Eating too Late and Nightmares

I have always heard that eating too late in the evening can lead to nightmares. Is it true?

The other evening, my wife and I enjoyed a wonderful meal together at San Jose, one of our famous Mexican restaurant. San Jose is in Whiteville, North Carolina. It is located about 18 miles from our home. It is near Wally-World and Hibbetts Sporting Goods which we like to walk through after eating. The walk usually helps our meal digest. This dream may not have been the product of the meal, but it was weird.

In my dream, I had ordered a science kit to use with my students. One of those kits that come with everything we need. The kit arrived and my students were working on another project. Instead of using the kit, I put it way to later. My dream was interrupted by my dog jumping on my head and licking my ear. He does this when my snoring is so loud he can not sleep. I rolled over and fell back asleep.

When the dream resumed, some time had passed and I had pulled out the science kit. Students gathered around the box. It was a black box with handles. As the box opened, a plant-like puppet came out of the box. It was like the plant creature in some play I watched years ago- I think they called the man-eating plant--Seymour. Well, as the students participated in the activity, I noticed a packing slip that had written in bold print: "OPEN KIT IMMEDIATELY, CONTENTS ARE...I could not make out the rest of the notice. But in my horror, I realized that the kit had a human-like being in the kit that ran the puppet. It had been in the box, locked in the cabinet. Another piece of paper appeared stating that if the kit was not opened within two days of arrival, the school would be charged a daily rate of use for the kit. [...dreams of fine print? Lord, help me!]

The dream seemed to restart at a point where the bill and the overdue fee for the rental of the science kit had come due. The school board had me sitting at a table and were threatening to fire me. This woke me up!

Someone could make this into a horror short-film. Maybe this summer, I can make the time to storyboard this nightmare.

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Using Wii to blog

This is my first time using my Wii with the Opera browser. I need a wireless keyboard. Using the Wii remote to type is too slow!

This Makes Me Sick

Teaching is a challenge. Students today are engaged in a plethora of hardcore criminal behaviors. Violent behavior is just beneath the surface of every conversation. Drugs plague our communities and spill over into the school yard. My point is that teaching is a hazardous endeavor. NEA has an interesting article online at the link below. Now in my last decade of teaching, I look at the number in the NEA article and want to throw up. Teachers are blamed for everything. Poor test scores, drop-outs, poor eating habits of fat kids, and more.

Oh well, what do we know, we are just teachers.

Check out this interesting article: Be prepared to self-medicate.

NEA: Professional Pay - Myths & Facts About Teacher Pay

MYTH: Teachers make just as much as other, comparable professions.

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Lesson Plan Template

This is a template we are now required to use for lesson plans. I am posting on my blog so I can share it with my fellow educators. There are several parts of this template that as a teacher, I am challenged to master and find quality time to implement. In coming blog posts, I will be investigating and sharing "how to" strategies. If you are reading this blog and you have POSITIVE- CONSTRUCTIVE comments, tips, or strategies you would like to share please share. I have been looking for links to resources online that may help, but have not found very much to brag about.

NewLessonPlan.dot

Last Week of the Fall Semester

This semester has been interesting in my classroom. I have been teaching, or trying to teach Physical Science, Biology, Earth Science, and both 7th and 8th grade science. Admittedly, I have not covered every topic in lectures, demonstrations, or even lab activities. Also, my classes are very small. However, I do not feel like I have accomplished anything. Students have been used videos, textbooks, activities, laptop computers with online resources, digital camcorders, graphing calculators with probes, peer-tutoring, and lots of teacher student conferences.

Reflecting on how I could have met the needs of my diverse students and broad spectrum or science concepts I do not have a clue. Trying to keep the curriculum relevant and rigorous is highly impossible with so many different preparations.

Burned-out is a good way to summarize my feelings.

Tidy Up Your Teacher's Desk

This post is inspired by an article I read in a Wired Magazine, Allen, David. "Tidy Up Your Desk...." Wired Aug.2006: 022-023.

