Think Twice Thursday #1 - Education Humor

So what is the purpose behind Think Twice Thursday's?  To share a resource, website, article, or blog that you should think twice about using, visiting, following, sharing, and/or subscribing too.  So I start off this week posting about a blog that I voted for in the New Blog Category of the 2009 Edublog Awards.  In education we can always count on some stressful times when it comes to testing, NCLB, RTI, technology integration, lesson planning, duties, coaching, and oh yeah.....teaching.  So for many of us, humor can be a source of relief.  But the best humor for me always has to deal with education.

Right now you could probably think of a situation in teaching, or something a student said or did that would make you laugh right now.  That is one of the joys of teaching.  Well This Week's Education Humor helps to organize many of our thoughts and experiences into a blog worth thinking twice about visiting, as well as sharing with your colleagues; I did.

What I like about the blog is all the connections to experiences in the classroom, experiences with administration, and experiences with students and parents.  There are two categories that his post fall under that I have seen so far; School Stories and a Learning Laffs List.  He also has cartoons titled "Schoolies"  and "Mr Woodhead" that he has created and shares within his blog that are funny and worth printing and taping to your file cabinet, or pinning to a bulletin board.

Below is the first post I read when I visited for the first time.  The post that got my attention.  I am only copying and pasting it completely because as my reader I want you to see how clever and funny the post really are.

NEW EUPHEMISMS FOR BAD STUFF AT SCHOOL
Time-out - "An Isolated Reflection Interval"
Detention - "Post-instructional Behavioral Adjustment Period"
Course Failure - "Unrequested Course Re-registration"
Incomplete Course Grade - "An Unrequited Educational Encounter"
Suspension - "Mandatory Discontinued Attendance"
In-School Suspension - "Mandatory Academically Unassigned Attendance"
Absence - "A Non-school Learning Experience"
Truancy - "An Undocumented Non-school Learning Experience"
Seating Assignment Change - "An Intraclassroom Transfer"
Sent to the Principal - "Compulsory Administrative Consultation"
Retention - "Lateral Academic Advancement"

The author of the Blog also has a website that he has created, LearningLaffs, which I also recommend that you take some time and visit.  It is where you can find an archive of everything on the blog as well as other list, cartoons, videos, and humor.  You can also order collections of his cartoons as well as shirts.  Maybe I can convince the Principal at my school to order some of these for our staff shirts?

So when times get tough, or you are just having one of those days, think twice about taking it out on your students, coworkers, or family, and get a dose of humor instead.

Wiki Wednesday #1 - Moving Foward

A great Wiki, and probably one of the first websites I found when starting my new position as a Technology Integration Specialist is the Moving Forward Wiki by Dr. Scott McLeod.  "The Moving Forward wiki houses a collection of resources to help presenters and change agents as they help move schools and universities forward into the 21st century."  Dr. Scott McLeod is rather well known in the Education community for his work with the Did You Know; Shift Happens Videos with his partner Mr. Karl Fisch.  If you have not seen them, I highly suggest that you view them.  You can see them at a Wiki I created for Embedding Education Videos, or here, or here, the Shift Happens Wiki.

What I like about the Moving Forward Wiki is the amount of user submitted Blogs (General and Subject Specific), Podcast, Digital Story Telling, Web 2.0 Resources, and Wikis (Many which you will see shared on Wednesday's in the future).  He also has sections on the Wiki dedicated to Parents, Students, Administrators, and Teachers.  The idea behind the Moving Forward Wiki is to gather as many resources related to 21st Century education and store them in one central location.

Another neat feature of the Wiki is a list of Model Schools (United States and World).  These are schools that are modeling themselves to be users 21st Century Education Tools.  Each school is broken down in to different categories based on user submissions.  What schools in your state or country are 21st Century Schools?

You can follow Dr. Scott McLeod and Mr. Karl Fisch on Twitter as well.  Take some time, visit the Moving Forward Wiki, and support its purpose by submitting your own resources.  As a visitor to this blog, and hopefully a visitor to the Moving Forward Wiki, what have you submitted? Or for that matter what can you submit?  If you have submitted or do submit a resource to this Wiki, share with my readers what you shared by commenting on this post and linking to your resource so others know where to find it. I posted my Blog and have had several visitors reach my blog from the Moving Forward Wiki.  What about you?

Twitter Tuesday #1

Well, my recent blog post about Twitter being shared on Twitter created quite a buzz about my Blog and I am rather excited about the growth of my blog, my Twitter followers, and my growth professionally since that post (Is that a record for mentioning "Twitter," "blog," and "post" in ONE sentence?)

Well, here is my first official Tuesday Twitter Focus post.  There are quite a few things that I want to touch on relating to Twitter that I have discovered:

The first is a group of teenagers on Twitter that I follow; TechXav.  As their website boast, they are "a group of young and zealous teens, ranging from the age of 11-15."  They provide some great Twitter post relating to all things technology, but at the same time, they have post that relate to Educational Technology.  The kids are from Singapore and the United States...talk about Global Collaboration!  What I like about reading their Blog is that I get a dose of humor, as well as information.  If you don't follow them, or have not seen their website, I recommend doing so.  One recent post is related to Twitter....Flocking.me.  I want to give them credit for showcasing an interesting way to follow your friends on Twitter.  It Flocking.me could be used to help separate your professional and personal followers on Twitter.  I also think these teens are a great example of why we need to promote more technology in the classroom.  Learn about them here.

