This page acts as my notes for his presentation, so please excuse any poor wording or bad grammar.I am amazed at how connected David Warlick tries to make his presentations. We can edit his handouts (passy: teacher), be involved in a live chat during his presentation (he invites us to pass notes while he is talking), and access his outline also. Here is a pretty cool presentation of his...uh...presentationTaking a cellphone to the grocery store is the new grocery list.We need to teach literacy, and not technology.URL backtracing - delete up to the last / and it will hopefully direct you to a parent webpage. He did a neat example showing that the publisher of a Martin Luther King Jr. website was actually a white supremacist group. This is an important thing to teach our kids. It is good for evaluating our sources.He just use earthquake data to make a map of the world...Amazing. I need to learn how to do that. ANSS data from 12/1/4 to 12/31/4 importing it into Excel and then making a scatterplot. It was very cool.Lulu.com is where he published his books. 1 hour after it was written, it was available for purchase. The site asks how much you want to make on the book, and then it gets it all ready and prints it on demand. This would be a great way to create a book written by students. So cool.Great presentation. I am glad I stayed for it.Have a Good Life.

Yesterday I attended the Utah Middle Level Association Conferece entitled "Sailing the Rough Water Years: Straight Jacket or Life Jacket?" I know, I am all conferenced out. My wife is sick of me going to conferences on Saturday also. I attended the session by Patti Kinney with the same title as this blog post. The really interesting thing about the session was that it was geared toward administrators and so the makeup of the room for the double-session session was about 1/3 old people (near retirement, if not past it), 1/3 experienced people, and then 1/3 very young people. One thing that Kinney talked about was the four generations in the workplace: the traditionals (b. 1900-45), the boomers (b. 1946-64), the Xers (b. 1965-81), the millenials (b. 1982-2002). So, to put it in her terms room was about 1/3 traditionals, 1/3 boomers and 1/3 Xers. I am so close to being a millenial, and I am pretty sure I was the youngest person in there. But, alas, I am a gen Xer, apparently, though I don't know what that means--but according to her graphic I have spiked hair, a spikey choker, earrings, and I stick my tongue out all the time. Who knew?There are three things that I want to talk about regarding her presentation: first, pay attention; second, courage; and third, a research project.First, I posted about a video last year sometime and I will embed the updated version here:Kinney showed this video in a session with a bunch of administrators who are not typically into technology. Karl Fisch created this video to talk to his faculty about incorporating technology into their teaching. It was very interesting to watch it with a bunch of admins. Very different way to look at it. After it was over, she had us discuss in small groups this question: What does this mean for what we are teaching our students? Nobody mentioned technology, but they did mention teaching skills and not just feeding them information. I tied informational and technological literacy into that as well. We must also teach them how to teach themselves. They need to know how to learn on their own.Second, she talked about how leaders need courage to lead. There are many timeswhere a leader needs to exhibit courage even when it is not the most popular course of action. Courage is derived from the French word couer which means heart. She said that at the heart of every school there needs to be a leader with courage...or something like that. As I will most likely be a vice principal before I am ever a principal, I think that it will take a lot of courage to disagree with my principal. Sometimes, there are things that a principal feels strongly about but just don't work. It is important to have the courage to say, "This sucks!"Marzano, Walters and McNulty did some research and published it in School Leadership that Works and Kinney spoke very briefly to that research. There are 21 leadership responsibilities that impact student achievement. The top three are situational awareness, flexibility, and discipline. I have a hard time believing this. I am also concerned that this is not what I am learning my ed leadership classes. I find it hard to believe that those three are more impactful than some others like monitoring/evaluating, culture, communication, or some of the others. As I said, she only talked about it very briefly, so there is a lot that I was missing. Maybe I should read the book ;).All in all, I thought she did a pretty good job presenting, and hopefully I can use some of this stuff.Have a Good Life.

I use iClickers in my Politics class down at BYU, and it they are pretty nice. Last week I learned about SmartTechnology's Senteo system which is pretty neat. The video below will give you a taste of it. The nice thing about it that there are so many possibilities with it. Here is a video of the action with my students participating. So, here is the neat thing: at our school, we are supposed to give assessments and analyze the data. They want us to do really in-depth data analysis. This spreadsheet shows what Senteo exports. This is great because if you make these lists (which I am not sure how to do) you can show only those who missed certain questions, or those who got certain questions right. It is really neat. With these spreadsheets, you can see how well you teach certain topics, see how you need to improve, see if a question is throwing everybody off. You can also find students that are doing really poorly, and figure out how to differentiate instruction for them. Have a Good Life.

