Lesson One -I’m So Done With Politics

The old folks have spoken…

This past Tuesday marked the date of the Primary Election around our nation…which can only mean one thing, the bombardment of political commercials every time that i watch local television. Here in Arkansas we have been in an intense spitting context between Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter for the Democratic nomination. For months now the two have been using their “cleaver” persuasive tactics to convince me to vote for one and not the other…see commercials above. I have watched with great distain as the two have gone back and forth in an effort to see who could punk who the best…and after Tuesday when it was all said and done, a run-off is required to settle it…YES! So not only have these two haunted me for the past few months, but now I have to listen to these pointless commercials until the run-off is complete?

So who did I vote for? Well their “cleaver” persuasive tactics have brought me to the conclusion that I don’t want to vote for either of them…Lesson learned, mud slinging doesn’t equate to a good campaign…and it is very unflattering .

Lesson Two – Cyber Spying

A hot topic of discussion in our classes this week has been the recent laptop controversy in Philadelphia. Parents of one student are suing their child’s school district claiming that the school district was using webcams to spy of students while they were at home. To counter these claims the district says that the webcams were installed to prevent students from stealing the laptops and that they would never use such tactics for disciplinary reasons. Now the issue at hand here is far too complex to be address in any blog post that I may write…I invite you to research the topic for yourself (there are plenty of resources!) and allow yourself to draw your own opinions and feel free to leave a comment expressing your opinions of this issue.

Lesson Three – Making Headlines

This week our class has received some recognition for our work in the classroom and on our class blog. The picture above is from a except that I received from Mrs. Whitlock of Fayetteville. Mrs. Whitlock is “newsletter liaison” of the Woodland PTO (Parent Teacher Organization). She received word of our recent fundraiser and really wanted to include it in the monthly PTO letter at our school. I was very happy when she contacted me and wanted to include our fundraiser in the letter…the amount of students that I have (that participated) is roughly 100. While this is a good sized group our school houses about 800ish students, so needless to say there are many teachers and students in the building that are not aware of our fundraising efforts. The fact that parents and teachers alike have really shown interest in the work that we have been doing really makes me happy and proud of all the things that we do here in class.While receiving recognition by our local PTO would have simply been enough this week, we also received recognition from an organization that is based out of Santa Monica, CA. I was contacted last night by a lady named Jessica Rothchuch who works for The Children’s Partnership. She was contacting me to inform me that she wanted to include our classblog in their publication to highlight different ways that teachers use technology to engage with parents. It’s not very often that you receive an e-mail/phone call from someone that is interested in sharing the your work with their audience, which would explain the reason I was so gitty when I received her phone call last night. Once she finishes the piece I’m hoping that she will share it with me so that I can share it with my readers…in the meantime, have a great weekend everyone.

Mr. McClung