Are You An Energy Sucker?

If you've read my blog for any time, you've probably heard me mention them before. I call them, "Energy Suckers." We all have them in our lives. They do what their names says, they suck the energy out of you. If they are really good, they can do it by simply walking into the same room as you. Others are a little more subtle and warm you up, lulling you into thinking "this time" will be different and just as you let your guard down, you start to feel that sucking sensation and suddenly you realize you haven't been breathing much until the person walks away satisfied having consumed your energy in it's latest feeding frenzy. Do you know that person? Here's my bigger question...

Are YOU that person? I've always wondered if Energy Suckers know who they are. Well here is a scientifically proven test I've devised (using me as a sample) so you can see if indeed YOU are the Energy Sucker in other people's lives. Go ahead, take it. I hope there are a few people in my life taking it too.

1. When you ask a question, are you really hoping for an answer or are you threatened when someone has the answer?
2. When someone asks another person a question, do you always jump in with the answer and keep talking even when the two people talking KEEP MAINTAINING EYE CONTACT WITH EACH OTHER? (They are trying to tell you, the question wasn't for you.)
3. Do other people frequently stop talking mid-sentence around you? Ever wonder why? (Perhaps you keep interrupting.)
4. Have you ever noticed that you sometimes say negative things about other teachers IN FRONT OF STUDENTS? 
5. Do you ask for help with something BEFORE you've attempted to even look it yourself?
6. Do you make judgmental comments about others' use of technology to people who use technology a lot? ("I don't have time for that." or "Who uses FaceBook; why would I want to know that you are walking your dog, right?")
7. Do you walk around with a smile or a look of exasperation?
8. Is everything an emergency?
9. When someone needs something, do you offer to solve the problem or do you send them somewhere else?
10. Have you ever considered that maybe you can do things a little differently this year?

What would you add to this list?

Birthday Books for Elementary Students

My favorite time of the year is when my classroom is finally set up, the students have been in school for a few days and I'm starting to get more organized. That falls right about the weekend after the first few days of school. That's right about now. I feel such a huge sense of relief now as compared to the last few weeks as I was even starting to doubt my ability to function. Although I'm still working oodles of hours beyond the regular work day, it's on more of the stuff I enjoy; that is planning activities for the students that are engaging, rigorous and relevant.

Last year, with 64 students, it was really hard to do many of the activities I really wanted to do. Because of departmentalization, our time was so limited and extremely structured. The fact that I had so many students also made it costly if there were supplies involved. One activity I did not do last year, but always did in the past was have the students create birthday books for the birthday child, whenever there was one. This year, although 29 students in my homeroom is a lot, I'm thrilled to have every single one of them and plan to reinstate the birthday books once again. (I've had students catch me in public 25 years later and tell me they still have their birthday books from when they were my students!)

So, while I'm sitting here creating some interesting activities for my 4th graders, I just updated my birthday book and thought I'd share it with you.

If you teach elementary school, you might be interested in using it. Here's how it works:

1. Download this PDF that I created. Each page has two duplicate pages on it so you can just cut them in half and save paper. 
2. The first page is the cover. Make enough copies for each student in your class and use rubber cement or a glue stick to attach it to a piece of construction paper that is only slightly larger than the paper (9x12 cut in half). Save for when each student's birthday comes around.
3. The next page is the inside of the book. Make enough for each student to have one (each student only needs half). Students will complete the page with a description and illustration of a "present" for the birthday child.
4. The last page of the PDF is for the birthday child. He/she completes it with a description and illustration of a present he/she would like. 
5. When they are all turned in, put the birthday child's page as page 1 then put with the rest of the pages and staple with a back cover of matching construction paper.

This can be a great activity for the students to do when they finish their work, or can be saved for the end of the week. Encourage students to write about presents that don't cost money. The students LOVE receiving these.

I hope you find it useful.

Twitter: Movie Trailer (Rated Awesome)

If you've seen any movies in the theaters this summer, then you've surely seen the trailer for the movie  The Social Network (based on the book, The Accidental Billionaires, about the founders of Facebook).  Well, I found this on Mashable today and since I love parodies, and this one is so good, I just wanted to share it with you.

