Do report cards take as long for other teachers as they do me? I've now survived 29 grading periods. Multiply that by 25, the average number of students I have in each class. times two for my two classes of students, LA/social studies and math/science. That makes 1,450 report cards. Oh my ****ing *@#%. And here's the thing I didn't mention, it still takes me an hour to do each one. I haven't gotten any faster. I have this unhealthy, obsessive compulsive tendency to read EVERYTHING my students have done. Do other teachers do that? If anyone is reading this, please tell me I have to stop that.
I got my first comment on my blog! I'm still so excited. Thanks, Jason! I went to Jason's blog, who also went to NCCE and made a comment on his site - my first ever comment! He runs a blog called the Tech-Savvy Teacher... news, reviews and how-tos from a teacher-neard in the field. (It's much cooler than this site.) See, I can't even figure out how to make these links live. Maybe I'll try the help button, later. Anyway, if want to check out Jason's blog, here's the url: http://techsavvyteacher.com/ You'll just have to cut and paste until I work this out.
I have to report my most recent very cool tech discovery. Another teacher and I run a tech club at our school. We've been working on making podcasts where students are reading short picture books to help younger students learn to read. They follow along as they listen to the story read aloud. So, Natalie reads Repunzel. She spends weeks and weeks editing, and it sounds pretty good. But she's horrified at how when she says the word, "cantaloupe," it doesn't come out soft, sweet and melony, instead it's CANTALOUPE!!!! She thinks she leaned forward and got too close to the mic. Also, after the alarming CANTALOUPE!!!!, the entire rest of the podcast is lots louder.
So, I remember hearing something about a free software that levels out loud sounds and soft sounds. I find the notes I took while at NCCE and find the name of this software - the Levelator! Isn't that a great name? So, I find it, download it in a flash, drag her podcast in and it literally spits it out with a normal reading of her entire story. The whole thing took 5 minutes, tops. It was amazing. Here's the link if you run into similar troubles. http://www.gigavox.com/levelator
The last thing I have to mention is this highly disturbing video I saw of amblypigids showing affection for other amblypigids. Do you know what amlypigids are? I didn't either. They're also called whip spiders, although, they're not spiders. They're arachnids, but not spiders. They're creepier than spiders. So creepy, I can't bear to put a picture on this blog. You'll just have to copy and paste to see what they look like. They are apparently the only social "spiders" known. Watch the video. http://www.sciencefriday.com/news/0316072/news0316072.html Listen to the podcast and learn that if they are separated, and don't get to caress each other, they soon get depressed.
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2 comments:
Saweet! I love the blog. Makes me wish I was a teacher ... well, maybe not so much. But I taught an excellent class on Tuesday - Academic Integrity for a bunch of Chinese international grad students. mwahaahaa. I got power!
I never realized you had enough time to write so many things.. It's actually really interesting reading your blog cause it helps me get inside my teacher's heads. Not that I want to but this kind of gives me a better understanding of how much you guys have to do for us....wow.
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