Fundraising Done Right

Today I helped a man in Kenya buy a cow. I used a lending website called Kiva to perform this micro act of philanthropy.

I guess I’m a bit late to the party because Oprah included Kiva.org in her list of favorite things for 2010, but I have to agree with her. It’s a really, really cool idea. Kiva is a not for profit organization that works with lending agencies in developing countires. These agencies post brief profiles for borrowers, and then Kiva users choose to lend as little as $25 to the person. Projects on Kiva range from purchasing supplies and merchandise for shops to financing indoor pumbling for a family's home.

The great part about Kiva is that your participation is not viewed as a donation. Instead, each borrower profile gives a timeline for when the money will be returned to your account. This money can either be pulled out of the Kiva system or reinvested in other projects. Kiva’s return rate is impressive - hovering somewhere around 97%. Those are pretty good odds that you’ll see you money again.

I think there’s definite educational application for Kiva. Every year students get sucked into countless fundraisers. They sell candy bars, wrapping paper, candles, cookie dough, magazines, etc. The list goes on. The problem with this the focus of the fundraising becomes the act of generating the funds instead of the good cause that the funds are supporting. Kiva is different in the sense that students can see the face of the person being affected by their generosity. This is the crucial step that every other charity/fundraising activity in schools is missing.

This is Peter. I helped him buy a cow for his family.

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It Must Be Nice

Tonight after dinner, I sat on a lawn chair in the garage and watched the kids color the driveway with chalk. They were quite absorbed in the activity, so I decided to use the time to catch up on some work. Here's a quick summary:

First I emailed the school secretary regarding a lost textbook. I received a call earlier today from an embarrassed parent who had accidentally donated it to Goodwill.

I followed that up with a reply email to the parent. Since I had my contacts up, I emailed a few other parents to give a heads up on final averages and the upcoming report cards being mailed home.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am using Edmodo to facilitate online book clubs over the summer. I logged into my account, replied to a few kids' questions, then posted links to book excerpts courtesy of Google Books. I also did a few quick comparisons and posted links to sites where the books were most affordable should they wish to purchase a copy.

Next, I realized supply orders were due today. I headed over to Staples.com, ordered pens, pencils, folders, and other supplies for my students, and sent out another email confirming the order.

I still had more to do - a parent letter to be sent home regarding Edmodo, final averages to be entered into the school data software and a mix cd I had promised to a student who had bonded with me through our shared interested in punk rock music - but at this point, our neighbor interrupted my progress. She called out a greeting from across the street and asked if I was done yet with school. I told her this was my last week but there was still a lot to do before wrapping up. She shouted back, "it must be nice only working nine months out of the year."

It would be nice. But don't ask me about it. I wouldn't know.

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Playing the Game of School

This year, I had a group of 10 8th graders as part of a special team designed to help at-risk students before they move on to high school. When describing the goal of the program, perhaps my principal put it best – Our job was to get these kids to buy into school.

The year was not without its challenges, but I enjoyed it. At night while eating dinner with my family and sharing stories of our day, the group affectionately became known as “the bad kids” by my four-year-old daughter. And by the standards of school, that’s what they were. They were always in trouble. They swore. They fought. They were late to class (if they even bothered to come to school in the first place).

Last Tuesday, we loaded the group onto a school bus and headed to a nearby state park for a field trip. We spent the day geocaching, fishing (yes, we let the “bad kids” handle sharp hooks), and cooking hotdogs. And you know what? It was the best field trip I have ever been on. The kids were an absolute delight. They were patient while we bushwhacked our way through the woods in search of hidden caches. They were supportive of each other while fishing – taking turns with the poles and helping each other get their catches off the line. We even let one girl who aspires to attend culinary school someday man the grill and cook for us.

While playing Kanjam with the group, one of the kids joked that he never realized that his teachers were actually normal people who fish and play games, and eat hotdogs. I don’t think he realized how insightful the comment was. Because it wasn’t until that moment that I realized that this wasn’t a group of bad kids. It wasn’t a group of at-risk, attendance problems. It was just a group of kids.


