Day after Christmas

12-26-07

Today the weather was great. About 70 degrees and sunny, a good day for a bike ride. I have been trying to ride every day this break and decided to take a long ride today. All the way out to the Davis Island seaplane basin. I had my phone along and took this picture at the dingy dock. I spent some time resting there watching the sailboats bobbing in the slight breeze. It was a perfect ride.

Helmets?

OK I'm all for kids safety but I'm thinking that someone in Milwaukee is getting cabin fever. In the above picture police from Waukesha put radar guns on kids sledding down a snow covered hill. ( see story) Is this creating a problem where none exist? I mean in the snow you are, well I am, bundled up in about ten layers and a couple of knit caps. With all that padding you are just gonna bounce around. I guess in Florida surfboards will soon come equipped with life jackets and helmets.

First Up on Christmas

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas.

I am sitting up with the dog waiting for everyone to get up and I'm looking at the tree. On the tree is a history of our children written in ornaments. I see ornaments made by little hands and remember the great joy in their eyes when we put them on the tree. Some of the ornaments we made at home, some were made at school, some at church, and some they made themselves just because my children felt that something was missing from the tree. I don't think at the time I realized how these simple objects would so soon become treasures.

Merry Christmas to all.
Chan

Student Web Pages

My students have been working on their web pages for about 3 weeks now. I began by training about 5 students (that is the number of laptops that I have set up in my classroom) on the use of PBWiki. Then these 5 were responsible for training the next 5. This way I could continue with the regular instruction of the class and students were responsible themselves for learning to create their web pages ans for catching up on what I had been teaching in class.
So far most students are accepting the added responsibility.
I have even had reports of students working on and teaching about web page creation during their computer lab time. I am especially pleased about this development because from my observation most time spent in the computer lab is spent playing "educational" games.
I'm hoping that from this other teachers will encourage students to use their time in the computer lab for the creation of more original works.

last week or so

The last few weeks have been really something. Austins football team lost to Armwood knocking them out of a chance to go the the State football championship but he still has a ring from last year. The next day Austin passed the final step toward achieving the rank of Eagle in the Boy Scouts. For that I am proud, he has worked very hard to make that rank. We will be planning his Eagle ceremony for sometime in February. Then a few days later he was accepted to the University of Central Florida. He seems excited and scared at the same time. It is a big step.
Now Jessica not to be outdone came to Tampa this weekend to see Austin in his final Madrigal Dinner performance at Plant High School. Both of our children have grown so much because of the Chorus program at Plant and Mr. Yost. But a few hours before the final show the mail came and in was a letter from a hospice in Tallahassee. Jessica had applied for an internship there and the letter was offering her one of 4 that they award each year. And it comes with a stipend, even better!
I am very proud of both of my children and all that they have done.
Oh and I put up our Christmas tree this afternoon:)

Art and The Test

From the
a story about standardized testing and the arts. In the article one paragraph caught my eye,
"From the while both the Department of Education and the federal government identify the arts as vital to a good education, the grades -- and the standardized testing approach -- fail to acknowledge the central role subjects beyond reading and math play in a child's education. Arts education may very well be the "incomplete" in these report cards."
In Florida the State Art Education is in the process of developing a standardized test for the visual arts.
Now is this a good use of our time? I'm sure that politically it is a good idea. A test will add legitimacy to the arts in the eyes of the ones that hold the purse strings. But will the students learn because of it? Yes, in the areas that are tested, but with 100 or so questions how large an area of art could that be? (Wow that sounds like what is said about the other test)
Unless the art test is perceived as only a part of assessing what a child has learned in art. In visiting other art teachers and their classes each class is as different as the style of art that each teacher prefers to work in. How can that variety be assessed in a single standardized test?

Shift Happens

On my other blog I am hosting a discussion of Dan Pinks book "A Whole New Mind". This is a project to not only get the art and music teachers to read the book but to also introduce them to blogging as an instructional tool. In my research for the blog I came across this video. It is very powerful.
It is on teacher tube and I hope that it will not be locked-out by the district.
I am currently trying to incorporated 21st century skills into my classroom instruction. Students are beginning to create their own web pages of their art work. Next week I will be teaching them about internet safety using NetSmartz. Then after introducing how to use PBWiki I will have small groups work together and create their own art web page. When my students get some of the pages done I'll post the URL and you can take a look. It's small but it's a start!