First of all, thanks to Pamela, Matt, Marcia, Jeff, Kara, Angela, Linda, and Pam for coming to TechnoThursdays today. I enjoyed working with each of you and I hope that you enjoyed learning some new things.We talked about RSS. I showed the Common Craft Show video "RSS in Plain English."Here are my thoughts. There were seven people there: that was a great number. Not too many, not too few.I love technology, and I spend a lot of time figuring out how to use it to help me be a better teacher. Of course I get frustrated when things don't work, but I understand that sometimes it doesn't go as planned. My biggest fear with doing TechnoThursdays is that people will be put off by the learning curve of new technology. It always takes a while to learn new things, and if you don't have the commitment to seeing it through to make sure that it is or is not worthwhile, it is very easy to give up.How can I help these teachers push through the learning curve and make it through?Right now, I don't know, but I have a few ideas:I need to help them see how it is useful. They need to see that kids are achieving better because of what I am doing. This is a hard one to measure. In language arts, it is difficult to see. I need to find/create some assessments that will show that what I do helps my students.I started the session by showing them the things that I have done this year with technology. I went through those examples very fast; I thought I might overwhelm them with everything that I have done. I didn't even get to all that I have done. If I go a bit slower, talk about one thing, and let them ask questions about it, I think they will like that better. They can go on their own time and get a brief history on the wiki. I need to be there to talk about the experience.I need to show them that it helps them. RSS brings websites to them. This will save them time, help them get new information (through sharing, which we also set up), and do other things. I helped a teacher set up student of the month nominations through Google Docs new survey form, and I really hope that it will make her job easier.I hope that these three simple things work. If you have any other ideas for me, feel free to leave them in the comments.Have a Good Life.

It's cool to vandalize public property if you are teaching math!

I just joined a website called bookcrossing.com. I found out about it through the BzzAgent.com frogpond. It is basically like geocaching, but with books. You place books at different places around you and you can find other books that people left as well. If anyone has any experience with this, let me know.Visit Book Crossing

So, another cool thing I found on the BzzAgent.com Frogpond is the New York Public Library website that has digital prints of thousands of pictures. This would be great for Matt! who is always looking for more stuff that has to do with Utah Studies. I didn't look through all of them, but there were 8 pages of images from searching Utah. Here are two that I got from there. Very cool. Visit New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

I got another job again. This one is better than delivering donuts (which I did last fall). I am the newest member of the gang at The Apple Blog. I will be writing articles that relate to Apple products. If you subscribe or visit this blog often, please consider visiting and/or subscribing to that blog. I will try to give an educational slant to most of my articles over there.My first article over there is about TubeTV--a program that downloads and converts online videos for iPod, iPhone, and AppleTV. I really like that program and I use it all the time. It is especially useful for teachers.Thanks for supporting me here (and there), and don't worry, I will continue this blog.

