Random Ramblings

WOW! We received the 8th grade computer test results for 2 of my middle schools today. One school, that is finished testing all their students, scored a 70% passing. Now, that might not excite you, but last year we only had 50% pass. See, why I’m so excited!

The other school, that is close to being finished, had a 40% pass rate last year and this year it is up to 72%. I am so proud of the kids and the teachers for their hard work and dedication! We’re still looking for ideas to help our Latino population. I know that language is the major difficulty these students are encountering. Ideas you want to share?

As I was reading through the hundreds of blogs I read, I found this quote which I think is completely appropriate for my edublog.

“If we teach as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow.”
–John Dewey

Is that great or what? What I find interesting, is that John Dewey did most of his work in the late 19th and early 20th century! Unfortunately, some teachers are still teaching in a similar manner with the teacher being sole holder of knowledge. That’s unfortunate for everyone involved.

I found a few new websites that I think you might find interesting.

Snap is a screen preview pop-up that you can add to your blog. I hope it’s working for you as you mouse over the links in my blog. I thought it was one of the neatest sites I’ve seen in awhile.

RSS Calendar allows you to insert a calendar into your blog. What I like is that it updates on its own. I don’t have to change the itinerary. I have it in my side widgets. You can have a public or a private calendar.

Podbean is a free podcast site. I haven’t completed a podcast yet, but the site assures us that it only takes 5 minutes. One of our county’s ITF’s shared this with us today. Thanks Lee.

Gliffy is for those of us who are artistically challenged. Gliffy allows you to:

• Diagramming in your web browser without downloading additional software
• Desktop application feel in a web-based diagramming solution
• Add collaborators to your work and watch it grow
• Link to published Gliffy drawings from your blog or wiki

Babelfish a translation tool. Many people have recommended this site. I don’t have enough sidebar widgets left to add it to my blog I wish edublogs would allow more than 9 widgets. I figured out how to add the widget

Newsmap is a bit tough for those of us who are easily distracted (politically correct way to say I’m ADD). But, is a great way to read the most current news aggregates from Google.

I’m still looking for ideas on how to organize my del.icio.us bookmarks. I find so many websites that I want to send to my teachers. I need some way to organize them in an easily searchable format. I think that adding to my wiki is probably the answer, but I haven’t had the time to do that yet. I’d really like to make a wiki page for each of the content areas with lessons according to each goal. If you have any ideas, please share.

I’m excited that I can now see the locations of the people who are reading my blog. I still find it interesting that anyone is reading, but it is cool! I hope to make new friends in new countries. I’ve linked up with a teacher in New Zealand. We’re hoping to collaborate on a wiki. Think of the benefits to our students!

Until next time ~ Danita

This entry was posted on Friday, December 8th, 2006 at 10:37 pm Filed under Blog and. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.