1. "Stack the Knickknacks", well, not sure teachers have these because students do not give teachers anything these days. My desk is covered with curriculum CDs, a US/NC flag, whiteboard markers (most of them are almost dried out), a cup for pencils I find on the floor, and several coffee mugs. I guess coffee mugs would qualify as knickknacks. Pile it up until you can see the desktop
   
2. "Line up the books and binders to establish a perimeter for your work area." I would not really recommend this for a classroom. Piled up books end up falling when students try to slip late homework on your desk and then accuse you of not asking for their homework or tell their parents or guardian you lost it on your desk. Do I like do, throw the textbooks in a box and stick them in the back seat of your car. I have used the say textbook for so many years I have the answers memorized. I only use them to write lesson plans. They have the Standard Course of Study numbers our school district requires on lesson plans so they can fire teachers that have poor test scores by saying we are not teaching the curriculum.
   
3. "Hit the Container Store." Container Store? Forget that! The only place I can afford to go to is Big Lots. I bought some cheap CD containers. They are full. I need to weed my collection. Bet I have some CDs of Apple software that will not run on Leopard. I also park my truck near the school dumpster at the beginning and end to the school year. When teachers retire or quit, I volunteer to carry their old stuff to the dumpster. If there is something like document trays or pencil holders, I just drop them in the back of my truck and keep on going.
   
4. "Set Aside A Few Minutes daily to clear your desk." The Wired Magazine article suggests using your daily planner to schedule time each day to clean off your desk. Use iCal or Google Calendar to make a repeating appointment, each school day, to remind you to clean off your desk.
5. "Create A Folder Hierarchy." The article changed describing the desk to the computer desktop. Tip: "group files into folders labeled by year, then make subfolders for each set of tasks. Make sure your naming conventions are clear and concise." This is a problem on my Windows machine. However, I love Leopard's new feature called Quick Look/Slideshow. This is awesome for unorganized teachers like myself. I never remember what I saved a file as. If I download a curriculum file from our State Department of Ed, they name their files differently and I never remember to rename them.
6. "Color Code Your Files." Sweet! I am not going to do this. The article recommends using bold colors for "urgent" files.
   
7. "Move Your Folders." This tip is lame. "...create a desktop shortcut pointing to current assignments." Have you heard about Box.net? Instead of using a flashdrive, I am trying this. Shortcuts are useless if you are having to work on multiple computers at home and at school.
   
8. "Choose Attractive Wallpaper." I like this tip- "if you've got a background worth looking at, your're more likely to keep the desktop free of file and folder clutter." I am doing to download some photos from Harley-Davidson for their bikes and maybe set up that "retirement date" ticker. That is worth looking at. Cheers!

Happy New Year.

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Remembering the Green Swamp

Festive Freaking Fruit Flies

With temperatures in the lower 70's today and upper 60's yesterday, fruit flies have invaded the sweet potato processing plant next door. I have sprayed Black Flag so much that my coffee tastes like bug spray. If I had the money, I would be on a cruise or in the mountains skiing. However, low teacher pay makes this only a dream.

The exact same thing- Invasion of the Fruit Flies, last year at Christmas time.

Prevention

The best way to avoid problems with fruit flies is to eliminate sources of attraction. Produce which has ripened should be eaten, discarded or refrigerated. Cracked or damaged portions of fruits and vegetables should be cut away and discarded in the event that eggs or larvae are present in the wounded area. A single rotting potato or onion forgotten at the back of a closet, or fruit juice spillage under a refrigerator can breed thousands of fruit flies. So can a recycling bin stored in the basement which is never emptied or cleaned.



People who can their own fruits and vegetables, or make wine, cider or beer should ensure that the containers are well sealed; otherwise, fruit flies will lay their eggs under the lid and the tiny larvae will enter the container upon hatching. Windows and doors should be equipped with tight-fitting (16 mesh) screens to help prevent adult fruit flies from entering from outdoors.