Below you will find the video for session 3 of TechnoThursdays. It is about 30 minutes long. We are talking about Google Video. The first part is muted, since we were watching a video, and it would just give an echo loop if I didn't mute, it, so push play here, then go watch this video on YouTube.During TechnoThursdays, we talk about how to make our lives easier as teachers. Sometimes, I feel like I am just confusing the heck out of everyone there. This was a really rough week for me. I had a LOT of stuff going on with school and work and work and family and church (yes, work was repeated twice on there, remember, I got a second job!). I didn't get to plan for this session as much as I would have liked to, and that frustrates me. I felt rushed the entire time. The majority of people did say that they didn't want TechnoThursdays to last more than an hour at the most, so I was trying to keep it relatively short. I had a lot to get through, and I think that it was difficult for them to keep up, because I was really going fast. I need to remember to slow down and make it useful for them. If I don't, nobody will want to come anymore.For the first session, I took the time to put myself in their shoes and tried to figure out the questions that they would likely ask me. This week, I just didn't do that. I forgot to ask a key question, and that made it very difficult. One teacher requested that TechnoThursdays help her use technology to more effectively teach math. When I read that comment in the survey from the first session, I thought about it briefly, but didn't put the time in that I needed to. I need to take the time to adequately prepare. (Hopefully, she doesn't read this and see that I am screwing up already!!!)Next week I am going to talk about blogs. I am going to talk about them as a way for teachers to update their students, or remind their students what they did in class. My team science teacher has a blog that she updates regularly for her students. I will use that one as an example. I am going to suggest that they include some extra credit assignments on there to help kids get in the habit of checking. Blogs also function as a great communication tool with parents. Parents could leave comments on the blog and ask questions or make a mockery of the teacher (let's hope not, right?).I will also mention using blogs as a reflective tool, like a journal. I don't know which is harder: writing a blog as a journal, or as an informational piece. What do you think? I use this blog as a reflective journal, so I am not surprised at all if nobody reads or comments. I do believe that a blog can be a very effective way for a person to reflect. I think that putting it out there where someone could stumble upon it forces you to think about what you are writing.Well, here is to wishing that session 4 will be better than session 3.Have a Good Life.

Last week my principal came into my room to ask me if I would be interested in attending a Principal's Academy conference with him where Rick and Becky DuFour would be speaking. For the uninitiated, Rick and Becky DuFour are the big names in Professional Learning Communities (PLC). A PLC is a collaborative community of school personnel that works together to ensure that not only does every child learn, but also that when they don't learn, there is a systematic process in place to help them learn. Aside from technology integration in schools, this is what education should be all about. I would even say that if I had to choose between the two, I would take PLCs without even thinking about. When I served as director of Academic Activities at BYU-Idaho, I started on this path. Though I didn't have the same words for these ideas way back then, the idea of a PLC and collaboration amongst teachers is what pushed me over the edge to become a teacher. If you would like more info about PLCs, please go to AllThingsPLC.info.Rick DuFour has a great sense of humor, and it showed in his book, and in this presentation today. He jumped into different accents on numerous occasions and told humorous anecdotes to get his point across. I would try to reproduce one verbatim here, but I would only butcher it, and if I can find a recording or even the written anecdote, I will certainly post it.Briefly, he talked about an eye surgeon giving his sister a painful and dangerous operation to fix her vision that would take a year to complete for both eyes. Then he wanted his eyes fixed just 7 years ago. The doctor had Lasik eye surgery by then and said he would be zapped a couple times with lasers, and then be at 20/20 vision in just 72 hours. DuFour said that if the doctor had done the same procedure that was done to his sister, he probably could have sued him for malpractice, since the technology and skills and best practices had been discovered by this time. He likened that to teaching: the research shows that collaborative teams show significant gains in student achievement--as a teacher, do not commit malpractice by not doing what research shows is the best thing to do to help kids learn.Here are the Big ROCKS that I got from the meeting today:Teachers need time to stop and think. (Much of the following will come if teachers can actually stop and think about what they are doing.)What we teach is the same across our grade level teamHow we teach it is and must be individualIntended curriculum is what the state (or other body) wants us to teachImplemented curriculum is what actually gets taught. There is a difference!!!Teachers need to commit to being actively involved and doing what needs to be done in a PLC. (In the words of my principal, "we aren't just going to have people 'mail it in.'"Say NO to averagesExtra help and tutoring for struggling students is no longer optional (build it in to the time they are at school. No more after-school tutoring! AMEN!)Celebrating is like voting: do them both early and often."The one thing leaders of any organization must know to be effective is the importance of clarity--communicating clearly and consistently:the purpose of the organization,the primary clients it servesthe future it is creatingthe indicators of progress it will track, andthe specific actions members can take immediately to achieve its long-term purpose and short-term goals." -Marcus BuckinghamAt the end of the conference, my principal asked, "Are you truly willing to let this impact your classroom practice and be a leader and an example to others at our school to push us the rest of the way toward a PLC?"Yes, I will.Have a Good Life.

