EPortfolio

Check out my eportfolio, it is a work in progress...

Works Cited

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Easy Bib

Citation Machine

Can Education move forward with less money?

New York State is cutting a tremendous amount of money from the funding for public schools. As educators we are expected to be teaching new technology and new trends in education. Is this possible to do with much less money?
So many districts are cutting teachers and programs, how can they keep their technology current if they can't afford to keep their faculty and staff?
What is in the future for our children?

NY State and Education

The past 2 weeks have been the most stressful work environment that I have ever worked in. Last Friday 54 people in my district were laid off. The worst part is that its still not over, there are more to come. No one knows if they are next to be laid off and the anticipation is just growing. This is not just my district, it is happening all over. The governor cut state aid and public schools are falling apart at the seams.
I feel like I am getting hit by a double whammy because I have a child entering kindergarten next September. The state ratio for her preschool class is 7 kids to 1 teacher. Next year she will have 26 kids and 1 teacher in kindergarten. Not to mention they have cut sports, clubs, art, and music so far... What kind of education can I expect for her? I am so afraid for her future.
I am afraid for my future and ability to provide for my family. I am expecting a baby in May. To think that I am 7 month pregnant, may be laid off, and my daughter's education is being ripped out from under her before she even has a chance to begin is disgusting to me.
How can we let this happen?

Children's enthusiasm

Isn't it amazing how eager children start out? This is a picture of my 4 year old daughter, she is in preschool. We bought her a new desk and she is pretending to do homework here.

What changes? I constantly wonder what I can do to nurture this enthusiasm. Why do children lose their passion for learning?

Books we will read this year

Budget Cuts

So now this year the buzz about the budge has begun early. Teachers are constantly talking about the "what ifs". It's so scary as a teacher and also as a parent to think of how little control we actually have about what is going to be available to our children.
As a parent of a 5 year old going into kindergarten in September, I'm in a district talking about cutting music and art. My thoughts are: What is kindergarten without music and art? How do you take away all creative outlets for these young children?
I hope this is not the case, but I do find it unnerving that every year we have to go through this worrying for 3 months before we know how next year may or may not be affected. If I were in charge, taking money away from education should not be an option.

Technology in School

Upon working on my class assignments during my lunch break I came to the realization that we are not allowed to access blogs from the school computers. We also cannot access UTube and Facebook, both which have been an issue in the past.

There are many educational videos on UTube, why wouldn't teachers (at least) be able to access it? Facebook, I understand can be dangerous for students to have full access to during the school day. It can cause major distractions and disturbances, but it can also be used educationally. There was a teacher last year who wanted the students to create facebook profiles for historical figures and could not do the project.

Is there a balance somewhere? How do we control these sites that can contribute to the educational success of our students without allowing the sites to hinder them?

Google Accounts and Passwords

Not sure why google has decided that all google accounts by one person must have the same password. I tried to use a different e-mail address to separate them and it still managaed to link everything. What if you want to keep separate accounts for work and personal use?
I see how it can be nice and organized, but should there be no option at all for seperation?
I'm frustrated!

Welcome

Welcome to my blog. I hope I can find something interesting for you each week to read about.