Twitter Movie Trailer (Rated Awesome)

Breaking The Ice

School starts for the students on Tuesday and although I've been doing this for more than 20-something years, I'm always on the lookout for more great ideas for breaking the ice and getting to know my students. Last year, I used this BINGO-type game where students have to fill up the page with signatures from classmates. The actual form came together after soliciting ideas from my online colleagues. It's nothing new but the students really enjoy it and it does facilitate lots of good conversation. Do you have some ideas you'd like to share? If so, please complete this brief form and don't forget to click on the responses link so you can benefit from the shared wisdom as well. That link is not working as I expect, so instead I am publishing the results below the form. I hope this is useful. Thank you so much to Renny Fong for reaching out to me to let me know of the problem and offering this solution. (I still can't figure out why the "grade level" question is showing as a date. Not sure I'm crazy about Google forms.)

Thanks for your help. Have a great first day!

~ Lee

An Open Letter to Teachers (My 2 Cents)

Bud Hunt wrote an excellent, thought-provoking blogpost, An Open Letter to Teachers, that gave me just the lift I needed today as I get ready to return to school in two days. I urge you to read the full text from Bud, but just a few things he suggests are that teachers:

• Try hard not to work all the time.
• Take learning risks; for yourself and your students.
• Be a good role model for your students.
  
  and my personal favorite:
  
• Need no one's permission to postpone a due date or modify an assignment for the benefit of a student.
  
  Any time I've had parents express concern over an assignment, my response is to offer to modify the assignment and to ask what the parent feels the child is capable of doing. This is typically not where the parent was going and usually diffuses a potential confrontation. There are however, times when I've made modifications based on individual needs and it has meant the difference between success and failure for the student.

I'd like to add my own 2 cents to Bud's list; just a few more suggestions. Please add more of your own in the comments.

• Eat!
  Eat lunch every day with another adult. Do not eat alone in your classroom while you work. It's important to have some adult time during the day.
• Draw big circles.
  Circle items in your plan book that you didn't get to. Get to it the next day. When you rush just to get through something, you're not doing your students any favors.
• Ask and you shall receive.
  Build an online Personal Learning Network of colleagues using Classroom 2.0, Facebook or Twitter where you can go, after hours, and share resources and ask for help. Do not add students or parents (current or past - unless they are truly like family to you) to your Facebook friends.
• Beware of The Energy Suckers
  You know who they are. The teachers who have nothing nice to say, complain all the time and won't go away? Learn to look at your watch and say, "I have a meeting"or just don't encourage the conversation. It's difficult for one person to carry on a conversation entirely alone when all the other person does is smile and nod their head. 
• Enjoy the Autonomy
  Having been in the classroom for 26 years and district admin for 5, I can tell you that classroom teachers have a lot of autonomy. Enjoy the fact that you can get a creative idea and implement it the next day if you like. Everyone above you must jump through flaming hoops of red tape in order to move anything forward. Believe me.
• Beg forgiveness
  Should you ask permission for everything or beg forgiveness for a few, if any, mistakes? I say, beg forgiveness. Your students will be better off. Just don't be stupid; after all we don't want to read about you in the paper. 
• Be realistic
  As an elementary teacher, my first day of school motto has always been, "If they get lunch and they get home, the day's been a success!"
  

Bud says, "And share the good stuff. Your stories are all human ones, and they are all special, just as each one of you, and each of your students, is special. There is always someone curious about what you’re up to."

Once again, I agree. Share what's going on in your room. Share with us (blog), share with your students in conversation, share with parents, share with colleagues. We can all learn from each other. 

From Sesame Street to Creating Videos: Your Young Students Can Do This!

Image via Wikipedia

Browsing through one of my favorite blogs, Mental Floss, I came across something I had actually bookmarked quite awhile ago and forgot about. A few YouTube videos from Sesame Street that have celebrities reciting the alphabet are aggregated here and the start of the school year seems to be a great time to dust this off and share some ways primary teachers can use these in their classrooms.  The videos include  celebrities Lena Horne, Billy Joel, Lou Rawls, Richard Pryor, Judy Collins, Paul Simon and even Jackie Robinson to name a few. Here's just a few:






It's Not Just Rote Learning
So, what you can you do with these? You can just show them to your students then have them all choral chant the alphabet, but that's NOT WHAT I WOULD DO. Here are a few suggestions off the top of my head:

