Although I had heard of Teacher's Notebook before, I had only visited it once or twice, and I certainly did not think of listing my products there.
This past weekend, however, I was looking through the posts in the Secret Facebook Training Room for Teaching Blog Traffic School members, and I saw a post from our fearless leader, Charity Preston, who mentioned a giveaway that the owners of Teacher's Notebook (Steve and Debbie) were running in the newest issue of the TN newsletter. The giveaway was for 25 free Teacher's Notebook shops (they are normally a one-time set-up fee of $20, I think) and would go to the first 25 teachers who e-mailed Teacher's Notebook to request one.
I saw this post almost a day after it had been written, so I thought there was no way Steve and Debbie hadn't already found their 25 winners, but I decided to give it a try.
Incredibly, I received an e-mail about 10 minutes after I'd sent it, telling me I'd won one of the 25 free shops! YIPPEE for me! (I never win anything, so I was unusually excited about this, I admit.)
It took me awhile to set up my shop (and I still have quite a ways to go because I'm a perfectionist and I have a lot of products to post), but it was so very easy! A great perk to Teacher's Notebook is that it is the only online venue I know of that allows teachers to keep 100% of their profits! I think that is super-cool and generous of Steve and Debbie, and I know I will be jumping over the moon when I finally make my first sale there.
If you'd like to check out my store, click on the picture below:
If you explore Teacher's Notebook and like what you see, please consider joining! I know that we teachers don't create original products in order to make money; we create original products in order to give our students the best learning experience in our classroom that we possibly can. Teachers around the world are scrambling to make their own products, too. I see posting your materials as a win-win situation: other teachers can use your hard work to help them NOT have to re-invent the wheel in their own classroom, and you can make an extra buck (or not, if you decide to post only free products). If I'm going to pay for educational materials, I personally prefer to purchase them from a fellow teacher. I like the confidence that comes from purchasing a product that I know another teacher has used successfully in his/her classroom. I also like contributing to other educator's wallets when I can. I know none of us went into the profession because of the money, but it is nice to be recognized and compensated for your hard work!
If you decide to join Teacher's Notebook as a seller, please consider using my referral link. I get reward points (toward gift cards that I can use to purchase classroom materials!) for every person who uses my referral link and posts at least 5 products. :) Click the picture below to join via my referral link:
I'm going to use some of my own fancy technology to ask a couple questions at the end of this post (QuizSnack!), but I'd love to know your thoughts on Teacher's Notebook (or similar teacher-resource websites) and/or the link to your store!
Teacher's Notebook
Unemployment Increases in Young People Under Obama: A New Lost Generation of Youth?
In my post America's Youth Will Rue the Day They Voted for Obama I wrote:
...(the national debt piled up under the recent budgets of President Obama) is going to destroy the life, liberty, and property of my children and grandchildren. They are going to grow up in a world less secure because our nation will owe money to nations ranging from Middle Eastern oil dictatorships to communist China, our children will have lesser fire and police and hospital and library services than we enjoy today, inflation will destroy savings and inheritances and businesses passed on, Social Security will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), Medicare will be gone (or exist in a much diminished manner), higher education will be too expensive except for the richest of the youth, and our society will be one which rewards those children whose parents have political connections and not those children who work hard and innovate. A Leviathan will rule over my children and grandchildren, controlling their actions and dictating to them in a poor society that is yet a shadow of what America used to be, all thanks to liberal and progressives and their failed policies which have destroyed the financial and moral foundations of nations, states, and cities already....My prediction was that someday in the future, America's youth will look back on the election of 2008 and think to themselves that they should not have voted for him because in this distant future America's youth will be unemployed and facing crumbling foundations and massive debt. My prediction was wrong- it turns out, America's youth should be ruing the day right now that they voted for Obama, because now none of them have jobs:
...our nation will fall father and farther behind in developing energy and be forced to transfer more and more wealth to tyrants overseas just because Obama and the Democrats are slaves to a failed Green God religion and its corrupting influence.
The very nature of Obamacare is to transfer wealth from young to old, by forcing healthy members of society who are choosing not to buy healthcare to buy healthcare and subsidize the old people in society who use it. The promise is there that someday they'll also get to join in the intergenerational theft, but when America's debt soars ever higher, that promise will not be followed through on, and besides, promises of intergenerational theft are still nothing more than theft.
America's youth will rue the day that they voted for Barack Obama on a naive promise of hope and change and togetherness. They will rue the day....
Just 55.3 percent of Americans between 16 and 29 have jobs.That means that almost half of all young people are not getting any job experience and are not gaining critical job skills, and in the decades to come, now will be a lost period during which the future did not set themselves up for a brighter future. Instead the young are draining the resources of other productive people in society by living at home and eating food paid for by their parents, who could have been using using that money to invest or save for retirement or give to charity.
Although I was not able to find any information to compare 55.3% to from the Department of Labor, I was able to find a paper which suggests a pre-Obama employment rate for 16 to 29 year olds of 65%. This suggests that the addition of variable "President Obama" to the American economic equation resulted in an increase in 1 in 10 young people not being able to find a job due to his job-killing policies.
