Monday, July 16, 2007

Where'd He Go?

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything to this page. I haven't quit writing. Quite to the contrary, I'm writing more than ever, but writing for hire, so my time and enthusiasm for Educators' News is somewhat diminished. My handiwork is all over the PRISM web portal, but the How-To Community of documentation for using Moodle on PRISM is all mine.

Speaking of Moodle...

One of the pages I maintain at PRISM is a listing of all of the publicly available school Moodle servers in Indiana. While working on the list at home one day, I decided to extend my search to the states surrounding Indiana. The search results (IL, KY, OH, MI) reinforced my belief that Moodle is taking over the K-12 Course Management System market in public schools. Since Moodle is a free, open source alternative to commercial products such as Angel and Blackboard, the price is certainly right for school systems and school tech directors.

While the installation of Moodle certainly isn't a trivial task, there is a way for Mac users to have a Moodle test installation on their hard drive. Mac users can download a drag and drop installation from Moodle that includes Moodle, apache, MySQL, and PHP. No configuration is needed and it makes a great, private test bed. I try to make my mistakes on my MAMP installation of Moodle, rather than on the PRISM site!

Teaching: Not That Easy!

How Hard Can It Be to Teach? The Challenges Go Well Beyond the Classroom by David M. Herszenhorn reminded me of some of my training in Washington Township in Indianapolis. It tells of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg asking a group of second graders to “...say ‘Merry Christmas’ and ‘Happy New Year,’ first in Spanish, then in English.” Of course, his four step request didn't work out all that well.

When I started teaching developmentally delayed students, one of the trainer's best lessons for me was that I'd have to teach the kids (third graders) everything I wanted them to do. Directions such as "Open your desk and get out your science book, pencil, and a piece of paper" were taboo. The uninitiated to the field of elementary education often have no concept of what it takes to teach primary kids.

Another column in The New York Times, So Much Paperwork, So Little Time to Teach, is a good illustration of what educators face in today's teaching environment. So many things are expected of teachers that time on task with the kids can suffer.

It's nice to see someone gets it.

A Nice Find

Annie and I didn't get away for a real vacation this summer. Schedules, a series of minor surgeries, and an incredibly expensive fuel pump (Welcome to the Saturn family!) ruled out anything more than day trips. We made one very pleasant jaunt down Illinois 1 to Illinois 33 in search of a couple of wineries Annie had noticed when through there on business. The first turned out to be a bust, but the second was really neat.

We pulled into the Lasata Winery near Lawrenceville, Illinois, on a Tuesday afternoon. It appeared that the winery storefront was closed, but someone was just coming out from the back. That someone turned out to be the winemaster, Brett Robling, who cheerfully unlocked and spent about 45 minutes telling us about his opereation and wines. We did the tasting bit and ended up carrying away about a half a case of excellent wine.

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