Eradication

Once a structure is infested with fruit flies, all potential breeding areas must be located and eliminated. Unless the breeding sites are removed or cleaned, the problem will continue no matter how often insecticides are applied to control the adults. Finding the source(s) of attraction and breeding can be very challenging and often will require much thought and persistence. Potential breeding sites which are inaccessible (e.g., garbage disposals and drains) can be inspected by taping a clear plastic food storage bag over the opening overnight. If flies are breeding in these areas, the adults will emerge and be caught in the bag.

After the source of attraction and breeding is eliminated, a pyrethrum-based, aerosol insecticide may be used to kill any remaining adult flies in the area.

simple fruit fly trap

A better approach, however, is to construct a trap by placing a paper funnel (rolled from a sheet of notebook paper) into a jar which is then baited with a few ounces of cider vinegar. Place the jar trap(s) wherever fruit flies are seen. This simple but effective trap will soon catch any remaining adult flies which can then be killed or released outdoors.

Source: http://www.ca.uky.edu/entomology/entfacts/ef621.asp

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My Ustream.TV Christmas Greeting

Twitter or Pownce

As a classroom teacher, I should probably avoid using presence social networks altogether. I once was told by one of my college professors that if you coach sports, or mess with politics, and teach school-- you must live in a mobile home because you have to move often. Online presence my be the new coaching/messing with politics topic in the coming days. 

Saturday, December 15, 2007, the kind folks at Twitter.com warned of impending network disruptions. Early in the morning, I began to notice folks looking for alternate Twitter-like solutions. Pownce was the immediate preferred replacement. The chatter flew. Someone quickly posted a wikispaces page for educators to "help transfer twitter refugees to Pownce". Great use of a wiki! 

After joining Pownce, I added about 30 educators as my friends. As I was busy sending invites on Pownce, I keep noticing Twitter was still online in and Twitterrific continued to refresh. Heck, Twitter has never been known for having the most stable API. I think that is part of the alure for me. Twitter is like my old CB radio. It has channels in that I follow educators that I have read their blogs, attended their professional development sessions, or listened to their podcasts or vlogs. These 30 educator "friends" in Pownce pales in comparison to the humble 75 educators I follow on Twitter. 

I love the enhanced features of Pownce and plan to try to continue to use it as long as others stick around. 

Social Networking in our School

Fifth period class was well underway when one of my students asked if I had gotten the text. It was caught off-guard by the question. My first instinct was to say yes. However, day had not been a normal day. Students were mostly in shock. One of their classmates had been missing since November 19th. A body had been found
and positively identified as the your male. Several of my students had known the student since kindergarten, others were related to him. The student that asked me about the text message was kind enough to share the message with me. I have deleted the names from the message but wanted to blog the content of the message.

Fr: Jus yesterday Delemerz was found dead n we want 2 send lov 2 da family n hope that justice is done
R.I.P. DELEMEZ WE LOV U!
KEEP DIS CHAIN GOING!
De 6 9:14 a.m.

None of my students needed to check their emails, MySpace, Bebo, Facebook, personal blogs, typepad, and more are all blocked. Still their social network was uninterrupted.

My sympathy's are with the families and classmates in their time of bereavement.

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Is Your School "Crackerjack"?

Cold drizzling rain and cloudy skies met me and our dog Gavin on the Sunday, the last day of Thanksgiving vacation. The weather ran us back into warmth of comfortable couch and my MacBook. While checking my email, I glanced at the list of articles in summarized in the New York Times. I subscribe to their daily email feeds on a few topics that that generally find interesting and thought provoking.

This morning, I read an article that warmed my heart and got me to thinking about why I teach. Let me just say, it is complicated. This article has a great phrase that I plan to steal: 'crackjack'.

Let's ask the question: Is Your (our) school- crackjack? If not, then why.

