SchoolRack

July 31, 2009 — dougpete

I recently was contacted by Artia Moghbel who had read my comments in an earlier post about Edmodo.  Artia is the contact for SchoolRack and so I clicked on over to see what it was all about.

SchoolRack is an online portal that facilitates communications between teachers, students and parents.  With a separate account at all three levels, teachers can set up a learning environment that enables the home to school connection quite easily.

Like good utilities of this sort, teachers create a presence by wizard to define a look and feel to their site.  Next, you need somewhere to go so SchoolRack lets you set up groups how you define it.  It could be just for parents or just for students, or for both.  A group join code is created for each group and you share that with those who would join you.  Want to join my demo class to look around?  The join code is:  153I13QE.

In each class that you organize, you can create assignments and allow students to submit online, a discussion board, calendar, public mailing lists, private messages, and room for file transfer.  As a teacher, you have access and control over everything through the dashboard assigned to your account.  The resources are available online with a custom URL.  In my case, it is http://www.schoolrack.com/dougpete/.

You can monitor traffic to your website through an analytics page to see just how busy the site as become.  You can also use your site as a way to distribute files, handouts, etc.  Just upload them and visitors can download and use right away.

I did contact Artia and asked the question that always enters my mind when I see resources like this.  How are you paying the bills?  Advertisements – that’s always my biggest worry when dealing with education as advertisements can be more enticing than the educational concepts (who knew?) and take students off track.  Artia responded that they tried advertising but dropped the concept.  Instead, there is a free portion of the site and then a paid portion that gives more functionality and storage for about $6 a month.

I like the look and feel of the site.  It navigates quickly and the basic functionality that you would need if you want to take your class management to the web and engage students, and potentially parents, in the process.

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links for 2009-07-30

July 31, 2009 — dougpete
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Must Reads

July 28, 2009 — dougpete

I received the following list of books from The Boy. It’s from a friend of his who calls it “Life’s Reads”.

I’m amazed at the number of titles that I’ve already read. It is a testament to education and many of these titles have been required reading for some of my English courses from days gone by.

Many are also on my bookshelf at home. What do you think of the list?

What would you add? What would you remove?

1 The Bible
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling 
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller 
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare 
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger 
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell 
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy 
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carrol
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens 
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown 
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins 
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding 
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen 55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold 
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker 
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Inferno – Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens 
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle 
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John K ennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas 
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare 
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl 
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

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600 Levels

July 27, 2009 — dougpete

The iPod Touch and iPhone have been two huge successes for Apple. Sales of these devices are so strong and you see them everywhere.

It makes a great deal of sense. Above and beyond the telephone functionality, the iPhone does allow owners the ability to run apications on this very portable device. Whether it be a portable web browser, a Twitter client, a memo pad, calendar, contact list, there’s a little something for everyone.

The key to success for computing devices, once you get past the basic functionality, is gaming. These devices have got you covered there as well. Distributed through the App Store, you’ll find all kinds of applications for the portable gamer. The big game companies have a strong presence in this area but this mode of distribution makes it possible for individuals who are interested in programming to distributes their wares as well.

Often, you’ll find two versions of an application. There are commercial versions that retail at very affordable prices – typicall 99 cents and up. Many developers will also release a free application as a tease to get you enticed to purchase the commercial product. In this case, you’ll find an application that you can play a limited number of times or it will have just a few levels and you need to shell out a few pennies to get the full product.

However, there’s at least one gem in this collection of software that has caught my interest. It’s an application called “Unblock Me Free”. The developer is Kirakorn Chimkool and is coprighted to Kiragames. It’s a simple concept; you have sliding blocks in various positions and you goal is to slide these blocks so that you can slide the single bright orange block out the side of the screen. Sound simple? It’s simple enough for a few levels but then your brain starts to hurt as you work your way up.

What would you thing? 10 levels and you’re done? 20 levels? 25?

