Here’s an interesting commentary on our favorite piece of legislation, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, done by Tom Chapin. The original video can be found at http://www.notonthetest.com/.

Download Video: Posted by tekkieteacher at TeacherTube.com.

Would it surprise you to know that the dropout rate among new teachers is higher than the average dropout rate of students over the same four-year period? And the biggest reason why is NOT poor salaries. Check out Pete O’Reilly’s post from The Pulse.

Here’s a fun little clip for all you Simpsons fans out there.

Download Video: Posted by tekkieteacher at TeacherTube.com.

Have a great weekend!

What is Web 2.0? Here’s an example:

Last night I was twittering with other Edubloggers where I learned about a live EdTech webcast with Danah Boyd on social networking and education that was starting in just a few minutes. I logged in and joined the live chat while listening to the live audio stream. While participating on the chat I learned about Diigo, SqoolTools, and Buzzword, bookmarked them all on del.icio.us,  and added one of the participants in the chat room to my del.icio.us network.

It was way cool.

This is not your parents’ Internet.

How many hours do you think you’ve spent putting together presentations for you classes? Well, before you start you next one, check out SlideShare.net! They have a huge collection of slide shows. You might be able to find one you can use, or at the very least you can get some great ideas! Please be aware that some of the presentations posted here are going to be more (or less) appropriate for school, so search with caution. In addition, while this is a slide sharing utility, please be sure to always give credit to the original creator. It’s the nice thing to do!

This one from Alexei Kapterev is one of my favorites!

| View | Upload your own

The Friday before spring break I received an urgent call from my Day Care provider. I am happy to report my son was just fine. The problem was with her computer. You see, she knows I work a lot with these crazy computers and she was having a problem with a document she had just emailed to all her parents. The problem was that they couldn’t open it.

She was experiencing the same problem that a lot of our students and teachers first started experiencing last year when VISTA and MS Office 2007 rolled out. Microsoft, in it’s infinite wisdom, changed the extension to all it’s Office documents and added a pesky little “x” at the end. Now, instead of a Word document saving as a “.doc” document, it saves as a “.docx” document and earlier versions of Office cannot open the document. The situation made for some very stressful moments when kids were trying to print off research papers…..

We’ve solved the problem here in the building. As long as you’ve clicked the pretty little butterfly in the Novell Desktop to run the compatibility patch, these documents should open up just fine now. However, you might still have some kids who are struggling with it, or you might still be having trouble with it, yourself. I found this site that walks you through several solutions to help you out in time of need.

http://www.walterglenn.com/2007/01/13/save-as-doc-instead-of-docx-in-word-2007/

One of the things on my “to-do” list for Spring Break is to head over to the dentist for a long over-due appointment. Yes, I know, it’s a very exciting life I lead. Others of you might be heading to warmer regions for the week. But really, that is just SO predictable. There won’t be anything so mundane for me. Instead, it will be off to the dentist followed by a trip to the vet for a rabies booster. And no, the second trip isn’t for me.

In honor of my upcoming visit, here’s a fun little sketch from that classic, the Carol Burnett show!

Download Video: Posted by tekkieteacher at TeacherTube.com.

Have a wonderful Spring Break!

Today I’m posting not one, not two, but THREE websites that our Social Studies and Science teachers might find useful. I can’t take credit for finding them, though. As usual, I depend on the generosity and intelligence of others to point me in the right direction.

The first site, Exploring Earth, was sent to me by our Oceanography teacher, Cathy L. Select a chapter from the left and then use the navigation buttons along the top to find some really neat resources.

The next two sites I discovered through Jim Gate’s Tipline. He is the bee’s knees (Do people still say that, or am I just a dork? – Don’t answer that. I already know the answer.) when it comes to wonderful tips and tricks. For our Social Studies teachers, check out 270towin.com to trace the history of our presidential elections. For our Science teachers, here is a nice ”clickable” periodic table.

Just two more days to go…..

SchoolFusion’s AfterClass suite of tools allows you to easily communicate with your students — even those without an email address in the system!

In order for students to easily send a message to you, you must first complete your AfterClass profile. Once that is done, students just go to your profile and submit a message through the message center. Copies of the message are then sent to your GroupWise mailbox and to your SchoolFusion Message Center.

When you respond to the student’s message, copies are sent to their message center and email (if they have one in the system).

This week’s featured website comes to us from Maryland, but it has some great stuff for those of us further south, too!

http://www.thinkport.org/default.tp

As we go through the school and connect the classroom PCs to the TVs, there is a question that keeps coming up. It seems that for some TVs the TV has to be turned on first, before the computer, for the PC to TV connection to work.

So, the solution is this — if you are trying to display your computer on your TV and it is not working, reboot your computer with the TV on. That should restore the connection.

Another issue is that some of the older TVs will only work if the desktop resolution is set to be 640×420, which is very large–the icons on the desktop will be huge. You can either keep it at that setting, or you can choose to switch to the larger setting only when you want to use the PC to TV connection. To switch back and forth, I recommend using the video card interface. Here are the steps:

1. Right-click anywhere on your desktop and select Properties
2. Go to the Settings tab
3. Click Advanced button
4. Click Catalyst Control Center tab
5. Click Catalyst Control Center button
6. Click Displays Manager
7. Under the Desktop area drop down - select the desktop resolution you prefer
8. Click Apply