An Introduction

Costello Phright was tired. Tired of looking, and of listening, and of talking about what he experienced. He detested looking the way he did, he resented what he saw. He abhorred listening the way he did, he despised what he saw. He, however, secretly and silently savored when he had the chance to articulate what he had noticed, he relished at the sound of his own voice.

Costello had lived a complicated life; one of trial, tribulations, enjoyments, deep-thoughts, happy times, sad times, hard work, love, hate, and even song. The world and his life flashed around him, constantly, as if he were sitting next to Han Solo as he entered into light speed; except this never ended and there was no lovably incomprehensible creature to keep him company. He was after all, in all senses of the word, a "loner."

Costello does have talents though. He has lots of talents that are all too often left to the wayside because the thoughts in his mind torment him too frequently to allow to these talents to shine in all their true glory. Costello lives happy; Costello lives tormented.

Big Shirts

I have always detested wearing big shirts.

As far back as I can remember, big shirts have frightened me to to death. I put on a big shirt, look into the mirror and believe that I am oozing dork. Alas, I have discovered the real truth. Big shirts, to me, are dorky. Now this begs the question: why should anyone, especially myself, consider big shirts to be dorky? They shouldn't. This is foolish, and it's time for a revolution.

My revolution will be easy for me to attempt because I have a plethora of big shirts. I don't know why; I never wear them. I think it was my Mom always buying shirts at Kohls for me, or maybe the collection stems from my two younger, bigger brothers, who cannot seem to stop growing for the life of them. Luckily for all 3 of the aforementioned possible people responsible for my ridiculous and unused shirt collection, I stopped growing in practically the 2nd grade. But I digress...

Getting dressed this morning, I noticed that my laundry desperately needed to be done, and, as a result, I only had a few shirts left to wear. One of these was big shirt. Yes, you guessed it, I am wearing the big shirt. I am trying it out. I am going to experiment today: will I feel dorky as I go about my daily routines simply because I am wearing a big shirt?

This could be the beginning of a whole new era!

Spiders, and Stairs, and Fear... oh my?

Spiders. Creepy to anyone? Is anyone not creeped out by spiders? Is anyone actually creeped out by spiders? Stupid question. No one, I think, is actually creeped out by spiders, as much as they are creeped out by the idea of spiders. I think. I hope. Though, in reality, I don't have any clue.

Today, a particular horrible day for a wide variety of reasons, I encountered a giant spider. Talking on the on the phone with my Mom, something I enjoy thoroughly, and standing on the stairs of my new house, something that stills needs quite a bit of work, I looked down and noticed this, what seemed to be to me, giant wolf spider. I was terrified. But more importantly, he - wait, wait - that could be sexist- I should say, he or SHE was staring right at me. I had just played tennis for a brief 4 hours; my stench, some mixture of pleasant roses and elegant perfume, began to drive the little guy (or girl) away. So, pictures this: spider (girl or guy?) and myself (tennis extraordinaire?) running from each other. However, since this was our first formal meeting, we weren't quite acclimated with each other yet, and we ran in the same direction.

Now the real issue arose. I went to the my bedroom, he (or she!) went..... to an undisclosed location. Where does this leave me? Stuck upstairs. Sitting here typing away on a blog that no one reads, I am dreaming of all the nice cold water in my refrigerator downstairs. Must be nice to not be afraid of spiders. OR, shall I speculate, the idea of spiders?

I need a drink. I will write to you from the other side.

A Brave New Internet

Lately I been contemplating the use of the internet in the field of education. I have been wondering about the power of the internet: is it helpful or hurtful?

As I attempt to have my student collaborate with each other over the internet, I am finding more and more willingness to work with each other; however, not without a price. I notice that the students are more inclined to share their work with each other through the internet, but less likely to share their work in person. I am beginning to realize that the internet is comparable to a "protective shield" for my students. My students are not afraid to critique each other via the internet because they don't see it as real critiquing, and, the more and more I work with activities like this, the more and more I agree with them!

The students like using the internet because their is a invisible, wireless cape: the internet. The kids feel like they are invincible. They can say anything without consequence. Sometimes, I think everybody can be like this. As I surf my various websites, I notice that people can be mighty brave when typing on a computer. I can't help but think about all of the horrific cyber-bullying that has been going on, and see these things in each one of those cases.

