Joanne Jacobs linked today to a post about the top 15 web searches conducted by children. The results are as follows:

1. Games
2. Dogs
3. Animals
4. Civil War
5. George Washington
6. Holocaust
7. Abraham Lincoln
8. Multiplication
9. Math Games
10. Weather
11. Frogs
12. Fractions
13. Planets
14. Sharks
15. Plants

The results were tracked by Thinkronize, the developers behind netTrekker d.i., which is a safe educational search engine.

One need not be an AERAcrat to realize that a “safe educational search engine” presents only search interests in a relatively closed system.

I’m a bit bothered that dogs have trumped cats yet again - Pia is rightly miffed - but I’ll save that for another day.

What’s most interesting is what the general population searches for regarding “school” terms.

In website consulting/design, one needs a handle on common keywords in one’s niche to craft/maintain a website that aligns, to some degree, with consumer interest. We nerdlings call this Search Engine Optimization. Several sites monitor keyword frequency in internet searches.

Below are the results for “school” from one of the sites I use frequently - keep this in mind when we read over the next few months how important schools and education are to both political candidates and the voters who support them.

The children are our future!

Keyword Suggestion Searches / month
1. high school musical 232,500
2. school 103,800
3. big tits at school 85,500
4. school girl 70,620
5. school girls 58,680
6. high school musical 2 46,890
7. high school graduation 46,170
8. school sex 44,940
9. school uniforms 36,900
10. high school 32,310
11. hentai school 32,280
12. high school girls 29,160
13. high school sex 25,560
14. school girl sex 24,810
15. High school musical 24,270

So, what are you searching for? Unfortunately, the odds dictate that it ain’t fractions or Abe Lincoln.

No, no, not those obnoxious primaries.

Vote for the 2008 Education Blog of the Year. The awards will be given out next week at the ED in ‘08 Blogger Summit in Washington, DC.

The list of nominees is a long one - there are loads of must-read blogs on it. A quick scan should give you no fewer than 10 excellent sites to vote for.

The award isn’t the point. The real value here is exposing us all to plenty of great education blogs that we might not already read.

I’m a bit busy tonight following the local elections in the UK. It looks, at this point, like Boris might squeak out a win over Red Ken.

An American without a vote in the UK can only hope.

If you’re interested in following along as these results come in, check these live-blogs out:

• BBC’s live blog and tally
• Daniel Hannan at The Telegraph
• ConservativeHome’s Live ToryDiary

My Montgomery Ward TV only goes up to channel 41, and all that international stuff is super high, so I’ve got to follow the blogs. I suppose I could listen to internet radio, but Detroit/Philadelphia are playing. Priorities!

I’m also thinking about how to address this Edublogging Etiquette nonsense. It’s such a non-issue to me because none of this is unique to education blogging.

Stephen Downes left a comment that I agree with wholeheartedly - many education bloggers [and I would add especially the ed-tech crowd] need to understand the incredible diversity in the blogosphere. One compliment that I will always extend to the Downeses and Stagers and the rest with whom I frequently disagree is that they aren’t thin-skinned. They don’t take things personally, and it’s a testament to their priority being public education and/or kids.

You know, that thing we’re all supposed to be working for, regardless of how we think it’s best to get there?

The ed-tech crowd’s unyielding commitment to Google Earth Diversity - that is, cooing and fawning over a project just because other participants happen to be 5,000 miles away - isn’t as important as the genuine intellectual diversity they largely avoid.

They also need to leave their professional circles a bit more frequently. Education technology blogging is one of the most weirdly self-congratulatory, borderline-incestuous things I’ve ever seen. The “back-patting,” as Downes put it, is tiresome, cliquish and off-putting.

But the cherry on top is being labeled a brawler! I like that. Education blogging? Oh, no more of that - education brawling! The possibilities, the possibilities!

Other brawlers include Joanne Jacobs and Ken DeRosa.

I do find it a little sad, and a significant hindrance to future public education debate, that normal, reasoned, measured, accurate, substantive discussion is such a rare thing that it warrants public curiosity.

UPDATE: Google has re-evaluated my website and removed the “may harm your computer” notice. I’d read that it takes ~5 days, but they knocked it out in about 12 hours. Thanks!

