Jan 31 2007

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Jan 30 2007

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Jan 29 2007

links for 2007-01-29

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Jan 28 2007

links for 2007-01-28

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Jan 27 2007

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Jan 26 2007

And the Winner Is…(jersey and my first foray into Ebay)

Tony| Category: General, Sports and Wine | 7 Comments

Me.

Orange week has been going well, thank you very much. I’m on day five, and have yet to rerun any shirt. I’ve also purchased a jersey to honor the Bears in their first trip to the Super Bears Super Bowl in 22 years. The winning jersey (which I knew anyway) is #40, Gale Sayers, one of the forgotten running backs because of injury. Recent conversation with a friend:

Me - “So, I think I’m gonna get the Sayers jersey.”

Mr. ‘Z’- “Who?”

“Gale Sayers.”

“Who’s that?”

{sounds of cars screeching to a halt, babies crying, and the Earth refusing to spin on its axis}

“Bears running back, 60’s and 70’s. Greatest back Chicago and most of the NFL had seen until Walter. Right up there with Jim Brown, OJ (dear LORD, I can’t believe I just said THAT) Emmit Smith, Barry Sanders, etc.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Brian’s Song? Ever see that movie?”

“Never heard of that, either.”

{/me does slow, deep, soul-cleansing breaths that I often use when working with small children}

“I can’t have this conversation with you anymore.”

Anyway, I searched the regular jersey stores online and couldn’t find anyone with the #40 in stock, or at anything bigger than a medium. So I went where I had never been heretofore:

Ebay.

Scary stuff, that online auction megalomart. I found plenty of jerseys, but many of them came from Seoul, South Korea, and I didn’t want to wait for shipping. (Also, I have to be honest… there is no reason a “real” jersey should sell for less than $50, and especially not $19.99. I found what I hoped was a reputable source for jerseys, and bid on it. It held up, and sixty bucks later, I’m the supposed proud owner of this jersey. It should be here today or tomorrow. I will update all of you 6.42132 readers as soon as it arrives. Needless to say, I’m excited, and will proudly give a history of Gale Sayers to anyone that wants to listen.

Happy Friday!

{still muttering over a person who plays in my fantasy football league and doesn’t know who GALE SAYERS was. Scary.}

Jan 26 2007

links for 2007-01-26

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Jan 22 2007

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Jan 21 2007

Obligatory (Awesome!) Bears Post…

Tony| Category: General, Sports and Wine | 1 Comment

Since there will be much rejoicing and posting in the next 24 hours, I would just like to point out the turning post in the Bears spectacular win Sunday.

In the third quarter, with the Bears leading 16-14, the Saints lined up for a 47-yard field goal in crappy weather. They missed badly, giving the Bears the ball at their own 37. Now, the Rex Cannon and Co. didn’t do too much there, but the magnificent foot of Chicago’s Sexiest Bear, Brad Maynard, put the ball at the Saints’ five-yard line. Two plays later, Brees panics, and the Bears get a safety. 18-14, and the MO swings back to the Bears. After that, the balanced offensive attack kept the Saints off the field and three touchdowns later we were trying to figure out if this was really happening. If the Saints make that field goal, they’re up 17-16 and no one knows if the Bears recover. Thanks Sean Payton, for sending in Cundiff instead of having faith in Carney.

Now, I promise you two things, gentle readers.

1) For the next 14 days, I will wear only orange outfits, except for Super Bowl Sunday, which I will be forced to wear the same shirt I’ve worn during the playoffs (my FREE Chicago Bears sweatshirt… thanks Sports Illustrated!) I have plenty of orange to accomplish this in two one-week cycles. My students will probably think I’m a little crazy, but they don’t understand that the last time the Bears were in the Super Bowl, *I* was in second grade.
2) Thanks to a deal made with TLEMK, I get to buy a Bears jersey.

Now, the problem is, which Bears jersey do I get? Part of me wants to go retro, and get either a Payton or a Singletary. On the other hand, I could go current, but I have no idea which one I really want to get. Kreutz? Urlacher? Berrian? Benson? I don’t think I could handle Grossman, and I don’t think Jones is going to be around next year. You can help, Internet. Please vote and give suggestions! I want to order it by Wednesday morning, so act now!

Jan 17 2007

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Jan 16 2007

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Jan 12 2007

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Jan 11 2007

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Jan 10 2007

What Does Not Kill Us…

Tony| Category: General, Music and Movies, Entertainment Tonight | 0 Comments

Lucky you, Internet! You get two real posts in one week. Maybe there will even be more!  Today, instead of edumacating lives, I’m living in that special kind of purgatory known as jury duty.  I’ve never served, mostly because I haven’t lived in one county long enough for the federales to find me.  But now that I live in Dupage, they sense the instant a less-than-conservative potential juror settles in.  Call it the Rooney Rule of the conservative bastion of the Chicagoland area.  And yet again, I digress.  This is not about jury duty.  That post will come later.  This particular post, friends, is about movies.

