The World Wide Chalkboard

Virus alert!! - There is a real e-mail virus threat disguished as an e-card.  If you click on the link to see your card, you download a virus that sends out multiplpe versions of what you just fell for.  The key to recognizing the virus is that the sender’s name is not given.  For more information click here.

 On the other hand, there is an e-mail going around that warns of a “killer virus” attached to e-cards.  It claims that the virus wipes out “Sector 0″ of your hard drive, causing you to lose vast amounts of data.  This is a hoax.  You can check for yourself here.

Just a few of notes on virus hoaxes. (1) People send these hoaxes in order to see how  many people will respond to it.  (2) Be suspicious if the e-mail encourages you to forward to message to as many people as possible.  (3) If you receive an “alert”, check it out at a reliable source such as www.snopes.com.  (4) Forwarding hoaxes needlessly fills the e-mail boxes of your friends and makes them less likely to heed an actual alert.  Be a discriminating e-mailer.

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Filed under: Viruses Threats and Hoaxes

Most teachers I know would like to publish student work on the web (safely), but are intimidated by the process. The answer for you is PB Wikis (PB stands for peanut butter, as in “as easy as making a peanut butter sandwich).

The site is free to educators, costs nothing, runs no ads, and requires only the knowledge of running Microsoft Word to operate (unless you want to create a new page; this requires a little more tech).

For an example, check out this entry by the 3rd graders at Park Elementary. It took a couple of hours to learn the nuances, upload the pictures and cut and paste the reports. How long does it take us to make up a bulletin board spot on our wall (and how often will parents show up at the classroom to see it)?

As more pages appear (3rd grade Park is working on a poetry page) I will give you the link. Try it out for yourself.

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Filed under: Curriculum

The Tulsa World is printing Beverly Cleary’s book, The Mouse and the Motorcycle in serial form.  Some teachers in the the area are taking advantage to teach thematic units and provide a different venue for reading (anything that gets students to read the newspaper I consider extremely cool).  For those of you who are looking for resources, try this site.  It contains downloadable versions of the book (in English and Spanish), illustrations, a teacher’s guide, and other valuable links.

 You might also look at this site.  It’s a webquest for a second grade class, but Mrs. Ruby has her class doing some very advanced work.

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Filed under: Uncategorized

Blogs aren’t new, but they can be mysterious or terrifying to some non-techno-geek teachers. Let me assure you that blogs can be very easy to use. Most of your students probably have a “MySpace” site already. If you can type and save on a computer, if you use e-mail, you can probably blog. And there are free sites for blogging (for instance, edublogs.org provides free space for teachers).

But why blog? Because it’s a way to use techonology for teaching some pretty cool concepts about writing and editing, or for communicating with parents and students. It is far easier to set up and maintain than a web site, and accessible from any computer with internet access. And the real powerof a blog is the ability to receive and respond to comments about a particular posting. Permit me to suggest some ways you might use a blog:

Publishing:Post student work on the blog, and let other students and classroom teachers make comments for praise or suggestions for editing (you can moderate the comment section so that they don’t appear unless you approve them).

Travelogues:Recently a teacher at Robertson visited Japan, and kept a running blog (diary) of her trip. Her students read her blog daily and sent messages to her via the blog.

Parent Communication:Announce an upcoming project, with the message that parent assistance might be needed. Parents can volunteer right on the blog, or ask questions or make suggestions. No need to e-mail.

Class project:Set up a correspondence with a class in another part of the world. Work on your students’ letter writing skills (a sadly neglected art). Easy access and no need for e-mail accounts to send comments.

Here are some sites to look at for more ideas:

http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/teaching_with_blogs/teaching_with_blogs.cfm

http://adavis.pbwiki.com/

http://www.teachersfirst.com/content/blog/blogbasics.cfm

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/teachingtoday/educationupclose.phtml/47

I will be introducing this to my teachers later (after testing).

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Filed under: Teachers and Blogs