Noticing all of this is one thing, changing it is what's truly important. As educators we need to be teaching the importance of the "reality" of the internet. It is easy to feel safe behind a computer screen, in the comfort of your own home; our students need to learn how powerful their words can be.

I NEED WEBSITE HELP!

Yes, this is one of the important moments in the early planning stages of someone or something's life. My classroom website for next year is nearing its completion and quite frankly, I'm not sure if it is good enough! Well, that was a lie. I am not concerned with whether it is "good" or not - I don't make website for a living, I don't expect myself to make an amazing website. I want to make sure that it is simple, educational, and resourceful for my students next year.

If you have not seen the website and would like to help me out, I would absolutely LOVE your feedback. Here is the link: Mr. Stag's English Class.

Now, like I said the main things that I would to provide for my students are simplicity, educational information, and educational resources. So, here is what I am asking you (who ever you happen to be - if you are even real!):

1. Is is simple enough? Does the layout of the NJ Standards, Classroom Info, and Web 2.0 tools lend itself to easy exploration? Or, are there too many link and too many places to get too?
2. Obviously, I plan to update the educational resources as the school year goes on, but as you may have noticed I have three main areas for the students to retrieve educational information: class announcements, popular news, and reading lists. Do you think this is enough? Or, should I add a section solely for the purpose of supplementary information for the various topics that we will study throughout the year?
3. My resources - I chose a few Web 2.0 tools that I thought would help the students in various situations. Sometimes the tools serve to educationally entertain the students if they get done an assignment early, other times they are used as a tool in the strictest sense of the word (Cramberry, Citation Machine), and sometimes they are used to enhance creativity in an innovative way (Wordle.) But, my question to you is this: are these tools too much or not enough? Or, is there any tools that you would add or take off my list?

If you do feel inclined to respond, please respond with specific feedback, so that I am able to take it into account and make some effective changes. Or, feel free to send an email or give me a call!

Snag-Ems!

"Snagit," for those of you that don't know, is an amazing tool by the ingenious people over at TechSmith (<-- NOTE: If you would like to download Snagit, click there!) The tool is similar to Jing - once again, if you don't know what Jing is or how to use, it is an amazing powerful tool that educators can use to manipulate images they find online - in that it allows users to take images from their computers and then edit the images, but it takes the functionalities of Jing MUCH farther.

Snagit is the tool that I used to create my entire American Pop Culture Project: Video Games. It allows you to an image, a portion of an image, or a series of images and add anything from various texts, arrows, shadows, shading effects, and more. As Educators we can use this to highlight important aspects of a picture or to point out to the students how they should view images.

Snagit also serves as a great way for students to CREATE images based on the work of others. I could not begin to count the times that I have trouble with encouraging student creativity. Often times, I hear responses like "I dont know how to draw," "I'm not creative," or "if I do that it will look stupid;" snagit has the potential to eliminate that feeling amongst students! Snagit allows the students to take work and then use a program to add their own, scaffolded artistic twists to the images. Assuming I have more computer access for my students next year, I am going to get them to use snagit. This gig is going to get great! (see what I did there? oh yea, thats the good stuff.)

Tweeting on Twitter???

I have been experimenting with twitter over the past couple of days and I must say that is has been pretty interesting so far. Its so interesting to me because I have almost NO idea what is going on when I am the website. There is a ton of symbols - have notices quite a few RT's and @'s and #'s - which are indecipherable to me. Many people that I have am close with (colleagues and friends alike) absolutely rave about twitter, and to be honest: I want to rave about it too! However, at this point I just do not get it.

Aside from the whole "language of twitter" I also remain confused on what is the purpose of twitter.

What does twitter want from me?!

For Chris-sake this question keeps me up at night! Am I supposed to be sharing my thoughts about random occurrences in my life like some people do? Does twitter want to know my thoughts on the rain, the sun, the sewage goes away on my street, my favorite cracker? Or is it more serious: I often feel like I am supposed to wait until I have some thing incredibly profound to say. Something that will shock the world! However, the problem with that is that these thoughts rarely occur for me. So, what is a boy who is trying to tweet do? Maybe I should tweet about it??????

(Warning: This next part has NOTHING to do with twitter.) Also, I have been impressed with the amount of emails I am receiving from AP students for their summer reading assignments. The large majority of the students seem to love the challenge of a summer reading assignment. So, my fellow teacher brethren, why are we not assigning more summer reading?! Next year??? Whose in?