Kernel panic after upgrading to openSUSE 11.3
If you, too, suffer from a kernel panic after upgrading to openSUSE 11.3 adding
- nohz=off highres=off
to your boot options will let your beloved OS come back to life.
MoodleMoot 2010 Dokumentation
Die MoodleMoot 2010 Dokumentation ist hier online einzusehen.
Falls mich jemand sucht, ich bin dann mal ein paar Stunden lesen.
Was für eine Sammlung!
Sollte jemand noch mehr Ideen oder Unterrichtsmaterialien für so ziemlich alle Fächer suchen, wird er/sie/es hier sicherlich fündig werden.
Wolfgang Autenrieth hat dort mehr als 2010 Links zu Arbeitsblättern, Tipps usw zusammengetragen und nach Fächergruppen sortiert! Vielen Dank für diese Wahnsinnsarbeit!
Training burnout candidates
In the two years that German trainee teachers go through they learn to put the interests of their pupils above everything else. While this is certainly a valid point, I–and many others, too, it seems–think that doing this is like offering yourself to the burnout gods.
Let me explain.
In German teacher-trainings the changed and changing youth is one of the first topics to learn about/cope/deal with in the first month of training. One would expect the trainers to tell the future teachers the important things about basic mental health (and keeping it for the next thirty years).
But, alas, they normally don’t. They show you that children and teenagers have of course changed from the teenagers trainee teachers remember from their youth. At the same time, however, they force you to accept that your pupils’ interests are still paramount to any interests of your own (like being able to teach till your reach the regular pensioning age in good health).
I think this should change and I’m not alone with it. Marie Delaney seems to support me in this. She wrote the book Teaching the Unteachable and right in the first chapter states that being a good teacher (and that includes being a good teacher for pupils that others believe to be unteachable) strongly relates to your feelings as well as emotional and physical state.
Now, can we develop a balanced emotional and physical state while we are neglecting ourselves? I don’t think so!
But this is exactly how our fresh teachers are prepared in the teacher-trainings. They produce burnout candidates and not teachers.
This has to change on both levels. If we as individual teachers are able to keep our emnotinal and physical state in a balance, we will be able to focus our attention on our students’ needs and making them top priority without burning out.
In teacher-trainings the ways to do this should be taught to give trainee teachers the chance to enter the job and flourish in it. Far too many colleagues have entered and withered on the job.
Disclaimer:
Of course I do not think that German teachers aren’t well prepared for their job. They are! At the same time I firmly hold the belief that teacher-trainings do their best to prepare trainee teachers.
However, I strongly believe that a session on finding your balance should be mandatory. In the long run all we educators will benefit from this.
Inspiration for activities
I just stumbled upon this ebook (in PDF format, free of charge) and thought I would share the find.
Kick start your TEFL career: 20 classroom activities for elementary learners offers a wealth of ready to use activities for your English classroom. Nice to have, especially when you have to cover the lessons of an ill colleague.
I’m really lucky …
… not to be a biology teacher. (Or a teacher in the US bible belt for that matter.) I wouldn’t know how to teach those kids without a constant headache.
Go over and watch the video at the above link, I dare you!
Make your own smartboard!
Perhaps you like the software that comes with whiteboards, smartboards or interactive boards which are pretty much en vogue right now.
Perhaps your school does not want to shell out more money to get you one of the boards and accompanying software after they’ve already given you beamers and laptops/classroom PCs.
Well, here is an online solution: Virtual Manipulatives.
The website is terribly easy to use and you can print out your creation once you are ready.
Responsibility for learning
Ed lists 10 ways to encourage students to take responsibility for their learning. Great points but I think I have one more:
11. Moderate, don’t lecture
Seems like a very obvious one, but is actually quite hard to achieve. As a teacher you have to change your role from Mr (or Ms)-Know-It-All to a moderator of learning experiences. This of course needs courage and enormous flexibility on the teachers part. But it will make your classes more interesting as well as more student focussed.
More cold water…
As the school year is coming to an end, it is time to evaluate what time and energy I have spent on my Moodle install.
All in all, I think that testing Moodle in one of my classes was a positive experience for both me and my students. They’ve acquired technological knowledge, had fun while learning English and did more of their homework than before.
All valid reasons to broaden the experiment to further classes next year!
I’m ready to jump into the cold water…
..that is: I’m ready to test Moodle in up to three of my classes. I’ve taken down my personal website and installed Moodle 1.9.x (weekly whatever) on it.
So far I’ve already started a course for the book I’m reading in an English class. Two history courses (on industrialisation and the First World War) will be added shortly. Tomorrow evening, the first bunch of students is going to get their feet wet with creating accounts in Moodle and giving the system a go.
I plan on using one lesson to get them ready with the system and another two hours of first real work in it. This should give them enough time to try out forum and chat as well as the glossary and whatever nice tasks I can think of.
BTW: as a starting point, this book is a nice introduction to Moodle.