The Digital Wave conference is tomorrow and it is one of my favorite days of the school year. I find it exhilarating to learn about new tool and ideas and to be around people who want to learn the same. This year I am presenting at two different sessions. The first one is called "Moodle on Fire" and it consists of a panel of teachers who have figured out how powerful Moodle and online learning can be in the classroom. Even though we may run our classes differently, we want to share our experiences with others so they would be afraid to stretch their teaching style and try a new tool like Moodle. My second presentation is called "Whoa! I didn't know Google could do that!" and I will be showing others some of the neat new things that you can do with Google. Including blogging and making money, advanced searches, creating and using forms, turning forms into graded quizzes. Even though the conference is tomorrow, I am sharing my presentation now so it will be re...

     I'm a celebrity. Yeah, well, not really but now you can learn more about me and what I do in the classroom. Andrew Wheelock was kind enough to interview me for his new iTunes series called " Coffee with a Geek ." Check it out here and subscribe: Coffee with a Geek You can watch the episodes on an iPod an iPad an iPhone or your computer Originally posted on ballinwithballing.blogspot.com

I'm so excited! Here is a link to my presentation: (I apologize about the title. It should read: Dip Your Toes into Online Teaching but the font didn't transfer well to Slide share) Online learning presentation for nyscate from Amy Balling

Do you ever wonder what other teachers in your discipline are talking about? Do you ever wonder what is happening in their districts? How they are conducting their pre-assessments, APPR's, SLO's? Join a list serve and find out.  I have been a member of the BioForum Listserve hosted out of the State of New York College at Oneonta and I have found it very valuable for acquiring new ideas and new perspectives on teaching Biology. Warning...once you join you will receive a LOT more email but soon you will learn to filter out what is useful to you and what is not.  Click here to sign up to join a science listserve           “I'm a great believer that any tool that enhances communication has profound effects in     terms of how people can learn from each other, and how they can achieve the kind of freedoms that they're interested in.” Bill Gates [Founder of Microsoft Co.] This post originally featu...

   Show that you are a certified professional by posting your college degrees in your classroom. above SmartBoard front board I scanned and printed new copies of my actual degrees and hung them on the front wall in the room.  You can buy diploma frames here: (My originals are in my office at home). Every professional I know whether they are a dentist, doctor, accountant, etc. hangs their degrees on the wall...why don't teachers? my Master of Science Education degree I do now. This post originally featured on ballinwithballing.blogspot.com 

https://workflowy.com I don't know about you, but I am a list-maker. I have so many lists and posit notes that I have lists of my lists. A tool I've started using recently is Workflowy.com. It allows you to make lists with sub-lists and cross them off but it stores them in case you ever need to refer back to that list in the future. I have made workflow.com my home page so anytime I turn on my computer my to do list is right there in front of me. This is a screen shot of Workflowy in action: This post originally featured on ballinwithballing.blogspot.com 

Many of you may know that I am a Biology teacher and in today's society it is a very stressful and demanding job. Constantly (even during vacations and weekends) I am working to improve the entire school experience for my students and to streamline the entire grading, learning, and evaluation part of my job. Very soon I will be evaluated as a teacher with the use of Charlotte Danielson's Framework for Teaching (2007).  The framework places an emphasis on four different domains of teaching... http://www.roe13.k12.il.us/Services/KeriKorn/HND12/Trover/FrameworkTeaching.pdf Even if you are a great teacher, most of the stuff you do isn't always visible in a 40 minute observation especially if you are teaching online or using technology in the classroom. In these blog postings I hope to document all of the different techniques and tricks that I use as a teacher and to help give others ideas that can be implemented in their own classrooms.  We are much better te...

Who am I? So I was listening to a random shuffle of songs on my ipod when I thought about putting a personal profile on my online classroom for my students.  I've been told that I need to do it so my students get a sense of who I am and who I was as a student.  I've always avoided it because really how do you describe yourself?  We all like to believe that we are these adults with everything figured out and really how interesting is that?  Then one of my favorite songs (I'll mention it later) came on and I thought about a new spin to it…how would my friends from elementary school describe the type of student I was?  and how would my friends now describe me?  would they be similar?  would they be different?  We all like to believe that we are so advanced as adults and that we are much more dignified and sophisticated than we were at 6yrs old…after all I don't think a 6yr old eats goat cheese or loves a great glass of Merlot. So, I guess I woul...