I had a spiritual experience in my first period English class today.We read Touching Spirit Bear in my 7th grade English class this quarter, and I didn't think the students were getting much out of it. It was my first time teaching it, and I didn't do a very good job teaching it. They mostly read it by themselves with little discussion about it. I should have done a better job. I will do a better job next year, Department Chair.For the totem pole assignment at the end, the kids needed to draw a totem pole and write about it. I didn't give my first period class much instruction about it, and then gave the other periods more instruction. The things these 1st period students turned in were amazing.One girl wrote about how her dad used to be an alcoholic and how he has not had a drink for 3 years. Then she started crying. She was not crying because she was embarrassed, she was crying because she was so proud of her dad. She let me read the rest of her paper later, and she had so many great things in there.Another student read his, he drew the World Trade Center and told about how they thought his dad died there. Then, he said his dad didn't die, but friends did die there. Then he said, "I just want to ask God to bless all those heroes and victims of 9/11." It was so heartfelt and honest; it was not part of his written explanation.These two students were just part of the whole class doing an amazing job. I didn't think that they really understood a lot of the book. They showed me that they did.Have a Good Life.

TechnoThursdays wiki for this session.You can watch the video at the link above, if you choose. Please fill out the survey, too.This week's session was way better than last week's. I felt really rushed last week, and the class didn't go very well. I think Google Docs takes a mental shift. I don't think most of them were ready for it. I am frustrated with myself for not being aware that it would be difficult. I should have known.This week we did blogs. We set up blogs so that the teachers could post updates to their blogs each day about what they did in class. I think this is a great because they can make their lives easier. Students who need assignments from the previous day can get it there.What made tonight's TechnoThursday really successful?I was very prepared.I was teaching them something they could use right away.As a teacher of adults, I need to be prepared. As a teacher of adults, I need to teach them something that they can meaningfully use right away.Have a Good Life.

Pete over at LeaderTalk posted a good example of how important it is to be aware of what you are doing right and what you don't even know you are doing. I have experienced similar problems where people around you get upset about something and you don't realize that anything is wrong. The Johari Window explains this situation very well.Image Credit: Road to Well BeingI think Johari's window is pretty self-explanatory. The "Not known to self" section is what needs to be uncovered. You can uncover this by surveying other people, doing self-inventories, and studying. I hope that as a leader, I will be able to uncover the things that are currently hidden from me.Have a Good Life.

Taylor the Teacher posted about leadership today, probably because she feels her leadership is this way. This is definitely an authoritarian approach, and sometimes the situation warrants this kind of leadership (of course without the cutting off the head part). Sometimes, you really need to chop down on this. I remember one experience that I had as a leader where I needed to be strong. There was a topic that we could not talk about. If we did, it would have eroded our unity and all that we had worked so long and hard to make. This was the same basic approach that I needed to take with those that I led. I laid down the law and said, "We will not talk about this."Here is the clip Taylor used (Warning: It has bad language and a guy gets his head chopped off.)I haven't ever seen this movie, but I like that Taylor related this clip to leadership--very clever.Have a Good Life.

I love the semi-colon! This rocks! Though, I don't know if this really makes much sense. You Are a Semi-ColonYou are elegant, understated, and subtle in your communication.You're very smart (and you know it), but you don't often showcase your brilliance.Instead, you carefully construct your arguments, ideas, and theories "" until they are bulletproof.You see your words as an expression of yourself, and you are careful not to waste them.You friends see you as enlightened, logical, and shrewd. (But what you're saying often goes right over their heads.)You excel in: The ArtsYou get along best with: The ColonWhat Punctuation Mark Are You?Have a Good Life.

TechnoThursdays went great. We didn't have as many people there, but I think that I got the video to work better this time. We talked about blogs and everyone was able to keep up well. One of the other teachers couldn't make it, so she watched the session today. Last week I talked about going slow and providing something useful. I didn't plan as much today, and I think that made it a lot better. I took my time and didn't feel rushed.I enjoy seeing everyone posting to their blogs. Right now they are just posting assignments for students, but someday I hope to get them more involved in the blogosphere. We will see.Have a Good Life.

