Cool Blog Entry Using Cool Tool

Thanks so much to the inimitable Cathy Jo Nelson for sharing this via Facebook: http://yourteacherlibrarian.wikispaces.com/Are+You+Ready%3F

And it was made with ANOTHER cool tool. I am looking forward to playing with this as soon as I finish grading for this semester. It is called Thinglink: http://www.thinglink.com/

Just One Cool Site Today...

But it lists a bunch MORE cool sites. I saw several listed that were new to me. The title of the site is Edudemic. Here is the main URL: http://edudemic.com/

Here is the page with a bunch a of neat links...but explore the whole site!
http://edudemic.com/2010/07/the-35-best-web-2-0-classroom-tools-chosen-by-you/

Cool Sites for Today

I am grading student work, an activity I really enjoy. One of my requirements when I make up an assignment is to be sure the response will be something I enjoy grading. I think this can be achieved without much difficulty if I just ask students to perform interesting tasks. One thing I learn from students is great new sites. Here are the ones I picked up today:
1. Capzles--http://www.capzles.com This site allows you to make timelines. They can include video clips, photos, text. I am already thinking how great this site would be for students writing travel journals!
2. eduTecher--http://www.edutecher.net/ This is a great clearinghouse for all things Web 2.0. I had to force myself to continue grading and not go off on tangents exploring the many great resources and links.
3. Doodle.ly-- http://doodle.ly/ This nifty little tool does just what you would think!
4. Ducksters--http://www.ducksters.com/
This is a very cute directory site for kids with lots of good links and a safe search window.
5. Easy Kid Recipes: International Recipes for Kids--http://www.easy-kids-recipes.com/international-recipes.html

Kick-Starting My Blog Again!

Next January I won't have to think too hard to come up with a New Year's Resolution. I can just use this year's. My resolution was to post daily to this blog. I know lots of other people do this, and I gave myself an easy way to succeed by saying that just posting a link and a short blurb would suffice, with longer more thoughtful entries to be added when time permitted I had a perfect record all through January. But that was a long time ago. Indeed January seems like distant past for reasons other than my blog. It was the beginning of a semester that presented more stress and worry about schools and finances than I can remember in my life, and frankly that's a long time. All during fall 2010 we were told that the State of Texas was in great financial shape, due to the wise conservative leadership of "Governor" Rick Perry. He managed to defeat a good and decent man, Bill White, to gain another tem as governor. Almost immediately we were told that calculations were incorrect and that our state had joined just about everybody else in hard financial times.

A combination of factors kept me from keeping up my blog but I think one was pure discouragement. It is hard not to feel beat down when your hard work is devalued and your profession is under fire. The strong anti-higher education mood in Texas, on top of the radical cuts to K-12 schools, made for a gloomy outlook on my part. Beyond that, I was not feeling up to par and was barely keeping up with my responsibilities as a professosr and department chair. But enough of that! Crying over spilt milk or oil or Bluebell ice cream or whatever we are currently spilling in Texas will not make things better.

Thus I am officially kick-starting my blog today. Will I be posting every day as per resolution? Well I hope to come close! And so, for the 3rd time in 2011, I am instigating a do-over and hoping to make the resolution stick this time. This entry is long and way too much about me so I will close with a cool link. I shared this one via Twitter and Facebook earlier this week, but if you haven't seen it, take time to enjoy. It does put my piddling blog into perspective. The title is The Scale of the Universe and it lives up to this lofty title:
http://uploads.ungrounded.net/525000/525347_scale_of_universe_ng.swf