BY BILL FERRIS
Once August hits, it’s time to gird your loins and restock your supplies for the fall. Since you’ll be buying supplies anyway, you can save some bucks and eat some donuts at Office Depot during their Star Teacher Appreciation Week beginning in late July and early August (exact dates vary by location — see when Teacher Appreciation Week happens in your area).
BY BILL FERRIS
This week’s MBTN looks at inspiring TED videos for educators, how to sabotage your resume, saving for college, and free ebooks on personal finance. More after the jump.
I have sincerely enjoyed my time here at Instructify, writing up my very smug and minimalist posts. I’m tired of my vast talents with wordery going unrecognized and I’m leaving. I quit! I’ll see you jerks never!
[Picks up newspaper. Spit take.]
Okay, um, hey, so it looks like the job market out there isn’t quite ready for me. I really need to pay closer attention to current events. About what I said before… I was just caught up in the moment, okay? You’ll need to excuse me; the urge to quit a job with some pizazz is pretty intoxicating.
The Tough Summer Job Market is a great posting by the Free Technology for Teachers blog. With graduation right around the corner, a lot of your soon-to-be-former students will find this information helpful. (more…)
I’m totally over this financial crisis business. People everywhere are homeless and jobless. Also, there are only so many ways to write an article without resorting to the overdone, “In today’s down economy, blah blah blah…” Nevertheless, it’s an issue that affects every one of us, which means that economic and financial education has never been been more important.
To help your students ease into the world of managing their own money, tell them about Mint.com. It’s a free site that helps users create a budget, track bank accounts, watch spending habits, and monitor investments. Mint will offer helpful suggestions on how to get out of debt or buy an affordable car.
Instilling good financial sense into your students now can help them make sound financial decisions in the years ahead. Mint.com can help them do exactly that. -BILL FERRIS
Teach financial responsibility with Saving Our Futures
Get some game in the Stock Market (I immediately feel less cool after saying that)
Need to stretch your supplies budget a little farther? Or should I say, “further”? Lucky for me, I can find the answer by picking up a cheap copy of a language arts textbook at Hoot of Loot, an online classified ads section for educators. Teachers can buy and sell books, blackboards, furniture, and other schoolhouse miscellany. If you’d like to pick up some extra cash by selling supplies you’re no longer using, Hoot of Loot is good for that, too.
Hoot of Loot seems pretty new, as there isn’t a huge selection as of yet. Most of the items for sale are from Tulsa, the company’s home city. That information suggests that Hoot of Loot has added a lot of these resources themselves. New businesses often have great introductory prices, so what you lack in choice you may be able to make up in savings.
Time will tell if Hoot of Loot is a viable alternative to eBay or Craigslist, but if you give a hoot about saving money, it’s at least worth a look. -BILL FERRIS
Welcome to May’s random roundup. This month’s theme: Little Johnny, one-man stand-in for school-aged children the world over. After a year-and-a-half of hard work, we figured this overused cliche deserved a post of his own before he gets back to studying.
Time-savers for teachers
For other notes and resources the students need, consider giving this stuff to them as a whole, at the beginning of a session or semester. That way you only have to keep a master copy for Little Johnny who struggles to keep himself organized.
Learning exercise: Promote healthy living this school year
If you’re concerned about your students’ health, you can do something about it by extolling the virtues of healthy exercise. Ask Little Johnny how his little league team did over the summer. Do you have any joggers or climbers in your midst? Take an interest, and maybe they’ll get more active.
Search Visually, Safely with RedZee
RedZee filters out porn and other inappropriate content, so you don’t need to worry that Little Johnny will “accidentally” stumble across something he shouldn’t be looking at on a school computer.
Swap your Stuff at Zwaggle
But Zwaggle might be a good resource to pass along to parents. If you can make their lives easier by showing them where to find Christmas presents on the cheap, they might make your lives easier by encouraging Little Johnny to buckle down and try a little harder for his nice teacher.
Keep Your Grade Book Online with Engrade
If students (and their parents) can track their grades at any time, it may motivate them to stay on task throughout the class. Come parent-teacher conference time, you won’t have to deal with parents who are angry about Little Johnny’s surprise “D.”
Instructifeature: How to Stimulate Class Discussion Using Discussion Forums
In the classroom, you’re limited by clock. There’s only so much time you can devote to class discussion. Students feel the time crunch even more keenly—they’ve got to compose a thoughtful response in mere seconds. And while thinking on one’s feet is a valuable skill, how much better would Little Johnny’s answer be if he had more time to compose his ideas? Using discussion boards, students have the time they need to think of the best answer they can.
