Ellen & Me - We Have Something In Common

Check this out...Ellen & I are following 17 of the same people on Twitter. I thought for sure we wouldn't have anyone in common, but turns out we both like Dave Ramsey, Chick Fil A, & the Drudge Report. How 'bout that?

Where'd I get this info? From Twiangulate. It's a Twitter cross referencing tool that lets you compare your friends & followers with those of other Twitter users.

You can even use it to see connections between two or three other people. This might be useful if you use Twitter for professional learning community purposes. You know a few key players in your particular industry and want to know who they both follow commonly. Chances are, that'd be a good person for you to check out, too.

ABCya! - Interactive Educational Games

My kids have used Starfall for years.  It's one of the most simple & helpful reading websites we've found. I've just come across something comparable.

ABCya! is has what looks like hundreds of interactive educational games.  It's split into grade level & categories.  Here's the 2nd grade list.

Here's one game that helps kids with sequencing. It's a train track.  The object is to add the next block in the sequence in order to build the track for the train to go.  Finish one track and a new one appears.

My oldest daughter is still having a hard time with money.  What's more confusing than a dime being worth more than a penny and a nickle less than a dime?  This application gives kids a number of cents; (practicing my semicolon use - did I do it right?) they have to drag the right number of coins into the box and then check to see if they're right.

 

And what's more fun than Bingo?  Am I the only one who spells that word out every time I read it? ABCya! has a math Bingo game that's simple, but effective.  It times the player and for strategy purposes repeats several numbers on the same card, so you can decide which one you want to use to get Bingo as quickly as possible.

Follow ABCya! on Twitter, for the latest interactive games.

My Semicolon Confession

I have a confession to make.  I'm 37 years old and I still don't quite grasp; when I'm supposed to; use a semicolon.  Thankfully the folks at theoatmeal.com have a little cartoon to help; us all out.

John Stossel In The Classroom & More

I just got my copy of John Stossel in the Classroom & viewed it.  Good stuff.  He addresses the following topics and more:

Should everyone really vote?
Should farmers really get subsidies?
Is it really impossible to achieve the American Dream?
Who can make better more efficient roads, government or private companies?
Why do so many people want to be famous?

In addition to the DVD, his website has all kinds of resources including teacher guides and a video of the month that you can stream straight from your computer.

This is a great tool for parents, too.  Make sure your kids really understand capitalism, government, and their relationship to them both.

If you haven't got your copy yet, you can do so at his website, http://stosselintheclassroom.org/.

Focus, Focus, Check Facebook - I Need Help

Thankfully, Donald Miller provides some good and simple advice for being able to focus...a kitchen timer.

I just make a list, then pick one, then set my little timer for an hour or twenty minutes or whatever amount of time that specific assignment will cost me. And then, while the timer is ticking away on my desk, I don’t let myself do anything else. I don’t answer the phone, I don’t work on other projects, I don’t bake cookies, I just focus on that specific writing assignment. When the timer goes off, I decide whether I want to keep working on it, or move on.

We Lied To Our Children! Now What?

The lack of WMDs brought about cries of "Bush Lied!" from the American Left.  With Climategate and now the admission by Professor Phil Jones that the earth has not gotten any warmer over the past 11 years, it seems that the Consensus about man-made global warming I mean climate change is evaporating.

Too many creators and guardians of the "consensus" desperately wanted to believe in it. As self-proclaimed defenders of science, they should have brushed up on their Enlightenment. "Doubt is not a pleasant mental state," said Voltaire, "but certainty is a ridiculous one."

It would seem, at least to those of us with a little common sense, that this whole global warming nonsense is just that - complete & utter nonsense.  More than that, it is pretty transparent that the drive to "save the world" has more to do with politics than it does with actually living some lifestyle that will benefit our world.  When those telling us to be green fly around on their private jets and attend huge impressive meetings, I can't believe it's taken as long as it has for ordinary Americans to let out a collective, sarcastic, "Wait a minute..." In fact, if we take the approach to this issue that liberals took toward the war in Iraq, we might as well say we've been lied to.  And worse than that, we have lied to our children.  I just had a high school senior tell me today that polar bears are going extinct.  They aren't.  The source? His textbook.

Now there are a few questions we have to take a look at.

1. Do we tell our children their teachers & politicians lied or do we tell them they were duped?
2. Do we have to spend money on new textbooks or should we give the kids Sharpies and help them draw big Xs across the pages that have all that junk in it?

Seriously, though, I do have some questions I think we need to honestly look at in an educational setting.

1. How can we make sure something like this doesn't happen again?
2. What does this mean for our children's & their parents' relationships with teachers?  How trustworthy are teachers to present all sides of an argument or issue fairly?
3. Will teachers be honest & humble enough to use this as a teachable moment about not just trusting one source and not calling deniers, lunatics?
4. Will we use the fallacy of global warming to serve as an example for our approach to other scientific theories, like evolution?
5. What the heck are we going to say to people who still think there is man made climate change?  Should we be nice or just laugh?

I'm proud to be one who never bought into the hysteria, not so much because it wasn't believable, but because of the messenger.  I always had an issue with people (Al Gore, primarily) who thought so highly of human beings' ability to control something like the climate, and even more of an issue with the fact that they thought they were the ones who could formulate a plan to stop it.  It's really silly.  I mean, think about that for a minute.  Thousands of years of human history and they honestly decided they were the ones who could save the world.  It's even more silly when we find out our world doesn't need to be saved, at least not the earth itself.  It's the people who need to be saved, but that's not politically correct.

You know, there used to be a day when people acknowledged God's complete control of the weather.  Actually, there are still a bunch of us.  My family in Indiana still prays that God would water their crops, or make the rains stop.  It would serve our children well if we as adults provide an example of reliance upon God, not reliance upon our own lofty plans.


As educators & parents, what do you think we should do about this hoax?

Lost In Translation

Here's a fun little website called BlahblahFish that takes a phrase, translates it into any of a number of languages, then translates that back into English.  There's probably a good illustration about connecting or communication somewhere here.
For instance, here are some translation translations of the phrase, "Please stay seated until the ride comes to a complete stop."

Italian - It remains I pray put till that the turn does not come to a complete arrest.
Spanish - He remains based please until the stroll comes to a complete shutdown.
Hungarian - Please stick seated whilst the she's riding comes yield one supplements stops.
Korean - Burning, when this is complete stopping until, seat and stay.

How about the phrase, "Earn the right to be heard." Some of these are downright insightful.

Italian - Gain the right to be felt.
Welsh - Gain ' group right to be heard.
Japanese - Profit do the right to be heard.
Filipino - Earn the right toward possible hear.