Checking Out Edmodo

From: http://adams.jppss.k12.la.us/adams-sites/

In years past, I spent one full day getting my students up to speed on how we use technology in my class. I had them log in, check out my web site, blogs, document pages, etc. This year, I'm doing something different.

One reason is that I'm adding new tools to my class, like EduBlogs and Edmodo. Our district has an account with Edmodo, and I thought I'd check it out. Edmodo is a school-safe social networking site. One interesting thing is that so many other teachers in our school have accounts, so there should be lots of students with a working familiarity of it.

My approach to getting my students familiar with the technology of my class is to take baby steps each day. Today, we just logged in, created an Edmodo account and worked on our profile. That's it. Then we turned to a lecture for the rest of the period. Tomorrow, I'll give my students more time to work with technology in my class--most likely, I'll have them complete a blog assignment.

I'm not sure how well this is going to work, but this is the first time I've taught Sports & Entertainment Marketing I in a computer lab for a block schedule, and I think I should take advantage of what I've got to work with.

Edu-blogging it

From: thewritingbase.com

Despite having no time to plan for my classes while at school (thank you, technology facilitator position), and teaching a class I've actually taught before (which means I don't have to do anything new, right?) I've decided to try one or more new things in my class this semester.

This summer I signed up for an EduBlogs account, and I wrote my first post tonight. I've been using message boards and blogs on my school web site for years, but I was looking for a site where my students could write blogs themselves, instead of just adding comments underneath my posts.

For the first week (or two), I'll continue to have students earn their grade by commenting on my blog post...baby steps! But after everyone's got their feet wet, I'll assign them blogs to write on their own. Stay tuned to see how this works...

One down, 179 to go

From: catskillcommunitycenter.org

There's nothing like starting a school day with the e-mail system (and other assorted systems) down. My first 30 minutes of school were spent on the phone with our IT help desk. Fortunately, they had our problems fixed by noon, but, whew! Hope we don't have those problems anytime soon. I've already got enough stuff on my plate.

Classes went pretty good. I actually had two presentations about my class, one using Prezi and the other using SlideRocket. I've never used presentations on the first day of class, but it seemed to work fairly well, especially since we're back on the 90 minute block schedule.

It did seem like students were more talkative for the first day of school. Three of my students also had their cell phones out--already! My colleague next door already wrote up three students--already! I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Go Time

From: practicallygreen.com

Tomorrow is the first day of school, and I'm more excited to start the school year than any other year. Why? Here's what I think:

*I get to teach classes I already know, instead of piloting new curriculum or rewritten courses, or completely new courses
*I liked the kids I met at open house. The most demoralizing thing about school is putting up with the "clowns." I didn't see any at our open house, but I know a few of them must be out there.
*I can spend 50% of my day teaching. During workdays, I feel like I'm spending 80%+ doing tech support--my room is still unfinished.

I'm optimistic about this school year, and I don't dread getting the year ramped up, like I have before. Have I been teaching long enough to get that attitude, or is it something else?

Trials of the Technology Facilitator

From: funstoo.blogspot.com


When our school's technology facilitator left to go to another school in our county, I inherited the technology facilitator position at my school. Last year, I was also a part-time tech fac, but I worked as part of a team. Now, I'm alone.

In the first three work days of the school year, I think I've been approached by about 40 teachers with technology issues. I've even gotten e-mails over the weekend. The main problem seems to be the printer management software system our district installed over the summer. It's supposed to save us money, but we have a ton of people that can't print at all. There are other problems, too, of course, and I'm playing catchup trying to get everything resolved.

One thing that has struck me about the teaching profession is how technology-illiterate so many teachers appear to be. When I worked in the TV business, no one asked me for help, because we all had a basic level of "technology competence," for lack of a better term. Since I've started teaching, I've helped plug LCD projectors to laptops umpteen times, exhorted people to clean out their e-mail when it hits 100% capacity umpteen times, and helped many a folk with a mere point-and-click.

I don't mind helping people; I actually enjoy it. But I'm wondering what goes on in education colleges in terms of technology training. Is there any? And why do so many veteran teachers insist on not learning anything new? Did they cling to their chalkboards when the district was installing dry erase boards?

