woman feels, but I have seen this problem a hundred times. Have a Good Life.

I sold my car the other day so I could buy a new computer. I decided that I could make a better living by working on my own business from home, and so I decided to quit my job, effective immediately. Since I no longer had a car, my friend had to drive me to buy this new computer. It's icy out there...That is the premise for the movie I made a couple weeks ago. I made it to enter it into a contest online. There are not that many other movies, and the best 9 movies will be chosen from the top 20 as the winners. Judging by my competition, I think I have a pretty good shot. Here is the video, watch it, sign up for an account, and vote on my video. There is a good privacy policy, so you don't have to worry about them selling your information. Mozy is the company that is sponsoring this contest. I use the company for my online backup. They provide 2 GB of free backup for anyone on their home computer. It is automated, so you tell it what folders or files you want backed up, and it will upload them to the backup servers every night. I like that because I have all my work and grad school files backed up, and then I don't have to worry about losing them. If my hard drive fails, I won't lose all those documents. Here is a referral link, click on the free 2 GB link on the right side of the page, and you will get 256 MB free on top of your 2 GB.