One of the more important things that I teach my 7th graders is persuasive writing, and I think that I do a pretty good job, considering my lack of experience and skill. The way I teach it really seems to make sense to my students, and I know that it makes sense to me.First of all, I go to this website called PocketMod, which is basically a place where you can create and print out your own mini-book that needs no staples or tape to work. You can even convert PDFs to this small form factor and have your reading fit in your pocket (I must admit this came in handy when I had to read so many PDFs for a few of my grad classes). I make a book like the one below and print it out.This method requires half a period (our periods are 45 minutes) to teach introduction, one whole period to teach supporting paragraphs, and half a period to teach conclusion.I have the paper above on an opaque projector (or as a transparency on an overhead) and write on it just like they do. That way, they can see exactly where things need to go. I tell them they only have to write what I write on the paper like theirs, so all our other discussion and comments don't go there. They get a very specific formula to follow.I give a blank one to each of my students and pitifully try to explain to them what to number the pages. I do this so that they can have a point of reference for the next steps, which need some reference points.When this book is folded, each page represents a new paragraph in a persuasive essay (also known as a five paragraph essay). These are 7th graders, so they like it simple and wrapped in a nice package. The anticipation of being able to eventually cut the paper and fold it kills them. I do everything I can to delay that gratification. It is good for them, right?So, on each "page" I take them through what is required for each paragraph in the essay. I let them do most of the teaching--that is, they call things out and I write it on the board off to the side while we discuss what should go where. Some of them have some background knowledge so this is a good way for me to get an idea of where they are at. Typically, though, we move through this pretty quickly. They give suggestions of what should be in each paragraph, and then I eventually tell them what should go there, and they suggest what should be written. It is all pretty straightforward, and they can easily make sense out of the words that I give them. They usually give an answer very close to the "correct" answer (correct in this instance means, worded the way I like it to be worded).The other thing that makes this work well, is I give them a guide for what they can use when they are writing papers for me. I give them keywords and key phrases that trigger what is supposed to come next.Key for the image below:Black text: The important parts that will be in every persuasive essay they write until the day they die!Blue Text: The explanation of the black text, just in case you ever forget.Red Text: Keywords they can use to start that section/sentence/paragraph/whatever.Why do I teach persuasive organization like this?Simple plug-and-play types of writing that are different enough (as this one is) will help them score well enough on their big important writing tests.Middle school kids are all over the place when it comes to organization (and I am sure that has something to do with their out-of-control bodies).It is much easier to grade them for their organization skills when they all follow this same pattern and use the same words.It is much easier for them to focus on the other five traits if organization, the trait that can hold them up, is very easy to do.I enjoy seeing them feel like they are writing a good paper (even if it is not) because it is well organized.This works. My students' writing scores were much better last year than the year before, and I had a lot of ELL (or ESL or LAL or whatever other names there are for kids who don't speak English at home).When they know what goes where, the rest of the good writing practices will comeIt doesn't take that long to teach, and the rest is just practice (it takes 2 full 45-minute periods, but I do the intro paragraph on the first day, and then have them write two or three to practice their hooks--then the middle paragraphs on day 2, and about 15 minutes on the conclusion).I do really enjoy teaching them to write a persuasive essay in this manner. This method gives them enough help that even the really poor writers can write a decent paper at the end.If you have anything that I should add to the lesson, please let me know so I can include it for next year.Have a Good Life.

