mathdittos2.com
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Short Week - Long Hours We all love vacations, but sometimes just getting to those days off is quite a travail. Teachers this week face trying to continue teaching right up to the Thanksgiving holiday, figuring out whether to attempt a spelling test in a 3-day week, working around holiday programs, and dealing with student absences for those who pull their kids out of school a day or two early to travel. And...Thanksgiving is just a rehearsal for the problems that mount as we approach Christmas vacation. Stellarium
The screenshot at right is the result of a search for the star "Rigel," as the constellation Orion is an easy one with its two brightest stars, Rigel and Betelgeuse, fairly easy to spot in the winter sky. Stellarium will display just the night sky, or it can add star, planet, nebulae, and constellation names. Setup of Stellarium is easy. You just download and install it and tell it where you are. If you want exact geographic coordinates, try using Google Earth to locate your latitude and longitude. Since it's open source, there's no charge for using the software, and it's available for Windows, UNIX (including Mac OS X), and Linux. Vienna Education Articles Since this is supposed to be an educationally oriented web site, maybe I should share some interesting links I ran across this week from The New York Times. The titles pretty well tell the story: The Louisville Courier-Journal today carries the news that "Two Indiana University policy groups urged state officials to develop a new assessment test for special-education students, arguing that current exams do not measure true academic progress." In New test backed for special-ed students, reporter Dick Kaukas tells of the recommendation by the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community and the Center for Evaluation and Education Policy for a "new 'flexible' test, which would be added to the two already in place...designed to show individual and group gains that might not be evident on the ISTEP results." Time to Order Seed Catalogs
Stokes Seeds - Teachers and Kids page - Order Catalog I've already ordered for next year from three of the four above. One of our nicest surprises from our garden last year was a new variety of pea, Eclipse. It's a very sweet pea and quite productive. We froze two bags (about 10# total) of peas last summer, and they're gone already! Katherine, our middle grandchild who lives with us, absolutely loved them. When we'd put more on her plate, she'd squeal with glee and clap her hands. Ad Issues Resolved The advertising issues I mentioned last week have been resolved with our full and now enhanced list of affiliate advertisers once more appearing on their own page. While Educators' News is currently a sideline for me, many web sites rely on their affiliates for most of their income. During the coming holiday season, if you're going to buy something online, why not find a site you regularly visit with an affiliate link and click through it before buying. The items won't cost any more, and the web site will pick up a little bit of revenue. Send feedback to |
It's time (probably past time) to order your seed catalogs and begin ordering for the 2007 garden season. While I've already put garlic and elephant in our garden for next year, I haven't actually started any transplants under lights as yet. In late December or early January it will be time to get our onions from seed started. All that sits under our plant lights right now are some 
A friend recently asked about some good seed suppliers, and I gave her some of the following, which are my favorites: |
New Special Education Site I received the following email today from Chris Glavin announcing a new special education section to his K12academics.com site:
2006 Condition of Education Report The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss gives some interesting statistics and results in her review of the 2006 Condition of Education report published by the U.S. Department of Education. She begins A Snapshot of the State of U.S. Education, "Did you know that despite all the criticisms leveled from coast to coast about K-12 public schools, most parents report being very satisfied with their child's school?" Sounds nice, huh? More on Math Standards
In a Viewpoint piece in Time Magazine, How to End the Math Wars, Claudia Wallis tells that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics "has identified just three essential goals, or 'focal points,' for each grade from pre-K to eighth" in a new pared down approach to math standards. The column and the NCTM recommendations reek with common sense, something that has been severely lacking in our recent approach to standards based instruction in math. Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving! Thursday, November 23, 2006 - Happy Thanksgiving Drug Cocktails for Kids Examined Gardiner Harris had an excellent article in today's New York Times, Proof Is Scant on Psychiatric Drug Mix for Young. Harris looks at the increasing prevalence of multiple psychiatric medications being prescribed for children. He notes that "...hardly any studies have examined the safety or the effectiveness of medicine combinations in children. A 2003 review in The American Journal of Psychiatry found only six controlled trials of two-drug combinations. Four of the six failed to show any benefit; in a fifth, the improvement was offset by greater side effects." Having taught special education the last ten years of my career, I often worked with children on the drug cocktails described in Harris's article. Stimulants were used to treat ADHD, often along with powerful anti-psychotic medications, with strong depressants to induce sleep at the end of the day. Parents often seemed surprised that I, as their child's teacher, was concerned that their child was on the drug treadmill at such an early age. While sometimes necessary, I've seen enough overmedicated kids from doctors doing clinical trials for drug companies to know that their is cause for further investigation and certainly caution on the subject. Black Friday Edition Tomorrow When everyone else here drops off to sleep this afternoon after our Thanksgiving feast, I plan to put together a special Black Friday Shopper's Edition of Educators' News for those who like me plan to shop from home tomorrow. Severeal years ago I foolishly let a couple of my lovely daughters talk me into shopping early on the morning after Thanksgiving, commonly known as Black Friday. I say foolishly, as I stopped by a couple of places offering "free after rebates" items. I found that they offered such limited stock of those items that they were sold out just a few hours after opening. The resultant column, A Rant about Shopping for Freebies, has earned me the wrath of a number of employees of the stores mentioned, but the column still rings true. For those of you who might wish to shop from your computer today, I've listed below a number of online after Thanksgiving sales. Note: Black Friday ads have been removed to improve loading of this page. The original version of the page, complete with the ads, is also available.
Ads shown on this site do not represent an endorsement or warranty of any kind of products or companies shown. Ads shown on archive pages may not represent the ads displayed in the original posting on Educators' News. |
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