Moveable Feast

From the Moveable Feast website:

"A Moveable feast is a one-week summer institute organized by the Office of Educational Technology at the University of Illinois. This project-based technology institute is tailored to meet the needs of training teachers and administrators in technology and emphasizes ways to integrate technology in conjunction with Illinois Engaged Learning standards."

I happy to be involved with the Feast for another summer. It is a wonderful experience as a instructor and a participant. Check out the Feast website.

http://www.thefeast.org/teacherfeast/

STAR TREK

Springfield Visit and Teacher Pensions

Did I learn anything new from my lobby visit on Wednesday. Not really. Governor Quinn stopped by and mentioned that he was dropping a 2% increase in pension payments. That is a positive note, but having new teachers teach until they are 67 is CRAZY. Who is going to teach for 45 years? Who is going to pay for the extra cost of teachers for those extra years. (teachers will be at the top of the scale for a longer time) Won't new teachers move to states that have better retirement benefits? There are so many problems from increasing retirement age to 67. What can you do? Contact your local politicians and tell them what you think. If you are a teacher you can work with your union. If this age increase passes through in the budget, then I think teachers need to make a clear strong statement. We need to walk out, if school is still in session. 100,000 Illinois teachers not teaching for a day or two would make a strong comment on how we feel about our state government.

Heading to State Capital to the Capitol...

Wednesday May 6th, is the Illinois Education Association (IEA) lobby day. I get to go and speak to my local legislators about issues that concern me, but importantly issue that are adversely impacting education today. http://www.ieanea.org/ Pensions and education funding are just two of the many topics that will be discussed.

E.H. Gombrich's Little History of the World

I am Reading E.H. Gombrich's Little History of the World to my social studies classes. I got the idea from Scott Meech (smeech) who pointed me to a blog by Clay Burell. ( http://tinyurl.com/cw7pnm ) The blog discusses, in short, that history can be taught using stories. These stories can help students better understand and appreciate history. I just wrapped up Rome and starting the Middle Ages. I am trying a couple of chapters, from Little History of the World, on my students to see what they think. Chapter 18 is call "The Storm" (do you put chapters is quotes? I forget and I am not getting out my APA manual) and it compares the fall of Rome to a storm that rushes in and leaves only a clear starlit night. Remember, the fall of Rome leads to the Dark Ages and Gombrich writes that there is darkness, but you can still see the stars. Not everything was lost. The next chapter is "The Starry Night Begins." (Starry... that is how it is spelled. I am guessing that this is English or Old English spelling. Gombrich who was German became a British citizen. You know the British.....colour= color and aluminum is pronounced Al (the name)-oo- minium) "Starry Night" explains how the glimmer of knowledge was saved by monks all throughout the land that was destroyed by "The Storm." I am planning on making posts to this blog to share how the story is working or not working. Wish me luck.

Testing Blogger

I am trying to find an easy way to Blog for my classroom....is this it?