So what if they aren’t good at school. That doesn’t mean they aren’t smart.

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10 Ways to Use QR Codes in the Classroom

QR codes are 2 dimensional computer-generated codes that can be scanned and read by mobile devices or webcams. The first time a colleague showed me QR codes, I was literally giddy with excitement. I immediately recognized the potential for QR codes in my classroom.

Creating the QR code is surprisingly easy. I use QRstuff.com - simply type in the text or url of whatever content you want the code to direct toward, and you're good to go. It's literally that easy. From there, the QR code can be downloaded, added to worksheets, emailed, etc. It can even be scanned directly from an LCD projector or computer screen!

Here are my top ten ways to use QR codes in the classroom.



1. Add a QR code to school letterhead that points to the school website.

2. Use an interactive whiteboard to record notes/math equations/brainstorming/etc. Host the video online and add a QR code to a homework assignment so students can be retaught from home.

3. Hide the answers to a study guide behind a QR code. Copy the code onto the study guide so students can check their answers.

4. Have students write children's books and then record them reading their work. Upload the audio online and add a QR code linking to the audio for each page of the book to create an interactive reading experience.

5. For open house/parent night, have each teacher in the building create a brief video introducing him/herself. Upload the videos and create QR codes that they can hang on their doors. This way parents can take a self tour of the building and get a feel for the quality teachers working in the building.

6. Have students record book reviews and attach the QR code to the inside cover of the book.

7. Create a survey using Google Forms. Print multiple codes (one for each choice in the survey) and then use it to poll the class in anonymous surveys. You'll be able to see immediately how many times a particular code was scanned.

8. Print QR codes that point to your classroom homework/events calendar. Have students attach them to their agendas or daily planners .

9. Create QR codes that link to supplemental materials and add them to the teacher edition of textbooks. This way valuable resources don't get lost in endless network folders on a forgotten flash drive.

10. During a field trip, give students a handout with multiple QR codes that provide supplemental information coinciding with different locations on the trip. Students will have a guided tour even if they are not with the teacher.

Bonus - 11. QR codes are a great way to play pranks (see below, if you dare).

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Facing Layoffs, Teachers Need to Advocate for Themselves

Like many states, New York is struggling with how to manage a bloated budget. Unfortunately, rather than trimming fat and implementing ways to spend wiser, education has become the target of severe cuts in state spending (my school in particular is currently forced to operate next year with a massive 17% cut in funding). Last year, states laid off 58,000 teachers nationwide, and projections for the 2011-2012 school year don't look any better.

Sadly, I have a personal connection to this. My sister-in-law, Amanda Wagner, is one of those teachers whose job will not be in the district budget for next year. Rather than be angry, she took the chance to share her insight via an editorial in The Buffalo News. Her overall message is a call to action; a plea for parents, students, teachers, and community members to take an interest in their schools. Too many see education as an almost invisible part of their community, and this can be dangerous as conditions slowly and quietly decline.

A few days after Amanda's editorial printed, someone posted a negative comment. Maybe this guy was just trolling, but I took the bait and we have been sparring back and forth. My goal isn't to make this person look foolish; I have a much deeper motivation.

I'm proud to be a teacher, and I truly believe that what we do on a daily basis makes a tremendous difference in the lives of our students. I have used the comment section of my sister-in-law's editorial to hopefully dispel some of the popular misconceptions of teachers. My hope is that immediately after reading my blog post, you will read her article and the comments. Think about what makes you valuable as an educator, and add your own comment. As professionals, we need to advocate for ourselves.

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The Outsiders Final Project - Facebook

I look forward to teaching 7th grade for one reason – reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. It’s a classic piece of adolescent literature that every kid can relate to on some level. I like to read it with my classes early in the year because it is something that they tend to rally behind and I can usually ride out the enthusiasm it creates until after the Winter recess. This year marks the fourth time I have taught the book, and while I now have a drawer filled with lessons and handouts, I have never been able to find a suitable project to use as a conclusion to such a magnificent read.

Until now.