The New York Times: Reference Search for 'crackerjack'

crackerjack
Jump to:
Dictionary| Thesaurus| WordNet
Back To Top
Dictionary

crack·er·jack (krăk'ər-jăk') pronunciation also crack·a·jack (krăk'ə-)
adj. Slang.

Of excellent quality or ability; fine.

[Probably from CRACK, first-rate + JACK.]
crackerjack crack'er·jack' n.

logo The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. See crackerjack on Answers.com

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Wanted in my Science Classroom: Asus EeePC

Have to share this educator's first impressions of the Asus EeePC. Would this device serve the purpose of a school? Can its configuration be customized to meet the restrictions of school districts? Can it support our wireless printers? Can students and teachers maintain the device without overwhelming tech support?

I love the idea of it being the size of textbook (smaller than most science textbooks). When I saw it has a built-in webcam I was sold! What do you think about using it in your classroom?

source: http://edu.blogs.com/ewanmcintosh/

Check out my Slide Show!

Monday Off?

The radio alarm clock and wake-up timer on my old-school TV came on as programmed precisely at 6:00 a.m. I took the dog out in the 35ish degree morning air as he sniffed his way across the edge of the frost covered lawn. The sound of a few early travelers rushing who-knows-where was clearly audible in the cold. The trip was short- Gavin was ready to head back inside for the warmth of the couch and snuggling under my fleece jacket. Coffee would be nice about now. My wife is able to rest. She came down with a nasty cold Thursday, and has been coughing and sneezing ever since. Today, we are attending a grave side service at 1:20 p.m., and then we will be going to Wilmington to eat out. We are celebrating 30 years of marriage today. It seems like yesterday. My words just can not describe it. All the joy, excitement, ups and downs, families, friends and more.

I love my wife. It is a great day to have off so I can spend time with her.

Got to turn off this computer!

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Classroom Tool for Lesson Planning

I downloaded an application for my MacBook called Planbook. Until registered, Planbook allows you to enter up to 20 lessons for each class in your book. All other functions of the program work exactly as specified in the registered version. Registration removes the 20 lesson limitation.

To purchase Planbook, all I have to do is choose the 'Purchase Planbook...' menu item from the File menu. An internet connection is required to purchase and activate Planbook.

Code and Interface Design: Jeff Hellman
Contact e-mail: jeff@hellmansoft.com
Website: http://www.hellmansoft.com

Icon Design: Tim Burns
Contact E-mail: Zagifar@gmail.com

I think I reached my limit in a couple of hours working on lesson plans with my Biology class. I am not 100% in love with the program. I would like to be able to get under the hood and change the template so I could change the layout of the windows. However, I can live with the way it looks now. I really like how easy it is to add hyperlinks to activities online. Planbook also allows me to attach documents like .pdf, .doc, and images. Also, I can publish the lesson plans to my .Mac account.

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New Program- Alternative Graduation

Jessica, Halie, and Katronella
Originally uploaded by The Blake Slate

The WCS BOE approved our school's new alternative graduation program. The final details are still under consideration. The bottom line should be that the graduation rate for our students will increase. Our goal is to provide our graduating students with the number of credits required by the State Board of Education and meet all their credit requirements for math, science, English, and social studies. This program has specific acceptance requirements. Participants must have approval from our school superintendent and principals.

EduCon 2.0

EduCon 2.0 is both a conversation and a conference.

And it is not a technology conference. It is an education conference. It is a School
2.0 conference. It is, hopefully, an innovation conference where we
want to come together, both in person and virtually, to discuss the
future of schools. We are looking for people to present ideas,
facilitate conversations, and share best practice.

The Axioms / Guiding Principles of EduCon 2.0:

1) Our schools must be inquiry-driven, thoughtful and empowering for all members.

2) Our schools must be about co-creating -- together with our students -- the 21st Century Citizen

3) Technology must serve pedagogy, not the other way around.

4) Technology must enable students to research, create, communicate and collaborate

5) Learning can -- and must -- be networked.

