Month: August 2007

Start the year with some school related tunes

Dale

Spare the RockThis summer our family started listening to a podcast called “Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child.”  It’s a radio program that features music for kids (that parents can stomach too).

Their last show featured several school themed songs to celebrate the new year. Chuck Berry’s “School Days” starts the series of school songs 53 minutes and 56 seconds into the program.

Berry’s famous hit is followed by:

  • Steve Blunt and Friends – Back to School
  • The Hipwaders – Educated Kid
  • Monty Harper – Dog Books
  • Mr. Billy – The Dog Ate My Homework
  • Stephen Fite – Cool To Be In School
  • Twink – Alphabent
  • Aaron Fowler – Room Mom
  • Bill Harley – I Wanna Play
  • Imagination Movers – Field Trip
  • Milkshake – School
  • Barry Louis Polisar – I Don’t Wanna Go to School
  • John Hadfield – The Principal’s Office
  • Trout Fishing in America – Why I Pack My Lunch
  • Asylum Street Spankers – You Only Love Me for My Lunchbox

Perfect music to play in the background as your students enter class.
Give “Spare the Rock” a listen at their site or via iTunes. 

My apologies to all of you who have already started school. We start late in Wisconsin.

Plan your lessons in Google Calendar

Dale 1 Comment

Each year I begin with every intention to write out my lesson plans for each day of the school year. For eight years, I started with the lesson plan book. I labeled the dates for the entire school year, added important school events, and began penciling in my lessons. Somewhere around mid-October the wheels fall off. Somehow this task gets pushed way down on my to-do list.

Google CalendarLast year was different. I decided to throw out the lesson plan book and use Google’s Calendar instead. For the first time, I maintained my lesson plans for the entire school year.

Here are the three reasons why Google Calendar works so well for my lesson plans:

  1. I can see the big picture. With Google Calendar, switching views from day to week to month is a snap. I can also add other calendars. I can see if the lesson plan for Physics conflicts with what I’m planning to do in Physical Science. I also compare the lesson plans to my personal calendar and my wife’s work schedule. You can even import your school’s sports schedule to plan around the big game.
  2. Google CalendarUpdating is a breeze. If Tuesday’s lab takes longer than I expect, I can drag the next activity over to Wednesday. No more erasing and recopying. In the description field I can put notes about the on-the-fly changes I made to the activity.
  3. Students and parents can follow along. Google let’s you share your calendar so others can subscribe to it or just view it on your website. Now students who were absent come to class knowing exactly what they missed because they read it online the night before.  Nothing motivates you more to keep the calendar up to date when you know others are going to see if you fall behind.

If you’re looking for a way to create lesson plans that are sharable, easy to use and provide access from anywhere, give Google Calendar a try.

Color your Website with a Touch of Nature

Dale 1 Comment

Recently Steve Dembo (from Teach42) Twittered:

It’s amazing just how much better you feel about a website once the graphic design gets put in.

I can’t agree more. While good content is what keeps your users coming back for more, usability and design are responsible for holding their attention during their first visit.

A site’s color scheme is key to its look and feel. Here is a site that shows how you can get inspiration from nature.

Frogs:
Frog Colors

Hawaii:
Beach Colors

There are also several online color scheme tools (like this one) that can help you start designing your next site.

Have it Your Way with Firefox’s Profile Manager

Dale

My FirefoxRecently my laptop had to go into the shop and I was forced to use our home computer. Not a problem except that my wife has become quite the Firefox fan. Each time I went online, I had to log her out of sites like Google and Yahoo. Once I realized that she didn’t have my favorite Firefox extensions installed, something had to be done.

The solution is Firefox’s Profile Manager. The Profile Manager allows multiple users to have their own cookies, bookmarks, passwords and extensions without having to log out of the operation system.

Use the instructions (for Windows, Linux and Mac) at Mozilla.org to create your own additional profiles.

I know what you did this summer

Dale

Elmo SprinklerI relaxed this summer and I’m not ashamed of it. I spent time playing in the sprinkler with my children. I enjoyed the fine weather from my back patio. Some mornings I watched the Today Show while enjoying my morning coffee. There, my secret is out. I’m a teacher and I like the summer break.

For a long time, I found myself going on the defensive when I talked about my summer with non-teachers. As if I was being audited, I’d go into a long list of all the education related tasks I did during June, July and August.

