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Thursday, November 27, 2008

Giving Thanks








Taking time to be with or remember our loved ones is the essence of Thanksgiving. As teachers, we should also be thankful of the plentiful resources available for all levels and disciplines. Some of the free resources and online guides that I've neglected to feature include: Lifehacker - most popular top 10's of 2008 - Persuade people subconsciously, Chris Brogan - social media master gives you 50 ways to take your blog to the next level, send text messages via e-mail, Think Anatomy, Zamar, Gizmodo's post on video formats, NYT article on reaching teens with autism, GTD-free is a personal TODO/action manager inspired by GTD (Getting Things Done) method by David Allen (see David Allen & Co. official site), Pazera - audio extractor, Audicity - free open-source all-purpose audio editor, Gmail Drive Config - mount more than one Gmail account as a remote disk drive Excel Chart Advisor, Busuu , Frengly, and Mango - language learning sites. Given the plethora of free resources and the ease of online tools and social networking sites there really is no excuse for not learning new skills to help you become a Rockstar PE Teacher. To see previously featured resources that can help you and your students just click on the "resources" label in the right-hand column of this blog and you'll find stuff for nutrition, physical activity, disability awareness, and many more topics.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

Reading this short post further supports our hopes for you to become effective and powerful communicators as teachers and leaders. In Nagesh Belludi's blog you can find more tips on how to make an impact in all that you do.
In personal communication, the words of a speaker are just a part of his efforts to communicate.The pitch and tone of his voice, the speed and rhythm of the spoken word and the pauses between his words may express more than what is being communicated by words alone. Further, his gestures, posture, pose and expressions usually convey a variety of subtle signals. These non-verbal elements can present a listener with important clues to the speaker’s thoughts and feelings, thus substantiating or contradicting the speaker’s words.
As a teacher candidate/beginning teacher, you will need to communicate positively and clearly with many people. From your mentor teachers, principals, superintendents, parents, athletic directors, university supervisors, vice-principals, other faculty members, students, players, other coaches....the list goes on and on. Remember that communication not only involves the face-to-face encounters, but written documents, phone conversations, e-mails, faxes, text-messaging, instant messaging, and posts to social networking sites, websites, and blogs.
And here is the rest of it.
[Via Right Attitudes]