Students are creating a mock Facebook account for a character from the book. The project is a grand slam; it is rigorous and relevant to the book, but also collaborative and highly engaging. Students were asked to choose one of three main characters – Johnny, Ponyboy, or Dally – and create a Facebook wall complete with status updates and replies from other characters. These posts should demonstrate their understanding of important events in the book as well as the complex relationships between characters. Students have really stepped up to the task and I have been impressed by their overwhelming creativity and ability to approach a text from a different perspective.

For the project, I created Facebook templates with Photoshop. Since my students watched the 1985 movie version of The Outsiders, I included headshots from the theatrical release to serve as profile pictures. All students had to do was manipulate text boxes that were included in the template. To help troubleshoot, I also made a quick Jing tutorial video demonstrating how they should create their project. Click here to view it.

If you would like to use this project with your students, here is a zip file of all the documents you will need. I also uploaded my project outline sheet to Scribd.com. Feel free to download it!
The Outsiders Facebook Project

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The Fine Line Between Charity and Abuse of the System

My mother owns an agency that provides home-based therapy services for children under the age of three. Every year around the holidays I am reminded of a story she shared with me several years ago.

After the new year, my mom went to a family's house to work with their child. Upon entering the house, she was surprised to see wrapped gifts still stacked against the wall. The parent joked that they had so many presents that year that they simply hadn't had the time to open them yet. The family was on public assistance, so this confused my mother. The parent further explained that she made sure to get her children on as many charity lists as possible that year – churches, community groups, schools, etc. The pile of gifts was only a small portion of the donations and didn't include food and household items or gift cards. The parent openly shared all of this with my mother.

It's because of this incident that I am weary to donate money for holiday gift cards at my school. I completely understand that the story my mom shared may not be the norm, but it proves that it is quite difficult to find the line between much-needed charity and abuse of the system. This year, my school raised enough money to give 40 families each a $50 Walmart gift card. As a school, we should be proud that we are able to help so many people, however, I can't get past the fact that some of those families called the school and were asked to be added to the charity list.

How many of those 40 families asked to be added to other lists as well? Is their Walmart gift card destined to end up in an overflow gift pile similar to the one my mother witnessed? And how are we to know that the card didn't go toward cigarettes or alcohol?

In the past, the team of teachers I work with have chosen a student that we know could use a little holiday cheer. We buy him/her a few outfits and maybe a pair of sneakers and then mail the package to the house. I feel good doing this. First, the gift is going to the child. Second, we have the freedom to choose who we think most needs a donation based on our daily observations. It's a lot of extra footwork to prepare the package, but it's worth it knowing that the donation is needed and truly appreciated.

This post is by no means a slam at anyone who donates money around the holidays. I give credit to anyone who is willing to share the wealth, especially to those in need. It's just a shame that some people are willing to exploit the kindness of others. Charities and not-for-profit organizations have been on my list of interests lately, so this will probably not be the last post on this topic. In the meantime, I would appreciate any feedback on good groups/organizations/programs that you feel comfortable donating to. I want to make a difference and would love to know the most effective way to do so...

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Teachers - Beware of Your Digital Footprint

My middle school is only a few miles down the road from Niagara University, so it makes sense that we work closely with their school of education. Most of the student teachers in our building come from NU and we also participate in their Learn & Serve program. This is basically a pre-service mentoring and observation field experience opportunity that all education majors must fulfill. It's not as rigorous or time-consuming as student teaching, but the need for cooperating teachers is just as essential.

Yesterday, I received an email from an NU student who wrote to inform me that she had been assigned to my room as her Fall Learn and Serve placement. She went on to explain that even though her placement was supposed to be for a full day on a routine basis, she wanted to come for half a day on an irregular schedule because she had a full time job.

Sensing trouble, I copied and pasted this girl’s email address into Facebook and quickly discovered her account. Her wall was blocked, but this was of little use because the profile picture of her drinking with her friends was more than enough to confirm my suspicions. This was not the kind of pre-service teacher I wanted in my room.

This is not a unique story. Increasingly each year, professionals find themselves in difficult spots as a result of poor decisions with regard to their digital footprint.

So to all you pre-service teachers (all teachers, really) – be safe. And don’t take pictures of the stupid things that you do.

