What I did in School Today: 4/30/13

This time of year, all across Virginia, teachers and students are busy preparing for their Standards of Learning tests.  This is a particular challenge for third graders, who have not had to take these end-of-year state tests before.  To add to the challenge, the tests are online (more of a challenge to teachers than students), and to add to that challenge, many of the questions now are technology enhanced.  This means that they are not simple multiple choice questions, so they need to know more than just click on A, B, C, or D. 

A third grade class came in to take a practice test, and I offered to provide a tutorial on the format of the test, the tools available, and how to use the technology enhanced items.  Call me weird, but it was fun.  They were very interested in hearing and watching me and especially anxious to try it out on their own.  The teacher asked me to demonstrate the science test, but third graders will also be taking a reading test, a math test, and a social studies test.  Ironic that our youngest students take the most tests.

The other highlight of my day was when I figured out how to embed my blog on a web page.  (We use Edline.)  I had to use iFrame and a little bit of script.  Thanks to my colleague June Jones, I was also able to change the template of my blog to make it fit better in the frame.  I'm offering this idea to teachers who would like to keep their web pages up to date by posting their weekly newsletters in a blog that has been embedded on one or more of their class web pages.  This is the proverbial "killing two birds with one stone".