Anything Goes Discussions

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June 30, 2006 • 5:09 am 0

Tests, Tests and More Tests…..

For anyone who doesn’t know or hasn’t been watching we have the “The No Child Left Behind” Act/Law in the United States. While a good thought, it is not very well administered or thought out. What it has created is a litany of tests that have created an atmosphere that we have to teach to the test to make the grades or progress that we are mandated to make. Of course what this does is leave out creative teaching of what our children need really need.

Teachers no longer step out of the box because they are evaluated on how their students do on many different tests. Some school districts have several tests that they administer on a district wide basis, along with the state mandated tests. It makes me wonder when the kids get to learn anything. Maybe we need to take a step back, look, reevaluate and focus on teaching, not testing. Maybe that will give our kids the opprotunity to step out of the box, excel past the test and become a knowledgable adult. Maybe even some of those students will become the new Einstein or Gates of tomorrow.

There are many great teachers in our country that are being hindered because they can’t teach everthing they want. I miss the days when I was in school and we talked about history, did real science projects, had complete PE classes, including health classes and didn’t take tests except for the ones my teachers gave on the subject matter we had learned.

Maybe if the parents of todays children didn’t have to both work, or work two or more jobs we would have better graduation rates and better test scores.

Maybe we need a change, maybe we need less tests, more teaching and especially more parent involvement…..I don’t know, but that’s my opinion.

Remember, Anything Goes for Discussion at Dinner…..

Filed under: Education, Educational technology

June 27, 2006 • 4:40 pm 0

Get Those Lesson Plans

I found a site through my reading today that lets teachers buy and sell their original lesson plans. I though it was a very interesting idea, so I set out to find out more on the site and its idea. Here’s what I found….

The site is called “Teachers Pay Teachers” and can be found interestingly enough at www.teacherspayteachers.com. The site boasts 410 registered users, 81 member teacher-authors (members that pay a fee to have their work on the site for sale), 46 free downloads and 235 total products. The site was started in April of 2006, so it is extremely new and comes at a time when most schools are at the end of their school year. I would expect for it to pick up more member teacher-authors toward the start of our school year in August/September.

The negavtives that I found after browsing the site are:

The offerings seem quite sparse at the moment, with a lot of topics empty. I also found that not all authors gave a free preview of the lesson plan, while the descriptions leave a lot to be desired if I was going to pay for something sight unseen.

The positives that I found include:

The site layout is easy to navigate, with a learn more link that gives a lot of helpful information. The free downloads and previews that were available were professional and would be useful to teachers in those grade levels. The pricing is very affordable for authors at $29.95 annually with a 30-Day Money Back Guarantee, while the prices on the few things that I found ranged from two dollars up to twenty five dollars for a piece of software. This was just a few items, not the whole inventory, so prices may be higher or lower, but the prices I feel are very reasonable. While authors pay an annual fee, buyers pay no registration fee, but must become a registered user to purchase lesson plans.

Overall, despite the lack of inventory and the description issues, I found the refreshing and that as it grows will help promote positive learning for our children. I would recommend Teachers Pay Teachers to educators who are looking for new ideas or just wanting to share ideas for a little extra pocket change. For more information you can check out this article from the AP Teachers are selling study guides online.

Remember, Anything Goes for Discussion…

Filed under: Education, Educational technology , Educational News

June 26, 2006 • 5:36 pm 0

Athletes as Role Models?

Last week a pitcher from the Philadelphia Phillies was arrested in Boston for assault and battery under the domestic violence law in that state. There were multiple witnesses and multiple 911 calls of the event, which paint a pretty bleak picture. While I believe in the court system and innocent until proven guilty, the police report kind of tells it all.

The pitcher was contrite when questioned about the incident, basically saying he was sorry that it happened in public. Would it have been better if it had happened in the privacy of his home? The team said that because he was their best pitcher it “was in the best interest of the ball club to let him pitch.” You don’t need to clean your glasses, they really said that!

What about what is in the best interest of the women that was beaten?

This shows us that we should not be letting our youth see athletes or the organizations that employ them as role models. There are many better role models in society, but the best should be a child’s parent. There are many parents who are great parents, work two jobs, but find the time they need to instill the proper values in their children. It is our job when we take on the responsibility of having a child to do everything we can within our power to guide, set a positive example and nurture them.

From all this we get to the point that athletes are not what our youth should be aspiring to be. Athletes play a game that most of the rest of us do not have the talent to play. The key word here is GAME.

Lets take our kids to the park, play catch, learn Martial Arts with them, read with them, help them with their homework….Just do whatever they need to feel important and maybe they won’t need to look at athletes as role models.

Remember, Anything Goes for Dinner……

Filed under: Philadelphia, Sports , Sports News & Opinion

June 24, 2006 • 7:02 pm 0

WGA Notifications Phoning Home

Disclaimer: All information in this blog is totally an opinion, and any use of other programs or methods to circumvent legitimate, legal programs is not advised or condoned.

As I finish my chocolate cake from the early bird special, I continue to think about Microsoft phoning home with WGA Notifications. WGA stands for Windows Genuine Advantage and comes in two parts. The basic WGA runs once to see if you have a genuine, legal copy of Windows installed, while the second part, the Notification, phones home periodically to check if you still have a genuine copy of Windows. I’ve seen reports that it sometimes malfunctions and detects a pirated copy of Windows when you in fact have a genuine copy.

As I see it, WGA, as it already does, should run once and only once for a home computer that is bought OEM from Dell, HP or another OEM. WGA Notification, on the other hand, should not run at all and should not be on any computer. Microsoft should not be pushing it through Windows Update or testing it as a beta on its end users. If Microsoft wants to see if, at a certain interval that genuine copies of Windows are out there then it should run the WGA again in a Windows Update, not in a phone home, hidden manner as it currently does. It can be announced up front in the Windows Update, not buried in an EULA, that it is going to check your system to see if it’s genuine. There are reasons for it to run occasionally if you have spent anytime working with computer setup and installation.

As an example, someone could do a WGA on one copy of Windows and not install WGA Notifications. They then make an image of the hard drive and use that image on all other hard drives that it puts in computers. You can also do images for different configurations, so that folks could pick from a certain finite amount of hardware setups. This is where someone could mass produce without having a genuine copy of Windows for each system. Windows won’t phone home to check and you can get all your updates. The only caveat is that you would have to tell anyone using the computers not to download the WGA Notification, or accept Automatic Updates to avoid the problem creeping up later. Microsoft can get around this with an up front WGA as mentioned above in a Windows Update, not buried in the EULA.

A bunch of programs, hacks and patches have been published recently from a lot of different sites. As a network administrator I’ve learned to trust very little from the web and when I do make sure that it is from known Windows experts. There are experts that I trust and I’ve found a program that can stop the WgaLogon.dll from loading. The program was not developed for this particular problem, so its stability is reliable and is not in question as a fly by night solution. It is also at version 8 plus, which means it a mature program. I’m not going to reveal the program because I have not consulted with the authors of the program as to whether they approve of its mention by name, or if they have considered it along with the WGA Notification uproar.

I’ve never liked intrusive software, or companies that think that they can do whatever they like with software that you have spent your hard earned money to use without you asking for support. Maybe we need to start talking louder to the big companies that we don’t like their Big Brother tactics.

Remember…Anything Goes for Dinner!

Filed under: Technology