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How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I remember a conversation I had with my wife two summers ago.

It was August, and tensions in the house were high. In general, we rarely fight, but that summer was a series of little spats between grouchy spouses. On this particular day, my wife turned to me and said “You’re ready to go back to school, and we’re ready too.” It was then that I figured out why the summer had been such a bust.

It was the first summer since I had been 13 that I did not have a summer job.

Because I didn’t have something to keep me busy, I was slowly driving myself crazy (and I was taking my family along for the ride). Being a firm believer in the old adage “If history is forgotten, it is doomed to repeat itself,” I made damn sure I had a summer job lined up for this year.

Since I was an early teen, I’ve done everything from food service, to daycare, and even a little clerical office work. This year, however, I wanted something different – something that would get me outside and be mindless enough that I could still enjoy my summer vacation when my shift was done. This is how I found myself mowing lawns part time at a private golf course.

A rainy morning mowing the 16th green.

My shift began each morning at 6am on weekdays and 5:30am on weekends so that we could be finished by the time the first retiree hit off the first tee. The work was tedious and physically demanding. My boss, although fair and consistent, was meticulous and acute to every blade of grass on his golf course. This meant that every mistake, no matter how trivial, was noted and immediately addressed. I never realized how much work went into daily maintenance of a country club. I also didn’t realize how much of a travesty it was if I raked the sand trap in the wrong direction, or if I mowed an 1/8 of an inch into the collar of a green.

I did realize one thing though – how completely meaningless this job actually was. Did any of the golfers actually notice any of this stuff? Probably not.

Having this summer job proved valuable in three ways.

First, it kept my ADHD in check enough to allow me and my family to enjoy the summer recess. I got up early, and returned home each day feeling like I had accomplished something, all before my little ones were done eating breakfast.

Second, it made me realize how much I love teaching, and how thankful I am that it is the career path I chose to take. Some of my coworkers at the golf course were career men – they had been working the course for years. It was a sobering thought that my “recreational” summer job was their bread and butter.

Third, the golf course reminded me just how important my job as a teacher is. If I really screwed up a line while mowing one of the greens, the worst that would happen is it may throw off someone’s putt. The grass would keep growing, and 24 hours later re-mowed the correct way. Unfortunately life isn’t as forgiving for a student whose education has been misled in one way or another.

This is my first post of the 2010-2011 school year. I welcome everyone back, and may your year be as successful and rewarding as I hope mine will be!

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Taking a Technology Approach to Vocabulary

Several years ago, I taught the historical fiction book My Brother Sam is Dead. I did the obligatory vocab chart, and while the kids did well with the quiz, it was clear that they would probably never use those words again once the quiz was passed forward. But after the bell, I watched one of my boys, in a middle school attempt at flirting, knock a book out of a girl’s hand. As he sped past me with his crush in hot pursuit, he called to her “Have clemency on me!”

That was one of our vocab words, and this boy had taken it out of class and inserted it into his vocabulary. Pedagogically, vocabulary should be looked at as a skill and not content.

I used this example from 2005 to illustrate vocabulary ownership simply because I can’t think of a more recent example of this actually happening. I don’t think I’m an incompetent teacher; it’s just that there is no magic bullet for teaching vocabulary.

I have never been satisfied with students looking up definitions for unit-specific vocab words and then spitting those definitions back at me on a quiz. I’ve tried visual vocab techniques, word walls, sentence writing, etc, but nothing ever seems to embed those words into the students’ lexicon. That’s what I want – ownership of those words.

Last Friday during a required planning day for my department, I came up with a quick-and-dirty project for my students. The state science assessment is just over the horizon, so to help my team, I decided to have them review science terms.

Each student was randomly given two vocab words. They had to define these and then provide one supplemental bit of information – either a sentence in context, an example, or a description. So far, this was a typical vocabulary assignment, but the real excitement came in the form of the assessment.

Rather than a quiz, students were allowed to choose a location somewhere on the school campus to film a visual dictionary entry using my Mino Flip video camera. These were then uploaded to our team website so students could use them for review.

