Tim’s Thoughts

I’m getting ready to present two sessions at the Greenville Upstate Technology Conference today. I submitted to present 2 different sessions which I also presented at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools Spring Technology Seminar. The first session is my favorite fun session “Cool Websites for Yourself and Your Students.”  I’ve posted the links at a wiki at http://timcooper.wikispaces.com/coolwebsites

I’m also presenting on one of my favorite software application that is on every classroom computer and home computer, Windows Movie Maker.  The session, “Windows Movie Maker, Flip Video Cameras, and You!” is even better than it was a couple years ago thanks to the ultra-inexpensive and very good quality Flip video cameras, which plug in via USB and act as a flash drive.  The wiki with the resources for that session is http://timcooper.wikispaces.com/moviemakerflip

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Trying something educational for the blog today…you may have seen (or maybe not) the web site created to present information about Martin Luther King, called martinlutherkingdotorg (substitute the dot for a real dot!) There is a catch to the site, which I’m not going to spoil right away…ask me about it when you get a chance. Anyway, some education bloggers (and other bloggers) are trying a web experiment to GoogleBomb the martinlutherkingdotorg site off the Google first page of results. I figured I’d do my part…

Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King

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A wonderful time to be an educator…a holiday catering to candy, dressing crazy, and scaring people! Love Halloween!

From Great Pumpkin…

Evan participated in his first road race Saturday…actually just the Fun Run in Rock Hill. He seemed to have a good time. Earned a medal and everything, while his dad sat on the side of the road and watched!  Click on the picture above to view some race photos, and our other photos available online.

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Even if you don’t follow college football, you probably heard about the on-field fight on Saturday between the University of Miami and Florida International University. It was a major fight involving a majority of the players on both teams, including at least one injured player swinging their crutch as a weapon. One player swung his helmet as a club, others kicked players, others punched. It was a huge fight that required the state police to be called in, and then apparently even carried into the stands between fans.

I even heard on the Dan Patrick radio show that it was “Join a Team, Not a Gang” day at the stadium, where the Miami-Dade police brought in kids to watch the game and encourage them to go to college. What a great lesson for those 700 students!

Larry Coker should be fired. He was quoted as saying
“I do have a grip on this program. Don’t ever doubt that. Don’t ever doubt that.” He also said that you can’t control every player all the time.

Coker is right…you can’t control every player all the time, just like I can’t control every one of my students. But every one of my students know that when you break a rule you will be punished. Players at the University of Miami don’t get that same message from their coach. Continue Reading »

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I’ve had my students use Wikipedia, as have many classroom teachers. My 7th graders are just learning to research and use the Internet for research, and they are certainly not masters of citing sources. The biggest thing I try to accomplish with my students and research is the process, not necessarily the final “perfect” result.

One thing we work on is citing sources. Web page citations can be difficult sometimes, with huge web addresses or not noticable authors. Wikipedia has added a handy new feature – Cite This Article. From anywhere inside wikipedia (the linked example is to the article on webmastering), click on ‘Cite This Article’ to get the full citation in 9 different formats, including MLA and APA.

I’ll probably use this in the classroom this year, along with teaching my students how to analyze facts found online. I’ll have them create their own citation, then check it with the Wikipedia citation. Should be helpful!

read more | digg story

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