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Goodnight!
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Are YOU Smarter Than A 5th Grader?
Instead of falling in to the widespread Harry Potter madness (I coin it insanity...), I figured that I might write a short late night post to discuss something else. First and foremost, Idon't plan to go within ten feet of the new Harry Potter book. Seriously. I read the first one (was ok..), read the second one (hated it...) and saw the last couple of movies in theatre (meh..). So rather than fall victim to the HP craze, I plan to stay very far away.
On the other hand, I plan to carry HP books as reading material in my classroom. My students enjoy reading them and the fact that the writing is extraordinarily creative keeps my students engaged in the reading. Perhaps its the fact that I can't understand how adults can go so crazy over a book that seems to be meant for....well I will come out and say it......KIDS! Sure adults can read kids books. I mean, if you have a kid, you might read to them before bed time and actually get into the book as much as they do. But C'mon...!! Parties?? And I mean not only parties, but COSTUME parties? However, as I write this, I think back to the days when Star Wars was big (and Star Trek... :) ). Of course I wasn't old enough to be part of the craze, or to vividly recall it, but you can be reminded often enough by popular culture (Simpsons anyone?). A series that was seemingly for the Sci-Fi frenzied teenager engulfed people from ages 12 to 80. Thus, the phrase "Catch the Wave" seems to apply perfectly here in the case of HP - but its a wave that I will surely be ducking... :)
On a separate note, I caught tonight's episode of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? I have to say that I really enjoy that show for a couple of reasons. First, this past year I taught Grade 5 and to see the "class" sitting there brings back memories of your prize students (I'm sure discipline problems are few and far between on this show *snickers*). Second, as I'm reading these questions, I'm thinking to myself that there is no way in hell I could have taught my class this material and not had it go 50 feet over their heads. This isn't to lump everyone in to the same group. I had students who could've excelled at this material. The point is, most of these questions seem a little challenging for your average Grade 5 classroom. I am a Canadian teacher and this is an American game show so perhaps, American teachers challenge their students more than we do. Perhaps American students are growing up to be more intelligent? Perhaps the world is ending...? *grins* I kid....of course this is a debate I won't get into right now because it is much too late and it is a can of worms better left for another day.
If you happen to stumble by this blog, feel free to comment on anything that you read here. I promise to reply! I'm sure it won't catch your eye like The Caffeinated Librarian and her frizzled hair, putting garbage out at 7 am blog (I'm sure we've all done that!), but I enjoy a good discussion about practically anything, or even just reading what you have to say.
So much for poker tonight....bye for now!
On the other hand, I plan to carry HP books as reading material in my classroom. My students enjoy reading them and the fact that the writing is extraordinarily creative keeps my students engaged in the reading. Perhaps its the fact that I can't understand how adults can go so crazy over a book that seems to be meant for....well I will come out and say it......KIDS! Sure adults can read kids books. I mean, if you have a kid, you might read to them before bed time and actually get into the book as much as they do. But C'mon...!! Parties?? And I mean not only parties, but COSTUME parties? However, as I write this, I think back to the days when Star Wars was big (and Star Trek... :) ). Of course I wasn't old enough to be part of the craze, or to vividly recall it, but you can be reminded often enough by popular culture (Simpsons anyone?). A series that was seemingly for the Sci-Fi frenzied teenager engulfed people from ages 12 to 80. Thus, the phrase "Catch the Wave" seems to apply perfectly here in the case of HP - but its a wave that I will surely be ducking... :)
On a separate note, I caught tonight's episode of Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader? I have to say that I really enjoy that show for a couple of reasons. First, this past year I taught Grade 5 and to see the "class" sitting there brings back memories of your prize students (I'm sure discipline problems are few and far between on this show *snickers*). Second, as I'm reading these questions, I'm thinking to myself that there is no way in hell I could have taught my class this material and not had it go 50 feet over their heads. This isn't to lump everyone in to the same group. I had students who could've excelled at this material. The point is, most of these questions seem a little challenging for your average Grade 5 classroom. I am a Canadian teacher and this is an American game show so perhaps, American teachers challenge their students more than we do. Perhaps American students are growing up to be more intelligent? Perhaps the world is ending...? *grins* I kid....of course this is a debate I won't get into right now because it is much too late and it is a can of worms better left for another day.
