http://smithenglish90708.blogspot.com/2007/10/adam.html

Yes, it's Anne Smith's kids again with their "This I Believe" essays. I wasn't able (yet) to listen to them but I did read a couple of them and I'm very anxious to listen to them. Once again she used Odeo's player to group the audio files into one neat little player.

From her post:
"These students had to not only write their essay for our class publication, but were required to publish it for the world by submitting their essays to NPR as well with parent permission. Like last year, I found their essays to be pretty good, but to hear them read their essay aloud makes an incredible difference. They truly express their voice and passion for a variety of subjects such as t-shirts, friends, community service, and even family vacations. Please take some time to listen and give some constructive criticism to my ninth graders."

I DO hope that you'll give these a listen and take a moment to comment. Without comments this is a nice assignment. WITH comments this becomes a meaningful and motivational assignment. I'm anxious to get home to listen to them - and comment.

I was catching up on my professional development this evening (yes, my blogroll) and I skimmed over a lengthy blog post by Wes Fryer (http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2007/10/29/how-to-create-bully-free-classrooms-and-schools/) who was live-blogging a presentation at a conference somewhere. He must type 200 wpm and be able to parallel process the art of listening and typing. The blog post was HUGE!

But, he repeated some statistics about the effects of bullying in our schools and then mentioned that htey were watching a video that was done to the tune of  "Don't Laugh At Me." I looked on YouTube and there it was. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oO3lbBGJQ Show this to your students and then have them write in their journal about a time when someone said something that hurt their feelings, or a time when they hurt the feelings of anohter person and now regret it.

Can't see the movie? Paste that url into this page: http://www.zamzar.com/url/ and click add. Then choose an output file type and supply your email address. Watch it upload (scroll down a bit) and in a few minutes you'll get an email from zamzar saying that it's done. Click the link and it'll download to your desktop. Can't get to zarzar either? Start looking for a job in another district. :-)

In response to my last post, the owner of this site: http://www.mind-mapping.org/, posted a comment to alert me to this site. It's page after page of mind-mapping tools. If you can't find one here then you're not looking for a mind-mapping tool.