The results were intriguing. It was the first time I have ever seen students take an interest in vocabulary. Even more so, students could easily recall definitions because they now had an experience to pair them with. My team’s dictionary has 183 definitions, and while I doubt every student’s working vocabulary is now 180+ words richer, this was undoubtedly a better approach to vocabulary than rote memorizing.

I think I may try this with vocabulary next year and keep a running dictionary with my students. I was rushed to get my students ready to record almost 200 video clips and in some videos it shows. In the future I would push the kids to memorize their “script” rather than rely on a note card. Regardless, a Video Dictionary has some serious potential.

If you’d like to take a peek at our Video Dictionary, click here.

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The Great American Mail Race

Last week I received a letter from Tami, a 14-year-old student from Butte Valley Middle School in Dorris, California. The letter was simply addressed to “Any 8th Grade English Teacher” and began by explaining that her class was participating in The Great American Mail Race.

After reading her letter and the accompanying note from her teacher, I wanted to learn more about this project. I was surprised to find an absence of an official website, but Google helped uncover the basic premise of the Mail Race. Students from around the country use the computer to find the address of a faraway school and then write to them sharing information about their personal interests, and their school and community. The class who receives this letter is encouraged to respond to it, and then find a new school to write to. The Great American Mail Race is like an educational version of a chain letter.

The problem with correspondence sites like e-Pals and services such as Skype is that the difficulty is in finding someone willing to participate. I love the idea that the Mail Race removes this barrier.

I’m planning on having my students participate in The Great American Mail Race. I’m going to randomly assign the state, but each student will be able to choose two different schools to write to. I figure this will double the odds of receiving a return letter. As a team, we’ll be mailing out over 200 letters – I’m interested to see the number of replies we get in return.

Guidelines for this project appear to be flexible and not really documented on any particular site. Some schools have students write friendly letters, others mail out formal surveys. It’s usually encouraged that the teacher mail a letter along with the student’s to help explain the project, but even this seems to be optional.

If you’re interested in participating in The Great American Mail Race, feel free to use my handouts as a model for how to approach it with students, and also how to formulate your own teacher letter.

The Great American Mail Race - Teacher Letter




The Great American Mail Race - Student Directions

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Student Examples - Storybird.com (Part II)

Yesterday I posted the first round of finished student stories using Storybird.com, and I figure it's only fair to give all the projects equal exposure. Here are the rest of them.

Students were more than thrilled to see comments on their work. If you find yourself looking to kill some time while waiting for that Thanksgiving turkey to thaw, perhaps you could leave some feedback for my kiddos. It would be greatly appreciated, and a chance for students to see what publishing for a real world audience is all about!


Was It Better Not To Know ? on Storybird

Monster In The Closet on Storybird

The Life of Destinino on Storybird

Charlie On The Moon on Storybird

The Mighty Jungle on Storybird

The Lonely Girl on Storybird

The Yeti on Storybird

Bad Luck on Storybird

The First Rabbit on the Moon on Storybird

The Orange Chair on Storybird

Who Stole My Cheese? on Storybird

Imagination Gone Wild!!! on Storybird

I Wish I was a Bunny on Storybird

There Is No Such Thing As Monsters! on Storybird

Where's Santa? on Storybird

Birthday Truth on Storybird

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Student Examples - Storybird.com

My students have been hard at work creating stories on Storybird.com that answer the essential question, "Is it better not to know?" I wrote about the project in a previous blog post, so I thought I would share their finished work. If you have a few minutes, please read them and feel free to comment on their stories. What a great experience it would be for them to come to class in the morning and see their stories have been read by a worldwide audience! (To add comments, click on the title of the story located under the embedded file.)