Before I taught persuasive writing, I had the students write a persuasive essay about iPods at school (they are forbidden here). Here is A.'s essay (I corrected some grammar and spelling, but not much):I think that iPods should be allowed in school.I believe that if we had iPods in school, then we would work when we should and we would be more successful.I also think that if we had heavy metal rock on it then we would not be able to concentrate therefore we would have to be limited to certain songs and/or artists.I think that it would be a problem though if the teacher needed to say something or the bell rings because we wouldn't be able to hear so as a solution think that we should only be allowed to have one earphone in.I know that there are some rough spots that would have to be worked out, but I still think that it would be better.This essay is pretty indicative of the essays that I got back from my students. There are a lot of problems with this, and I left some of the mistakes in. Each paragraph is only one sentence long and then it is time to move on to something new.The students wrote their essays about iPods last week. Then, I taught them how to write a persuasive essay. They wrote one as a group, and then they wrote these yesterday on their own.I gave the students this topic for a persuasive essay: "Should 7th Graders Wear Deodorant?" Look at how much better A. did on her first essay after learning this strategy (I corrected some grammar and spelling, but not much):Have you ever sat by someone and they were the stinkiest person that you have ever smelled? Some people believe that seventh graders don't need to wear deodorant...but we know better. Seventh graders must be some of the stinkiest people in the world! (Boys in particular.)One reason seventh graders must start to wear deodorant is because they have just started to hit puberty, and I don't think that they realize that as you get older you start to smell worse. For example, have you noticed that your grandmother or grandfather smell all musty? That is because they're old. It is possible that you are saying, "Well, what about babies? They stink, though." But that is only because they are not potty trained, but imagine that if they were they wouldn't be so smelly.Another reason seventh graders should wear deodorant is because if they ride the bus they they are permanently out of friends. For example, the bus doesn't have any air conditioning and then they start to give off deadly fumes and the worst part is that you can't just get off the bus because then you would just end up walking home when it wasn't even your fault.In addition to hitting puberty and being smelly on the bus, seventh graders must wear deodorant because when they sweat, the salt in the perspiration will dry and make your skin flaky, and the rubbing of your arms as you walk will chafe the skin in your pits, therefore, you have to buy medicated lip balm to soothe the pain and ease the chafing. This is a much more expensive alternative rather than buying a cheap stick of deodorant.As you can see, puberty, being smelly on the bus, and sweating show that it is a matter of life and death for both the seventh grader and those who are older to slather a destinkifying white stick, commonly known as deodorant.This essay is not perfect, but she did a pretty good job of staying on topic and following the outline I posted previously. For seventh graders, organization is a very difficult thing to do. This second essay is way better than her first essay. This is great! You see, seeing students achieve something that is so much better than what they did before makes teaching worthwhile.Have a Good Life.

Photo Credit: BenGoode on FlickrToday I started my internship at ES Elementary School. Mr. P. is the principal there, and I think he is a pretty good guy. He strikes me as a very interesting fellow; he always measures his words carefully, and very methodical about everything he does. It makes him seem very wise and laid back. I find that very interesting and probably a good foil for me; I am usually pretty animated and often speak before I think. I also want everything done fast, fast, fast! He does not seem that way at all. He takes his time and doesn't worry too much about anything.Mr. P. told me today that what he experienced today has not happened in his 32 years in education--that means baptism by fire for me. Sweet. I must also take this time to say that I am so excited to be a principal. That is easy to say after being at a school for three hours and being able to leave all the problems as I walk out the door, calling my wife to say I will be home soon. Mr. P. cannot do that. We'll see how I feel about things after the remaining 350 hours I need for my internship. I think I will still enjoy it. The thing that I like so much about it is solving problems. It seems that is 90% (at least) of the job. If I can solve problems well, which I love to do, I think that I can be successful.There were two big problems today. First, there was a gas smell that some kid got a whiff of yesterday, and so he went home sick. A bunch of other kids "smelled" the "gas" as well, and so they went home sick. (Personally, I think the first kid had tried smoking pot for the first time and that is why he had an upset stomach and a headache--everyone else just followed his lead and saw an opportunity to get some attention and go home. I don't know the kids name or anything about him or her, I honestly don't know if it was a boy or a girl. That was my gut reaction when it was being explained to me.) But, anyway, Mr. P. reminded me of an important lesson: "You must treat all concerns like they are real emergencies." Even the little annoying kids must be respected for being able to come and say that there may be an issue. Mr. P. called the gas company yesterday, they found nothing. The district dudes were out today, and found a broken part that would have nothing to do with a gas smell. This school is located right next to a busy street that has a lot of semi traffic. The gas smell could have come from those or the buses idling in front of the school. Well, one parent was unhappy with the way Mr. P. was handling so he or she called the news station and complained that nothing was being done to prevent anything from happening. The district guys again checked things and made sure all was well. The disaster was hopefully averted. Mr. P. said, "And I am supposed to be the curriculum director in the school. Don't kid yourself." He has had to deal with this for two whole days.The other major problem was that a kid went around to at least six different teachers' rooms and stole money from their purses, drawers, and cabinets. The suspect is a 9 year old boy who just moved into the school. Mr. P. was amazing when he was dealing with this kid and his mom. He used his good calm mannerisms to help keep everyone calm and not let it blow out of proportion. Sadly, there is no dad in the situation, and the mom doesn't appear to have a job. The mom seemed to not have control of her family or her own life. She was there for an hour and hardly said a word as Mr. P. lectured her son, called the police, lectured her, and then lectured her son again (and here I would add that I think Mr. P. spoke for way too long--she and the son both stopped listening after a while, and they were very sick of being there for so long. Nothing that Mr. P. said was wrong or incorrect, or superfluous, but he did go on for too long). She only asked where the courthouse was that her son would have to attend to go before a judge about his four counts of stealing. She did have an opinion when Mr. P., after passionately pleading for this boy to learn his lesson and not do anything like this ever again, and telling her son that he liked him, and would not hold a grudge, said that if this boy kept doing these things, he would not last at this school long. He started to repeat it again when the mother cut him off and said, "You mean he wouldn't be welcome here!" and then she stormed out of the room. She was not a happy camper. I can't understand why she was so upset. Nobody wants a kid that has been stealing things from anyone he can since he was little. She certainly didn't seem to want to have him at home with her. Mr. P. handled this situation very well, but she still was very upset. It is too bad that she will have to find some way to pay the money back if the boy really did give it away to friends, because I don't think she has much money. It was more sad than anything today. That poor family is going to struggle to make a good life. Things are already starting out poorly for them.Mr. P. also had a hard time today with trying to hire new faculty. The district sends out a list of 7 people today who are candidates for a job to, get this, about 40 elementary school principals. All those principals are hiring, and for a school like this one, it is going to be hard for Mr. P. to find someone. Of those 7, only one answered her phone, and she will have an interview tomorrow with Mr. P., and probably 5 more interviews this week with other principals. What a difficult way to find new teachers. I think principals must rely a lot on word of mouth.There is a special education teacher at this school that rocks! I don't know her name, but she seems like a very good person who cares deeply about her students and really tries hard to make sure they all succeed. I am very impressed.Have a Good Life.

