Ten Tips for Writing a Blog

These tips taken from Mr. McClung's post at this link. I found this very useful for a variety of reasons. Mr. McClung is doing this as a class project. I will use this for my own students who are blogging, but also personally and at school.

1. Make your opinion known
People like blogs, they like blogs because they are written by people and not corporations. People want to know what people think, crazy as it sounds they want to know what you think. Tell them exactly what you think using the least amount of words possible.

2. Link like crazy.
Support your post with links to other web pages that are contextual to your post.

3. Write Less
Give the maximum amount of information with the least amount of words. Time is finite and people are infinitely busy. Blast your knowledge into the reader at the speed of sound.

4. 250 is enough
A long post is easier to forget and harder to get into. A short post is the opposite.

5. Make Headlines snappy
Contain your whole argument in your headline. Check out National newspapers to see how they do it.

6. Include bullet point lists
We all love lists, it structures the info in an easily digestible format.

7. Make your posts easy to scan
Every few paragraphs insert a sub heading. Make sentences and headlines short and to the point.

8. Be consistent with your style
People like to know what to expect, once you have settled on a style for your audience stick to it.

9. Litter the post with Keywords.
Think about what keywords people would use to search for your post and include them in the body text and headers. make sure the keyword placement is natural and does not seem out of place.

10. Edit your post
Good writing is in the editing. Before you hit the submit button, re-read your post and cut out the stuff that you don’t need.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com

"Education Week"

Occasionally I will read something in "Education Week" that strikes a harmonic cord with me philosophically. This week (August 26, 2009) Daniel Wolff made some comments and included some quotes that quickened the spirit of education for me in his article "The President's Laugh Line." While addressing the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce the President suggested that we "rethink the school day to incorporate more time." Wolff goes on to quote or summarize comments by Franklin, Lincoln, Ford, and Kennedy to redirect the conversation from "longer school days" to "better use of schools." Wolff writes:

Ben Franklin, writing as Poor Richard, declared: 'A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.' His Autobiography basically argued that he had become a great American, scientist, and political thinker by spending less time in school, not more.

Abraham Lincoln read Franklin, and when he ran for office made sure to portray himself as a largely uneducated backwoodsman. Henry Ford believed too much schooling could ruin a mind. And John F. Kennedy, for all his presidential rhetoric about the importance of education, thought his time in prep schools and then Harvard mostly silly: The socializing was fun, the learning of little to no consequence."

Wolff then comments what would be lost if our students were forced to spend longer days in school: time with parents working two jobs, responsibility and money from after school jobs, time spent supervising siblings, relaxation, time to do homework. I could add many things more that would be lost with a longer school day. I would suggest reducing the things we try to cram into a school day before we make the school day longer. But, that was not the point of this article.

Wolff ends with suggesting a more flexible, alternative solution. A school building, he says, is a major community resource with computers, cafeterias, libraries and sport facilities. "Why not institute a program that transforms our public schools into community centers?" They could be a place for students to do their evening research and homework. I would ask, why are school libraries and school computer labs shut down after school? Why aren't night classes added to assist students who need more help. I say we should reduce the socialistic load placed on schools during the day, restore the vision of education and, instead of lengthening the school day, simply extend the hours the school is opened and equip with man power to teach and assist in the learning process. Men like Franklin, Ford, Lincoln and Kennedy realized that school does not have a monopoly on education. If schools continue to think they have a monopoly on education and that they control the educational process they will continue to deteriorate as an educational institution.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com

Check out this site which contains all the "Educational Favorite" websites:
http://edu.allmyfaves.com/

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com

What We Needed To Know in 1902

The 1902 "Busy Man's Friend"

In 1902 J. L. Nichols & Co. published a book by Professor J. L. Nichols called The Busy Man's Friend or Guide to Success by Facts and Figures. Originally written in 1896, this book begins with a quote from Gibbon, the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

Every person has two educations, one which he receives from others, and one more important which he gives to himself.

This book fills 250 pages with the best advice, guidelines, formulas and information needed to be successful and efficient in 1902. The book includes information concerning receipts, notes, bills, banks, power of attorney, law, legal forms, corporations, counterfeit money, swindling schemes, facts from the census of 1900 and computations. Below is some of the material from the section on computations that were used in the day. Remember vocational education would not be added to the public schools with federal support until the Smith-Hughes Act of 1917.

On page 223 we find "A Complete Set of Carpenter's Rules" including information on how to use a carpenter's square. I learned how to use a carpenter's square from an old carpenter many years ago when he taught me how to figure the length of rafters and layout a set of stair stringers. This section also includes the following information and more:

• How to find the number of shingles for a roof
• How to find the number of laths for a room (laths were nailed to the studs and covered with plaster before sheet rock was developed)
• How to find the area of a gable
• How to find the number of feet of stock boards to cover a house or barn

Other useful information provided for a man in 1902 included:

How to find the size of a barrel.

How to find the number of common bricks in a wall.

How to calculate the weight of coal in a box.

How to find the distance traveled in ploughing.

How to figure the capacity of a wagon box.

How to measure ear corn in a crib.

How to measure hay in the mow or stack.

How to figure the advantage of an evener on a neck yoke for horses or oxen.

