Living and Learning in Central Oregon

Check out this story about a professor teaching her entire class on YouTube

Can we please get rid of our filter?

Follow this link—> http://www.utechtips.com/?p=523

I came across this post from Jeff Utecht about cyberbullying. He has a link to another blog which has links to discussion questions and videos that can be used in a classroom setting. The one video from Brad Paisley did not play. It is located at YouTube so the filter might have something to do with it. The same problem was true for the others but I did go to TeacherTube and found the other videos there. I thought that this topic would be perfect to pass on to folks at this time of the year. As we review our school and class rules cyberbullying should also be reviewed. While students do not have a district email we are fooling ourselves if we think they do not have a gmail, yahoo, or hotmail account. You can bet that one of the first things they do when they leave school is access their email and IM accounts – that is if they are not already doing it during school hours!

Below is one of the videos that could be used in school and a simple google search of cyberbullying will bring back many hits. I hope this helps. Let me know if you need anymore resources.

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Download Video: Posted by adcouncil at TeacherTube.com.

From South Sister

So we got this crazy notion that it would be a good idea to hike South Sister.  We read a story about it a few weeks back in the Bend Bulletin and decided we needed to do something besides go to Target on Sunday.  It was much harder than I imagined.  It wasn’t until we had started that our friend Amanda told us it was the third tallest mountain in Oregon. 

Our hike began well but about two hours into it I realized what I got myself into.  It would have been really easy to quit when the nice easy-to-follow trail transformed into sliding rock and rubble.  The damn thing was so big I could not imagine getting to the top walking on that stuff.  But I told myself that I would do 100 yards at a time.  When I broke the trek into small bite size portions it became manageable.  That is when I started thinking about perseverance.  Where is this attribute in 21st Century Skills? I know that initiative and self-direction are mentioned but what about perseverance? Do we value people who do not quit? 

There is something to be said for being able to dealing with a situation, overcoming obstacles, getting the job done and then feeling proud about it. Now hiking South Sister wasn’t a major feat.  There were lots of people doing it so getting to the top was not going to put me in the newspaper. I could have quit at any time but I didn’t.  I told myself that I was going to do it.  I was going to make it manageable.  And I was not going to quit.  Because if I did quit I knew I would have to listen to that nagging little voice in my head until I went back and did.  The only think that kept me going was me and my dumb pride.

Where is perseverance in the 21st Century skill set?  Should it be included?  Do we teach our kids this? Maybe Nike is too right afterall - “Just Do It”