You know, when my traffic tanked in the last few days, I assumed it was because most of the problems in education had been solved. Ha!

Nope, it was a tiny piece of badware [low-risk, thankfully]. Google picked up on it quickly and started to display a handy bit of advice to Googlers encountering my website:

I dotted in red the two important points. The single red dot points to the warning Google showed potential visitors - and, unsurprisingly, they were deterred from visiting a site that Google told them was potentially harmful. The two red dots indicate AVG’s seal of approval and testify that my security/badware problem is now fixed.

So, here’s what happened, in brief, and why you should care.

WordPress had a well-documented vulnerability about two months ago. Chinese hackers exploited this vulnerability and injected a bit of code in WP sites that forced visitors to auto-download some stuff. If you’re a WP blogger with this vulnerability, take the following steps:

• Read this thread - it explains the threat and how to delete the iframe injection.
• Upgrade to WP 2.5, which has plenty of handy features and closes some security holes.

Once that’s complete, you can request that your site be reviewed by StopBadware.org, a benevolent organization that has partnered with Google to get a handle on badware across the internet. You can also log in to Google’s Webmaster Tools to request a re-review from Google. In a few days [hopefully sooner!] that ‘harmful’ tag on my site will be gone.

This is yet another reminder to keep anti-virus software active on your computer. If you don’t already have a-v software, I recommend AVG - it’s free and does a great job.

You can also scan your machine with a free online virus scanner from TrendMicro. HouseCall is wonderful - it identifies any problems and tells you how to fix them.

I invite everyone to take this opportunity to run a scan and make sure your system is secure. I suppose that reminder is the silver lining in these nasty little hacker tricks.

I’m not an anti-union guy; I can even tell you how “Union Maid” is based on “Red Wing,” give alternate lyrics for each and play it on the banjo. I don’t sing very well, though.

I’ve mentioned in the past some bits that appeared on Edwize, the UFT’s blog. There’s subtle contempt for all the non-educators: parents, businesspeople, researchers, etc.

If you’re not [or haven’t been] in the trenches, you generally don’t count.

It’s an argument that I don’t find compelling, but there are good ways to make it and important points to be discussed. That’s why I wanted to parse the comments of today’s Edwize diarist, a first-year 2nd grade teacher in NYC.

Here’s one of our trench-lieutenants giving us an excellent glimpse into flawed teacher education, poor administration/mentoring, and a bizarrely-inexperienced attitude about it all.

Surviving Parent Teacher Conferences

“My first round of Parent Teacher Conferences in November went fairly smoothly. The parents were kind and supportive, and as a first year teacher, I was secretly surprised by how confident they were in me and my judgement [sic].”

They went smoothly - that is good. We should aim for parent/teacher conferences that go smoothly [even if they sometimes don’t]. Saying parents were kind and supportive *might* be condescending… I can’t tell yet.

But you were shocked that parents, most of whom are good people, want the best for their children and have faith in their school system, gave you the benefit of the doubt. That’s a little disturbing.

I am not confident in your ability to spell “judgment.” [Fine, fine, the teacher may be British.]

“Sure, I had been a little more critical this time around, but I felt I could back up all the number grades I had given with work samples, and all the behavior comments with specific examples. Shows how little I know.”

You *feel* that you have evidence? That’s the neat thing about evidence: it’s there or it’s not. Feelings really don’t factor in, especially when you’re trying to bolster the meaning of data.

What you’ve shown here is how little you know. But you’re a first year teacher, so the situation isn’t as dire as it might be.

“This round of Parent Teacher Conferences felt kind of like being in combat. I had many parents who were disappointed and wanted answers.”

Woah! The nerve of those nosy buggers!

“The conferences I had ranged from the bizarre to the tragic. I had one mother who pulled out her ipod phone and asked if I would mind being on speaker phone with her husband since he couldn’t get out of work. I didn’t feel I could say no.”

Oh, that’s weird. Downright freaky.

First, it’s an iPhone, not an ipod phone. Second, why on earth would you say no? It’s just a conference call. You should be thrilled that they’re making efforts to get both parents in on the discussion.

Is it really that awkward?