If you happen to stumble by this blog, feel free to comment on anything that you read here. I promise to reply! I'm sure it won't catch your eye like The Caffeinated Librarian and her frizzled hair, putting garbage out at 7 am blog (I'm sure we've all done that!), but I enjoy a good discussion about practically anything, or even just reading what you have to say.
So much for poker tonight....bye for now!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
My Brilliant Idea (I suppose That Is Open To Debate...)
Well it seems that my inaugural blog posting didn't kick off this blog like I thought it might.....meaning that I got caught up with other projects, forgot about old faithful here and never returned. However, all of this has changed. I'm going to go out on a limb and do a little experiment. As the title of this blog suggests, I want to see if this blog can actually be "the best blog in the world". I want to see if I can generate traffic to this blog and interesting, topical discussions. I might even see if I can't generate a little bit of revenue. Thus, from this day forward (for about the next year or so), I will undertake this experiment.
For this experiment to be successful, we should think about what makes a blog worthy of being bombarded by a neverending stream of faithful bloggers and other internet users. Problogger.net has some interesting articles and tidbits of advice on what makes successful bloggers. Well my goal is to use their tools, network with other bloggers, business people, artists and whoever else might want to be a stakeholder here to make this blog successful. At Christmas time this year, I will evaluate how well my experiment is going. In July of 2008, I will be able to do a final evaluation of my experiment and determine whether to continue on this path of destruction (ok, I exaggerate a little), to alter my blogging techniques or to abandon the blog entirely (okay, the third one I would never do...you see how I exaggerate?).
If you would like to donate to this experiment, you can paypal me at spyyderr69@hotmail.com (eventually I would like to code a donate button for the blog). Depending on the success of the blog, I would like to make a donation to a charity. Hopefully this blog will be uber successful so that I can make a very LARGE donation to a charity (did I just make up a word? Uber?).
Anyhow, thats about it for now. I recommend www.problogger.net to anyone interested in blogging as they have quite a bit of useful information there. Also, if you happen to check out my blog, please add me to your favourites. My long-term goal here is to have the success of this blog lead to a full-time business venture, but I will need your help! Also, if you have any topics you would like to discuss, please don't hesitate to post a comment. I am open to discussing a wide variety of topics. After all, the underlying goal of this blog is to open the lines of global communication and to get people talking about issues and topics that affected us in the past, affect us now or will affect us in the future.
Take care for now!
For this experiment to be successful, we should think about what makes a blog worthy of being bombarded by a neverending stream of faithful bloggers and other internet users. Problogger.net has some interesting articles and tidbits of advice on what makes successful bloggers. Well my goal is to use their tools, network with other bloggers, business people, artists and whoever else might want to be a stakeholder here to make this blog successful. At Christmas time this year, I will evaluate how well my experiment is going. In July of 2008, I will be able to do a final evaluation of my experiment and determine whether to continue on this path of destruction (ok, I exaggerate a little), to alter my blogging techniques or to abandon the blog entirely (okay, the third one I would never do...you see how I exaggerate?).
If you would like to donate to this experiment, you can paypal me at spyyderr69@hotmail.com (eventually I would like to code a donate button for the blog). Depending on the success of the blog, I would like to make a donation to a charity. Hopefully this blog will be uber successful so that I can make a very LARGE donation to a charity (did I just make up a word? Uber?).
Anyhow, thats about it for now. I recommend www.problogger.net to anyone interested in blogging as they have quite a bit of useful information there. Also, if you happen to check out my blog, please add me to your favourites. My long-term goal here is to have the success of this blog lead to a full-time business venture, but I will need your help! Also, if you have any topics you would like to discuss, please don't hesitate to post a comment. I am open to discussing a wide variety of topics. After all, the underlying goal of this blog is to open the lines of global communication and to get people talking about issues and topics that affected us in the past, affect us now or will affect us in the future.
Take care for now!
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