Update: My student just came to me with her addition, a couple lines at the bottom, in red.My student wrote this poem for an assignment with very little instruction: You need to write a poem that is at least 20 lines long and then tell me what the main idea of the poem is and tell me what emotions you are using or feeling in the poem.I present it here with no editing, and it will annoy me to death, but that is how she explicitly wanted it. I tell my students (especially in poetry) that it is okay to break the rules as long as 1) you know what rule you are breaking and 2) you know why you are breaking it. She knew the what and why, so here it is:Many people say I hate my life,Why can't someone else be in myplace? Why not live life while you'realive! Think, do you want to be some helpless cat dead on the sidewalk. As yousee, lightning is most peoples' killer anger. It roarsto life & it stays for a while. If you die, many people feel sorry for you, butisn't death what you wanted? So death is what you got! Once you die or kill your-self there are no second chances, you feel angry & stupid for wanting to die allyou do now is sit down & cry! You wishu hadn't but you did, now u wish youstill had lived. There are so many thingsin life to live for so step back and try toignore. People want to bring you downjust look at them and frown, frown, frown.You will be a clown if you want to dieSo don't do it just sit & cry, cry, cry.Your life is over, it was your choice you shouldn't have killed yourself, instead spokeyour voice.I think it is a pretty good poem, and I like that it has an anti-suicide message. This girl has always bewildered me, and I like that she is showing herself in this poem.Have a Good Life.

