Highlights of Blogger Help

The Blogger help page has a lot of information for how to make your entries more interactive and interesting for readers.

Here are a few highlights for you:

• Fight Spam Comments; Turn On Word Verification
• Create a Link
• Spell Check!
• Post Pictures
• Editing a Post
• Writing a Post? Easy as Email...
• Delete Comments

I plan to add more to this later. And I'll let you know when it's updated.

If you have any questions about how to do something with this, post them here in the comments.

How to Keep Your Blog (more) Private

In another entry, I walked you through the steps to create your own blog for our use the rest of this semester. Now that you've created that blog of yours, you might want to be sure that as few people as possible can read it. It's out there on the internet, so everyone has access to it. However, if no one knows it's there, no one will see it. Here are a few things to help your blog go unnoticed:

1. I strongly urge you to click on "Settings," then "Basic," and edit "Add your Blog to our listings?" to read No. That way, the only people who know your URL are in this class or ones that you personally tell.
2. Another tip is to make sure that only those with a Blogger account can comment on your posts. Go to "Settings" and select "Comments." "Who Can Comment?" should read "Only Registered Users."
3. Here's another "Settings" change: go to "Settings" and select "Publishing." Make sure "Notify weblogs.com" reads No.

WW #5: Lack of a Profession

Reading: "Affirmative Action: When campus Republicans play the diversity card" (Harper's Magazine, September 2005)
Pages: 63-71

Harper's Magazine brought together 3 college professors (I'm talking about Harvard Law School, Yale, Florida International, big time schools) and 1 former University President (University of Colorado) in a forum, along with a Harper's senior editor as a moderator, to discuss some hypothetical tenure situations (at colleges, tenure is given based upon a board of peer review and things such as publishing history play as large a role, if not larger, as one's teaching ability). The situations presented are ones in which a liberal bias could easily be perceived and the members of the forum seemed to represent both liberal and concervative biases, so the opinions were a good representation of the political spectrum. Reading this article, however, made me come back to an issue I have with secondary education teachers: we are not professionals. Professionals have standards of conduct that are expected and enforced through peer review, something missing in public education teaching. I read this article and realized how great it would be to be held up for such scrutany by respected peers, how much that would improve my teaching and all teaching, in general.

Since teachers do not have standards and since there is no peer board of review, teachers are faily autonomous and do whatever they want in the classroom, sometimes NOT within reason. I work with other teachers who I do not respect because of a system that does not have expectations of its workers (at least, no expectations that are enforced). And I work with other teachers who do not respect me for the same reason; surely, I do not live up to everyone's expectations of a public school teacher. And so we are left with a system that takes surprisingly little to get into (it's not rocket science to get a teaching credential, folks), has few expectations once into the system, and is darn near impossible to be fired from (this is where tenure comes into the game).

And we wonder why scores are low, though we don't question whether or not the test is valid.

And we wonder why high school graduates are poorly prepared to enter four-year universities, though we never question the tacit expectations such universities have and whether or not those match up with state standards.

And we wonder why or if the public education system is broken, though we never suggest any substantial changes backed by research in order to improve, reorganize, restructure, or rebuild the system, instead looking to politicians to implement cosmetic changes that just make us feel as if something is being done to fix the problem.

WW #4: Overcoming the Impossible

Reading: Like A Hole In The Head
Pages: 3-39

Jill, the main character, works part time in a used bookstore, really just as a way to get some spending money - she doesn't take the job seriously and sees it mostly as a chance to just sit and read all day long (which sounds like a great job to me!). One day, a dwarf walks in and she buys a rare signed Jack London book from him for $25, which she then sells for $300. Shortly thereafter, a big man walks in, sets the dwarfs hair on fire, and demands from Jill that she get the book back. A big problem has settled down in Jill's life and I can't help but think what I would do. I mean, she's sold the book to someone that she doesn't even know that well. She only has a limited amount of time to get the book back before more bad stuff happens (I don't know about you, but I could imagine that someone setting my hair on fire would be terribly painful) and she doesn't have a car nor does she know they buyer of the book that well. So the delima she finds herself in is interesting to me because we all find ourselves in problems that we have no way of solving, yet things all work out in the end. It may be difficult to get through it, but everything works out.

In teaching, I find myself often worrying about the next batch of essays, the next batch of tests, the next batch of homework that I have to read and evaluate. It's very daunting to look at those stacks of work and realize that they represent hours and hours of looking through and measuring them up against standards (so, ironically, I *do* have a job where I'm paid to sit around and read). But I always think that it will get taken care of, this, too, shall pass. I've done it before, I'll do it again, I will be able to get through all of the work I have before me.

And we're all in that same position from time to time, perhaps more often than we'd like. We are all in a spot where we are facing something that looks tremendously difficult, near to impossible, in fact. But we'll do it, we will get it done. And, after we finish that impossible task, there will be another one right around the corner.

WW #3: I'll Pay For It Myself

Reading: Savage Inequalities
Pages: 19-35

"The football field at East St. Louis High is missing almost everything--including goalposts. There are a couple of metal pipes--no crossbar, just the pipes. Bob Shannon, the football coach, who has to use his personal funds to purchase footballs and has had to cut and rake the football field himself, has dreams of having goalposts someday."

Jonathan Kozol does a good job of painting a picture of the schools he visits by letting the facts speak for themselves. Sure, he adds his commentary and lets the reader know exactly what he thinks of the schools, but he also lets the reader reach the inevitable conclusions that the facts present. Here, we see a football field in terrible disrepair. How can the game be played without markers of where the goals are? I guess no one is allowed to kick a field goal while playing on the East St. Louis High football field. I like the way that Kozol expects the reader to draw their own conclusions, even if those conclusions are limited (how can someone read about this football field and reach any other conclusion than that the school is terribly underfunded and "ghetto"?).

In this quote, too, is another idea that gets to me: how many teachers spend their own money and time (and time is, afterall, money) on supplies for their classes? Do workers in the private sector do this? Is this something unique to the way teachers think? I know that I'll spend money on copies if I need them for tomorrow and can't rely on the machines at school to get them done. For instance, I bought 48 4-color Bic pens because I need them in my room to teach a certain writing technique. That cost me somewhere around $70. I would spend that amount to help my teaching and help my students every week if I had to. Now, I'm not suggesting that teachers are the only people who care about their jobs that much. What I'm suggesting is that other workers wouldn't pay that money because they know it would be taken care of (paid for) by the company for which they work. Educators cannot rest secure in that, since education budgets are routinely cut to the bone. I wonder if politicians know that educators are willing to spend their own money and time on their classes. I wonder if politicians cut the budget with full knowledge that the money cut will come out of educators' pockets. I wonder if politicians think that any cut to education budgets won't matter since the cost will be absorbed by educators and likely not affec the students as much.