A story from NPR’s All Thing’s Considered shows that other teachers do the same. Their four minute clip presents teachers who are taking extra courses and attending workshops. One teacher is actually working as a waitress to supplement her income.

Many teachers work hard during the summer. I myself attended a few workshops and conferences. Yet, we should not be ashamed if we enjoy some much needed time off. After all, we’re not being paid to work the full year.

NPR implies that summer is the busiest time of the year for teachers. I disagree. Our work, like several other fields, is seasonal. We have a peak time and we have an off-season. The summer is our off-season.

I grew up on a farm. In the summer, we spent long hours on the job but during the winter the work slowed down. My parents would plan for the next growing season by setting up seed vendors and preparing equipment for another summer in the fields. No one ever asked my parents, “What did you do this winter?”

During my summer, I do all the things I want to do during the school year but can’t find the time for because my desk is always full of papers to grade or lessons to prepare. I think about what worked and what didn’t. I learn new material and teaching strategies for the next year. Teachers need the down time that the summer break provides. It provides us time for the important job of reflecting on the past school year.

In my subject area, science, we’re having a harder time recruiting new people to become teachers. I wonder if we’re underselling the summer break. Do we really want to send the message to the potential educators out there that this job is a rat race year-round?

5 favorite Firefox extensions for web design

Dale 1 Comment

As a web page designer, I am please with all the options that the Firefox browser provides. Even though Microsoft has made some significant advances with the release of Internet Explorer 7, they simply haven’t matched what Firefox has been able to accomplish.

I consider the vast collection of Firefox extensions its biggest strength. Here are my five favorite extensions for web page design:

  1. MeasureIt
    Draw a ruler across any webpage to check the width, height, or alignment of page elements in pixels.
    measureit
  2. ColorZilla
    get a color reading from any point in your browser
    colorzilla
  3. Aardvark
    See how the page is created, block by block
    example01.png
  4. Web Developer
    Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools
    webdev.png
  5. IE View Lite
    IE View Lite opens your current page in IE with just one-click

Apple already doesn’t trust me?

Dale

Don’t stealToday I opened my first iPod only to be greeted with a sticker across the screen that stated, “Don’t steal music.” What? Talk about killing the mood. Apple, what were you thinking? Does the iPhone have a sticker that reads “Don’t make prank calls” across its screen?

With only a few more weeks before the start of school, this reminds me of that ever so important first day of class.  Since first impressions are important in almost every environment, I like to kick-off the year with an activity. I want to capture the spirit of the course and send the message that my class is about laboratory investigations and working together.

Some teachers choose to take care of the nuts and bolts of their course by passing out forms to be signed, assigning seats and going over those dreaded classroom rules.  Don’t get me wrong, I think clearly stated classroom expectations are important, I just don’t think you should start off with that as your introduction.

I was so surprised to see Apple, who I thought was the master of first impressions, make this mistake.

Dear Jaiku Letter: It’s not you, it’s me

Dale

Jaiku Break upDear Jaiku,

I think we’ve both known for some time now that things are just not working out. In the beginning, everything was going great. I loved the way you would listen to my other feeds and let me make comments. And the icons were amaaazing! But I need more than just a quick icon here and there.

You spend most of your time talking about your big plans while all my friends are moving on with their lives. I just can’t do this any longer. I think it’s time we see other people.

We don’t have to call it quits completely. I’ll still keep your gadget on my iGoogle page. Maybe we can just be friends and take some time to figure things out. I hope you understand.

Yours Always,

Dale Basler

Discovery Stores close, free DVD online

Dale

As Discovery Channel programming becomes more hands-on (Mythbusters, Dirty Jobs, Deadliest Catch), their stores are closing up shop.

Discovery Stores Close

According to a company executive, the Discovery Stores were losing about $30 million a year. The loss has caused Discovery to close their 103 brick-and-mortar stores and cut 1,000 jobs. This after Discovery’s CEO David Zaslav eliminated 200 jobs in April.

I hate to see stores like this go.  It is getting harder and harder to find stores that showcase education in a positive and exciting manner.

There is one good thing coming out of this decision.  Discovery is offering a free Planet Earth DVD with your first purchase from their online store if you order before 2008.