It's All About The "U"

Pretty damning scandal to come out of Coral Gables last week, what with 73 current and former University of Miami football players accused of taking cash and other benefits from a former booster/current felon.

Monster reporting by Charles Robinson and Yahoo!Sports on this. The booster, Nevin Shapiro, makes some wild claims about his time jock sniffing around the football program, but most of it seems to be corroborated by outside sources, or, the players themselves.

After the last year of scandals at UNC and Ohio State, I can see why many people are up in arms about this latest saga. Some even want the "death penalty" invoked. Others are reviving the ideas of paying players for all of the money they generate for their schools.

I'm not sure that either idea would happen, but I am sure that my idea won't: a minor league system for both the NFL and NBA. It's good enough for hockey and baseball. High school athletes with no interest in college can go straight to the pros in baseball and hockey; why not for football and basketball? I already know the answer: money. The leagues aren't going to make a huge investment (the NBDL doesn't count) in training athletes for their top levels when they have colleges doing it for them.

One can dream, anyway...

Last Day of Freedom

From: commmons.wikimedia.org

I try to look at these two months off during the summer as a chance to recharge and learn a new skill...but I guess every teacher does that, right?

The last two years have been especially busy: teaching two pilot courses and one brand new course, school improvement team chair, and virtual teacher, among other things. This summer, I didn't teach or take a class, so it was nice to have some "me time."

Some things I got to do this summer:
*install fog lights on my car
*read four (fiction) books, in addition to two marketing books
*go to New York
*work out a lot (although you couldn't tell it)
*revamped some old PowerPoints and activities
*checked out some new web sites, like edublogs and animaps

I didn't get to everything on my to-do list, but I'm glad I had some time to recharge. I'm hoping that this year goes smoother, so I won't need the summer off as badly as I did in 2011.

Conference Musical Chairs

From: lostandfound.cn

Just when I thought the conference musical chairs had ended last summer (with Utah & Colorado going to the Pac-12, Nebraska to the Big 10, Boise State to the Mountain West), here comes the music again.

Last summer, the key to all the moves was Texas. Had the Longhorns left the Big 12 for the Pac-10, the Big 12 would most likely dissolved. However, the Longhorns stayed put, and the other schools in the conference cut a deal to let Texas have a bigger slice of the TV revenue pie. At that point, it seemed like the expansion talk would die down.

During last summer's talk, much air space and ink was spent talking about how there would eventually be four "super conferences" of 16 teams each, which would then break apart from the NCAA and do their own thing. When Texas declined to join the Pac-10 (or Pac-12 or Pac-16), that talk was shelved.

Enter Texas A&M: the Aggies are apparently steamed that their arch-rival is getting their own network via ESPN, the Longhorn Network. Not only is Texas getting a bigger share of the Big 12 revenues, they would also earn an additional $11M from the Longhorn Network. The added exposure would surely put A&M and the other schools at a recruiting disadvantage. So the Aggies spent last week trying to get invited as the 13th member of the SEC.

Had the SEC invited Texas A&M, there's no way the conference would stay at 13 teams; they'd have to invite a 14th team to make equal divisions. Who would the 14th team be? Some reports were Missouri, Florida State, Clemson and Virginia Tech. The Hokies and Tigers (Clemson) both seem to be fine in the ACC, and Florida State said the SEC never talked to them.

All this is moot now: the SEC has turned down Texas A&M...for now. I believe if the presidents and conferences are still set on major conference realignment, it will probably happen after the current BCS contracts expire after 2013. After that happens, it's anyone's guess which teams will end up where.

There has to be a point where conferences decide that it's not worth exanding. One reason is geography: why would you want to play conference games against schools that are 500+ miles away? And not just football, but all the other sports, too.

Second: how many ways can TV money be divided up? Is 1/16th of a pie going to be greater than 1/12th of the old pie?

Let There Be Football

From: footballreportersonline.com


After everyone was waiting with bated breath for an agreement (especially ESPN--seriously, is there a day they don't run "NFL Live"?), the NFL got back to work with preseason games tonight. With all of the negative news regarding our financial markets, it's a shot in the arm to have America's favorite game back and working. Besides, having a $9B business in play doesn't hurt.