Darren Draper, my hero, posted a great thought about Professional Development. He runs a great program called OpenPD. He just finished his third session, and reflected about it. I suggest you read it to fully understand my comments here. Darren asks these questions:How do we transform OpenPD so as to attract the kinds of teachers that aren’t the most technologically savvy?How do we garner the participation of additional groups of teachers? Sure, individual participation from wherever you may be is fantastic, but a class of multiple classes would be ideal.What can be done to provide OpenPD participants with local district credit - enabling additional rewards other than the intrinsic? Considering question 3, are such extrinsic rewards really needed or would they only taint the enthusiasm for such an endeavor?@Clay, How can you say RSS is dead? You just said the other day that this is too new! Perhaps RSS is dead to you, but that doesn't mean it is dead to others.Darren and Sarah: Teachers and any other professionals hate PD because it is PD. As my professor this last semester said about a hundred times as she lectured us with the same style of PowerPoint without letting us interact, "The days of a one-stop-dog-and-pony-show Professional Development are over!" When we tried to participate in that discussion, she ignored us and lectured more about the need for collaboration in adult education. (Pardon me, I got distracted by hypocrisy.)If we call it PD, people are going to hate it without knowing anything about it.Also, I have mentioned numerous times that if you want OpenPD to attract normal (non techy) teachers, we need satellite groups of teachers to start inviting other teachers at their school to participate in technology sessions or experiences. My TechnoThursdays has only been successful because they are developing professionally and they don't even know it. It is not even that successful, there are only 4 or 5 people that show up each time. But if you think about all the middle schools in our district doing that, that is nearly a hundred people participating in professional development while enjoying it and not knowing that they are being duped! But it is not about duping them, it is about creating a safe environment for teachers to explore technology and learn new tricks. If they can learn about it at a safe place, they can feel more comfortable trying it out on their own.In addition, we might have some better success if we are not focusing on the bleeding edge of technology. This goes back to Clay's idea that RSS is dead. Maybe since it is dead, some teachers will start using it. Maybe we should look at teaching them how to properly use Excel or their grading programs or some other type of software. My biggest takeaway from TechnoThursdays is that I need to teach relevant topics, and go s-l-o-w. This should be part of any PD.TechnoThursdays went so well today because we talked about a way to specifically integrate technology into their different subject areas in a way that made their lives easier and more productive. That is what gets them coming back.Have a Good Life.

It all started two months ago when I caught three girls cheating on a test. I made a poor decision and ripped up their papers in front of the class. Those three girls have been inciting the rest of the class for a couple months to near rioting. This class has been very difficult to deal with despite many long talks with many students. It is very frustrating. These students know exactly how I feel. Well, they should know. On Friday we had another talk about how they should behave and what is expected of them. Yesterday, I posted this on Twitter:Whenever my students need an assignment, I direct them to my website and tell them to print things off my calendar. I have found out that a lot of them get to my Web site via search engines. What do you suppose is one of the results when you search for Jethro Jones? It is not my Twitter page. Nor does it rise to the top when you search for my name and Twitter. But somehow, the above Twitter post was one of the top results because one of my students asked me today, "Mr. Jones, why do you think we are your worst class?" I asked why she thought that, and she quoted the above Twitter post nearly perfectly and told me that her mom found it when trying to find my website. My class was surprisingly good for the fire drill, even though I didn't expect them to be that good. So, one other girl asked why I hate them, and after being corrected, asked why I dislike them. I made sure that those were their words. I explained that they are my worst-behaved class. It doesn't mean that I hate them or dislike them, but it does mean that they drive me crazy and that they can be very annoying. I told them this. I have not kept it a secret from them before now, and I have not tried to hide it from them. As I said, we have had many long chats about this. This girl's mom was not upset or so the student said. She thought it was pretty funny, actually. The students were good today after another long chat. They also were much better at keeping the others on task. Now that you have the background, here are my thoughts. First, Why were they so upset about this despite the nearly hundreds of times I have talked to them about it? They all knew about the Twitter post before they came into my class, because this girl probably told them all about it in first period. I think they were upset because it was public on the internet, and people could find it. They knew they had the fire drill yesterday, and so they finally understood that I thought they were my worst class (despite the fact that I have been trying to tell them that for weeks). Second, it is hard for these seventh graders to disassociate negative things. Just because they are my worst class does not mean that I hate or dislike them. They don't understand that (hopefully) adults can separate the two feelings. I told them that they annoy and frustrate me, but that as soon as they are doing what they should, those feelings go away. Third, how in the world did she find that. My website was above all the possible Twitter statuses even when I searched for "jethrojones twitter". I guess she could have found her way to my blog but I don't know. Crazy. Fourth, this has definitely reminded me that what I write is available and can be found. I need to remember that. I don't usually post anything controversial, but even things like this, that can be found by the mom of a student in that class, are fair game. So, the real question is should I protect my updates so that I can't be found on Twitter or searches? Have a Good Life.

I don't know where I found this, but it is pretty cool. You make online jigsaw puzzles. No signup required and it is fun. Give the two below a try and let me know what you think. I think I could make a few of these and use them as some sort of learning object in my class. It would at least be a fun way to kill the last five minutes of the day on those days.If you want to try one that is really hard, try this one:AmForkTabernacleHave a Good Life.