1. First share them with your students. These videos are playing through the Mental Floss blog. However if the blog is blocked and/or if YouTube is blocked at your school, you'll not be able to stream directly. So here's what you can do and it takes just a few minutes:
• From home or an unblocked computer, stream the video (when it ends you'll see a share URL/link or go directly to YouTube and find the video. Copy the sharing URL (see screenshot). 
• Now go to Zamzar. No need to register or log in.
• Click on URL in Step 1 (see screenshot). (NOTE: Usually an annoying ad pops up at this point. Just close it.)
• Now enter the URL that you copied from YouTube, choose the video format, enter your email address and click "convert." (See screenshot.)
• Now put the video on a flashdrive and bring it to school to share withC your students. 
2. Show a few of these videos and discuss the variety of ways the celebrities recite the alphabet. 
3. Put students in small groups to choose the "best" one. Bring them back together to share why they felt it was best. 
4. Have students mimic their favorite.
5. Challenge students to create their own. I particularly like Bill Cosby's version and think even very young students can come up with their own humorous versions if paired up with a buddy.
6. Create a CommonCraft-type video similar to this one my 4th grade class did last year on the water cycle. Kindergarten students can cut out the letters of the alphabet and words or images that go along with the letters. With Scotch tape, I taped off a camera area on a table and held a Flip camera above my students while they read their scripts and moved their pieces of paper. Believe me, it was easy!
   
7. Students can "research" historical figures or storybook characters and recite the alphabet as that character.
8. Create a group "rap." Here's one from my class last year on solids, liquids and gas. Ok, so they need a little work on their "Gangsta" image, but in the process of building their rap, they learned a lot. Can kindergarten students create a rap about the alphabet if you assigned a few letters to a few students and then put it all together?
   
9. Videotape student versions and post on internal video sharing site, or with parent permission a site like SchoolTube. Parents are more likely to be comfortable with you doing this if you assure them you will not post student names if their faces are also visible in the videos.
10. Embed student versions on class blog, or just email parents the links to enjoy their children's work.
11. Share on morning announcements at school.

A transparent classroom is a happy place to be. Students and parents are happy, administrators are happy and lots of learning takes place. There's lots of language development that comes out of collaborative work. If your students learn the alphabet along the way, that's great too!
What are some other ways you can see using these in primary classrooms?

15 Free Tech Tools for Teachers

The web is a great place for teachers to find tech tools for use inside and outside the classroom. There are now dozens of sites that offer free course authoring tools, tutorial and quiz makers, blogging platforms, gradebooks, and social applications that have been designed with the teacher in mind. Here are 15 free tech tools to explore in your spare time.



WiZiQ - More than 70,000 teachers use this site to share tutorials, teach classes online, and build visibility in the education community. WiZiQ also makes it easy to create and grade tests online and find students to teach.



LearnCentral - LearnCentral is an Elluminate site where teachers can connect and share with other educators. The site can also be used to create free courses, host live web conferences, and listen to previously recorded lectures and meetings.



Sclipo - K-12 teachers can open a free web academy on Sclipo. The academy can include an online library, tutorials for students, online courses, and other learning materials.



CourseLab - This free e-learning authoring tool can be used to create media-rich online courses. CourseLab also works well for creating assessments, quizzes, exams, surveys, libraries, and demonstrations.



BookBuilder - BookBuilder is a unique online tool that allows users to create and publish free digital books. The site would work well for any teacher interested in making original textbooks and other classroom reading materials.



Vyew - Vyew can be used to create an instant collaborative workspace online--no downloads required. Registered users can give live presentations, meet with multiple people in real-time, upload course content, or collaborate on documents.



Elgg - This free open source software provides the tools needed to create your own social networking environment. Created environments can include microblogging-style conversations, targeted message systems, and more.



Edublogs - Created for education use, this blogging platform provides a space for teachers and students to practice their blogging skills online. The free version of Edublogs allows users to create private posts and pages with text, audio, and images.



Edmodo - Edmodo is a free and private social platform for classrooms. Platform applications include a messaging service, a class calendar, a place to store and share files, assignment and grading capabilities, mobile access, and much more.



Engrade - This online classroom community makes web-based tools freely available to teachers and school systems. Tools include an online assignment calendar, an online gradebook, an online attendance book, instant progress reports, and secure online messaging.



SnapGrades - SnapGrades offers a web-based gradebook for educators. The free version of SnapGrades allows teachers to create an online gradebook, attendance book, seating charts, and a discipline log.



RubiStar - This free online tool is designed to help teachers create rubrics for classroom learning activities. Rubrics templates are available for art, reading, writing, math, music, science, and oral projects.



We The Teachers - We the Teachers is a social application that makes it easy to find and share lesson plans online. The site can also be used to find other teachers, chat, ask questions, and join groups of teachers with similar interests.



The Apple - Created by Monster, this social site is designed to help teachers meet and network online. Resources on The Apple include forums, videos, articles, a newsletter, an "ask the teacher" feature, teacher trivia, continuing education and event information, and a job search board.



Guest post from education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about pharmacy technician training for PharmacyTechnicianCertification.com.