Sunday, December 14, 2008

Glog like the wind!

Here is a glog I created during Laura and Katie's webinar. Very random, but a cool idea for interactive media. Issues about fair use would come into play in a classroom though... And feel free to play with the buttons on it. Apparently I am in a disco mood this week.
(-:


Friday, December 12, 2008

Strange Tales from MAC

I made a (short) comic while going to a webinar put on by Lewis and Rena.



Strange Tales from MAC from Rera on Comiqs


Also, we just finished our own webinar. Dan and I showed the participants all of the wonderful excitement to be found on the QuizStar website. We showed them how to make a quiz, and then made them take one. I'm sure all of you lovely readers would get a 100%, but the average from the webinar participants was only about 40%. So sad. Though there aren't any graphics or neat options like randomization or auto-score in the blogspot version, take it and see how you do!


1. What is Rebekah's middle name?
A. Maria
B. Stewart
C. Stephanie
D. Zoltan
E. Molley

2. Why did the chicken cross the road?
A. To get to the other side.
B. Because the MAC program required it.
C. It involved higher order thinking.
D. To get free pizza.

3. Why did the monster cross the road?
A. It was tied to the chicken.
B. It was running from its mentor teacher.
C. There was beer pong on the other side.
D. Because the MAC program required it.

4. The MAC program at the University of Michigan advertises on Facebook.
True
False

5. Knock, knock. Who is there? SMACer. SMACer who?
A. SMACers Rule!
B. Cherry flavored Lip SMACer!
C. SMACer upside the head for assigning another paper.


6. In one or two sentences, tell why you think Rebekah and Dan are the best, ever.



(type your response above)


7. Which classes are your favorites? (Choose all that apply)
A. Educational Methods
B. Educational Literacy
C. Diversity in Education
D. Educational Psychology
E. Educational Technology
F. Research Methods in Education
G. Ms. Randall's Physics class at Huron


8. What is the name of Dan's new child?
A. Jennifer
B. Alexander
C. Abby
D. Daniel Jr.
E. Charlie

Monday, December 8, 2008

Holiday Cheer Gone Wrong!

Just so you know, this is awful.
Really.
But I still laughed until I cried. Or maybe I was crying to start with because of the terrible awfulness. Or maybe everything seems funny at 3am in the grad lab. In any case, I decided to inflict it on everyone else.
Happy Holidays!


Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Random Things

There has been so much going on recently that I wanted to update my blog to include it all. Instead of writing a novel though, I will summarize some fun bits (and ignore all the difficult bits).

First and foremost, I was involved in a Harry Potter themed play about parent/teacher conferences. Yup. I was Lucius Malfoy and my lovely wife Narcissa (Gren) and I visited Professor Trelawney, the Divinations teacher (wonderful props like cups with skeleton hands, a crystal ball, quills, and a Hogwarts banner). Narcissa and I were terribly upset to find out that our sweet little Drakey-pooh wasn't at the top of the class. Of course, we didn't feel it necessary to inform the professor that he was allergic to tea leaves. Next, I was Hermione Granger and my mother and I met with Professor McGonegall. Much less excited and fewer cool props (though we still had the robes, hats, and quills). It was the "good" example for how a conference should be. Anyhow, wish I had gotten it on tape though that would have been terribly embarrassing. Funny though.

Also, I have been working on my website for MI Matters. The program got in the news! We are all famous now. You can get my autograph for only $5 at a special signing here at Starbucks.

In Educational Psychology, we did some role-playing and I was a teacher who had tenure and lots of experience teaching AP classes successfully. I think I did a fairly good job trying to show where my character would be coming from (against merit based pay, any significant changes to the status quo, team-teaching, but for someone else to do something about the kids who were not motivated in school). I started out kind of making it into a bit of a caricature, but ended up really taking on the role as a person. It was hard to stay in character and not to agree with the impassioned speech about the upsides of team-teaching though. Christi is an eloquent speaker!

I talked after class with the teacher and I think I really get her point about choices. We have so many, especially at this point in our careers. There are pluses and minuses about whatever we decide to do and we will all have to think very carefully about our futures and where we want to go. Some students are interested in teaching in Washington, D.C. where they have a new merit-based pay system and they can make tons of money while really doing something to help students who really need it. Seems like a win-win to me, but I am not sure I would be able to be successful in such an environment.

Which reminds me. I got to visit another school system with Jessica, Dan, and Cristi (though she wasn't there that day). It turns out that kids are kids, though their school had a bunch more mohawks and heavy-metal-esque clothing than where I teach. It was such an eye-opener and all the classes had huge differences from each other and were different from my own classroom. I LOVE their science area though. There is a long hallway sort of thing that works as offices and storage and lunch areas for all the science teachers. I bet it helps them be a stronger and more coherent department since they see each other and have a shared space away from the students. Anyhow, I could totally see myself working at W.M. school. Good times!

In other news, I am working on finishing overdue assignments, planning my webinar (on QuizStar, an awesome site), and working on my unit plan for next semester where I will be teaching all the classes for 3 weeks(ish) when I implement it. And of course there is the Evil Math class. Last week was all about a model where all lines are in a half plane, and they are perpendicular to the half plane, either straight or half circles. Yup, a half circle can be a line. An infinitely long line. And you can draw the whole thing. Uh-huh. Are you confused? Because I am confused. Hopefully it will make more sense by the final.

Okay, enough. Time to work on those overdue assignments. Sigh. I am a quick typist and a slooooooow writer. What's up with that?