Here are the directions for your final blogging assignment:

• Read the essay “Misspelling” by Charles Kuralt on page 469 of the textbook, and answer the following four questions in the comments section on our blog:

1.  According to the tone of this essay, how do you think Karult feels about misspellings?
2. Does he describe his attitude directly or let the reader infer it?
3. How do you feel about the need to spell English words correctly? 
4. If time remains, take the spelling tests at www.funbrain.com/spell/index.html.  Mindy McAdams has a more challenging test on her web site.  How did you do on the spelling tests?

Video originally hosted on YouTube. See my post on April 27, 2007.Uploading and using video hosted on TeacherTube allows me to share content with students that would otherwise be blocked. This video runs just under 4:00 minutes. The name of the story is “The Order.”

Download: Posted by aepowell at TeacherTube.com.

This has been a successful first year of blogging for our school.

First, I would like to thank the following people for comments and posts about our work:

• James Brush – You were the first outsider to comment on our blog. You also talked about us in your post. Both actions meant a lot to us.
• Vicki Davis – Your comments lifted my spirits about using blogging in the classroom.
• The teacher and students of Blogical Minds. – Your posts about us made us smile (scroll to entries on May 1st and 8th to learn of our involvement with this site).

Your comments and posts buoyed my enthusiasm for blogging and encouraged me to continue engaging my students by making this tool a part of our curriculum.

Hats off to all our students for writing thoughtful comments on this site and on other blogs.

We are showing the world that we can be responsible bloggers.

Finally, I would like to thank Samantha D. for leaving the first comment on this blog. My thanks also go to Kody S. for being the first student to leave a comment about my video posted on YouTube and embedded on our site.

1. Describe the tone of the poem “The Funeral” and explicate the poem using the chart we made. What similarities did you find between this poem and “The Courage That My Mother Had”?
2. Visit Poetry 180 and choose a poem to talk about on tomorrow.

What features do you think the cell phone of the future will have? What tasks would you want that cell phone to be able to perform? 

As part of the Horizon Project, several students have envisioned the future of the cell phone.

 Here is a video by Atif, a student at the ISD school in Bangladesh, who is one of the students involved in this project. I learned of this video from the coolcatteacher blog. What marvelous ideas Atif displays!

Take a look at the presentation I have embedded in this post. I first discovered this incredible slide show, “Do You Know,” on Karl Fisch’s blog. Recently, Mr. Fisch permitted a young man named Jeff Brenman to remix the presentation. Mr. Berman’s new version won Slideshare’s World’s Best Presentation Contest.

Jeff’s version is awesome. Does this give you ideas for your next presentation?

I have also embedded a modified version of Mr. Fisch’s original presentation for the sake of comparison. This modified version was created by Scott McLeod. Mr. McLeod has removed slides that were specific to Mr. Fisch’s school district.
While the presentation was intended for educators, I think it is important for students to view.

Earlier this week, we visited Blogical Minds and tired to guess the subject of this picture. We had fun sharing our answers with the students on their blog. To learn the answer, visit Blogical Minds class blog or visit Mr. Fisher’s class blog.

We just finished writing our paper on “What is a Teenager?” I ran across some interesting web sites that provided definitions. Time magazine’s 2005 article, “Being 13,” takes a look at the differences between teens from earlier generations and comparing them to the current generation.  This August 2005 special report issue focuses on several articles dealing with the lives of new teenagers.  Several Thirteen year olds reflect on being aged thirteen.

Tell us your story. What was it like for you being thirteen?

Here are more links related to Speak

• Laurie Halse Anderson’s blog
• Laurie Halse Anderson’s web site
• Laurie Halse Anderson’s page on MySpace
• Article about Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Life After Death by PowerPoint
I found this amusing video by Don McMillan posted on the U Tech Tips web site. This humorous presentation highlights some of the mistakes many make when using PowerPoint. You will have to view the video from a computer outside of the school environment because the video is hosted on a MySpace web page.
Life After Death by PowerPoint