The girl who wished to be a mermaid on Storybird

The Tower on Storybird

The Disappearance on Storybird

Glenn's Adventure on Storybird

THE WOODS on Storybird

The Story Teller on Storybird

Lost Fish on Storybird

The Flutist on Storybird

The Fox and The Pig on Storybird

The Mystical Gorilla and the Monkey on Storybird

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Using Postcards to Connect Students to the World

When I was in 7th grade, my French teacher connected us with pen pals in France. They wrote to us in English, and we responded in French. I remember being most interested in the small details of the letters – how the margins on their lined paper were slightly larger than ours, the curious stamps, and the red-bordered airmail envelopes they were sent in. It amazed me that I was holding something that had traveled thousands of miles. Once, our teacher (at the certain disapproval of our school who had to front the international charges) placed a call to our corresponding class. The idea that the voices on the other end of the speaker phone lived in a foreign land was enough to make all of our young minds explode.

Of course, this was in the early 90s, when the Internet was only for folks wealthy enough to afford AOL's hourly rate service. Other than the occasional Canuck (my hometown is located about 30 minutes from the Canadian border), most of us had never met anyone from another country.

That's something kids seem to take for granted today. It's nothing eyebrow-raising to compete against a German on Xbox live, or to have a conversation on a message board with someone living in Japan, or perhaps read the blog of a person experiencing the turmoil of the Middle East first-hand. Our ability to easily connect to anyone in the world has dulled the excitement in doing so. International connectivity is just a free Skype call away.

There's something missing in all of that. Something tangible – that feeling of wonder I got years ago from holding a paper that had seen more of the world than I had. I wanted to share that feeling with my students, and that's why I decided to turn Postcrossing into our year-long team project.

Postcrossing.com is a free service that allows random users to send each other postcards. For every postcard you send out, one is sent back to you from a different user. It's not correspondence, but more like single serving pen pals. The idea of having an anonymous and captive audience for my students to write to was an idea too good not to try.

Rather than use generic postcards, we had this one printed for our Postcrossing project. It was only about 70 bucks for 500 cards, well worth it in my opinion. Every week I pick one student per class – five total – to write a postcard representing the team. They write about their likes and dislikes, about their homes and families. That postcard is a chance to share a piece of their lives with someone they will never meet.

I don't grade these. It's about the experience, not the evaluation. When we receive postcards, they are shared with the team and then added to our Postcrossing map along with a string indicating its point of origin. And much like myself in 7th grade, my students are fascinated by minutia like the curious images on the postcards, interesting spelling, or unique first names. All things they wouldn't think twice about in an online environment.

At the time of this post, our Postcrossing account indicated that the postcards currently hanging in my room have traveled a combined distance of more than 120,000 miles. Even though that's a number so large most of my kids simply can't fathom it, these postcards connect them to the rest of the world better than any website, chat room, or email could ever accomplish.

A brief article on Postcrossing in The Niagara Gazette

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Eat Dinner with Your Family!

When my wife and I first got married (it'll be four years in April!), my mom gave us one simple piece of advice – never eat dinner with the television on. She reminded us that dinner was a time to catch up with each other's lives; a time to ask How was your day? We've followed her advice, and I feel our lives are better for it.

Today (while not eating a meal), a commercial for Stouffer's caught my attention. They had taken my mom's words of wisdom one step further by suggesting that kids who eat dinner with their families are destined to do better in school, be more successful, and stay out of trouble. Wait a minute, Stouffer's, I think you're manipulating data here.

Am I arguing that eating dinner every night as a family is important? Absolutely not – I wholehearted agree that it's important to establish that as part of the daily routine. But I'm having a hard time swallowing the assumption that sitting down to a sodium-delicious Stouffer's meal will improve a kid's work habits at school. I remember a similar scenario appearing in an Educational Psychology course I had to take in grad school. It went like this - If wealthy families tend to own small dogs, then can it be assumed that small dogs are an indicator of wealth? I don't remember the exact term – some form of causation or correlation – but the same applies to families who eat dinner together. It's not the meal that causes the kids to do well, but the fact they come from a family who has it together enough to know that it's important to share in the lives of the people you love.

I'd like to know the percentage of families who still eat together. I'd assume it's lower than we expect. But in the end, if it takes a commercial campaign to make it happen, I'm okay with that. It's not quite as sentimental as your mother sharing her advice on your wedding day, but the message is clear. It's important to eat as a family, share as a family, and listen as a family.

