Hold My Chalk

Here are some of the resources, posts and articles that caught my eye this week.  I hope you find them useful. This week I am starting with the Tweets that caught my attention or inspired me to grow.  The first is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson shared by @Wes_Kieschnick.  Wes is the author of Bold School and I recently started following him after picking up his book. “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson #BoldSchool #edchat #MondayMotivation #MondayMorning #MondayThoughts pic.twitter.com/EmoGvYiLVM — Weston Kieschnick (@Wes_Kieschnick) March 25, 2019 Next is a tweet from George Couros (@gcouros) that he gleaned from  @katiemartinedu .  If you don't follow either of these individuals, you might want to. Are you over-scaffolding? https://t.co/BGJiaQROJM via @katiemartinedu pic.twitter.com/Y1OlYw7nXk — George Couros (@gcouros) March 26, 2019 The last one is from Kasey Bell (@Sha...

The season is upon us once again.  That time of year when regular instruction is replaced with state/federal mandated testing.  The time when we have to prove that we haven't been wasting the time of our students all year.  We do all of this in the name of accountability.  I could spend a great deal of time pontificating the various arguments for and against standardized testing, but why waste the time.  So many others have done it already and it isn't worth the effort.  If you would like to see some of the arguments for and against standardized testing, I found this interesting resource on ProCon.org about Standardized Testing . I can sum up my thoughts on the matter very briefly.  I believe in accountability, but not in the way it is handled in most cases.  I think we can do better. Here are the problems I see with our current setup. There is little real world relevance.  Not only do the tests not have applicable life skills that they are a...

As I was reading through some social media posts I came across this one by @casas_jimmy on twitter. #ThoughtForTheDay On days when you are supervising students, try to avoid defining it as hallway duty, lunchroom duty, playground duty or bus duty. Instead, begin to see all of these as relationship opportunities. Shift your thinking from duties to opportunities...via #Culturize — Jimmy Casas (@casas_jimmy) March 23, 2019 You may not know who Jimmy is, but he is a former principal and teacher that I have followed for a few years.  When I read the tweet, I immediately thought to myself that it was a great idea.  How often do we have the wrong perspective about something?  How often do we look at the negative aspects of it?  When we change our mentality from that of being burdened with a task to having an opportunity to make a difference how much better are we at that task? I personally thought it was a great tweet, but I read through some of the responses to his tweet...

Recently I was reminded of a conversation I had with a student while serving as an elementary principal. When I would have students in my office it was a habit of mine to ask them about their plans for the future. I would do this for several reasons. First, I genuinely wanted to know. Second, I wanted them to be thinking about it. Third it gave us a chance to have a conversation about what it takes to achieve that career goal. If the student was in my office for a behavior incident, this conversation could segue into the relationship between the behavior and their career goals. Does it hinder or help them in meeting those goals and what could be done to prevent that from happening again. I would also ask how I could assist them in that process. This line of questioning often got mixed results, but on most occasions it provided the student with enough time to calm down and we could have a genuine conversation about their behavior. This calm conversation also allowed me to get a bet...

I have been listening to some podcasts and reading about Genius Hours and 20% Time lately. Not intentionally, but it just keeps coming up and when that happens I have to stop and dig into it a little more. This information has spilled over into other topics and I want to share a little bit of that with you today. For those that don’t know, the premise behind 20% Time is that you spend 20% of your time on topics that inspire or motivate you. This encourages the development of your passions and provides the opportunity for creativity. When we are passionate about something, we put more into it. We want to learn more about it and give all of our energy to it. This practice is present in some corporations and is being incorporated into many classrooms. In the classroom it can take on many forms. For example in a history class 20% time could be taking one day a week for students to research and study any topic or time period in history that they are really interested in knowing more ab...

For today’s topic I want to talk about the teacher shortage. There are many states in the United States that are facing a severe shortage of teachers, for whatever reason. In particular, my state, Oklahoma is in crisis mode when it comes to finding qualified certified staff to fill classrooms. Just to give you some background knowledge. I have been an educator for almost 20 years. When I first entered the profession, it was difficult to find a job. For nearly every position, there was easily a stack of 20 applications and in most cases it was much higher. Understand that this was a time when applicants couldn’t fill out the application online, but instead often had to go pick up an application packet and deliver a resume in person or mail it in. Now you fill out an online form, sometimes you attach your documentation or email it to several parties at once. The process has become much easier on the applicant, so one would think that there would be more people applying. Gradually we...

This is the first episode of the podcast and as such I wanted to explain what this podcast is about. This is a show about education and will cover a variety of topics related to education. The title for this show and my blog comes from a quote attributed to Albert Einstein “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what then is an empty desk a sign.” As anyone involved in education knows, the issues surrounding it are very complex, overlapping and cluttered. This show is my attempt to clear some of the clutter. So each cast will cover some topic in a brief manner if possible. Some of my favorite podcasts are roughly 10-20 minutes in length and I would like to stick to that model. This way you can listen during your planning period, lunch break or commute to and from work. Just to give you some background on me and my experience in education, I have been a middle school math, 5ht & 6th grade math, science, social studies, and language arts teacher, tech coach, profe...

In a previous post I shared about Accessibility in the Classroom .  I want to look at another aspect of that and focus on Accessibility in Google Docs.  There are multiple ways you can improve accessibility within a Google Doc.  I want to look at a few tips to help improve access for your audience. The first tip is to pay attention to your fonts. Arial, Times, Verdana, Calibri will typically be your best options when it comes to accessibility in Google Docs.  Why?  These fonts are free of extra flourishes or decorations.  They are plain, simple, unadorned and are much easier for someone with visual challenges to decipher.  When you start trying to make it "pretty" you can easily lose part of your audience because of the differences in script and in some cases the device may not even be able to display it in the font you chose.  By using one of these basic fonts you are more likely to escape these issues. You may have some others available on your ...

What mission are you on? Your answer matters. @SteeleThoughts pic.twitter.com/WIjk9SwdFE — DisruptED TV (@DisruptedTv) March 3, 2019 This quote caught my eye and I thought it would be a great start to the week.  I know nearly every school and organization has one, but the question that came to mind when I saw this is "Are you on mission or are you trying to live up to a mission statement?" To me if you are trying to live up to or follow a mission statement, you are following someone else's path and not your own.  If you are following someone else's mission statement and not on mission, you may need to evaluate your reason for being a teacher.  You may be someone that is either burned out or has lost focus.  It may be time to find a way to kindle that fire again or find something else that inspires you, for your sake and for your students. If you are on mission, you are passionate about it.  It is something that drives you and motivates you.  You are likely...

This week, I decided to dig into some of my favorites from the last two weeks.  These were some of the tweets and links that made me think or inspired me. To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. - Thomas Edison — Kasey Bell (@ShakeUpLearning) February 21, 2019 As a teacher and a principal, this was always one of the things that got under my skin.  Partly because most of the students that struggle with this have much bigger concerns at home.  Berating them for forgetting school supplies does nothing but hinder the mission. Stop fussing with kids about pencils, give them a pencil if they need it. @Principal_EL #ICE19 — Adam Welcome (@mradamwelcome) February 27, 2019 This next tweet got me because we always need to ask ourselves what more can we do, what needs are not being met that force parents to feel that they need to look elsewhere to provide for the educational needs of their students. What more can we do in #oklaed to make sure parents aren’t loo...