How To Demoralize A Creative Teacher in One Bureaucratic Step [Inner Education for Inward Educators] - They tell us to use more technology, but only the kinds they like and invest tons of money in (regardless of effectiveness).
15 Additional Practices for Bad Professional Development in Technology [The Innovative Educator] - Spoiler alert: most of them are worst practices for any PD workshop!
WhiteyBoard Stick-Ons Turn Walls into Whiteboards [Lifehacker]
Do You Practice Math When You Leave a Tip? [Wise Bread] - I usually calculate 20% by finding 10% (moving the decimal point one digit to the left), then doubling it. In fact, I've used that as a first day of school lesson. But I will usually round the 20% up to the nearest dollar, especially at places I like where the employees rely on tips.
Teachable Moments: The Physics of Bowling [Wired: GeekDad] - Because it's never too early to start learning physics.
4 comments:
That whiteyboard thing is tempting. I need more whiteboard space in my classroom but my principal told me they're expensive and not in the budget right now, so maybe this would be better than nothing.
One problem: the walls in my classroom (trailer, actually) are paneling, so they're not smooth. Maybe I could get some kind of board to attach the whiteyboard to and then attach the whole thing to my wall?
Another possibility is to go to Home Depot or a similar store and buy plain white melamine board (sometimes called showerboard). This doesn't work as well as commercial boards, but it costs almost nothing.
I used it to create mini-whiteboards for my students years ago, and it worked fine (it was the dry erase markers that were a pain in the rear to stock and keep track of).
I considered buying a huge sheet to make a board at home, but I found a good deal on a commercial board by shopping around, which is another option. Office stores have insane sales on certain items every week, mostly returned/opened stuff that they can't sell for normal price, or just overstocked items. It requires a bit of time, travel and patience to find them though.
I've been reading your blog for a few months now, but through my RSS reader, so I didn't realize that you're a former RGV Corp Member. It's a crazy, random happenstance as I am currently in my room at the Houston Institute working for TFA as an operations coordinator. My goal is to be a '12 CM.
Thanks for all of the inspiration and ideas. They'll really help when I start student teaching this spring!
Yeah, the mini white boards work well if you have a lot of markers. the students can bring in a sock for an eraser. You can also get a huge sheet of white board and have it cut into smaller squares so each student can have their own.
Teacher's Professional Development
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