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?