“The Mysteries of Harris Burdick” Web 2.0 Project

One of my favorite children’s books, and one of the best books for motivating kids to write is “The Mysteries Of Harris Burdick” by Chris Van Allsburg. We recently began a collaborative writing project designed by Lisa Parisi and me - Lisa gets the credit for doing the bulk of the set-up work. She set-up the Google Docs the participants will use, and the wiki page that explains the project. We also met a couple of times over Skype on weekends to pull it together along with numerous Twits and emails.

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Racine schools to revise special ed practices

Racine schools to revise special ed practices District to confirm proper restraint useBy DANI McCLAIN
dmcclain@journalsentinel.comPosted: Oct. 25, 2007

Racine - The Racine Unified School District will change its special education practices, a school official said Thursday in response to pressure from parents of special-needs students.

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District might have erred

District might have erred Pewaukee associate principal's firing may violate law, state saysBy AMY HETZNER
ahetzner@journalsentinel.comPosted: Oct. 25, 2007

Village of Pewaukee - The Pewaukee School District might have violated the law when it fired an associate high school principal after she was convicted of second-offense drunken driving, a state investigator has found.

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Trial OK’d for teacher accused of sending student explicit e-mail

Trial OK'd for teacher accused of sending student explicit e-mail By MARIE ROHDE
mrohde@journalsentinel.comPosted: Oct. 25, 2007

A former Marquette County high school teacher who was accused of sending a sexually explicit e-mail to one of his students can face felony charges, the state Appeals Court ruled Thursday.

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Instructing students in the new literacies of online reading comprehension

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UbD Educators Wiki

Some months down the road after its creation, the UbD Educators wiki has fallen silent. I logged in today to find that neither changes nor discussions had taken place in the last 30 days. Yikes!

I take part of the blame upon myself. Having five preps leaves me, ironically, with not much time to plan, particularly now as National Honor Society business has take up much of my time.

Update, 4:45: I have a draft of the lesson for my Canterbury Tales unit up now.

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Geotagging is very, very cool pedagogically

Putting together geotagging for learning content with the GPS enable mobile devices students have offers rich potential for learning. The Associated Press has a report today on how geotagging is emerging for online photos. The report explains:

. . . the growing number of uses for geotagging, which is largely practiced by tech-savvy and professional photographers but is likely to expand. Global positioning is becoming omnipresent as more cell phones and digital cameras have built-in GPS support.

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Make a Ringtone

Tone Mine lets you use music and sound effects on the site to create your own ringtone. You can then email and/or post the url of your creation on a blog or online journal.

There are actually quite a few ringtone makers out there. Many of them allow you to mix music that is inappropriate for classroom use. I took a quick look around ToneMine and didn’t see anything like that, though I have to admit I didn’t spend much time on the site.

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