The reason why these young people can not find jobs is not because 'Bush lied and soldiers died' in Iraq, it is not because Bush didn't stop global warming, it is not because the Republicans are 'obstructing' tax increases and increased government spending, and it is not because 'tea party people are racist.' The reason why young people can not find jobs is that legislation and policies passed by Obama and the Democrats make it more expensive to hire workers (such as increased healthcare costs associated with Obamacare), make it more risky to expand production (when government policies could change and turn on any sort of industry), when being productive makes you more of a target (the 'evil rich' are being attacked by class-warfare playing Obama), and that the government is encouraging young people to not get jobs by pushing more student loans on them and getting them covered on their parents insurance longer.
Young people, because they are up-and-coming and energetic and healthy and productive and strong, should vote conservative and Republican, so that government gets off their backs and lets them be all that they can be.
Teach This! Teaching with lesson plans and ideas that rock #teaching 12/30/2011
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An Alternative to Student Gifts | Expat Educator
This teacher asks for students to donate to a charity if they really must give a gift. Great ideas.
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Seth's Blog: The reason productivity improvements don't work (as well as they could)
"You don't need a new plan for next year. You need a commitment."
Want to get more out of your classroom: make the commitment first then start making the plan. This is called "owning" your goal in Franklin Covey-speak. -
Printed books from wiki content? This website allows you to custom combined a variety of wiki articles from wikipedia or your favorite wiki. This would be an option if your students create a wiki and you'd like to convert it to a book easily. I'm also wondering if you could print it to a PDF as well. (Or you could do it yourself, but this is more of a professional book.
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Microsoft OneNote in the classroom
A Microsoft One Note teaching guide for One Note 2010. I use this to write my computer science textbook for my students.
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Nice overview of exercises and activities for prewriting.
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Free lesson plans that you can filter by age and how many class periods that you have teach as well as the topics. This is by Microsoft so it is using Microsoft projects. This is perfect for those of you who want cool lessons but are restricted from using a lot of the web 2 tools.
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A major issue with the 'publishing' option for forms and privacy - Google Docs Help
This person uses Google forms to collect sensitive student application data and didn't realize when she checked "share responses" that it would mean that the students could see what the other student's said. If you are a teacher using Google forms in the classroom, realize that you never check the box that says share answers when creating the form. What you do is share the spreadsheet behind the form to those who want to see the data.
If you're going to use Google Docs, make sure you train your staff or this could be you. Also teach your students who are using forms as well.
Black Friday: Obama, Robert Frank, and Other Liberals are Wrong for Hating It
President Obama, like most liberals and the party it controls (the once-proud Democratic Party), doesn't like the fact that you make decisions regarding your life- he wants to make them. And now that he has the power of trillions in taxpayer money and thousands of employees, he has the means to tell you how to live your own life. And so he has decided that he doesn't like big stores that thrive by providing goods and services to people in efficient and low-cost ways; rather, he likes small stores and so is going to go around the nation and pay for his administration to fly around the nation making speeches ordering you to not shop for great deals and save money at the big stores, but rather to shop at smaller stores, because he wants you to.
Liberals, being the elitists they are, don't really like Black Friday- as E.D. Kain describes it, these liberals reject Black Friday and the larger consumerism that accompanies this season (regrettably) for two reasons
...first, a sense that such overt consumerism is the hallmark of capitalism and that capitalism is somehow morally insufficient; and second, a distaste for the aesthetic of Black Friday – all those plebes rushing about buying things like so much chattel- these denizens of midnight Walmart sales are just icky...It is the second thing that I believe really strikes me as the case, because most liberals think they are so much smarter than the rest of us and look down their noses at us, wanting to govern and manage us because they don't understand liberty, freedom, private property rights, capitalism, religion, morality, civic mindedness, charity, and all the other hallmarks of the conservative heartland of America. Because they don't understand these concepts, they reject them, pretending that they don't really exist, and that instead everyone who believes in them must be stupid or dumb, and so they wave around their Ivy League diploma's and listen to their pretentious public television or radio, use big words, scold everyone for not having proper grammar, and make fun of all the 'average people' scurrying about on Black Friday getting good deals and saving money and making our economy go around.
You see, you won't catch Barack Obama or other liberals out on Black Friday- he'll be joining the other Occupy Wall Street protesters in boycotting it, because they have enough money not to need deals, they have enough time to spend hours looking for a great deal, and they generally are not thrifty and efficient spenders enough to care about saving money as a family and getting the best deal.
Robert Frank is a great example of the sort of liberal who forms the intellectual backbone of modern day liberalism, the sort that dominates the Democratic Party today. He had time and money to go out and get several degrees in math and statistics, taking time off from his studies to work in government and give lectures, before he settled into an Ivy League school to lecture other elitists and write columns for snooty New York Times and write books with Ben Bernanke. For most of his life he has written and talked about how wealth and prosperity for all has somehow made the poor in America even more poor, and he sees no hypocrisy in doing so as he has flown around the world, eaten in nice restaurants, and lived in a nice house.
In this week's New York Times article How to End the Black Friday Madness, lectures those whom he sees as beneath him with a contempt just hidden (unlike the contempt that I hold him in that I am not hiding). He writes:
ADAM SMITH’S most enthusiastic modern disciples insist that the recipe for economic progress is to push government aside and let unfettered markets work their magic. His invisible hand theory does provide a tidy account of how market incentives can generate enormous wealth. But as Charles Darwin saw so clearly, unbridled competition doesn’t always promote the common good....Frank, being an educated liberal, employs here the usual judgement of other people, feeling that he somehow gets to decide what is a 'reasonable hour' for stores to open, even though he does not run any sort of stores and has never served as a manager of any sort of store at any level his whole life.