Photo credit: khalid almasoud on Flickr.
As the economy continues to founder, it’s a good time to help students improve their financial literacy. I’d like to think when they grow up they might handle the economy better than we have. America’s Prmoise Alliance has developed curriculum on financial responsibility, Saving Our Futures, where you’ll find lots of materials here to help educate your students on being smart with money. SOF uses simple, practical advice such as don’t buy stuff you cannot afford. It also explains credit, savings, and even gets into public policy.
Saving Our Futures is a companion to the documentary I.O.U.S.A. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to shell out for a DVD, the documentary website has a condensed 30-minute version. It’s pretty frightening, and would be a good introduction to these materials for your students in a scared-straight sort of way.
Lest you think you don’t have time to teach this stuff, may I direct your attention to the epidemic of home foreclosures and lost jobs in America. Making sure students know a thing or two about money may prevent a mess like this from happening again. -BILL FERRIS
This American Life: when banks go bad
Instructifeature: Four views of the recession…and none of them look that great
Marketplace explains the credit crisis as an Antarctic expedition
There are lot of web search options out there, and not a lot of money in school budgets. Given those two tensions, many districts are looking for ways to save money, and find more “free” options. One of the earliest online tools that my district purchased was NetTrekker, a subscription-based web search service that provides reviewed web sites in its search results. Is it worth the money, or is this a cost schools could reasonably cut? Here’s my input from an elementary perspective.
I ran a search on the word “astronomy.” I used the Elementary page from NetTrekkerDI. To compare, I used Google, Yahoo!Kids (a free, kid-friendly site), KidRex (promising a “Safe Search” version of Google), and MelZoo (which gives a screen-shot preview of the page, great for helping kids figure out if the site is for them). I choose them because these are both subjects that I have had problems locating web sources for in the past.
Astronomy is one of the few topics where a Google-based search returns something besides a Wikipedia page as the top result, in this case Astronomy.com was returned for all but NetTrekker and Yahoo!Kids. NetTrekker has two excellent sources, Ology, and KidsAstronomy.com, but have duplicate entries for the sites going to obscure pages. The first search result takes you to a hangman game on Kids Astronomy, but there is no high-level result for the entry page on the site. Ology, another great resource, has multiple entries. Yahoo!Kids had a similar random quality to it.
· Yahoo! Kids : Search Results
· MelZoo - Web results for “astronomy”
· This is a link to bookmarks for the first page of the results returned from my NetTrekker search, the number indicates the order it appeared in the results.
I got much better results from Google-based search engines (Google and MelZoo) when I added the term “children” to “astronomy”. KidRex appeared to already do this.
You don’t always get what you pay for. Much of the elementary content you get for a fee from NetTrekker, you can find elsewhere for free simply by adding the term “children” to your search. There are other bells and whistles on NetTrekker, but some of them (the text to speech function) don’t work well with low-memory computers, such as the ones in my lab. I think the visual previews (from free services like MelZoo) are more useful.
I’ve supported using NetTrekker as one among many tools for students, but even then I noted it’s limitations in not being as up-to-the-minute on all subjects. In addition, kids need to have a broad-based curriculum in using search engines, which includes:
NetTrekker attempts to make most of those lessons unnecessary. This is not a good thing for kids because they will be using Google, or similar tools, outside the classroom. -ALICE MERCER
Search intelligently with SweetSearch
In today’s economy, two things are certain:
If you’re an educator who’d like to find good deals on books, head to your local Borders bookstore March 19 through 25 and get 25% off. Just bring “proof of educator status,” which I assume includes school IDs, lanyards, and lungs full of chalk dust (you may want to check on those last two, however).
Borders seems to do these events a couple times per year, so this is a good promotion to keep track of (FYI, they also have educator discount program you can apply for).
On Friday, March 20 there will be a special reception, too, which means you can probably get some cookies in addition to saving a few bucks. That’s a smart move no matter how the economy’s doing. -BILL FERRIS
In my own geeky world of talk radio programs, This American Life adds a little bit more of a storytelling element than most programming on National Public Radio. To me, anyway, the TAL team’s stories can arguably be considered more accessible than NPR. Now it time for me to sit back and let my inbox fill up with a whole bunch of hate. But I will concede this: NPR’s Planet Money podcast has been on fire lately.