Here's the commercial, or you can visit the commercial campaign site (dubbed "Let's Fix Dinner") here.

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Why Schools Should Use Open Office

Open Office is a free and open source alternative to the Microsoft suite of applications. It is available for download at openoffice.org

I first began using Open Office several years ago when I cleared Windows off of my home laptop in favor of Ubuntu Linux. I didn’t really have much choice in office suites considering Microsoft applications are unable to run on a Linux platform. The transition was easy though, and I soon found myself preferring Oo to the Microsoft suite.

Imagine my excitement when I learned that my school district was ready to begin implementing Open Office in the classroom. Today I attended the training for volunteers. A bit redundant for me? A bit. But it’s exciting because it’s my district’s first step in shifting student learning away from proprietary word processing software to open source – a change that is such a no-brainer that it amazes me that every district has not done so long ago.

Here are my reasons why every school should consider Open Office before devoting a large chunk of their technology budget to Microsoft licensing:

Pros/Cons
I began the workshop by making two columns in my notebook. I figured the day would make for an easy blog post outlining the pros and cons of using Open Office compared to the Microsoft suite of applications. As the day progressed, the columns remained pretty much empty. Comparing the two isn’t like comparing apples to oranges, but like comparing Granny Smith to Red Delicious. The skin’s different and the overall taste may be a bit off, but it’s the same thing. Sure, there’s minor differences, but with each negative comes an equal positive. For example, Open Office’s word processing application, Writer, cannot open Docx files formats (standard in Word 2007), however it has the built in function of converting a document to a pdf. Is the negative or the positive more significant? It’s nit-picking at that point.

Versatility
We should be teaching students the skills, not the program. If students only learn by using Microsoft Word, how much are they learning about using the program versus how much they’re learning about improving their ability to create written pieces on the computer? In theory, they should be just as successful whether they are using Open Office, Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, or even something bare bones like Dark Room. Plus, in today’s struggling economy, it’s naive to think none of them will ever work for a business that is unable to afford high end proprietary software.

Price
My favorite explanation of open source software is that it’s free – free as in freedom, because it can be modified by anyone, and free as in free beer, because it costs nothing. It takes about 2 minutes to download, and another 2 to install. In those 4 minutes, Open Office can save a district thousands of dollars in Microsoft licensing fees.

Why aren’t more schools doing this?!

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Teaching Irony

Last evening a six-year-old named Falcon Heene dominated the news and social media as the world looked on anxiously as a mylar balloon presumably containing the boy drifted across the state of Colorado. Turns out he was in no harm, having instead nested comfortably in a box tucked into the corner of the family's attic. Followers of the story are now singing a chorus of “Foul!” with rumors circulating that the spectacle was all an elaborate publicity stunt for a family who seems to love being in the spotlight.

Unlike countless other bloggers logging in to contribute their two cents to the story, I don't really have much to say about the family, their possible motivations, or the viral (and admittedly very funny) meme videos that are surfacing. Instead, I want to share something that one of my students said to me this morning.

A few weeks ago I began preparing my classes to read the O. Henry short story, “The Ransom of Red Chief.” It seems nearsighted to teach O. Henry without first discussing irony, so after taking a day to give the classes a definition and a few clear examples (none of them being the ironically un-ironic song by Alanis Morrisette), we were set to read. (If interested, here are some of the examples I used.) Students were able to identify irony in Red Chief, so I felt I did an adequate job.

This morning I had a student come to me with an exciting observation. While watching one of the major news outlets cover the story of the “Balloon Boy,” she had overheard the reporter mention that it was ironic that a boy named Falcon has been suspected of taking to the skies. My ever-observant student couldn't wait to share the reporter's error with me.

She eagerly explained that the reporter had mistaken a coincidence for irony. After all, the student noted, our class definition of irony is an outcome that is the opposite of what is expected. In this case, it would have been ironic only if the boy's name had been that of a land-dwelling creature. A boy named Turtle or Goldfish flying off into the Colorado skyline would have been ironic.

The true test of learning is the transference of knowledge. My students will soon forget the specifics of the story they read with me, but they will never forget what irony is.

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