How about 600, each one trickier than the previous? There’s enough here to keep you occupied for hours. Once you’ve solved them all, switch to Challenge Mode and try to solve each puzzle with fewer and fewer moves.

UnBlock Me

If you’re looking for a fun application, I highly recommend this one. It’s well written and will test your problem solving abilities – all in your portable device.

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links for 2009-07-26

July 27, 2009 — dougpete
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Everyone Has a Say…

July 26, 2009 — dougpete

It was announced yesterday that the City of Windsor and its CUPE membership reached a deal that will end the 15 week old strike.  The strike involved both inside and outside workers and affected things like social services, parking monitoring, garbage collection, etc.  Undoubtedly, the most noticeable effect in this withdrawal of services was the lack of garbage collection and it was a focus point for both sides in this dispute.

This blog isn’t a political one so I’m not going to offer a position on either side of the argument.

The community has done that.

I think back to ways events like this have been handled in the past.  The common wisdom was that every city should have at least two different newspapers so that editorial comments, both left and right leaning, could have a public say.  In the case of Windsor, there is a single newspaper so that just isn’t possible.  In the past, typically a newspaper will post a balance of comments from the public.  A couple for; a couple against carefully selected to give a sense that there is a balance in the reporting.


Image via Wikipedia

However, this is 2009.  Anyone with a computer and access to the internet can have and express an opinion.  The Windsor Star, part of the Canada.com network, allowed comments from anyone who wished to express an opinion.  The community surely provided the comments.  Amid comments that the newspaper was filtering the deluge of messages (see an explanation here), people from all over the world shared their thoughts about what was happening.

It wasn’t just the print media that provided continuing coverage either.  The local television station and radio stations (CKLW, for one) provided the coverage but nothing provided the opinion and pulse of the community like those who could pick up a keyboard and express their thoughts by way of blog response.

It was kept local either.  Groups surfaced on Facebook as people took their rights as citizen journalists to express their thoughts about what was happening.  It doesn’t stop there.  Folks took their opinions to YouTube as well.

Once again, I’m struck by how new technologies are so enabling to the common person.  I have no doubt that every step in the back to work process or the continuing governance of the city will be closely scrutinized in the days ahead.  Some comments will be more effective that others.  As educators, we’ve all known that there are differing levels of writing skills.  With the ease and reach of social media, it once again makes it so obvious that those who understand and use this media wisely will lead the discussion.  Having access potentially makes you a journalist; having the skills makes you an effective journalist.

After all, with all these opportunities, everyone has a say.

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links for 2009-07-25

July 26, 2009 — dougpete
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Blogging Future

July 25, 2009 — dougpete

My morning reading took me to Steve Rubel’s Mashable entry entitled Mashable Mind Map: What is the Future of Blogging?  It’s an interesting read – what I find so interesting are the responses and they reflect many opinions and thoughts about the basic premise.

In the article, he talked about a couple of directions that blogs could go.  One he labels Darwinism, and the other, Evolution.  While his focus is about business and blogging in general, I’m thinking of his points and how they apply to education.

I think we’ve all seen the Darwinism part in education.  For some, it’s “the thing to do”.  I’ve heard so many people who talk about the value of blogging for literacy, etc.  Ironically, they don’t blog themselves or they attend a one shot workshop to start up something, make a couple of entries and then move on.  We’ve all seen folks who are required to blog as part of an certification course.  And, of course, once the course is over so are the posts.  Like so many of the magic wands that are offered to solve the ills of education, the concept is simple.  But, the magic doesn’t happen quite so simply.  That’s when the wheels start to wobble and ultimately fall off.  Continued blogging is work.


Image via CrunchBase

I like Steve’s discussion about Evolution though.  I think he’s on to something for successful blogging.  I’m thinking about my own experiences.  In the beginning,

I would make infrequent posts just so that I could get a sense of what it was about and the magic didn’t happen.  I then moved to WordPress and started to dig deeper into what blogging could be.  I forced myself to make entries once a week and started to feel better.  I then pressured myself to start to post daily and the magic did start to happen.