I hate to break it to you, newbie… but this is New York State. Any of those parents could’ve recorded your conversation and you’d have never known. That’s legal. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t, but you’re freaking out about a phone in plain view that allows you to speak to both parents at the same time.

“My attempts to explain what was happening with their son were interrupted by him saying “I can’t hear you, please speak INTO the phone.””

Oh, that’s terrible! Does your health insurance cover therapy for PTSD? I hope so.

“Then there was the mother who refused to get her daughter evaluated, despite years of pleading from teachers and the administration. During the course of our 40 minute meeting, she pulled out a copy of what she said was a writing sample she had just pulled out of her daughter’s backpack, with much of it erased and written over. The handwriting didn’t remotely resemble her daughters. When I told her that the handwriting didn’t look like her daughters, she told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. She flatly refused to even consider an evaluation for her daughter who has already been held over and who struggles in all subject areas.”

That is incredibly frustrating - I feel bad for the kid, the parent and the teacher[s]. I’m sorry that any of you have to deal with situations like this. I have no idea why the parent would go to such lengths to *avoid* help for her child, but I’m sure it’s a complex situation. I am with you on this one.

“Then there were the parents who demanded to know how I came up with a two (below grade level standard) for their daughter in spelling.”

This is a reasonable thing, despite your tendentious language. Demanded! Those rapscallions… those parents and their sense of entitlement…

Parents deserve simple, clear answers to questions like this. They’re asking about methodology and evidence - it isn’t hard to satisfy their inquiries. If your conclusion is genuine - and if you know the difference between your [redacted] and your elbow - it’s an easy question that you should want to field.

“The mother wanted to know why I hadn’t given progress reports until now, and the father said it felt like the grades I gave had come out of nowhere and were a complete surprise to them. It was only later that I realized I should have said that the whole point of report card was to give them a progress report.”

That you think report cards that come out every 10 weeks are an effective way to communicate students’ needs to parents worries me.

A lot. A lot a lot.^2

“I was very surprised by how many parents seemed upset about minor behavior comments. I wrote lengthy comments about each student, many of them glowing. The behavior comments I wrote were extremely tame, often nowhere close to describing what their child has been doing in class. But I learned that parents react strongly to even slight criticism of their son or daughter.”

Congrats on writing lengthy comments - too many teachers don’t take advantage of opportunities to communicate. I don’t know why you’re surprised, though… plenty of parents feel responsible for the behavior of their young children. I’d argue that all the good ones feel it. Do you really need to be a parent to see this?

“During the course of the day, I also began to really doubt my own management skills. As a first year teacher, I of course have struggled with management so I realized that it was very likely me and my own management skills that have been the problem.”

You probably should doubt your management skills - few first-year teachers [those few being the stuff of legend] have a handle on not only classroom management/planning, but also managing relationships with parents. Doubting skills breeds realization [in theory] and then you can take necessary steps - going to a mentor or even reading - to get better.

I wouldn’t blame yourself, though. If you went to ed school, they had 4 years with you [assuming you’re waiting on that MA] and failed to teach you about the most seminal professional relationship that you’ll have as a teacher: teacher and parent.

If you pursued alternative certification, you didn’t have 4 years of training, but for whatever reason - likely time constraints and opportunity cost - they didn’t cover it properly.

You should not have entered the job unprepared. The training to which you were subjected failed to equip teachers with all the basic skills they needed to teach effectively.

But even if your training wasn’t adequate, your administration should step in. If your supervisors aren’t helping [or can’t help] find someone who can. You are at a public school in Brooklyn, not an 18th century one-room schoolhouse in the isolated wilderness of Kan-tuck-ee.

You are also an adult who is capable of seeking out resources to solve problems, so maybe you should blame yourself a teeny bit.

“One funny conference with a dad turned into a half-hour conversation about the fate of Gov. Spitzer with only a short mention of his daughter’s progress. I have a feeling his wife may not let him go to conferences alone next time.”

This is your fault. It is your responsibility to keep the conversation on task. You’re the teacher - lead the conference.

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t have some candid [read: “normal human being”] conversations - it’ll lighten the mood and open up parents - but you chose to have a fun, easy conversation instead of talking about the student. That’s bad and I don’t find it all that funny.

