Never open an email at 2 a.m.
Filed under: Reflection | Tags: email, google, google teacher academy, gta, gtadc
Comments (2) At 2 a.m. this morning I decided to check my email.
background…(I fell asleep trying to help one of the little ones go to sleep and woke up around 1:45) I had taken the last two days off work to take care of my children while my wife is out of town for the annual Girls Getaway Weekend, so I have been pretty busy. My wife’s parents took us the SC basketball season opener against Alabama A&M (Good start to season with 88-50 win; Downey effortlessly amazing again!) so we all got to bed late.
The email that has me up at this moment writing this blog is one from Google, inviting me to go to the Google Teacher Academy in Washington, D.C. on December 9th. Pretty quick turnaround time considering I was up Monday at 2 am turning in my application. My first thoughts were to call my wife and tell her the good news, but being so early it will have to wait. I couldn’t tell my kids either. Being from the Washington, D.C. area (Crofton, MD) I am excited to be able to get a chance to visit with my parents, siblings, relatives, and friends. I read through the e-mail, completed my invite acceptance and printed it out, just to make sure it was real.
I then immediately checked out some Tweets to see who else was going to GTADC. I decided I would follow those who were also going to GTA so I would know a little bit about them when I got there. Obviously, they also would be worthy educators to follow afterward too. Among the others chosen was a colleague of mine, Chris Craft (Crucial Thought, Spantube.org) who teaches Spanish in a middle school in my same school district (School District Five of Lexington and Richland Counties). I am interested to see if there are any other Certified Google Educators from South Carolina. After reading about some of the other DC-bound educators, I decided I better get some sleep, as little feet will come a calling soon.
3 a.m. Can’t sleep…too excited.. mind filled with questions. When should I go? Dec. 8th. Should I drive? fly? Should I stay in the suggested hotel or with family? Will there be a lot of people to meet the night before all-day event? Should I come back on Friday? Saturday? or spend some time with family? Will my district pay for any of this trip? Is this personal leave or professional leave? At minimum I only be at work one day that week.
4 a.m. Now my thoughts turn to the actual academy. What will it be like? (Google Certified Teacher site) What role do I play in this learning opportunity with these other educators? Am I a novice compared to them? What do I expect to gain? Should I be super-outgoing or quiety soak it in? Am I doing this for self promotion; street cred.? Should I have a bigger picture in mind while there, such as my district or state needs? Is there a suggested dress code? Will I be less prepared because I don’t have any gadgets? (Just got my first cell phone 7 months ago.) What does Google expect out of me?
5 a.m. Time for bed… really… wait, should I document my GTA journey from application to event? Blog it? Tweet it? Documentary film? How do I prepare for the GTA? I have my “Web 2.0 course” I teach for Coastal Carolina in the spring – will this experience totally change my syllabus for future classes?…too jacked up to sleep, I guess I just blog my thoughts so I can get them out of my head.
No sleep tonight (today)!
So, never open an email at 2 a.m. or this may happen to you.
‘
An 8th Grade Education…in 1895
What would this exam look like in 2009? What technology would be used?
1895 8th Grade Final Exam
Smoky Valley Genealogical Society
EXAMINATION GRADUATION QUESTIONS
OF SALINE COUNTY, KANSAS
April 13, 1895
J.W. Armstrong, County Superintendent.
Examinations at Salina, New Cambria, Gypsum City, Assaria, Falun, Bavaria, and District No. 74 (in Glendale Twp.)
Reading and Penmanship. – The Examination will be oral, and the Penmanship of Applicants will be graded from the manuscripts.
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GRAMMAR
(Time, one hour)
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of do, lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case. Illustrate each case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7-10 Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
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ARITHMETIC
(Time, 1 ¼ hour)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weights 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50 cts. Per bu., deducting 1050 lbs for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find cost of 6720 lbs. coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 per cent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per m?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 per cent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
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U.S. HISTORY
(Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whtney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, and 1865.
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ORTHOGRAPHY
(Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthogaphy, etymology, syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret “u”.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final “e”. Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: Bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, super.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: Card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: Cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
*****************************************
GEOGRAPHY
(Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of N.A.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall, and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.
