Blackboard Notes

Another late posting (meant for summer) I am starting to hate browser based publishing!--Cory I admit, I've taken a respite from posting.  Not because of lack of material (but thank you Richard Byrne, I'm gone for a week and I find my RSS bin up to 200), but because I needed a mental vacation.  Obviously when I went on vacation my mind was at work much to my wife's chagrin. Well, I took a physical vacation, and by the picture on the right you can see I visited Devil's Tower as one of my stops.  To list, I've been to Rapid City and Rushmore (again), over to Gillette, WY and down to Riverton.  From there I went through the forests and parks (Grand Tetons), with many stops there. After that we kept going north through Yellowstone and saw Ol' Faithful, and many hot springs (and one unstable geyser, which I DIDN'T know until I read the sign right in the middle of it!) Of all the sites I saw, (and animals--tons in the Northeast corner of the Yellowstone are

"Chasm of Communication" --Cory Sheldahl LATE ENTRY==oops I meant this for 8/22... Sometimes there comes a time (especially when one hasn't blogged in a while), that there are moments of inspiration that caused me to try to blog a few light bulb ideas from my not-so-smart phone.  I cannot remember the sparks that prompted me to blog, but obviously they fell in a chasm of protocol (or programming) where the translation back to earth yielded gibberish. I cannot remember the few inspirational thoughts that I wanted to share, but I do remember how good I felt at sending these epithets...It's ALWAYS good to double check before sending. How does this relate to communicating math?  We (teachers/adults) have a frame through which we transmit our thoughts and ideas, and generally assume everyone else  has the decoder which to decipher our transmission (technically speaking).  While the students MAY have the ability to translate it, they may not care or want to, whi

This is my modus operendi as of late. (my pattern of doing things in other words).  I just got finished with a long term sub position (again!), though this time it was in 8th grade science.  The students really rely on a textbook based work ethic (at least as 7th graders).  So I had the privilege of not only opening up the year to the students, but also rendering lessons without the use of a textbook . This is something I would encourage ALL teachers (minus subs) to try (if you have the stomach for it, that is).  The reason I say that is because it was extremely hard for the students to accept this, especially from a sub starting the year out (even though the students know me).  By the way, do NOT try any social media toys, until you know crystal clear what the district's policy is on Social Media and Personal Learning Devices.  (I wasn't totally sure, so I made specific restrictions tailored to the district I was in). I started with Procedures and Expectations (at least f