I hope everyone had a great fall break and have returned rested and ready to work!
This week I have two webinars scheduled, one on Monday and one on Friday. The rest of the week will be spent working on training teachers and other staff members on SchoolLoop (Web host), preparing the November DTRT newsletter, solving Infinite Campus issues as they arise, etc. Most of this week will be spent on gathering information for the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), Part II. Part I was completed last spring and Part II will be completed this fall. The CRDC is run by the U. S. Department of Education. The data collected for Part II includes such items as the number of retained students in grades K-12, discipline/behavior events, number of students harrassed or bullied and number of students disciplined for such action, number of students who've been restrained or secluded, the number of interscholastic athletics sports and the number of participants, teacher absenteeism, and some school financial data. Items continued from Part I that will also be included in Part II are the number of students who passed Algebra I, the number of students who took the ACT or SAT or took AP tests plus the pass rate for those AP tests, etc. As you can see, the CRDC is a huge report that takes a lot of focus and assistance from various personnel to complete. Thanks in advance to all those who help me complete the data collection!
This week, here are some interesting Web sites to review and use in your classroom:
Scale City - Welcome to Scale City, the biggest, smallest road trip ever! Created for grades 6-8, but fun for everyone! Explore amazing roadside attractions and learn about the mathematics of scale. At each stop, a short video field trip and a fun interactive simulation help students understand proportional reasoning. (This site is supported by KET.)
Teachers' Domain - Teachers' Domain is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. You'll find thousands of media resources, support materials, and tools for classroom lessons, individualized learning programs, and teacher professional learning communities.
Dictionary - Dictionary.com's reference section contains a Thesaurus, Quotes, an Encyclopedia, and a Translator. A new portion is Flashcards (beta). There is also a Question of the Day on the home page which might make a good, engaging class starter each day. From the home page, you can also find a Daily Crossword, a Crossword Solver, and other Word Games, plus all sorts of helpful links under the Tools & Resources section.
Hopefully you will find something on one of these sites (or all three!) that you can use. Please e-mail me any sites you have found during the first nine weeks that might be helpful to your colleagues. I would love to feature them (and you!) in a future blog entry.
