Zeitgeist

According to Wikipedia, zeitgesit is a German term meaning, "the spirit of the age and its society." Zeitgeist can only be observed for past events. We are now looking back on a long history of corruption, love of power, love of materialism, leadership by manipulation.

I encourage you to watch Zeitgeist. It's disturbing and will shake your foundations. In a good way.


Our common humanity is greater than the sum of its parts. United--truly in spirit and strength, we can promote a positive change in our global society. But we have to educate first.




Watch. Spread the word. Join the movement. www.thezeitgeistmovement.com

Web 2.0 Teacher Resources

My Internet addiction is worsening. It seems that just as I begin to be bored of the Net, I learn something new -- and AHA! HOOKED! Nevermind a 12 step program, I'm perfectly happy with Web 2.0-- and spreading the junk.

New to me & worth sharing:

iGoogle. Simply go to Google's homepage and click on the More option and then "even more>>" at the bottom. iGoogle will set up your own, personalized Google homepage and it has been directing my daily surf-- check my mail and facebook (as usual), and the news I want. I can read through the major headlines of NPR, Wired, Dallas News, NEA, U.S. Dept. of Education, and CNET all at once! Need a funny? I gots a joke. I'm particularly fond of the artist of the day gadget. AND this circumvents the whole no-outside-e-mail-and-facebook-at-work issue.

Wordle. Type in some text from a blog, favorite speech, or poem and get a neat word art picture. For example, here's my ACL recap from Xanga in Wordle:

Wikispaces. Tried & true, but even better-- FREE! Wikispaces has opened 350,000 free wikis to K-12 educators! I am so stinking stoked! I'm just waiting confirmation that my HEAT ticket was approved so I can set up my wiki for my classroom. For our first project, we're going to create something similar to WikiHow.

Scribd. If you're familiar with Google Docs, this will be a similar concept to you. The neat thing about Scribd is that there are thousands of documents on this site and you can embed any of the documents into your webpage. I'm new to Scribd, but this is a really exciting site for me-- lots of fantastic educator resources (without having to buy books!).

Edublogs. This is a site which allows teachers to set up blogs for their students. I'm new here also, but I would really like to set these up so I can have one day a week with the laptops or a computer lab to work on the blog or the wiki!

TeacherTube. Most of the materials on this site are already teacher-friendly (not always, they do have to be previewed). TeacherTube still doesn't have enough videos to be really worthwhile-- most of the time, I will try Discovery Learning first. But it has a lot of potential to become a strong classroom resource. Sometimes, even if the material isn't 100% appropriate for my 6th grade classroom, I can still use the concepts taught by other teachers and incorporate them into lessons. As a teacher-to-teacher communication tool, TeacherTube is wonderful! I can't wait to get some of my stuff onto the Tube!

Education Innovation. I can't do it justice. It's a little overwhelming with professional resources. If you're a teacher, block out a few hours and go play on this site. I keep seeing the name Seth Godin on a thousand webpages, so obviously I need to pick up one of his books.

OK-- I'm going to shower and read some of The Book Thief before I hit the hay.

Where else?

I've tried other blogs, but I'm bored of them.

Xanga? I've had it. It's less than a blog-- I am so over you. And more grown up now, to boot. I'm ready to refocus my energies and construct a blog which is actually meaningful to me.

What would make this meaningful?

My big conquests:

• Teaching
  I am, by nature, a teacher. As much as I wanted to back away from this profession, I really had no choice-- it's second nature to me. I hope to bring more of life's everyday middle school adventures to my blog.
  
• Running
  My first marathon is fast approaching!
  
• Writing
  This is my battle-- my love, my burden, my frustration. The subject I am discovering as I teach and a skill I'm honing through my profession.
  
• Cooking
  A true joy. I'm cautiously exploring the world of cooking and discovering a lot to love in the preparation of food-- and the enjoyment in consuming it! Which, all the aforementioned leads to...
  
• Eating!
  Life sustaining and the product of my happiness.

Ah, the introductory post of a new blog. How refreshing.