This book also explains how to secure a signature from a person who cannot write:

In the section of this book that addresses mortgages the author entitles the section: The Mortgage Grip Crushing the American People. The book then states the following facts to prove that "if the farmer does not lift his mortgage, it will lift him":

In 1890 there were 4,777,698 mortgages in force in the United States,
amounting to $6,019,679,985. The annual interest charged on these is
$397,442,792.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) "Called Inappropriate"

The March 4, 2009 Education Week has an article entitled PISA Called Inappropriate for U.S. Benchmarking. PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) is described as "flawed" and may not be "appropriate for judging American schools."

The website for Program for Internation Students Assessment provides the following overview of what PISA actually is:

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a system of international assessments that focus on 15-year-olds' capabilities in reading literacy, mathematics literacy, and science literacy. PISA also includes measures of general or cross-curricular competencies such as learning strategies. PISA emphasizes functional skills that students have acquired as they near the end of mandatory schooling. PISA is organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), an intergovernmental organization of industrialized countries. Begun in 2000, PISA is administered every 3 years. Each administration includes assessments of all three subjects, but assesses one of the subjects in depth. The most recent administration was in 2006 and focused on science literacy. Results are now available.

PISA 2009 data collection will take place from September to November 2009 and will focus on reading literacy. The PISA 2009 National Report will be released in December 2010. The national contractors for PISA 2009 are Windwalker Corporation, Westat Inc. and Pearson.

In the March 4, 2009 article in Education Week concern for PISA testing and evaluation ability are presented because "questions asked on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys of students' beliefs and attitudes about science reflect an ideological bias, which undermines the test's credibility." I find this interesting that a education system that has repeated suppressed certain ideologies in the spirit of freedom while promoting other ideologies in the name of education is actually offended by the same thing when it is done on an international level. This article leads me to believe there may be a strand of integrity and a hope for an honest pursuit of fairness yet within our system.

One of the examples used in this article to prove PISA political or ideological slant is that the student survey portion of the test "asks test-takers if they agree with certain statements, such as 'having laws that protect the habitats of endangered species.' " This is not a test of knowledge but a test of the students ideological or political views. No facts or statistics are provided in the question. It is just a simple statement concerning the student's position on an issue. It may be appropriate on the government section of the test (which does not exist) but it is certainly NOT a science question.

Maybe America is getting a glimpse of the way other countries test their students and use the educational system to brainwash and control their citizens. Controlling a countries population through education is not a new thing, in fact, historically, whenever a government has engaged in educating their subjects there is a natural tendency to advance the government's agenda. Fortunately in America we have a two party system (with a third party always ready to emerge) to keep a checks-and-balance on the government's propaganda machine. At least Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution in Washington and Sean Cavanagh of Education Week have took note of this trend in PISA.

Other issues mentioned in the article:

• "OECD takes policy positions that it should not be doing if it collects and interprets score data."
• PISA emphasizes student ability to apply knowledge outside of school but does not measure where students gained the knowledge which means it it difficult to evaluate schools with this information.
• "the questions are vague, making it difficult for the scientifically literate to know how to answer."
  

See the 2008 Brown Center Report on American Education concerning how well American students are learning.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com

When Should We Stop?

More about the information on this site later:
http://www.jamievollmer.com/burden.html

Is this random? Is it caused by an underlying philosophy? Is it the result of some unidentified plan? Is it necessary? Is it a good thing?

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com

Small Towns Win Big

Friday night the IKM-Manning basketball team won the Iowa girls' state basketball championship for 2A. I find this note worthy since this is the first year for this school in its whole grade sharing program between the four towns of Irwin, Kirkman, Manilla and Manning. I coached the girls high school softball team in Manilla in 1980. Two of the teams on our schedule that year were Irwin-Kirkman and Manning. This year all four towns combined into one school. This should serve as a sign and a word of encouragement to small schools to take steps to make their schools more competitive both academically and in the area of activities.

The girls basketball team was not the only team to find success this year. Both the volleyball team and football teams this fall made a run for state championships. After Friday night's win in the girls' state finals this new school's sports record stands at a combined record of 98-6 since it began this last fall. The only two losses IKM-Manning's 2A girls' basketball team had this year were to Ballard, the 3A state champion (a one point loss), and Sioux City North, the 4A state champion. Simply put this is very impressive.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

By the Numbers

Check out the National Center for Education Statistics at http://nces.ed.gov/

What does this mean?

850,000 students ages 5-17 homeschooled in 1999
1,500,000 students ages 5-17 homeschooled in 2007
(see report here. Get pdf here.)

Parents tell why they homeschool at:
http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschool/parentsreasons.asp

Other numbers (below information found here):

• Public school systems will employ about 3.3 million teachers in 2008-09, resulting in a pupil/teacher ratio of 15.3, which is lower than in 2000, when the ratio was 16.0. An additional 0.5 million teachers will be working in private schools this year, where the pupil/teacher ratio is estimated at 13.0.
• There are about 14,200 public school districts containing about 97,000 public schools, including about 4,000 charter schools. There were about 35,000 private schools offering kindergarten or higher grades.
• Current expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools will be about $519 billion for the 2008-09 school year. The national average current expenditure per student is around $10,418, up from $9,154 in 2005-06.
• During the 2008-09 school year, 714,000 associate's degrees; 1,585,000 bachelor's degrees; 647,000 master's degrees; 91,000 first-professional degrees; and 55,800 doctor's degrees are expected to be awarded.

Select a letter to do a popular key word search on the US Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics website:

A B C D E F G H I K L M N P R S T V W

Access 3,390 tables and figures for K-12 HERE.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com