I’ve always enjoyed writing (even though I’m not that good at it) and actually publish a monthly newsletter in my day job.  It’s an opportunity to share thoughts, ideas and hopefully provide some inspiration to others.  With blogging, I found that I started to inspire myself.  With a daily deadline, I started to look at and understand things at a deeper level than ever before.  I then meld it into something that is suitable for public viewing.  More than just a daily record of thoughts, it has now been a way to connect to others of a like mind.  It’s a very special group of folks and I read their blogs regularly.  It’s scraped over to Commun-it to join with other Ontario educators.  I know that some bloggers feel that comments are necessary to affirm their efforts.  Some days you do; some days you don’t.  It comes down to just who are you blogging for?  Yourself?  Or the masses?  You’ll need to decide where the satisfaction lies.

Blogging resources have become incredible competitive and this opens all kinds of other possibilities.  I spend time on the web learning and trying to understand and have bookmarked resources for years.  Delicious interfaces with WordPress nicely and lets me share with any who care what I’m reading and bookmarking.  It allows me to create a great resource for myself.  Delicious does have a nice search routine that lets me find resources that *I* have particulary previewed and saved for later reference.  But, when you couple that with a search that lets me dig into my blogging thoughts with the same search terms, the power of search is definitely enhanced.

More than this, the sidebars allow me to bring much of my online experiences together into one spot.  You’ll notice my Twitter thoughts and bookmarks to other blogs that I regularly read.  It has evolved into an amalgam of a great deal of what I do online.

There is no single answer to Mr. Rubel’s thoughts.  I enjoyed reading his post; enjoyed the mind map; and then realized that like so many things in life, blogging is what you make it to be.  As I was creating this entry, I was having a back and forth with Jeff Pulver, a man that I have great respect for.  One of his responses to me says it all.

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links for 2009-07-24

July 25, 2009 — dougpete
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Perfect

July 24, 2009 — dougpete

Amidst all of the negative and threatening things in the news, it’s so refreshing to hear good news.

And, not just good news – great news.  How great?  So great that only 18 people have ever done it in the history of Major League Baseball.  From the Baseball Almanac comes this list identifying 11 American League and 7 National League perfect games including the name, time of the game, and the attendance.

Looking up and down the list reveals some incredibly historical names in baseball – Martinez, Johnson, Koufax, Bunning, Wells, Rogers, Larsen, Young, Hunter.  To this list, we can now add the name of Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox.  Yesterday, he threw a Perfect Game against the Tampa Bay Rays.


Thanks Multisanti – CC

In this day of baseball specialists, winning a baseball game remains a feat.  Usually, it involves relief pitchers to close out the game.  Something incredibly special is a no-hitter where the pitcher silences the bats.  However, the ultimate is the Perfect Game.  Quite simply, it means pitching and getting every player from the opposing team out in order.  27 straight outs.  All the time against millionaires who live, breathe, train, practice and perfect the art of hitting.

While a Perfect Game is noted for the pitcher, don’t lost sight of the fact that baseball is a team game.  In this case, a spectacular catch by Dwayne Wise sealed the deal.

It is absolute and unadulterated perfection in baseball.  In all of the history of baseball, where every modern team plays 162 regular season games plus tie-breakers, plus playoff games, plus World Series, it has only been done 18 times.  Words, images, video do their best to capture the moment but I can’t even begin to imagine the sense of history and euphoria that played out on the field yesterday.  The White Sox who enjoyed the moment, hoping it would last forever and at the same time wishing the event was complete; the Rays trying their best to just get to base and yet secretly hoping to witness such an event; the fans who were bathing in the moment realizing they were witnessing something incredibly unique; and the umpires who want to maintain the impartiality of their position and just hoping not to make an error to change the course of the game.  Television is alive with the story and replays and we’ll continue to see this over and over.

Remember the date – July 23, 2009.

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