YouTube Conversion

I'm not sure how many of you are aware, but there is a way to convert YouTube videos into a format that is accessible at the schools. We have always had YouTube blocked on our school servers, but I was shown a way to circumvent this problem. I had planned on sharing this earlier but completely forgot. If you go to the website www.zamzar.com and input the link to the YouTube video, it will be converted to a file that you can use in your classroom. You have to choose what format to have it converted to, but you are given many options. Just thought I would share this great resource!

Grading Parents???

This morning on my way into work, there was some interesting commentary on the radio. Apparently there is some talk of teachers grading parents. Are these people crazy? It is difficult enough trying to figure out what is going on with our students and assessing them, why in the world would anyone want to even attempt to grade parents? This is opening a whole new bucket of worms. I have my opinions as to how children should be raised, but that doesn't mean that I should be grading other people on how they are raising their children. That is just insane. I'm curious as to what opinions other people may have on this topic and any suggestions as to how this "grading system" should be set up or look like.

Happy ACT Day!

Well, here it is, the day our juniors have been looking forward to all year.....ACT day. I'm not sure as to how other students across the board are viewing the ACT, but I had some disturbing comments brought about by some of my students. I overheard many students talking about the test and saying that they had spoken to seniors that had taken the ACT last year. In the course of the conversation, those that had already taken the test told my juniors to not even try......the test is just way too hard. So instead of spending the day working on chemistry, I spent the hour attempting to convey to my students how important it was to do their very best on the test, no matter what section it was. I have a hard time believing that I convinced more than 50% of them, but hopefully I was able to get through to a few. I'm curious if others are having some of the same conversations with their students. Is it a shift in attitudes of all students?

MSTA Conference

Here it is, the weekend that many science teachers across the state anticipate every year. I am at the MSTA Conference in Grand Rapids. I spent all day yesterday sitting in sessions to gain ideas to use with my students. One of the sessions presented had to do with the state's content expectations. Oakland county has assembled Teacher Resource Manuals for the high school science content expectations. During the session, the presenter covered those found within the core of biology but shared the site where the others can be found. I looked through that site this morning and found some good resources. The standards have been broken down and activities have been included to use in your classroom. I haven't had a ton of time to look through it all yet, but what I did see appears to be helpful. If anyone is interested in checking these out, they can be found at: http://www.oakland.k12.mi.us/science/resources.aspx

Today's Students...

I am not sure how many of you are teaching in high schools, but I have a concern. We are currently in the midst of snowcoming week. For those of you not familiar, snowcoming is essentially the winter version of Homecoming. Instead of crowning a Homecoming Queen, we "crown" Mr. Genesee. Throughout the week, there are many activities including door decorating, theme days, assemblies every afternoon, and a mock rock. The upsetting thing to me is that students are not interested in participating in ANYTHING. These are suppose to be fun days with lots of silliness. I am concerned that students are not willing to participate in these crazy activities. As I sit here in my classroom, I am covered in orange and black face paint wearing a Tigger costume for Disney day! I look around the room and there are ZERO students dressed for the day. I am curious if this is something that is occuring just in our school or if this is something that is happening across the board. Are students becoming "too cool" to participate in these activities? What is going on with these kids?

Scared silly.....

After reading some of what our new state leader is proposing, I find myself more uncertain as to our states future than ever. I don't understand how we are to move forward and become a thriving state again when all our leaders want to do is to continue to cut the funding to education. Is anyone else extremely concerned about this????

Activity Site

I have the pleasure of teaching a Sports Medicine class. I have used a previously noted website to show students videos of various surgical procedures. I have recently found another site that demonstrates some procedures using animations in which the students complete the surgery. It is very informative and walks the students through the process step-by-step. My students loved completing the activity. If you teach anatomy or sports medicine, it's a great tool to use with students.

The website can be found at www.edheads.com