“Overall the PTC’s this time around were a huge learning experience.”

You bet!

“I am not sure how or if I will change my approach next year.”

Oh, you’d better. [And yes, the bold/emphasis is mine.]

Especially if you’re going to remain teaching in New York State where I’m paying .00000000000000000001% of your salary and benefits. [Oh, and also if you’re sincerely interested in becoming a good teacher and/or having the slightest bit of self-respect.]

Please “change [your] approach” for the sake of the students and their families. You’re writing on the Edwize blog, for the love of God - something tells me there are competent educators in the UFT Rolodex. Go talk to a good one who can help you develop your relationship with parents.

Then go talk to some parents and people in the private sector. Then try out the strategies. Then evaluate them, rinse and repeat.

One thing I love about organization-blogs is that they can give us such rare perspectives on what those organizations do - and don’t do - well. Thanks, Edwize! jeu de poker en lignetexas holdem frtexas holdem francepoker 770 gratuitesholdem poker onlinejouer au poker argentjouer streap pokerjouez au poker gratuitement,poker gratuitement,le poker a télécharger gratuitementpoker texas gratuitesregles poker holdregle poker omaharegle pokerjeux gratuitstexas holdem jeu gratuitesapprendre texas holdemstrip poker en ligneworld championship pokerstrip poker gratuitesdes règles du pokerregle du poker texas holdemparty pokerpoker en ligne sans argentplay free seven card studjeux de pokerplay free 7 card studtriche poker onlineamerican pokerpoli poquerjuego al instante paginas webjuego de poker pcseven card studrevista pokerjuego streep pokerplay omaha poker onlineholdem poker reglaspoker torneos gratisjuego de poker para descargarpoker para jugarpoker instrucciones de juegoel poquerpoquer 7juego del poker en lineaplay 7 card studpai gow poker webplay poker omaha freejuego al instante portales internetjuegos de poker en españoljugadas pokertexas holdem rulespoker com

Graham Wegner is annoyed that the rest of the world doesn’t share the same opinion about the spelling of “Celsius.”

In truth, Mr. Wignar, there’s only one way to spell it: Celsius. It isn’t “celcius” today and it won’t be tomorrow. That’s because astronomer Anders Celsius was the first to create a temperature scale with 0 as the freezing point for water and 100 as the boiling point. We pay homage by invoking his name for that system. And, as I’m sure we’d all agree, names aren’t a matter of opinion.

The Fahrenheit system is also named after a guy. We capitalize both Fahrenheit [F] and Celsius [C] because they are names.

Gramm spits some snark toward the oppressive masses that make up Wikipedia:

“I pride myself on my spelling ability. So much that I can get indignant when confronted with the accusation that my lifelong memory of a word is actually incorrect. But who can argue when the Wikipedic wisdom of crowds defines the right spelling for me…”

Well, Grehim, I’m not accusing you, I’m just telling you that you’re 110% wrong and that there’s absolutely no basis for your objection. You could’ve read all the way to the third [!] sentence of the Wikipedia entry on “Celsius” and seen this:

“Celsius” is named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701 – 1744), who developed a similar temperature scale two years before his death.

But you didn’t. You made a cartoon and wrote a blog post instead.

Worghner wraps up with this:

“Luckily for me, perhaps I’m merely contributing to the evolution of the English language…”

Haha! Oh, Grimm, you charming little scamp. That quip is almost as predictable and banal as me spelling your name wrong 5 times in this blog post.

What bothers me most about the post isn’t Wegner’s attempt at the lighthearted/humorous - I’m sure most of his readers chuckled. It’s the 7 comments to his blog post that really concern me.

I’ll summarize them:

1. Love the hat!
2. Paragraph citing irrelevant research that has become a pop culture meme
3. Your hat looks like a pith helmet
4. I can’t spell accommodation***
5. Wegner explains that he’s wearing a bucket hat
6. Commenter mentions something about a surname
7. Someone posts the full lyrics to “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”

The usual drivel - nothing remarkable here. Except for Comment #6, that surname bit, which suggests gently that:

“Well, since it’s a guy’s surname, perhaps we should try to get it right.”