....In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m., prompting complaints from employees about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families. But retailers ignored those complaints, because their earlier start time proved so successful in luring customers away from rival outlets...
From this place of supreme unwisdom and experience, guided by a piece of paper saying that he knows something, he has decided to play God and decide when people should start shopping. He then ignores the overtime that these employees are paid and has no knowledge of the many people hired just for this day- people who are not regular employees but who are given a paycheck on this day purely because the hours are not regular- and with this lack of knowledge of what is going on he has decided that it isn't becoming of employees to go in to work at a job that they choose to be at. Don't worry workers- with a guy like Frank on your side, he'll push for less jobs and less overtime and less hours, and in so doing make you more poor. He's like all other liberals, and the Liberal-in-Chief President Obama, in his utter failure to understand economics, math, statistics, people, or anything else about this world.
Frank believes that if we were all to empower him with the ability to control the world, the collective will would be better served by him controlling when we shop and how much items sell for and all the other sorts of personal decisions made by private individuals that he doesn't understand or know about.
I've never been a big fan of Black Friday, but if the liberals and Obama and Robert Frank are against it, I think that I need to change my tune, and do a little bit of online shopping tonight!
Stick it in Frank and Obama's eye- buy something tonight! Here are a couple suggestions...
Shop Amazon's New Kindle Fire
Shop Amazon's Holiday Toy List
Shop Amazon's Gift Cards - Perfect Anytime
Shop Amazon's Christmas Corner - Holiday decor, tableware, and entertainment
UPDATE: Welcome readers from The Village Voice! Take a look around and learn something!
Juan Williams: Government is One Big Charity?
Juan Williams was on Sean Hannity today discussing President Obama's economic and domestic policies, and when push came to shove and facts and figures and data and evidence was cited, he fell back on the same argument that liberals and progressives always fall back on when the results of their policies prove to be harmful to poor people, minorities, and the groups in society that need the most help- he fell back on the argument that for all of the government's faults, at least it was taking wealth from rich people and redistributing it as charity to poor people.
Liberals and progressives, who have seized the old Democratic Party and are now running it as a communist organization, believe that one of the primary roles of the new United States of America is to use the power of the state to distribute charity to those who need it. But their actions and beliefs are in fact resulting in less money and wealth going to the people who need it in society because the government is THE SINGLE WORST charitable organization in the world, having considerable overhead, being motivated by politics and not need, and full of corruption and graft.
CATO, in a report that, although dated, still gets to the heart of the matter, said:
Private charities have been more successful than government welfare for several reasons. First, private charities are able to individualize their approach to the circumstances of poor people in ways that governments can never do. Government regulations must be designed to treat all similarly situated recipients alike. Glenn C. Loury of Boston University explains the difference between welfare and private charities on that point. "Because citizens have due process rights which cannot be fully abrogated . . . public judgments must be made in a manner that can be defended after the fact, sometimes even in court." The result is that most government programs rely on the simple provision of cash or other goods and services without any attempt to differentiate between the needs of recipients.Democratic policies are increasingly being defended on 'charitable' grounds, from healthcare policies to economic policies to environmental policies, but the truth of the matter is that government is a poor method of distributing charity. Instead of relying on government and its horrible charitable giving, all of these programs should be ended and the money spent on them should be returned to citizens. Even if a small percentage of this money was given in charity, then it would be more successful than government programs, and as long as there are a lot of conservative Republicans around, we can be sure that a good percentage of money will be donated and not a small percentage (according to studies, liberals don't donate to charity- they feel superior by taking money from you and giving that to charity).
Take, for example, the case of a poor person who has a job offer. But she can't get to the job because her car battery is dead. A government welfare program can do nothing but tell her to wait two weeks until her welfare check arrives. Of course, by that time the job will be gone. A private charity can simply go out and buy a car battery (or even jump-start the dead battery).
The sheer size of government programs works against individualization. As one welfare case worker lamented, "With 125 cases it's hard to remember that they're all human beings. Sometimes they're just a number." Bureaucracy is a major factor in government welfare programs. For example, a report on welfare in Illinois found procedures requiring "nine forms to process an address change, at least six forms to add or delete a member of a household, and a minimum of six forms to report a change in earnings or employment." All that for just one program.
In her excellent book Tyranny of Kindness, Theresa Funiciello, a former welfare mother, describes the dehumanizing world of the government welfare system--a system in which regulations and bureaucracy rule all else. It is a system in which illiterate homeless people with mental illnesses are handed 17-page forms to fill out, women nine months pregnant are told to verify their pregnancies, a woman who was raped is told she is ineligible for benefits because she can't list the baby's father on the required form. It is a world totally unable to adjust to the slightest deviation from the bureaucratic norm.
In addition to being better able to target individual needs, private charities are much better able to target assistance to those who really need help. Because eligibility requirements for government welfare programs are arbitrary and cannot be changed to fit individual circumstances, many people in genuine need do not receive assistance, while benefits often go to people who do not really need them. More than 40 percent of all families living below the poverty level receive no government assistance. Yet more than half of the families receiving means-tested benefits are not poor. Thus, a student may receive food stamps, while a homeless man with no mailing address goes without. Private charities are not bound by such bureaucratic restrictions.
Private charity also has a better record of actually delivering aid to recipients. Surprisingly little of the money being spent on federal and state social welfare programs actually reaches recipients. In 1965, 70 cents of every dollar spent by the government to fight poverty went directly to poor people. Today, 70 cents of every dollar goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats and others who serve the poor. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.
