RickScheibner.net

A little more than a tweet, but not quite a full blog post. 

8+ inches of the stuff yesterday and last night.  We haven’t had this much snow for quite a while. 

When I was in high school, if they would have closed school for this amount of snow, we probably would have missed school have the winter.  Times change.

Sometimes, sleeping in is good for the body and mind.  Lord knows I’ve been up too late lately. 

REO Speedwagon is a guilty pleasure of mine. 

I’m using GIMP to create some postcards for an upcoming event. 

I take wireless access for granted sometimes.  Right now I’m in a place where they don’t have it at all. 

Good Monsters by Jars of Clay is one of my favorite albums from last year.  Nope…Mute Math, then Monsters.

I just read on Mark Lee’s blog that the music industry is opening up millions of titles to be downloaded for free.  Does this mean the end of iTunes as we know it?  How will the artists and composers be compensated for the work they’ve done? 

Got homework tonight.  Better get on it.

A little more than a tweet, but not quite a full blog post.  Just some stuff going through my head in between meeting with students and parents today:

• Lots of student assistance team meetings this time of the year.  Has it always been like that, or is this year different for some reason?
• Our superintendent wants to come down and have lunch with my leadership kids next month.  How cool is that? 
• When I get a chance, I need to tweak my blog layout.  I don’t like the line spacing, and I’d like to leave some room in between paragraphs and bullet points.  Time to break out the Eric Meyer book.
• I wish I could get “set publish date” to work in Windows Live Writer.  Anybody got a cure for that?
• I need to get signed up for my Praxis school admin exam some time very soon.
• I’m amazed at the number of high-poverty kids we have in this school. 
• We have one parent here whose three kids have been here ever since I have.  Her youngest is a 5th grader, and we won’t have her as a parent here after this year.  I’m going to miss her kids here.
• §504 plans seem to go in fits and starts around here.  I’m amazed at how different school districts each handle those things in their own way.

Have a great Friday everybody, enjoy your weekend.

• Dragging my rear end today #
• @marklee3d: Happens occasionally #
• Lunch with 5th graders today #
• Played basketball with 5th graders at recess…I got picked last and they wouldn’t pass me the ball #

(Cross-posted at LeaderTalk.org)

Our fourth- and fifth-grade choir is made up of some select students who have demonstrated musical aptitude and an ability to perform in a large group setting.  Today, they performed at our town’s MLK celebration event.  They did their usual fabulous job, but what struck me especially today was the amazing diversity in the backgrounds and lives of these kids.  In addition to their diverse racial makeuip , I counted:

• A boy with a learning disability
• A girl who has experienced homelessness
• A barrel racer
• A recent immigrant
• A national wrestling champion
• A boy with AD/HD
• A couple of TAG kids
• A girl whose mother regularly uses methamphetamines

And yet, despite these differences, they performed with an impressive unity of sound.  These kids are just good together.  It wasn’t their backgrounds that brought them together, but their collective commitment to a single purpose. 

In the classroom, we celebrate these kids’ successes and put an arm around them when they’re down.  We don’t expect less from a student because of their background.  Sometimes we need to work harder to help them get reach their educational potential, but we never let them get away with giving less than their best.  I’m reminded that, on this MLK day, we expect excellence from all of our kids.

Stephen Rahn recently shared this post by Ben Wildeboer on Google Reader.  Apparently, the Ohio Education Association is advising its members to not join social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook.  And if members do belong to those sites, they advise removing them as soon as possible.  According to eSchool News, the dangers they cite include the potential for students and teachers to interact inappropriately, and the chance that a student might create an imposter site and post inappropriate material on it. 

Huh?  Is the education association led by people who are so out of touch they don’t even know what their newest and youngest members are up to?  Or am I being naive, and this a reasonable attempt for the OEA to protect its members?  Most of the young teachers I’ve seen hired the last couple of years just use social networking as a way of life.  They’ve grown up with e-mail and IM, and networking sites are just a natural extension of those tools.  For my way of thinking, teachers who get caught up inappropriately in the lives of their students are going to try to do that, with or without MySpace.  And if privacy is an issue, simply use the internal safety measures that those sites already have in place.  For the record, I have both MySpace (for family and friends) and Facebook (for professional networks and blogging acquaintances). 

Here is the full article from Ben:  » Social networking sites pose “dangers” for educators? Sustainably Digital

Is the OEA burying its head in the sand on this one?

Four questions isn’t bad, I guess.  Well, three questions if you don’t count Stephen’s hilarious hijinks.  Here goes:

Crystal asks: 

Have you picked a date yet?

No.  Well, yes, but it’s not set in stone yet, and I’m not sure we’re going to tell anybody once it is.  I’ll keep you posted on here though.

Stephen asks:

Why do birds sing so gay?

Always a wiseacre in the bunch.  Ummm…I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer that one, so here are the search results from Ask.com.

Matt asks:

Who do you think will win the Presidential race this year?

Good question.  If I had to put money on it right now, I’d say Hillary, just because I think she’s going to be the Democratic nominee, and the Republicans are having a tough time with a clear winner right now.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that.  Lotsa time between now and November, though, so we’ll have to wait and see.

Dale asks:

Have you ever had to deal with anything life-threatening working with teenagers and all?

Hmmm, interesting question.  I was jumped from behind once by a teenager, but that wasn’t at school.  Amazing but true:  Statistically speaking, you’re much safer walking the hallways of your local high school than you are in your own home. 

Thanks for asking, everybody.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

I’m not sure I’ll use either one of these, but there are a couple of web applications I’ve recently become intrigued with.  (Did I just end that sentence with a preposition?  Sorry Mrs. Schubert…)

Anyway, CoverItLive.com is a blogging tool that can be used for blogging live events and getting information to your blog as it unfolds.  Sure, you can probably get Twitter and Wordpress to (maybe) work together and get similar results, but this looks different.  Apparently, this uses Ajax that you embed into your post to give it live, up-to-the minute updates.  I’m not sure how I’d use that in my line of work, but it might be interesting for a conference or something.  I’ll keep it bookmarked and come back to it when I think I can put it to good use on here.

Another web app that is more geared toward productivity is IWantSandy.com.  “Sandy” is a virtual personal assistant that reminds you of important upcoming events and other reminders from your calendar.  It looks like there is even an option to have it sent directly to your twitter (via private message) and to your Google calendar.  Scott twittered it last week some time, so I’m taking a look at it to see how it can help me. 

Any other new and exciting web apps out there I need to know about?