T3

You may be asking, 'What is T3?'
Is it Terminator 3? Is it a glue or a code of some kind?
The latter is closer to anything. In my classroom T3 stands for Time To Think. I have found that a simple quiet place can go a long way in helping the kids who have issues of all kinds.

My classroom has an adjoining door to the library. This door is my T3 corner. It is a quiet place for a student to calm themselves. It can be used after a melt down or before one starts.
There is a purple carpet for them to sit on and they can lean on the wall or in the corner as they regain composure. Under the table by the door is a box of stuffed animals for the children to use as well. Sometimes the kids are just exhausted and will curl up and go to sleep. Since my class is a "specials" class like art and music it doesn't matter if the kiddo misses one day.

In the hectic world of public education we are often forgetful that children don't come from and Ozzie and Harriet household anymore. Gone are the days where mother and father were in a loving and committed marriage. The largest portion of the children are from broken and/or dysfunctional homes. More and more grandmothers are raising children. These children just need a break sometimes. They just need some T3.

Bulb: an app to publish what you know and learn what you don't.

I started using bulb after I got a free trial from TCEA. It is still in the beta stage so there have been a few bumps along the way. I have to say that I do enjoy it immensely and the response time to questions is lightning quick! Heck, I even got a phone call from one of the developers when I couldn't figure something out. Now that is amazing!!

For me bulb is like my very own repository for all the things my teachers need.  If you are interested in my bulb click HERE to see it. Sign up may be required.

Now I won't lie. It can get a bit convoluted if you are like me and tend to get a bit sidetracked (think Dug from UP) but with a bit of planning you can have a very nice, well laid out set of pages.
I am still working mine out. I started to just have the pages for my teachers at school but found that it might be better to do it on a larger scale. Heck, I might just move some of my crafting stuff there....

I reached out to the folks at bulb to see if they had anything they wanted to add to my humble blog and my new friend Maggie quickly replied with a few basics about bulb.

A lot of people ask us about pricing. Bulb is forever free, but we have bulb Pro accounts which allow you to create groups for private publishing (great for classrooms of all ages), and adds more storage to your account. Our teacher price is $4.95 month, which includes all of their students. 

We also get asked about commenting fairly often. We've gone with a Q&A feature instead to allow the account owner to have total control who posts on their account (questions don't even appear unless the author has approved and responded). This is to encourage learning communities to engage with each other in a positive and appropriate way. 

One of the things that separates us from most portfolio creation tools/sites is that we are also a publishing platform. While it sounds like semantics, it really is quite different. Rather than provide a helpful storage tool (like Google drive) or a website builder (like Google sites) we provide a place for students to publish their work, and start proactively shaping their online persona. One of the most frequent comments we get from teachers is that because their students are publishing their work to the world rather than just to the teacher or storing them somewhere for later, they are putting more time, energy and effort into them. They are learning digital citizenship and the importance of contributing to the world's knowledge.

Pretty awesome if you ask me!

Here is a little additional press on bulb.

Bulb Named Top Education App for 2014

Northern Colorado Business Report

Built in Colorado Keeping an Eye on Bulb

Testing.....bleh

It is that time again. Time for those pesky end of the year state tests. We have been running toward the finish line and everything else has ceased.
I hate it.
I know I am not alone.

At the end of the day we are all exhausted and just want to go home. This feeling encompasses kids, teachers, cafeteria workers and custodians.
The kids have Spring fever and don't want to work on testing.

I have found a little something that is helpful. Please, feel free to share it with others!

In all seriousness the testing season is horrible for everyone. We are all stressed out and it rolls down hill. It starts at the government and ends up on the shoulders of the poor kids.
Let's try to remember that even though we are being pressured that these are just children. Most are not even old enough to tie their shoes and we are already shouting about standardized testing and graduating high school and college.
I believe that this cartoon sums it up...