So when Planet Money’s Alex Blumberg and Adam Davidson made this episode for This American Life, it was the best of both worlds. They do an excellent of job explaining the breakdown in banking that has occurred and the problems that banks currently face. The acting sounds a bit hammy sometimes, but I think its also hammy on purpose, as though they’re subtly being a bit derisive towards the bad borrowers and lenders.
The Bad Bank episode is a good starting point for students who have questions about what started this whole recession mess. The best part is that Blumberg and Davidson make it understandable for people like me, who — while incredibly smart — still have difficulty getting past the language barrier of business and finance. -NICK YINGLING
Instructifeature: Four views of the recession…and none of them look that great
Marketplace explains the credit crisis as an Antarctic expedition
Unless you were living under a rock (like Mr. Snail over there), you’ve probably heard about the recent federal stimulus package. You’ve probably also heard that some of that money will be for schools and education. Now that the legislation has passed, and been signed by President Obama, you may wonder, oh reader, what does this mean for me?
This handy dandy link (provided to the writer by Larry Ferlazzo), breaks down the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) estimates of how much money will go to each school district. Hint, the money is only for Title 1 and IDEA (Special Education). Happy spending! -ALICE MERCER
Photo credit: jciv on Flickr.
If there is one thing I learned from my third marriage it is this: always have a prenup. Failing that, I guess the next thing best thing is to just have so much money it doesn’t really matter. Now the question becomes, “How do I get ultra-mega rich?”
Countless late night infomercials each make their own claims about how to reach Scrooge McDuck levels of wealth, and a semi-frequent one is that you should make your money work for you. I mean, that’s a tactic Wall Street wizards use all the time—why can’t you?
The Stock Market Game is a great way for students to practice saving and investing skills, as well as build upon a lot of other subject-matter skills in the process. Some readers out there, like myself, remember doing this game the old fashioned way — our teacher gave us an imaginary cash amount and then our class tracked the investments using newspapers. This process was made even more difficult by the fact that this was the Dark Ages before we had computers, when pterodactyl attacks were all too common.
Now the game is online, allowing students to look at their portfolio, enter transactions, and research stocks and mutual funds. I’d still encourage actual newspapers in the classroom — letting a kid glean just a little insight to those confusing business section pages listing all the small numbers can be pretty empowering.
A quick note: Registration dates vary from state to state. Also, it would seem as though some spring-semester programs have already begun. By clicking through the “Registration” link, you will be able to find your local coordinator who will be able to provide you with more information about getting started. -NICK YINGLING
Photo credit: azrainman on Flickr.
Have rising gas costs put a stop to field trips at your school? More and more schools are cutting back on field trips to save money. Pity, since you can find so many whiz-bang learning opportunities outside the classroom. If your great field trip ideas are at risk, consider applying for a Target field trip grant. The retail giant will gole out 5,000 grants of up to $800 each this school year.
You can apply online anytime before November 1. You only get one submission, though, so make it count. “Visit the zoo. Go backstage at a local theater. Tour a museum,” suggests the website. Of course, if you really want to win one of these, you could propose a trip to your local Target retailer. Or a nearby national park, that would probably work, too. -BILL FERRIS
Free money: Toyota Tapestry Grant for Science Teachers
Schools get hit hard by rising gas prices — not only do teachers and staff have to pay more in gas, but so do parents dropping off their kids. A lot of kids take the bus to school, but it’s not an option for many families.
GoLoco is doing its part to encourage car pooling by making it easier to find folks to share rides with. You can sign up for a free account to find other commuters going your way. Fewer cars on the road will save you pennies, reduce traffic congestion, and do a good turn for the environment.
Your fellow teachers will love the idea of saving a few bucks, but don’t forget to let parents know about GoLoco, too. The more people sign up, the more likely it is to find rides. And the more people in your car pool, the more money you save. -BILL FERRIS
Hit the road this summer with these fuel-saving tips
On a Teacher’s Salary, You’re Allowed to Be a Total Cheapskate: The Simple Dollar
Education Week is holding their Back-to-School Open House. From September 1-7, you can access all the site’s premium content. In their own words, “enjoy full FREE access to absolutely everything!”
Education Week has lots of info on important K-12 issues. Now’s your chance to read up on what’s going on in educational policy without spending a dime. -BILL FERRIS
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