We all know that TLEMK and I love the movies.  Mostly I love the popcorn and the ability to not worry about other things for two hours. TLEMK likes the dark, because it reminds her of sleep. Over the winter break, we managed to see three movies that were very different and yet had some common themes in them.  My suspicion is it’s Oscar season and the people that make the talkies want us to be an emotional wreck at this time so we don’t pay attention to things like plot or writing, or you know, dialogue.  Without further review, I give you three movies that yes, you should go see, but no, you don’t need to go to the theatres for two of them.

Chronologically in the order that we saw them, We are Marshall was the first movie to jerk the tears and tug at the heartstrings.  I’m going to assume you know the premise of the movie, and if you don’t– 1970 plane crash kills all but 4 members of the Marshall football team, leaving the university and the town of Huntington, WV, to deal with the aftermath.  I won’t give too much of it away here, but I confess I had some NCAA ignorance on the fact that they didn’t used to let freshmen play sports.  Three performances stood out: Ian McShane, he of Deadwood fame had a supporting role that was fantastic. I wish the US had discovered him sooner, because I get the feeling that he won’t be acting for much longer (IMDB puts him at 64… so who knows.)  Kate Mara sparkled on the screen.  Her acting wasn’t top notch, but she nailed the small-town cheerleader role. The camera loved her- she’s much cuter than her grandfather Wellington (bringing the NFL-owner references to two now, for those of you keeping track at home).  Finally, David Strathairn gave an understated and underrated performance… how would you deal with all the pressure from different sides?  The movie was enjoyable, and not from the football aspect, although that was fun too. I thought that it dealt well with the raw emotion of the families and student body, and with those that had to pick up the pieces after a tragedy. Again, I won’t give away the ending, but I’m glad they didn’t Disnefy it too much. Rent it.

Rating: 3 fat bellies (out of four)

Next up was The Pursuit of Happiness Happyness.Will Smith, blah, blah, blah. Older, looking mature, and giving great acting chops.  The movie is supposed to make you upset. It’s supposd to make you cry.  It’s supposed to make you remember how much you hate people who can do the Rubik’s Cube.  Wait, Will Smith finishes the ‘cube.  Now I don’t know what to think. I enjoyed this movie as well.  I was surprised, however that the film didn’t play up the homeless angle more. I think they could have tastefully referenced it a little more—homelessness is a huge problem, but wasn’t really touched on too much as cause. Rather, it was one man’s struggle. Smith’s son did well in the Kid who Says Cute Things Role, and Thandie Newton needed more lines.  Also, I would like to see her in a happy movie, after her turns in Crash, and on ER are starting to make her typecast as the girl-of-which-bad-things-occur. Pajiba gives a spot-on review of the movie.  Again, I would go rent it, because you don’t need the cinematic experience to fully enjoy it.

Rating: 3 fat bellies and a spicy hot wing.

Finally we come to the movie that I’ve been telling anyone that would listen to go see.  After seeing it I still think you should go see it.  You also need to go see it in the theatre, because visually, it was a fascinating movie.  Children of Men is an apocalyptic-type film that asks you to believe that in 2009, women stop having babies.  Fast forward to 2027.  It’s been 18 years, and there are no children anymore. The youngest person on the planet is nearly 19 years old.  Understandably, things are not looking good for the human race. Our protagonist finds himself asked to do a favor that may change the fate of this doomsday scenario.  What follows is a tense, raw, and honest dealing of the way humans may go when civilization decides to crumble. The sights and sounds of this movie make it worth it to see on the big screen.  This is good because the dialogue tends to be missing from good portions of the movie. I thought Michael Caine had a nice supporting role, and that Clive Owen could have used some more words. This movie resonated with me the most because it dealt with the darkest sides of humanity, despite the context.  Fun is not the right word for this flick, but terrific definitely describes it.  Please go see this movie.  (Special props to TLEMK, who braved the movie, despite the tension throughout.  I have the bruise marks on my arm to prove it.)

Rating: 4 fat bellies and a delicious spicy garlic drumette.

There you go, folks. Lame movie reviews to spice up your Wednesday afternoon.  Only four more hours of jury-duty-waiting!

Jan 10 2007

links for 2007-01-10

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Jan 09 2007

Won’t Someone Please Think of the Children!?!?! THE CHILDREN!!!

Tony| Category: General, School Daze, In the Reflecting Pool | 2 Comments

(Well, that was a little over the top.  Let’s try to stay focused, on message, shall we?)

(P.S. Stuck, stop reading now. Truuuuuuuust me.)