Repeal Minimum Wage to Grow Jobs
People need to have a job- they need to do something good for society and feeling good about themselves and paying taxes and being a productive member of society and not just be a recipient of the forced generosity of those who do work in society. And one policy change that the federal government and state governments that they could implement that would lead to more people having a job is to lower or repeal minimum wages.
Dr. Gary L. Wolfram, a Professor in Economics and Public Policy at Hillsdale College, wrote in an editorial that was in the Detroit News called Grow jobs, repeal the minimum wage:
...If we could make the poor better off by simply increasing the minimum wage, why not a minimum wage of $1000 per hour?These are the very points that I made several months ago in my own editorial, a blog post called Higher Minimum Wage Laws Have Resulted in Higher Unemployment Rates? In that post I wrote:
The U.S. unemployment rate among16-19 year olds is a staggering 25 percent. In Michigan, 28 percent. That's a recipe for frustrated youths. Often they end up in the underground economy, selling drugs.
It has been estimated that nearly half of Detroit's adult population is functionally illiterate. Michigan's minimum wage keeps these unskilled workers from gaining employment and is partly to blame for the city's high unemployment.
If there were no minimum wage, however, then producers could hire the unskilled and train them. Those of us old enough to remember gas station attendants who washed car windows also remember that many a young person got their first job pumping gas. They learned important job skills that improved their productivity and let them move on to higher-paying occupations.
The minimum wage increases of the last 50 years have eliminated these and other entry level jobs and kept large number of the unskilled dependent upon government for subsistence.
Aside from the harsh unintended consequences, there is also a principle of individual liberty at stake. If you are willing to pay me for my labor at the rate we agree upon, then why should the government tell me that I cannot sell you my labor? Why should a state or local government be able to tell me that I cannot work because I can't produce $7.25 or $7.40 an hour worth of goods and services? Individual freedom depends on the right to one's own labor.
It's time that we restored one of our fundamental freedoms by ending the minimum wage.
But let's say some do-gooder government bureaucrat making 100K/year comes along and thinks that it isn't fair that you are only getting paid the amount that you and your employer both voluntarily agreed upon. This person decides that everyone should now be paid $10/hour, and then pats themselves on the back for making the lives of all of these low-skilled laborers better. The store owner now has a choice- increase the amount of money that they budget for 'sales staff' or hire less people. If they just let their store slip a little in looks, have less staff available for help, automate some of the things that people did better, and not have friendly greeters, business will suffer- but so will the competitors too, so the only real loser will be all of society. If they instead just keep their 'sales staff' budget at $50 and simply cut back the number of employees who work, those employees will have to work harder and there will be more demands on their skill level, but that's okay- there are plenty of people willing to work for $10 hour. Our good businessman now fires all 10 people, re-hires 5 new people with more skills (probably older people with degrees in useless subjects), and moves forward with a store that is lesser than before.Oh, I know that many out there feel that any job that doesn't pay someone enough to live a life of luxury is a job not worth having- many liberals and progressives are sure to comment that 'you can't feed your family on a sub-minimum wage'. Maybe you can't, but you can feed them a lot better on a sub-minimum wage than you can on no-wage, and while you are doing that you will be doing something productive for our society, earning important job skills, and even giving a little back to society in taxes. Perhaps you need some assistance after that, but that's not the point here- the point is that minimum wage laws act as a barrier for good things happening for those who don't have jobs.
The end result of raising minimum wage in this theoretical exercise will result in higher unemployment, especially in those groups with lower skill levels, and stores that are less appealing.
I don't have any hard data on whether stores are less appealing today than they were back in the old days- myself, I think that it is, with more 'self-checkout' operations, less helpful staff, less personal service, and stores that are less straight and clean. I do have hard data on unemployment rates...
And those people who earn minimum wage right now are usually not earning that wage for a long time- they use their increased skills to secure wage increases and better opportunities and go forward from there, or if they don't, they likely are lucky that they are protected from competition by these laws that artificially force employers to pay them rates higher than they honestly deserve.
Let's be honest- in the name of making themselves feel better because they are guilty for being successful when they really don't deserve it, many liberals and progressives put in place policies that harm those in our society who need the most help; they put in place minimum wage laws that prohibit people from freely making contracts regarding their labor and wages, they put in place controls on businesses and individuals which hurts their attempts to increase their property and wealth, and they make the lives of those who they force to suck down forced charity a little bit less.
Teaching Blog Traffic School
If you're reading this, you're probably familiar with blogs. You may even have one of your own. If you do, do you struggle to get readers? Do you want to find a way to draw more traffic to your website?
Read on! I have the answer to your problem!
If you have a blog of your own and would like to generate more followers, I strongly encourage you to check out Charity Preston's Teaching Blog Traffic School course. The course is made up of a series of 30 videos made my Miss Charity herself. She walks you through the steps of creating recognition for your website and building your fan base until you're satisfied. In addition, once you purchase the course, you get a special invitation to a secret TBTS Facebook group where you can share thoughts about the course and your website with other TBTS members.
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You'll notice that the title of her course is labeled "Teaching Blog" but you don't have to be blogging about teacher-related things in order to benefit from this course! Rest assured that the videos are general enough to where anyone hoping to draw more traffic to his/her blog will benefit from seeing these videos. You can purchase the whole course for $37 or purchase a few videos at a time with the a la carte method. Either way, you can't go wrong!