Call For Conversations

In addition to the many informal conversations we believe will be a big
part of EduCon 2.0, we do want structured sessions in the following
broad strands:

School 2.0 -- What are the schools we need to prepare kids for the world to come?

Classroom 2.0 -- What are the classrooms our students need -- today and into the future?

Student 2.0 -- How should the student experience change in our schools?

Teacher 2.0 -- How should the profession of "teacher" change?

Innovation 2.0 -- How do we best act as agents of positive change?

Library 2.0. -- What is the role of the library in the future and what does it looks like, act like, feel like?

Conference proposals are due Nov. 1st. Please submit proposals via Survey Monkey -- Call for Conversations.

All proposals should include:

Title:
Conversational Strand:
Conversational Focus / Main Idea / Presentation (in 250 words or less):
Conversational Practice --
How will you make this an conversation, not just a presentation?
Skypecast? Conversational Protocols? Building a wiki together?

For more ideas, visit Stephanie Sandifer's post on Conference 2.0 Resources or the wiki page "Protocols Examples".

Conversation Website (Optional):

Presenter(s) Names:

Presenter(s) Afflilation:

Contact Email:

Source: http://educon20.wikispaces.com/

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Friday Seminar- Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

"The desire of humans to break from the
earth's surface and fly like the birds.  It is the story of the Wright
Brothers and their dedicated and inspired approach to a prob-
lem that had stumped many of the finest scientists of their time.
It is the story of how two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, careful-
ly and meticulously conducted a true scientific investigation
without the benefit of formal training or prior experience in
such structured procedures.  They intuitively and creatively uti-
lized their skills of observation to rethink and craft an approach
to a problem that scientists and inventors had faltered over for
years.  Theirs is a true story of inspiration, skill, devotion, cre-
ativity, and a desire to accomplish a very specific goal.  That
goal was to successfully build a heavier-than-air, motor-pow-
ered craft that would lift off the ground and travel forward a dis-
tance to a position no lower than their starting spot." source: Teacher's Guide Colgren Communications
Written by John Colgren.

STUDENT OBJECTIVES (NCSCOS Goal 1)
After viewing the program and participating in the lesson activ-
ities, the students should be able to:
• Identify the key problems of flight that faced the Wright
Brothers.
• Identify how the Wright Brothers gained insight and knowl-
edge about the principles of flight from the studies of those sci-
entists and inventors that came before them.
• Recognize that the Wright Brothers were successful in their
endeavor to conquer the skies because they made careful obser-
vations, conducted their own experiments when they were dis-
satisfied with the data of others, and worked as a team.

Links:

• http://www.kitty-hawk.com/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hawk,_North_Carolina
• http://www.firstflightcentennial.org/
• http://travel.howstuffworks.com/airplane.htm
• UnitedStreaming - Login to view "The Story of the Wright Brothers: From Kits to Kitty Hawk"
  

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EstuaryLive 2007

This past week, our high school biology students participated in this fall's EstuaryLive event. This had to have been the best EstuaryLive ever. Bill Lovin and Cris Crissman teamed up with the North Carolina and South Carolina folks to knock this year's episode out of the park.

I used the application from Apple called Grab to capture over one
hundred images from the live streams. I have never been a fan of RealPlayer, but the software was stable and images from the Charleston, SC were out of this world. The best part of this year's event had to be the guests. They keep the segments informative and interesting. The close up shots showed up nicely on the 15 inch monitor of the four year old PowerBook. My MacBook Pro remains out of service in the wake of last May's vandalism. I am still holding out hope that our technology department will find the funds to repair the monitor and power cable. But that is another story.

My students used Google Earth to locate Charleston, SC and looked at the coastal features. I encouraged my students to think about a question while they were watch the streaming video feed. They had so little knowledge of estuaries that this was a real challenge. I should have spend more time studying and preparing them for the sessions. They enjoyed the fish and shrimp segments.