Blogging for teachers and students, made easy

10 ways to use your blog to teach

There are many ways you can use a blog in your teaching, here are ten to get you started:

1. Post materials and resources
The web is a fantastic tool when it comes to distributing resources - all you have to do on your Edublog is upload, or copy and paste, your materials to your blog and they’ll be instantly accessible by your student from school and from home. What’s more, you can easily manage who gets to access them through password and plugin safety measures.

Read more.

From: Edublogs.org

All Work And No Play Makes For Troubling Trend In Early Education

ScienceDaily (Feb. 12, 2009) —

Parents and educators who favor traditional classroom-style learning over free, unstructured playtime in preschool and kindergarten may actually be stunting a child’s development instead of enhancing it, according to a University of Illinois professor who studies childhood learning and literacy development.

Anne Haas Dyson, a professor of curriculum and instruction in the U. of I. College of Education, says playtime for children is a “fundamental avenue” for learning, and attempts by parents and educators to create gifted children by bombarding them with information is well-intentioned but ultimately counterproductive.

Read more

Teachers Win Lottery

From the Sacramento Bee:

Shasta Lake School staffers hit SuperLotto jackpot
menkoji@sacbee.com
Published Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009

SHASTA LAKE – It's the stuff of Hollywood screenplays: Small, rural school district struck by impossible budget cuts that can be resolved only with a pile of pink slips. Then, another slip of paper – a lottery ticket – brings a wave of fortune and new possibilities that could save the day.
That's the plot playing out in Gateway Unified School District in this small town just north of Redding.

"It's just disbelief," said Alicia Newman, an eighth-grade algebra teacher at Shasta Lake School.
Newman and 14 other teachers and administrators hit a $76 million SuperLotto Plus jackpot Saturday with a ticket they bought at the local Circle K.

The winning numbers – the same ones the educators have been playing for seven years – were announced Saturday night. The winners didn't realize that until Monday, and word didn't trickle out until Tuesday.

In the meantime, the town of Shasta Lake and its 10,000 residents have been abuzz with the mystery of who had purchased the $76 million ticket.

"I'm happy to say every person who won is at work today," said Helen Herd, principal of Shasta Lake School – and one of the new millionaires.

Read more:
http://www.sacbee.com/topstories/v-print/story/1615318.html