Welcome South Sudan to the Family of Nations!
Today (July 9) a new nation was created, the nation of South Sudan. South Sudan became an independent state on 9 July 2011 at midnight (00:00) local time following a referendum held in January 2011 in which nearly 99% of voters opted for separation from the rest of Sudan. It has been an Autonomous Region of Sudan or at war with Sudan on and off since 1972, and now is finally its own nation. Sudan has recognized it, and so has the United States, it has ratified a Constitution, and now it is busy forming up its government.
Although I have few readers from Africa, perhaps I might have a couple from South Sudan, and so in that spirit I would like to pass on some advice on how to form a successful state.
People are very powerful, and by giving them as much freedom and liberty they will demonstrate their power by creating a prosperous economy, a strong military, and a vibrant civil society. The biggest obstacle to people is an active and large government that takes away responsibility and freedom from the individual, acts as a barrier to innovation and risk-taking, and sucks all of the money out of the system for projects that elites (government agents) deem important. It is my suggestion that any government created by South Sudan have a healthy respect to the dignity of human life, truly believe in the power of liberty and freedom, and work to put in place strong rule of law that protects above all the fruits of ones labor (private property).
A new nation must put in place barriers to itself, checking itself by separating power between different branches of government and then creating checks between branches to limit the abilities of each to overreach and act in a tyrannical manner. It also helps if the nation limits itself further by separating power between a national government designed to address national issues and local governments designed to address local issues, much like our fading federal system here in America.
Although I no very little about this nation so far, it appears that the current President Salva Kiir Mayardit has a chance to be a good one- a former general who was unambiguous about being free, if he can limit himself and set important precedents in his office than he will be a great one. Most nations that achieve independence get stuck with the first President for a long time as that person eventually becomes a dictator- Kiir needs to recognize that what made George Washington great was that he served his nation for two terms and then left office, turning over power peacefully. It is bothersome that he is so closely associated with the military, and that the legislative assembly is so weak and completely controlled by his party, but I have hopes for him, especially if he is a regular reader of my blog.
It is also not a good sign that the nation is so dependent on oil, especially when these oil resources are largely being developed by foreign companies, especially the Chinese government. One hopes that the government will use the ample oil revenues it receives to fund a limited government that will engage in national defense (not war), control its border, and distribute funds to local governments to put in place police and fire services, build libraries, and support transportation and education services. With the amount of revenue that oil provides, there would be little need to borrow abroad or tax its citizens or companies within, and this low tax and low regulation environment would be an engine of economic development that will eventually lead to a more diverse and prosperous economy. Note I did not suggest that the government use its oil revenue to provide a social safety net or redistribute wealth to poor people- a free and prosperous people will do that better than any sort of forced charity that the government could ever do.
Good luck South Sudan- I hope you take my advice and create a government for the people, by the people, that serves the people, in the spirit of life, liberty, and protection of property.
See the memeorandum story for more details on this new nation.
UPDATE: I really didn't want to make this a political issue, but I did see something interesting over at Ace of Spades...
Christian groups had been championing the southern Sudanese since the 19th century. And their efforts paid off in 2000 when George W. Bush was elected president of the United States. He elevated Sudan to the top of his foreign policy agenda, and in 2005, the American government pushed the southern rebels and the central government — both war weary and locked in a military stalemate — to sign a comprehensive peace agreement that guaranteed the southerners the right to secede. On Saturday, one man held up a sign that said "Thank You George Bush."
Fight poverty with wealth creation, not charity-John Kufuor
According to Kufuor, encouraging the private sector has been key to fighting poverty in Ghana. "We fight poverty with wealth creation, otherwise it's charity, and that's not what we came into government for," he said.
Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/29/2011
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Real Time Search - Social Mention
Social mention lets you track what people are saying about you, your school or more. It looks like it works a lot like Google alerts. Another great way for administrators to monitor "the buzz" about their school, particularly if it has a hashtag.
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A lesson plan search engine for teacher lesson plans.
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Website that sends you text messages to encourage literacy in their children. Great for parents or teaches. Interesting idea.
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ShowMe - The Interactive Learning Community
The showme app on the ipad has some fascinating potential. I am going to play with this over the summer. Would love to hear from anyone who is already using it.
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Mindshapes Launches Jellytoons Birthday Countdown for iPad and iPhone
Not sure how interactive ebooks will help students learn (dual encoding works) but here are some more interactive story books.
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Flat Classroom teacher "alumni"
Our project coordinator, Lisa Durff, makes lists of the Flat Classroom teacher "alumni" so we can keep in touch. This is a great group of incredible global collaborative teachers who are doing it.
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ISTE'11 ~ Diigo it - WebSlides
Suzie Nestico's webslides (made automatically from a Diigo list) for the diigo session at ISTE.
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krillworkshops - Other Diigo Features
Lovely wiki about diigos. Lots of things from Michell Krill who pitched in to help in our diigo workshop.
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Debby Atwater's Public Library | Diigo
Debby Atwater has some great links in her public library. Another example to review.
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Vicki Davis's Public Library | Diigo
here is my public library of diigo bookmarks.
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Neil Wetherbee's Public Library | Diigo
Neil is pulling over his bookmarks for his fourth and fifth grade classes. Here are some sample libraries from diigo users.
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Lady Gaga accused of scamming charity - Live, Local, Late Breaking news, weather, and sports
Not everyone does what they say with money for charity. Lady GaGa is under scrutiny and criticism for not donating money to japanese quake survivors from the sale of her wristbands.