One of the chief complaints among NFL ticket holders has been the insistence of teams to include preseason games in their ticket packages, forcing fans to pay for two "fake" games. Many ticket buyers have been upset about this arrangement, and fans at home aren't thrilled about watching these contests, either. My question: are fans so excited about football, any football, that they will tune in to these games?

Speak No Evil

It surprised me that people had a negative reaction to the comments Steve Williams made on Sunday after his current boss, Adam Scott, beat his former boss, Tiger Woods this weekend.

On one hand, yes, Williams should have taken the high road and not said anything about Woods. And yes, his comments overshadowed the fact that Adam Scott won the tournament.

On the other hand, people knew Williams might have something to say--why else would reporters seek him out for an interview instead of the golfers. And, like many NASCAR drivers had said, athletes need a "cooling off" period prior to taking questions from the media--their emotions are still raw from the competition, and they can say things that they might not have said immediately after a game.

Bottom line: Williams is still a great caddy, he's already off to a great start with Adam Scott, and, lastly, he should apologize to Scott and promise not to pop off again.

And for those that say Woods is too classy to fire back at Williams, check out this audio from several years ago where he blamed Williams for bad results at three different holes (hat tip to Steve Czaban).

Fired For Blogging?

From: websitemakeoverworkshop.com


I like to tell people I started blogging to complain about my students. Actually, in the eight months I've been blogging, I think I've only written about my students a handful of times. There is one blog out in the blogosphere that is a master satire of current education, Teachbad.

After I started reading Teachbad earlier this year, I passed on the web site to a few colleagues. They were all in agreement that the blog spoke the truth (sometimes satirically and sarcastically) about the environment in which many of us teach. It's nice to know that there are other teachers that struggle with the same issues that we struggle with.

So, it was very shocking to see that the author of the blog, a DC teacher, wrote an article on The Washington Post's web site stating he believed he was among the 200+ teachers fired in DC due to his blog. The article goes into detail about the evaluations given to the Teachbad author from his master teacher vs. his administrator, and why he feels those evaluations orchestrated his exit.

It was interesting to read the comments below the post. Not every teacher was on Teachbad's side. Several said that he should've taken the time he spent writing his blog to improve his teaching. I'm sorry--we shouldn't have to spend every waking hour thinking about teaching, although many of us come close to that anyway. Other teachers pointed out that there are consequences for free speech. I'll have to concede that point. In my class, we talk about athletes and celebrities getting into trouble for tweeting something they shouldn't (paging Rashard Mendenhall).

I hope Teachbad gets a chance with another school district. He comes across to me as a teacher that really cares about teaching, but is bummed out by some of the inane regulations that all school districts seem to share (and DCPS appears to have many administrator-generated issues). We all can share his pain.

Re-branding

From: ukumillion.com

I grew up an Orioles fan, and the games weren't always on TV. Fortunately, I could catch a lot of games on the radio. It was fun to listen to baseball on the radio when your play-by-play buy is Jon Miller! So, I've been an early sports radio fan since I've been watching sports.

Living in the Triad area is like being in the middle of a sports radio desert. There used to be two sports radio stations (one from ESPN), but now there's none. I really miss listening to Steve Czaban in the morning and Mark Packer in the afternoon.

Fortunately, Yahoo Sports Radio is here. Yahoo took over the old Sporting News Radio this week. I had listened to Sporting News Radio when I could, and used to subscribe to the magazine. It's definitely a long-time sports brand, but apparently, Yahoo is a better brand for sports now. I'm not sure why, but I guess the average person/sports fan is more familiar with Yahoo than The Sporting News. Anyway, I can listen to Czabe online in the morning--great!

Imparting My Philosophy in Class

SEM I Philosophies on Prezi

While I was at my summer conference last week, I thought about the first day of school and what we would talk about. I've always disliked the first day of school: too much talking about me, the class, and rules, and not enough about the content.

In order to make this day go by "better," I decided to explain my class to my students on the first day by breaking it down into four quadrants: academics, workplace, technology and class. For each quadrant, I'm going to explain my theories about why the class works the way it does.

I hope this gives students a general idea of what the class will be like. If they come into my class with their eyes wide open, so much the better. At least the first day of school should be more interesting.