Classroom Toolkit Newsletter

End of School Year 2007-08 Celebration: Change of Focus

School Year 2007-08 is closing, some localities have already finished the year.

Miami: Now a Majority Spanish-Speaking City

It's official. Miami is a majority Spanish-speaking city.

And, this does not mean that like San Antonio, Los Angeles or Tucson that the majority population is of Hispanic origin. This means that the majority of the city's population speaks Spanish.

Want to Keep your Job? Apply Business Rules and become "Fire-Proof"

Perhaps you like your teaching job and you would like to keep it. Even in times of political uncertainty, budget chopping and test-driven neurosis; teaching is the greatest profession on Earth.

Newbie Teacher Bailout: Stopping the School District Talent Leak

As school winds down, many teachers contemplate…consider, anguish about, worry over…changing jobs or "jumping ship" from the teaching profession.

Want to Upgrade your Technology Teaching Skills?: Don't Try this Summer Conference Trip

If after bludgeoning gasoline prices, you have any disposable income, you might try out-of-town travel to educational summer conferences.

Kerpoof Scholastics: Online Art for the Storyteller in You (and your Students)

Kerpoof Scholastics™ sounds like a dream…

Using Online Technologies to Create "Sparks" in Learning

Technology has become more reliable and ubiquitous. So have teacher laptops and classroom LCD projectors for their personal use.

Getting Classroom or Campus Grants: It's a lot Easier than you Think, If you "Think Like a Grant Benefactor"

Grant writing and grant-getting (garnering grants) carries a mystique that prevents many "ordinary" teachers from going after the money.

Embracing eLearning: Why your Career Depends on Online Skill Improvement

Teachers are often ambivalent to eLearning.

Why? One answer: Because bureaucrats often beat the "rhetoric drum" about how computer and online course material that will, one day, replace teachers.

Moodle! Why this Open Source, Course Management System "Can't / Won't / Will Never" Catch On in K-12 Education

Open Source advocates like to promote the Course Management System (CMS), Moodle!, as the antidote for Blackboard™ and WebCT™. These commercial products are "high-priced" and funding for them seems out of reach in a time when school funds are evaporating.