Unfortunately for Commenter Karyn [whose blog is a good read, by the way], no one noticed or cared.

Oh, the Read-Write/Web 2.0 at its finest. It’s not what you publish, it’s just that you participate. Gold stars and hugs for all!

The rest - like the last names of seminal scientists or conceptual/historical links between our everyday term and a man 3 centuries gone - are just pesky details that, as Wegner foreshadows, probably will be lost over time. I just won’t call it “evolution.”

*** There’s a trick for spelling accommodate and its sisters. Say to yourself, “Accommodate is a large enough word to accommodate two Cs and two Ms.” You won’t spell it wrong again.

I won’t lie - I’ve waited a long time to be mentioned in the same breath as Mark Cuban and Curt Schilling. And I assume that breath is deep enough to support reading aloud the list of finalists for all 49 categories of the 2007 Weblog Awards.

I’m pleased to have traversed successfully the nomination gauntlet for the 2007 Best Education Blog award. There are 10 of us in total and we range from well-seated edublogosphere behemoths to some smaller guy’n'gals like me. I’m honored to be considered for an award along with such an accomplished, insightful crowd - it’s certainly encouraging.

Voting for Best Education Blog is quick and easy - there’s no registration. From now until polls close on November 8, you can just click this link, the Finalist badge on the right sidebar of my site or the endnote of my RSS feeds to give me a nod.

And remember, you can vote once every 24 hours. I recommend telling your 50,000 closest friends and colleagues about the awards, preferably encouraging them to toss a vote my way.

The winners of the Awards will be announced on November 8th at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas.

So, vote early and vote often - it only takes a few seconds. If you’ve got a blog of your own, I ask you to promote the Awards and ask your readers to vote. The more exposure the education blogosphere can get, the better.

Let the handshaking and baby-kissing begin!

A kind soul has nominated me for the 2007 Weblog Award for Best Education Blog!

You’d better hurry if you’re going to vote on this round of nominees… I believe they move on to selecting finalists within a day or two.

Thankfully, voting takes literally 5 seconds. You don’t even have to sign in - just click here, scroll down and click the little plus (+) sign on the comment about my site.

It appears that there are two… I’d go with the one that has a link to the site. They’ll get the idea.

Give a nod to Joanne Jacobs, The Quick and the Ed and Frumteacher, too - they’re all in the comments. After you vote for me, of course.

I like this process far better than the Blogger’s Choice Awards, which has a terribly broad definition of “education,” forces one to create an account to vote and is skewed toward popularity.

C’mon, kids, vote and show your love!

There’s been some buzz about installing BlogRush on WordPress-hosted blogs.

If you use WordPress standalone on your site [like I do], you can just install the code in the sidebar.php file. If you have a WordPress blog that’s hosted by WordPress [ie., the URL contains “wordpress”], you can’t install widgets - including BlogRush.

Beartwinsmom did the legwork and found the citation in WP’s help/FAQ:

According to the FAQ at WordPress:

“Anything that has a line like this:
script type=”text/javascript” [brackets removed]
or that uses Form or Input tags for instance is not allowed. There are other tags but the effect is the same - they disappear.

There are no exceptions to this.”

If you have a WordPress blog hosted on its own or use Blogger, Typepad or Movable Type, BlogRush has some solid video tutorials to facilitate the install.

Education blogs and loads of traffic tend not to mix - that’s just a reality an education blogger has to deal with. Technorati, blog carnivals and liberal linking bring a few here and there, but unless we throw in the odd post about Lindsey Lohan or Apple’s latest technology release, 10,000 unique visitors a day is a pipe dream.

We’ve got to grab opportunities to generate a tiny bit more traffic whenever we can.

This weekend brought the launch of BlogRush, a free widget designed to share links to your content with blogs in your category [ie., Education]. It’s a simple setup:

• Sign up, choose your category, type in the address for your RSS feed and paste the BlogRush code on your site [~3-5 minutes]. You’re done.
• Every time one of your pages is loaded, you earn one ’syndication credit’ that displays one of your posts on another blog’s widget. If you have 500 pageviews in a day, that means links to your articles will be displayed 500 times on other blogs.
• They’ve got an automatic referral system, so you also receive syndication credits each time your referral’s widget is loaded on his page.

