MadWords Then

Phew!

It has been a bit since the last posting.

Many of you people have moved on to eighth grade or high school.  That is weird to think about.

Get to the point, Mr. Madden:  How has the school year gone so far?

Are you classes what you guessed?  Without mentioning any names, how are your teachers?

What is your favorite part of the day currently?  Going to school?  Bus ride?  A particular class?  The hallways?  Lunch?  Leaving school?

Here’s one:  What has surprised you the most about this school year?

I was recently reading a blog, Box of Tricks, written by a teacher, Jose Picardo. This particular post had a video embedded in it that Mr. Picardo created, which is below.

Now, like the author states in his posting, there are way more videos, PPTs, etc., than I would like to view or read about 21st Century students, teachers, and learning.  But, I did think that this video, short and sweet, and not loaded down with text, was pretty interesting.

So, of course, I am most curious about what 21st Century students think of it.  Check it out, and if you wish you can follow the link from Mr. Picardo’s name to the posting itself, which is also brief.

Then, think, respond, and submit a reaction.  I am truly interested.

Challenge:  Predict in great detail how your coming school year will unfold.

Problem:  Write your prediction in ten (10!) words or less.  Eleven or more won’t get published on the blog–Ha!

Solution:  As always, be creative!

Quit stalling and get active!  (And don’t you dare use as many obnoxious exclamation points as I have.  I am a teacher, it is my right.)

What one word describes your year (or years, for that matter) at Hayes?

If you need, here is a link to an online thesaurus to add some zip, moxie, pizazz, sploosh, flavor to your word.

So, some of you are moving on, not just out of a grade level, but out of Hayes all together.

Hmmph.  That does not really make me very happy, but I will get past it because I know that you may drop by here occasionally in your new life in the fast lane, AKA, high school.

So, can I ask you? 

• What will you take with you from your time at Hayes?
• What will end up being your craziest memory?
• What will you miss the most (not the water, I assume)?
• What will ultimately be your proudest moment at Hayes?
• What do you look forward to in high school?
• Do you have any concerns about moving on? (You will be awesome, by the way.)

Take a few minutes just to answer some, a couple, or all of the inquiries above.  Think of it as a time capsule that you can come back and visit in a few years!

You know that I am always interested.

Wow!  Where have I been?  A thousand apologies.  I can only sit here, type, and beg for your understanding and forgiveness (see groveling).

Honestly, I let myself get a bit too involved–and overwhelmed–with my two online web design courses through Lansing Community College.  The work, building web sites using XHTML code only, took up an inordinate amount of my non-teaching time.

But this is just an excuse, and I am bored of myself already, so enough!

Only eighteen school days remain in the 2008-2009 year!  Yikes!  Some of you wonderful people will be making the trek over to the high school next fall, which makes me a bit sad.  Not that I get to speak with you as much as in sixth grade, but just the knowledge that you are in the building is usually enough to make my day.  No lie.

Speaking of you peoples, I have recently discovered that some of you have begun venturing into photography.  Splendid!  I have always regarded photography as a form of magic.  People seem willing to expose their inner selves (on many levels) when a lens is targeted upon them.  Objects that we take as mundane, or boring, or do not even notice because they are so every day, so trivial, become beautiful or downright spectacular in a photo.

It is art, is it not?  What do you think about that idea?  Some people claim that since a person uses a machine (a camera) to record an object which they themselves did not create in the first place, that this does not qualify as “art.”

I tend to disagree with this notion.  I believe that a photographer can take an object, a barn full of “junk,” or dust on a radio dial, for example, and create an image with a unique emotional quality.  I think that photographers use their individual perspectives and “see” a certain loveliness or tragedy or hilarity in the subject that they are photographing. Probably, they already know what the picture is before they even snap the shot.

I don’t know.  But I am curious as to what you think.

By the by, since we are talking, I know of a couple of online editing sites that may be worthy of checking out if you are at all interested.  They are: pixlr and splashup, both still free (Web 2.0).  Then there are a couple pretty nice sites (also Web 2.0) which you can upload your photos (or take directly from flickr) and create videos, movies, with your own music or choose from their selection of tunes.  These are stupeflix, and Animoto.

Could be fun!

This past Saturday, April 18, Hayes hosted the Greener Delta event.  The focus is on environmental issues, and tons of community members took time out of a beautiful day to pay a visit.

During the event, the winners of the Greener Delta Essay Contest were awarded prizes.  Our very own Aman S. took first place in the 7th-9th grade levels!  It was an exciting moment when Aman’s name was called and she strode up to receive her award in front of a packed house.

Aman did not give a speech, but you can read her essay by visiting the Greener Delta web site here.

I won’t go on and on about how sometimes it DOES pay to be a good writer, but, well, it occasionally does!

Way to go, Aman!

All right, yes, it has been a bit since a posting. That was then, this is now.

Good, we have moved on.

I would like to encourage people to make use of the new comment options on the blog: written (as usual), audio (if you have a computer mic), and video (if you have a web cam).

Why not give it a try if you can?

I know, think of three words of advice for teachers, past, present, and future.  The words can be separate, like “laugh, run, Tabasco,” or a phrase, like “Always move forward!”

Brainstorm while writing:  You could create a three-word advice piece on a visual, such as a piece of paper, a sticky note, a guitar, a gym shoe, a hand, a poster, a banana, etc.  This way, you could opt out of showing yourself in the video portion, if you so wish.

So, set your thinking wheels in motion, get off your duff and create!

If I can, you can.

(Advice image by Dave Parry)

What is the most frustrating thing about school?

Stick to recent events.

Mention no names.  MadWords Then respects all people.

Be honest.

Vent!

Okay, so I may have asked this at some point in this blog before, but, do you think that allowing students to listen to music while doing classwork helps some kids?

I am allowing this on a limited basis, as a social/educational experiement, I suppose.  I hypothesize that, for some students, the background tunes will close out the surrounding stimuli, and they will be able to focus with greater attention to the task at hand.

In other words:  Ear-bud kids will be more interested in listening to tunes than chatting with a neighbor.

So far, the results are positive in my recent observations.  In fact, some of the most distractable kids are more on task when plugged in than when they are not.

What do you think?

I know that some of your teachers allow it.  Have you taken advantage of the offer?  What was your reaction?  What do you see in your classes–leave out teacher names, thank you–do you see kids benefitting from the deal?

Sing back with a reply!