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Worried about jobs, college women go 'geek' - CSMonitor.com
Some major computer science programs at top universities are seeing a slight uptick in the number of women going into the programs. Citing statistics from Harvard (up from 13% to 25%) and MIT (a 28% jump in 3 years), and Carnegie Mellon (from 1/5 in 2007 to 1/4 last year.)
Most think it is the economy although some attribute programs to get more women interested in the programs. -
MyRegistry.com - All Stores, One Registry® Gift Registry, Gift List, Wishlist
Interesting website for those who are graduating or getting married. This lets you create one master registry out of everything on the web. Interesting.
For nonprofits, you can create a list of the things that you need and people can put money towards those items. So, this could be used for schools too. Teachers could make a wishlist. Cool idea. -
Dragontape - YOUR TASTE ON MIXTAPES
Start mixing music. Got this information from an iste tweet (without the link.)
citation: RT kwinsper - Dragontape looks promising for creating mashups #ISTE11 -
Will Richardson's #iste11 presentation http://t.co/C9LkCCn
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Wish I was at ISTE conference.
Wish I was at ISTE conference. RT“@dwarlick: Notes from Heidi Hayes Jacob's presentation: http://t.co/1WoqvW0 -- 3 thumbs up! #iste11”
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The Nerdy Teacher: 10 Things I Hate About You (#ISTE11)
love this post!! “@thenerdyteacher: 10 Things I Hate About You (#ISTE11) - http://t.co/N2QSzVE - A new post for Tuesday.”
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Emerging Tech Schools K-12 Horizon Report toolkit download #cosn #iste11 http://bit.ly/csUELC
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Learning Tools Family Feud See the "Answers" to o
Learning Tools Family Feud #ISTEFeud See the "Answers" to our Crowdsourced Survey HERE! http://t.co/ZdFsKeQ #ISTE11 add Yours!
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Pretty cool chat convo from my #iste11 session yesterday morning. http://bit.ly/jrsAoK Sincere thanks to all who joined in.
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Top 50 Teacher Blogs by Innovative Educators
@coolcatteacher Woo hoo! Congrats! http://t.co/PCSoDOQ
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DoInk Animation & Drawing for iPad on the iTunes App Store
RT @gazzabrown @Kdmiller4 LOVE DoInk. http://t.co/1vnIMM4 Will spread the word. @lisanash9 #iste11 #edapp #ipad
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Teaching the Civil War with Technology. Ideas for teaching the Civil War
RT @pammoran: Just learned this term tradigital history http://j.mp/klt8Rr #iste11@MR_EHN @MrHadleyHistory @nksocialstudies @LPralleKeehn
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ISTE 2011 - Day Two - Dr. G's Teaching With Technology Portfolio
Random thoughts from Day Two at #ISTE11 - http://t.co/hnlaQvz
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ASCD Inservice: Eight Shifts for Teaching and Learning
Are we empowering & enabling students to create their own learning? 8 shifts for education http://bit.ly/jjuIpR #iste11 @willrich45
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GREAT site of free eBooks geared for elementary & middle school: K12 Open Ed eBooks http://ow.ly/5rrTj via @kfasimpaur #iste11
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Kathy Shrock's slidedeck is here - http://linkyy.com/infographics #iste11 (how cool is it that her son developed Linkyy?!)
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315 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Exist – 3fSimpleK12
5 Useful Webtools You Don’t Know Exist http://goo.gl/YgudI #ISTE11
A Lesson in Property Rights
Imagine that you lived in a state of nature- your plane crash landed on some previously unclaimed island that has no inhabitants and there is no hope of being rescued or contacting your previous home nations. Or you go to the moon, or an asteroid, or the bottom of the ocean, or some other location where there are no laws and no legal rights are written down. What sort of rights would you have?
Another way of asking this question is for you to think of things that others would do to you that you would think are wrong- that you would believe are wrong because you know that to do these things are wrong, with or without a government or any sort of legal authority telling you that they are wrong. These are what are called your natural rights.
What sort of natural rights would you have, whereby you would feel violated and wronged by others, even if there were no government or state or authority? Let's say you crash land on the island or find yourself on the moon- would you feel that you had been horribly wronged and violated if your fellow citizens didn't pay for your healthcare insurance in case you got injured? You're on an asteroid, and you demand that the other people on the asteroid buy a house for you or subsidize your loan, and they say no- have you been wronged and your natural rights violated? Of course not- you don't have any sort of right to have others pay for your healthcare insurance, house, car, food, or anything of that sort.
Imagine that you begin to work on your island, tilling a field and growing a crop, where others lay around and do nothing other than to watch you. After you are done growing your crop, they all band together in a large group and vote to have you distribute your crop to everyone, with everyone getting an equal share, even though you contributed all the labor. Were you wronged? Did someone violate your rights? Or let's say on the moon, you provide some sort of service that is essential- taking care of the banking, entertaining others by playing a sport, taking a risk and thinking up a new product- and you work hard at your service and in return others pay you some sort of compensation, that they voluntarily pay for your service because they recognize its worth; and after this, someone else comes along and demands a share of your 'money' in order to pay for someone else to conduct a study of the effects of drinking in prostitutes in China, or to build a road that you will never travel on the other side of the moon, or to cut a check to the older people stranded on the moon, or to hire a bureaucrat to supervise you and tell you all the things you are doing wrong. Would you be wronged then?
