Blog+Highlights



Who doesn't love blogs these days? toc  Let's share some good blog posts. url}?f=print|print this page

**Steve Spangler**
I heard about Steve Spangler tonight at Meet the Teacher Night. One of my student's parents said she can sit and watch his videos all evening. She's right...from tie dye to mentos, Steve Spangler has some great science experiment ideas. rss url="http://www.stevespangler.com/archives/tag/science-experiments/" link="true" description="true" number="1" date="true" author="true" enclosure="true"

Adopt a Microbe
This one is a fun (if you want to call microbes "fun") one for helping you remember what diseases cause which symptoms. The cartoon drawings on her page add extra "oomph." rss url="adoptamicrobe.blogspot.com" link="true" description="true" number="1" date="true" author="true" enclosure="true"

**Rinateach.blogspot.com**
//I created this blog for an assignment for class. Let me just include a tidbit.... // The following was originally published September 8, 2009 at http://rinateach.blogspot.com/2009/09/texas-star-chart-teaching-and-learning.html

Let me throw out a few acronyms from the educational field. NCLB, LRPT, STaR Chart, SBEC. I won't even get into Special Education. That would be a different day's blog. So I've started my Masters this summer, and here I am, trying to balance work and my online masters curriculum, singing in the church choir on Sundays, my yoga class, and my husband. That list is not in any sort of order, by the way. My Concepts of Educational Technology class has introduced new acronyms in the world of educational technology. And on top of it all, part of this week's assignment asks us to start a blog. After a brief hesitation, I think, "Huh. That's a cool assignment." And here we go....Does anyone remember the days when a visit to the computer lab included a room of Macintosh computers loaded with the lemonade stand game? How about learning the use of "writeline" (or was it "writeLn"?) in the procedural programming language of Pascal during a Computer Science class? I remember claiming victory as my name would sprawl all over the screen, knowing that I had set up the program correctly. Ah, the technology highlights of my youth--1984 (when I was in 4th grade) and 1993 (as a senior in high school). Today I'll comment on the changing face of education in light of a technology-dependent world.


 * School Ratings - Blue Ribbon- check, Exemplary- check, Target Tech?**Many of our friends are starting families, and the core of our dinner conversations naturally pull toward the quality of schooling in our neighborhoods. One couple is happy with the school district through the high school level, while another is happy with the elementary school only-- beyond that, private school or moving are the two options for them. What we know is that a "Blue Ribbon" designation is given to schools identified by national standards while the "Exemplary" rating is a state designation. Will we be looking for "Target Tech" schools as well? What does "Target Tech" mean anyway?