Thing #3

I finally figured out how to manually add bloggers using Bloglines Beta. It all rested on my dragging a button to the tool bar and then just clicking on it to add a new blogger. It was soooo easy once I caught on. My hat is off to Banlang for clueing me in to this quick, no pain way to add participants.

Thing #4

I am persuing an idea that was broght up in our last staff development about public library cards for our students. Seems very few of them have one or even know there is a public library just two blocks away. I am looking at a way for them to register for library cards here from Wellstone and then when the weather improves set a walking field trip up to get them over there.

In that same vein our circ here at Wellstone is down significantly from last year. Since I wasn't here last year I am wondering why so few students are taking books out. Anyone else have an idea on how to get students not only visiting the library for internet but getting in the stacks and browsing books.

Thing #5

I have been using my web page to keep up with the two classes that I teach and the History Day class starting after winter break. I use them almost exclusivly to post web sites that will help the class. Previously I had tried having the class type in long urls that almost always created panic among the students as they would miss a character in the long alphanumeric strings creating 404 errors. Having multiple students shouting that the website doesn't work all at once leads to chaotic teaching situations to say the least.

They are so helpful for students to work on the assignments outside of class as well. They don't need to navigate to difficult sites, they have it mounted for them already. I hope to help other teachers make use of this invaluable technology tool as well.

History Day

History Day is coming up after winter break. The projects students do are quite in depth. I am looking forward to working with students in their search for primary sources. We tried accessing some today primary sources on the Star Tribune website but it kept asking students to register after a couple clicks into the story. Maybe we'll have to find a way in through the ELM database. Also we want to find the New York Times website but will have to do some exploring to find it. Wed did find the read aloud feature of Nettrekker to be very helpful and many of the students used it upon learning about it.