Of course you would have been wronged- your labor is yours, and the profit from your labor is yours, and the government does not have any 'right' to your labor, not unless you are a slave to the state. You are okay with voting to provide a military to protect your property from outside aggression, or police or fire service to protect it from theft or fire, or to create a court system to resolve any disputes that may arise regarding your property. But for the government to come and demand the fruits of your labor and lay claim to it is tyranny- it is your property, it existed before government, it will exist after government, and you are the only person who can lay any sort of right to that property. This in your natural right to property.
The purpose of our government is to protect these natural rights- life, liberty, and property. There is no such thing as a 'tax cut for the rich'- the government does not have any sort of claim on the rich citizens' property, so a more proper name for this would be a 'lessening of the unequal taxes levied on those earning high incomes'. You do not have any sort of right to healthcare or housing; but neither do you have any sort of right to social security or medicare- those are provided to some in our society by violating my rights and the rights of other young people in society to keep and earn property in order to provide forced charity to those who have had ample opportunity to earn and pay for their own retirement and healthcare- but they have no right to this sort of forced charitable giving.
Understanding property rights and the nature of them is important, because once the state becomes destructive to these property rights that state is on the road to tyranny. We can see it already in our nation, where our government has arbitrarily violated contracts because a car company is going bankrupt, failed to properly issue permits to energy companies who have gone through the (excessive and capricious) permit process, or the forcing someone young and healthy and full of life to buy a product like health insurance in order to subsidize the costs for others in society. Once it has been established that your property rights can be violated by a government- that rights to keep and earn property that existed before government was around and would be around even if government was not around- then the next step is to go after your freedoms and liberties, and lastly, your life.
Fight for the right to keep and earn property, and stop engaging in class warfare, because it will only lead to tyranny and injustice.
For more, check out John Locke, property rights, and economic theory.: An article from: Journal of Economic Issues
Social Media Syndication Part 2: Overview of Places to Share
So, it is time to get your school into social media in a way that is safe, makes sense, and will help your image in the community. We've discussed in Social Media Syndication Part 1: Where is your Audience?why social media is important to schools. In Facebook Friending 101 for Schools (170 tweets on that one) we discussed the impact of Facebook Friends on your teachers, students, and staff.
You've resoundingly flooded my inbox with requests for more on social media and how to get your school in safely - so, let's keep going.
Social media syndication doesn't happen overnight but can be simple, inexpensive, and powerful for your school. For example, in the first week my school's Facebook page had more "likes" than our email newsletter had gotten in two years!
How do we reach everybody?
There is no longer a "one size fits all" communication method. Teachers moan how half the parents don't read the child's folders. (Or separated parents don't give each other the message.) If an email list is used, half the parents don't read their email! Only a few people look at the website!. And on it drones. Why can't we reach everybody?
In our customized society, one size doesn't fit all but all of us fit into some form of communications. Leverage communications to hit most people.
As we discussed in Social Media Syndication Part 1: Where is our audience? We learned that "our audience" is several places:
- Searching the Internet
- Mobile Phones
- Twitter (the "mavens" or opinion leaders are here)
- Kindle/ ebooks/ iPads
- Looking at their calendars in the device of their choice
- YouTube
- Buying/ Selling/ Giving to Charity Online
- mp3 Players
Social Media Syndication Principle #1: Select a Few Strategic Platforms
You can't be everywhere but you can be somewhere. And if you're smart, you can make that somewhere look like just about everywhere.
In this case, you can reach your audience by having just a few websites: a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a YouTube channel. Those are the "Fab 4" of social media. But it is also very helpful to have an embeddable, subscribe-able calendar and a place to share photos although that could be in Phase 2 of your implementation plan.
Remember, to share those social media platforms (as you set them up) through "Bookbag Blast" -- or by running off a flyer letting everyone know where they can get your information. (Know that those who don't like or use social media may push back - let them know you're not excluding them - only trying to reach more people who may not respond or be linked via the bookbag to their child.)
Social Media Syndication Principle #2: Syndicate and Automate with Conduits of Content
You cannot be everywhere at once. The best systems are those that manage themselves.
When you post to Youtube it should automatically send to your blog, your Facebook page, and your Twitter account - right?
When you post to your blog it should update your homepage, post to Twitter, and send to your Facebook Fan page! You should never have to do what a "dumb" computer can do for you.
In retail the 80's and 90's were about location, location, location. The 2000's are definitely about syndication, syndication, syndication. When you talk syndication you're also talking AUTOMATION and that means the computer can do it and you don't have to. Instead of you slaving over that copy machine - imagine little robots running around on the internet making virtual copies and doing your heavy lifting for you.
An example of how this works.
So, looking at a blog site, for example. If you set up a news blog on Blogger (see my school's news blog) if you set up conduits for your content you can:
- send a blog post to RSS Readers,
- send an email to your subscribers,
- update the home page of your website,
- update the Facebook Fan page for your school,
- send the title to Twitter with "Just blogged this: Insert Title here"
- and also send it to the Amazon Kindle.
(Those who use an RSS reader on their iPad get it through RSS.)
What is the cost of all of this? Free. Nothing. Nada.
What is the effort required? Only that of setting up the conduits. After that, it is as simple as sending an email or writing a blog post. It is all syndicated and automated.
My sister is a web designer and we have her customers set up to syndicate like this but most web designers won't tell you about these tricks because they know when you realize how easy it is that you may not be calling them twice a month to update things.