Since I am fairly new to Twitter, I am sure some of you are as well.  Shared on Twitter recently by some of the people that I follow: Web20Classroom and NMHS_Principal, is the The Twitter Guidebook.  Might be worth checking out to help increase your knowledge about Twitter.

Shared on Twitter by ShellTerrell, a blog post discussing what you might call yourself on Twitter.  A great link in the Blog Post is a way to find your Twitter Birthday.  Let me know when your birthday is and we can throw a party....on Twitter of course.  Mine by the way is October 2nd, 2009.  Be sure to put it on your calendar.  If you want to get me a gift, I am a sucker for Jelly Belly candies...but not the nasty ones like popcorn and licorice.

But the Blog Post in general brings up an interesting point/question.  Do we have titles for Twitter Experts, Novices, or those that distringuish themselves on Twitter because of what they post?  Then I thought, surely there is a Twitter Dictionary....and there is!  Twictionary can help you give yourself a title, maybe someone you follow, or your tweets. 
Maybe we should all create a Twitter Alias based on how we Tweet.  Based on our Twitter Alias we can create a Twitter Assassin game.  You must Tweet the person you are given before they tweet the person they are given....last one standing wins (prize to be determined later.)  Of course I can read the news headline now "Teachers/Educators participate in Twitter Assassin game."

Have fun on Twitter....I sure have been!

Must See Monday #1 - Larry Ferlazzo Links

Larry Ferlazzo is an English and Social Studies teacher from California.  Mr. Ferlazzo has had over 140,000 visitors to his webpage and has been nominated and received numerous awards for his work with educational technology.  His main focus is ELL, ESL, and EFL, but he has by no means limited himself to just those subject matters.

His main website linked above is so full of information that trying to describe all that is available in this blog post would be virtually impossible...but I will try my best.  First and foremost, he links to articles that he has written and that have been published in numerous publications covering a multitude of topics.  He also has a Teacher's Page which is filled with links to various resources that are broken down by topic and subject.  On this page you can also sign up for a newsletter which comes from resources he shares on his blog (more on his blog later).  On the main page are more links based on subject matter (Social Studies, English, Math Science, and ARW) and those links are broken down based on the curriculum being covered.  When you get some time, browse through the website and see what you find of interest, something tells me you won't leave not gaining something you liked...I didn't.

Mr. Ferlazzo also has a Blog that has been nominated for multiple Edublog awards, finishing in the top 3.  Over 5000 people subscribe to his Blog.  His blog has over 8000 links...yes, thats right, 8000!!!  What I like about the Blog is he has TONS of categories which makes looking through the links easy.  He also has broken them down into a "Best of Series," which include Month, Year, and Subject Specific.  The Subject Specific are then broken down into categories under each Subject making it even easier to search through the links.  He also has a "My Favorite Posts" and a "Most Popular Posts" sections which are some of the best.  They are also not all resources; they are interviews and articles as well.  As I said above, something tells me you won't leave this blog without finding something you like.

Mr. Ferlazzo has another blog about Engaging Parents in School.  I have not had a thorough opportunity to browse through it very much, but with a future in administration it will definately be one that I maintain interest and keep an eye on.  Along with that Blog, Mr. Ferlazzo has also written a book titled "Building Parent Engagement in Schools," which you can purchase from Amazon.com, but you can get more information about the book and a discount on the book here.

Are you a member of Twitter?  If so you can follow Mr. Ferlazzo on Twitter.  If you don't use Twitter, I suggest you read my previous post about why you should.

Focusing on a Focus

I decided last night that I wanted to improve the focus of my blog by creating a focus for each day.  Below is what I have decided to do for each day.

Must See Monday - Despite what you might be thinking, I did not steal the idea from NBC.  Every Monday I will post an article, resource, or Blog that I feel is a Must See.
Twitter Tuesday - Every Tuesday I will post a resource I found on Twitter, Lists to follow, People to follow, or an important Hashtag related to education.  It might also mix of all of these, depending on the mood I am in.
Wiki Wednesday - Every Wednesday I will link to a Wiki that I find interesting or helpful to educators.  It might even be something from Wikipedia that we might normally not look at unless it happened to be posted to a blog! 
Think-Twice Thursday - Every Thursday will be a resource, website, or blog that you should "think twice" and consider how to use it or reconsider why you are not using it.
Friday Focus - I will still be continuing my Friday Focus where I focus on a certain resource.  You can visit my Previous Friday Focus Post below:
Online Timelines
Social Bookmarking
Weekend Extra - With time permitting, I will post some extra stuff that I find on the weekends.

These won't be the only post of the day, but they will be the first or the last of the day.

Let me know what you think!