This is a great link....

I know that many of you have already found and played around with cool image generators. Well here's one more to add to your favorites. Says-It is a great site that has a ton of funny images. Enjoy....

Learning without walls.....

How many times have you gone past a university and cringed at the thought of paying the high tution. In a perfect world wouldn't you love to learn new and cool things without having to pile on a new debt? One of the cool websites that I stumbled upon the other day does just that. Palbea is a place where you can go and learn a new language with others who can help you. There are lots of cool languages and the best part of it all.....IT'S FREE!!! I know, I couldn't belive it myself. Enjoy.

Another site Revoluminary, continues with the education, only goes a step further than just languages. Want to know science, math, social sciences, arts & leisure? It's all there and more. There is a small fee for each course you would like to sign up. I think it's a cool idea and the classes are bound to only get bigger.

The last site is called verbal planet. It's another place to lean languages with others and it uses the skype. You choose the tutor, the language and then you pay that tutor's fee. It's easy to use, and fun to look around.

Hair today....gone tomorrow

I hope this story has come across your eyes by now. I can't believe that there is actually a school out there that would continue with this fight. I can understand a school for wanting some kind of order or consistency amongst the students, but is fighting this battle in public the best option? In order for the school to reconsider they will need to have proof that Native Americans practice this as their religious belief. Just allow the student to continue with the families belief. How can this disrupt classroom behavior? A good teacher should be able to control and handle students of all types, long or short hair.

Do you feel that the student should cut his hair?

What makes a good teacher?

I have been raking my brain over this for last couple of weeks. What exactly makes a great teacher? If you're an administrator the first thing you're going to look at is the test results. But how effectively does that measure a teacher's performance? Test results are important but so is classroom management, leadership, lesson planning, motivation, communication, inspiration, and ofcourse dedication. So the real question remains....How exactly do you measure all of these points?

I think the best idea would be to do a broad evaulation that would include:

a) parents

b) students

c) co-workers

d) administators

Ofcourse it's not going to be a perfect system, but I believe it's a start and given the recent news of school closures, it would be great to know exactly which teachers need more support and resources that would keep the schools open.

What happened to the good ol' days?

I'm sure that this is not a surprise to anyone but I just came across this story and I had to stop and ponder about it. Meals today at many fast food establishments have tried to include healthy food, but as you can see there are too many unhealthy choices. Students now are growing up in a culture where it's not only ok to be lazy, but with the facebook, and myspace, and everything else, why would a teenager want to leave their home this summer? As role models we also have to make smarter choices, and we can also try to incorporate some health fitness into the classroom.

I know that many of us are not P.E. teachers, but that doesn't mean we can't bring a little of that into the classroom. As teachers we can have the students discuss what makes a healthy food choice and an unhealthy food choice. Have them sort ads from a Sunday paper and discuss what they have experienced. Another way is to graph their heartbeat. Have them start cold, and find their pulse and record their rate. Then turn on some music have do some light aerobics for a few min and again record their pulse. You can increase the level of difficulty a few more times, and then do a warm down and take a pulse.

Activities such as these will not only have your students engaged in the lesson, but also aware of good healthy choices. Which is exactly what we as educators should all strive for. We need to encourage more activites just like we had when we were kids.