Good web designers will give you options. Because they know that fresh content is one key in getting boosted in search engine rankings. You need that.
From your pictures to your videos and lunch menus. You can use social media to reach your audience.
This doesn't need to be hard. We'll tackle how to set up our blogs and the content conduits in the next round of this series.
I'm enjoying this journey, how about you?
Social Media Syndication Part 1: Where is Your Audience?
Image via CrunchBaseSchools, companies, and individuals all need to share information. Gone are the days that you could print a flyer and plaster it all over your small town to "get the word out." With a million words sending a million messages it can feel daunting to get noticed but in reality, it is simpler (and less expensive) than ever.
With the Generations 2010 study from PEW showing that 61% of all adults 18 and older are using social media websites, one cannot ignore the power of social media to communicate.
Social media is a legitimate, useful, important way to communicate with the world at large and cannot be ignored because one is offended by the term "social." (Most of you will eat a pu pu platter, for goodness sakes! The name doesn't keep you from digging in!)
Social Media Syndication Tip #1 - Go where your audience is.
This article will discuss where the audience is. Next week, I'll be sharing about how to get to that audience easily, inexpensively, and powerfully.Where is your audience?
Your audience is many places and using multiple devices. They aren't all everywhere but they are somewhere. Let's look at the somewhere.
With 94% of adults 18+ using email, it is the TOP use of the internet across all generations. Note, however that this is less for younger kids with only 73% of kids aged 12-17 using email but enough to still be the top use. Get in their inbox and you've got a person's attention unless you are spammy.
Searching
The second use of the Internet is searching. You want to be found! If you want to be found, you need to be on the web in various places and have an established, legitimate website that people link to. You want to be optimized. (SEO optimization some call it.) You also want fresh content.
As of today, Facebook claims more than 500 million active users with more than half of them logging in daily. Interestingly, the average Facebook user is connected to 80 community pages, groups, and events. The most active users of Facebook are the mobile users who are twice as active as those who don't use Facebook.
eMarketer says that Americans with Internet access use Facebook at least once a month with 42.3% of the entire population of the US used Facebook in February 2011.
Mobile Phone
Using the handy Wolfram Alpha statistics engine, let's look at US cellular phone usage. (If you're in another country, you can use this same search - just put your country name in.)
With over 250 million cell phones and just over 300 million people in the US, the United States ranks third in cell phone penetration. In their Generations 2010 study, PEW says that 85% of US adults own cell phones with text messaging and taking pictures being the two non-voice functions that are most popular.
Furthermore, email shows up here too. In the US:
32% of U.S. mobile email users age 18 or older with an Internet-enabled phone check personal email via a mobile device between one and three times daily.Morgan Stanley analysts have predicted that the mobile internet will surpass the computer-based Internet by 2015.
Mobile phone syndication is very important for anyone who wants to be noticed. Every website you have should have a clean mobile phone view. For educational websites directed at age 10 and up, this is supremely important! Whether you use a program like Device Anywhere to look at how your site looks on a mobile phone or something from your web hosting company, put this on your list. Or just, open your site on your mobile device. You'll see if it is easy to read.
A much lower percentage of people (7% of the total population of the US or 9% of Internet using population) use Twitter. Don't be fooled.
It is always about WHO is using something. In Malcom Gladwell's book Tipping Point
, he talks about "mavens" who have an incredible amount of influence on others. These people who are connectors of others and valid sources of information, drive adoption of products and services. They are important because of their INFLUENCE. Twitter is known to be such a hub of influence full of "mavens" which Mashable calls power users. (See this under eBooks also.)Kindle / eBooks / iPad
People who read ebooks are shown to be mavens in the "book" sector. I follow Stephen Windwalker's Kindle Nation Daily blog
and download free ebooks all the time. Why do publishers give ebooks away at all? Free ebooks are correlated with increased print-book sales according to researchers at BYU and major authors have said the same.So, you're not selling books? Well you are sharing information and your content should be readily available on these devices. You can read Cool Cat Teacher on your Ipad or in the Kindle store. (I'll tell you how to do this with your blog in my next post! ;-)
Calendar
Most successful, busy people keep calendars. If this calendar is on a mobile device and you produce calendars and want people to attend, it should be easy for people to add you to their calendar.
Push your events onto their screen and you'll get higher attendance and higher satisfaction with your communication as well. This is very important for schools.
Youtube
Seventy percent of adult internet users watch videos online with the dominant site continuing to be youtube.
Buying/ Selling/ Giving to Charity Online
If you are a nonprofit, realize that Twenty two percent of adults donated to charities online in 2010! We've recently added PayPal widgets for my school's 40 year campaign.
mp3 Player
Half of adults own an mp3 player with 75% of adults age 18-34 owning one and 21% of adults download podcasts.
It is not just a website any more!
You'd better not have a webmaster - you need a syndication master. You need people producing content that your audience cares about! If you are a school, this can be tricky but simple.
Now that I've proved the case that individuals, companies, and schools that want to communicate need to acknowledge the importance of a different platform than JUST a website, I'm going to spend some time over the next few weeks teaching you how to easily syndicate your content on the web, like I've done with my blog and at my school.
Hint: It is about leverage and making it SIMPLE for you.
This post is part of my Social Media for Schools series:
- Facebook Friending 101 for Schools
- The Case for Digital Citizenship in Schools
- Web 2.0 Leadership for Students