Staid, rock-steady, impermeable.  When I think of the education system, I sometimes (90% of the time) worry that its traditions are what is keeping it from succeeding. Veteran teachers often refer to teaching as a cycle, or a pendulum, where basically the same ideas are bandied about and whoever is in control (textbook companies, presidents, evil IRA  leaders) have the power to shift the curriculum to reflect their beliefs and pocketbooks. “Don’t like whole language? Don’t worry, phonics will be back soon enough.” In the last ten years, there has been some attempt towards balanced literacy, where multiple approaches are integrated into teaching reading and writing. Research is making its way into the classroom more as well. The National Institute of Health’s National Reading Panel, published in 1999, was a serious attempt by the government to look at what helps children learn to read. Based on evidence from research, it made some really great recommendations on how to get students to learn. Desafortunamente, it also lead to the No Child Left Behind Act. This mandate has lead to a more strict curriculum that doesn’t allow for nearly as much creativity and freedom of thought that most of the research says children need in order to flourish. The idea of systemic and explict instruction in reading development is important; most of the research points to that as an effective means of teaching children anything. Where NCLB and publishing companies miss is that they think everything has to be regimented and assessed in the same way. Too many teachers are staying to the prescribed curriculum, using pencil and paper, and not exploring other means of education.

Oh yes, I’m talking about technology. I consider the current district I’m teaching in to be fairly advanced in technology for the area. This means I have 3 computers in my room, two of which connect to the Internet. We have a very nice lab that we get to see for 60 minutes a week. But we are still treating computers like a novelty, like we did when I was coming up through the education system 20 years ago. Technology needs to be a tool, not a reward. On top of this, the computer incentive isn’t what it once was. Students aren’t nearly as motivated to do the same static games and projects on the computer that they once were because a large portion of them (in my middle-class district) have access to these same things at home or at the library, and have already been doing them for the last few years. In other words, we are not using technology that is readily available to its fullest potential, and it’s starting to drive me a little crazy.

So, where are we? Computers aren’t being used to their potential and students aren’t being taught new ways to learn about reading and writing. Kind of a depressing landscape. Until I started thinking about it.

Just because the teachers aren’t using technology doesn’t mean the students aren’t. MySpace is a great way for students to interact with each other, and allows their voice to be heard. (Naturally I mean for older students…I shudder to think of my kids looking at even 5% of what’s on MySpace pages) Even more importantly is how students’ voices are starting to be heard on the Internet. I was searching for the sequel to Eragon on Amazon the other day and came across the comments for the second book, Eldest. Not only did the commenters pan it, but it turns out that most of the critics were between 10 and 15 years of age. Verbose, intelligent 10-15 year olds who pretty much nailed the contents of the book. I would have loved that kind of forum as a student that age growing up, and probably would have even done that assignment willingly. (Note to Mrs. Zigzag– how about having kids acutally post reviews of books to places like Amazon? Feasible?) I realized that students are finding ways to communicate about their learning (both social and academic) that teachers are completely missing in their digital-alien/migrant mindset. What a powerful way to have your voice heard! It made me renew my determination to get technology into the classroom more. To be fair, I don’t think that I’ll be able to get students to write scathing rejoinders about The Cat in the Hat, but they will be able to do more blogging now than we currently are (we’ve got a whopping three posts and ten comments for the school year).

Next Tuesday (pending jury duty…), I will be attending a seminar on podcasting and blogging in the classroom. It’s being offered by the district, and makes me oh-so-happy to see that they’re finally moving towards more 2.0 ideas. Information literacy is here to stay, my friends. It’s time for teachers to start catching up and help students realize the potential. I hope that this is a sign that the district is going to realize how powerful a tool technology can be for the future. Teachers need to use the tools out there to help students become tech-saavy, instead of waiting to say no because it doesn’t fit into prescribed curricula. The students won’t wait for us, and it would be a shame for them to learn this stuff without us!

(On a side, side, side note, I am also putting together a class to teach this summer on information literacy. Using computers, I want students to be able to evaluate Web content, learn flexible searching strategies, and actually realize that the Internet is not the Gospel according to MySpace. Suggestions welcome on what I should cover for students learning to safely use the Internet!)

Jan 09 2007

links for 2007-01-09

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Jan 08 2007

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Jan 06 2007

links for 2007-01-06

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Jan 05 2007

Giving in to the Rabble…

Tony| Category: General, Techie, not Geekie, Site-Based Management | 1 Comment

Fine.

Because of the blazing speed in which these pages have been loading lately, I’m allowing full text in my syndicated feeds.  I don’t really have time to check Statcounter anymore, so it’s just as well.  So if you’re using Bloglines or some other feed aggregate, you should get the whole text.  Hopefully this will fix my del.icio.us blog import issues as well, but I doubt it.  If you’re not using a feeds aggregate, you should be.

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