Blackboard Notes

Happy Holidays!-from Sheldahls I was having so much fun teaching at Adrian School  on a long term substitute assignment (plus others since I started back up in September, including Windom ISD 177) I forgot to share my experiences as I went along.  A lot has happened since I last posted.... During this summer, I moved to southwestern Minnesota, because my wife got her first job teaching choir.  I love to remind her about Pascal's sentiment about music as "sound with math," but not too frequently.  I looked for further adjunct work, but all the colleges nearby had enough educators.  The area I now live in has a "nest" of communities, and I have yet to explore them all.  I may well do some site visits to get the attitudes of the surrounding district principals, and so far I'm pretty pumped.  It's refreshing to get new perspectives, and their staff are open to tell you just about everything that goes in on their districts. (which for the most part h...

I don't know who coined it, perhaps in the sports realm, it seems true in today's competitive 150 applicants per job market. (no that is not a researched number).  Schools tout for change (especially when listening to them in the interview), but ironically you are measured how well you make the status quo look good while trying to implement change.  I have temporarily dropped off the regular blog trail, so let me share why. These two concepts are in-congruent with each other, as I am certain Dr. Scott McCloud has indicated in his prior blogs.  As it stands, however, I forged ahead and went "back to school."  I took two concentrated classes over the Internet (since twin cities parking, traffic, and hotel stay were additional costs I could not arrange in my budget).  I took two classes, CompTIA(R)'s A+ training, and CompTIA(R)'s Network+.  The  difference between the two seems to be logic. Media Center, C. Sheldahl  (C) 2013 I expected to p...

I have noticed I haven't blogged in a LONG, long time.  The truth is, I have been caught up in being an adjunct a local college, subbing, and working as an online educational consultant (legal way of saying I'm a teacher, but I get a stipend). The communication part is something which I have lacked in maintaining; if only I could roll back the clock and share how much I have learned with the students at the college, public school, and online environments.  Each have their characteristics, in their own right. Let's start at the public school. I have been subbing for many assignments that span from kindergarten through senior high.  The elementary students require specific attention and guidance from teachers as leaders and adult figures.  I have found that each district I have subbed in (both in Iowa and Minnesota) have their own unique culture, norms, and routines.  Remembering each place's footprint is a real skill (and you do NOT want to confuse one clas...

Sheldahl, C. 2011. Media Center. Perhaps not every moment a teacher experiences a teachable moment is inside the classroom (or a media center.) In this case, I experienced very personally, right on the floor of the family room in my house. My kids, when decided that they are not  going outside to play, develop this ravenous cabin fever (or at least the older siblings love to stir up the younger ones like a top; sound familiar?).  But when they got some Legos(TM) out (that at least was their initiative, not mine, unless my wife prompted them to), I plopped down on the floor and started to make something with the "pretty" colored Legos(TM) y daughter was using. (My next older child had brought his own "boy" Legos(TM) to the play scene). I was wasn't sure what I was going to make, since I didn't have directions or a map of what I was going to make...but remembering a ride cart from Walt Disney world, I fashioned something of the same design with Pat...

Happy thanksgiving! hope you get this as my phone is not really working

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 t...