You can see how the widget looks and works - I’ve put it on my left sidebar. BlogRush has been endorsed by Darren Rowse at problogger.net and Yaro Starak, both of whom provide continuously-reliable content and judgment regarding all facets of blogging for hobby and business.

Give it a shot - at the worst, we’ve got a good-looking widget that brings in a few more visitors a day. At the best, we’ll get a lot more of the traffic we deserve.

I’d sign up for BlogRush sooner rather than later. It takes about 5 minutes from start to finish and if it’s half as good as it seems, it’ll be a welcome addition to your site. I’m already getting some new visits.

Consider this a mix of acceptance speech and look back on the last 100,000 words.

Awards these days tend to carry with them all the prestige of being the finest ice hockey player in the whole of Ecuador. Blog awards are often frivolous and public education teems with a propensity to trump up the most mundane accomplishments. An education blogging award? It’s almost as if some higher power is purposely playing tricks on us; as the Fark.com headline might read, “Award given for blogging. Award given for education. Award given for education blogging. Hilarity ensues.”

When it comes to determining the real gravity of recognition, we separate the wheat from the chaff by considering the criteria by which one is selected. The values that underly any type of award, large or small, define its significance.

That’s why I’m proud to have been selected by Secondhand Thoughts. I instantly displayed the award in my sidebar and started this response - simply put, the criteria for this award matter.

Readers of this site know that I do things a bit differently around here. I use my real name, you know where I’m from and you can give me a call at will. I tend to write lengthy treatments and spurn short, easily-digested sentences. I place value on accountability and write a fair amount of articles demanding it.

I decided on these things when I originally planned my site. Getting this nod couldn’t have come at a better time; I hit 100,000 words this week and I’m just finishing analysis of the site, which necessitates re-thinking what I do and how I do it - and whether that any of that will change. Being recognized for a commitment to the ideals that I specified at the start of this project is a deliverance from the doubt that can creep in to that first hard look at one’s progress.

The criteria for this award are eerily similar to the pre-site analysis I wrote up - almost a personal constitution - before I launched and these topics have been on my mind as I re-examine everything. I’d like to share some of those thoughts as they relate to the Edublogger Chalkboard award, and for that I’ll steal the structure of the criteria:

Content. If it isn’t worth reading, there’s no point in writing it. I try to offer unique insight [right or wrong, there’s often a little of both] that I don’t see elsewhere. If I did see it, I wouldn’t have a reason to post.

I decided to stick to education aside from the occasional meme or photo of my cat. I’m also committed to being largely apolitical. Though my formal studies and much of my ‘hobby’ work has been political, this isn’t the place for it.

And I tend not to use vulgarity. I’ll leave that to Amanda Marcotte and others who are ill-equipped to choose the right word and therefore have to rely solely on the bawdy ones.

Interaction. As General George S. Patton said, “Always do everything you ask of those you command.” This site isn’t an army, but the advice fits. If I expect people to take my contributions to the debate seriously - and if I expect them to join in the discussion - I need to immerse myself in their thoughts, too. They’ve taken the time and effort to lay bare their minds; it’s only courteous to make the most of what they’ve published.

I currently subscribe to 249 blogs - that makes it hard to leave as many comments as I’d like, but I try to make the rounds.

Authority. To be honest, if I couldn’t give what could be considered authoritative input on the education topics we discuss, I wouldn’t have this site. I’d engage in something more fun instead or write on a topic on which I was an authority [I’m sure the world could use another definitive bowling blog?]. As I’ve examined my stats from analytics, I can’t help but be appreciative of the sites and writers that have linked to me. Though the number of links, large or small, is hardly an indication of quality, it’s comforting to know that others in the blogosphere are committed to many of the same pressing issues in education that I am.

Longevity. I’ve tried to churn ~25,000 words per month. September - December should average 30k and, barring unforeseen circumstances, this site will continue.

Eric Turner’s Secondhand Thoughts, not only the creator of this award but also a singularly valuable education blog itself, deserves praise. If one needs evidence that Mr. Turner is well on