Thanksgiving Break

I believe that the four day Thanksgiving break comes at a very opportune time for students and teachers alike. The semester (or marking periods) can become very long from the beginning of September to the end of December. Students get a few short breaks in between the beginning of school in September and Thanksgiving break, however, I believe that Thanksgiving break goes a long way to help students and teachers rest for the end of the semester. The period of time in between Thanksgiving and winter break is typically pretty intense. This is usually when term papers are due and final exams are given. The Thanksgiving break comes at a great time for students and teachers to "recharge their batteries" and get ready for the final run of the semester.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone and enjoy your weekend.

Webpage Rubrics

I thought that all of the web page rubrics that were presented last class were really good. Everyone did a really nice job and gave me some great ideas to work with when looking critically at the web site I will be critiquing. I enjoyed learning about different web pages and what makes some better than others. It was also good to see the differences in web pages that contain their own information and others that are simply portals to other sources of information. It is not necessarily a bad thing that a site does not contain any of its own information. A web page that has the ability to quickly and effectively send you to other web pages that you are looking for can be just as important as the informational pages themselves.

I really enjoyed seeing all of the web page rubrics presented in class, and they will help me to prepare my own web page rubric to be presented next class.

Curriki

I was just checking out the Curriki website, and I am very impressed by it. It is a great idea to have a place where educators can come together in order to share ideas. I really like the fact that you can collect lesson plans, worksheets, and teaching activities. It is also great that you can not only find items that would help you as a teacher, but you can also contribute to the site by uploading your own information.

The best thing about Curriki is that the ability to quickly and effectively share ideas and information. This will enable teachers to have access to great lesson plans and worksheets that have already been effectively used by other teachers. This can save educators a lot of time and enable them to really fine tune the activities to fit their classroom and their students. Curriki is a great site that will bring educators together to help each other and to share ideas. Ultimately, this will make us more productive and effective educators.

Election Fun for Students

After Professor Lungo posted the election site on her blog I decided to look for other resources that were out there for students to use regarding the election. One site I found was created by Pocantico Hills High School. It was a very simple site, but I also found it to be very effective. I enjoyed the site because the information was not lost by including a lot of confusing and distracting images and words. The list of activities was very straight-forward and plain for students of all ages to be able to see and understand easily.

I also liked the diversity in activities available to the students. Riddles, word searches, mazes, and puzzles were just a few of the different activities that students could find in the "Fun Things to Do" section. Another important section was "Reading All About Electing a President", in which students could get a better understanding of the process of electing a president. Overall, the site was very relevant to this time of year with the election taking place yesterday. I feel like this would be a great "change of pace" lesson to incorporate into the ordinary lessons of the classroom.

http://www.pocanticohills.org/election/election.htm