1. Where are the saliva, gastric juice, and bile secreted? What is the use of each in digestion?
2. How does nutrition reach the circulation?
3. What is the function of the liver? Of the kidneys?
4. How would you stop the flow of blood from an artery in the case of laceration?
5. Give some general directions that you think would be beneficial to preserve the human body in a state of health.
*********************************************
RULES FOR TEACHERS
1872
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves
*********************************************
SOURCE:
The following document was transcribed from the original document in the collection of the Smoky Valley Genealogy Society, Salina, Kansas. This test is the original eighth-grade final exam for 1895 from Salina, KS. An interesting note is the fact that the county students taking this test were allowed to take the test in the 7th grade, and if they did not pass the test at that time, they were allowed to re-take it again in the 8th grade.
Gives the saying ‘he only had an 8th grade education’ a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?!
I wonder…
My mind has been racing these days with so many things. I’m not sure where I am headed or where I am now in providing the best integration of technology for teachers. As we close towards the end of the year many teachers are doing projects to celebrate their kids. Yes, it’s great they’re are using technology! They are making their slide shows, photo stories, animotos, and more. I believe this is what they are most comfortable with and they can do it quickly. Kudos to them, but they can take it to the next level by allowing students in the process and not always having technology be the end product. In speaking with a colleague the other week, we discussed design and how much content and learning is lost because teachers are not trained or even talked to about design and the impact that plays on learning. Do I do that training? If so, when? How is it going to be ingrained in their minds so they practice it regularly?
I have two schools that seem to want to make the leap with technology, yet the culture or shift in thinking is not there to really make it effective. Should I concentrate on small things, like helping a teacher create a lesson or use a new web2.0 tool? Or do something big? Do I just write “THE MANUAL” of how to totally integrate technology in the elementary classroom. Now I know there is no manual and each teacher, school, and set of students are different, but seriously it is going to take a big change, a paradigm shift.
I wonder if the technology integration is just thrown in here and there, is it effective or is it just fluff? Does it really take a full embrace to reap the benefits? We have a long way to go..
Consider This…April
April Newsletter sent to my teachers.
Integration ideas 3-30-09
Below are 3 ideas for integrating technology with all subjects and all grades. Please click on the links to learn more about the tool or to see an example of how you could integrate the technology.
Activity |
Technology Integration |
Quick Writes
|
Create a story beginning and have students and parents add/edit it. See what they create by the end of the set day/time period.
|
Math Advertisement |
Create a commercial/ad advertising a math concept. Use either print media, radio (audio) or TV/Internet (video) |
Free Printables |
Freeology.com offers free printables for awards, worksheets, writing, math, and games |
Post-Inauguration Sites
Filed under: links | Tags: 09, andycarvin, cnn, inauguration, Newseum, Obama, Obama09, ObamaInauguration, president, voicethread
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There was so much coverage of the Obama Inauguration that I haven’t had time to peruse much, but here are a couple of sites that I have found interesting. Also, I have made a VoiceThread open for comments/ perspectives from around the States and the world. It uses front page newspapers via Newseum’s site.
- Relive the actual Inauguration Moment -video/photo Flickr from Andy Carvin from his spot on the National Mall. http://www.flickr.com/photos/andycarvin/3214153880/
- Satellite image of the Washington National Mall area at 11:19am – can zoom in too! http://specials.washingtonpost.com/inauguration/satellite/
- CNN/Microsoft compile millions of pictures at “The Moment” to capture 3-d like image of inauguration http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/44.president/inauguration/themoment/
- Ashton Kutcher’s videos Obama at the MTV Inauguration Ball using his phone. http://qik.com/ashton
- New White House site is interesting too.
Obama Poem
a poem written by my 7 year-old
A Perfect Change
Barack Obama will honor us all
And we honor him at his peak
Because of he, we do see
No one must be weak.
He used that same Bible
the Emancipator used
He, his wife, and their daughters
make the picture of freedom new.
He is our 44th president
the first who’s an African-American man
He will lead us. Yes, he will.
Yes, he can!
