Still Hate E-Chalk

If you aren't familiar with it, E-Chalk is a packaged website for educational institutions. It's terribly unfriendly for teachers who are new to web publishing. There's no preview option for many of the functions, no captions for uploaded images, no idea where files go when they are uploaded, or how to edit them once they are uploaded, and it's difficult to visualize what it will look like before hitting the "Add" button. It is both rigid and cumbersome. I've been trying to set up class pages at my new school, and I may give up and simply post a link to my other website. There's no place for a permanent header or introduction, the layout is blocky. It tries to get way too much information on a single page, and I have no idea what happens when I keep adding material - will it create one long unwieldy page, or start chopping material into separate pages, and then how do I determine what gets on the main page?

There will probably be some training at some point on using E-Chalk, but I don't know if it will be worth the effort.

UPDATE (9/1/05)

OK, I'm getting a little more familiar with the user interface and I'm not in love, but it does offer some advantages. For instance, since I have 3 sections I can upload materials to all 3 sections with one stroke as needed or I can customize each section, Since they each have different lab days and of course the class that has labs on Mondays will inevitably fall behind due to holidays and the like, I will need to post individualized calendars for each class. Once It's up and running properly I'll post a link if I can - I'm a little worried about copyright issues with some of the materials I may want to post, so I may have to limit access to my students. More about that anon.

Preparations

I've usually done a lot more work at this point in time to prepare for the beginning of school. But then again, I don't usually have the luxury of teaching the same topic a second time, so I don't need to work as much to get prepared. Nonetheless, I would like to spend the remainder of this week immersed in praparations.

I have decided to follow, roughly, the NYC draft scope and sequence as described here. I find lots of fault with it, but then again I find lots of fault with my own sequence from last year. And I find plenty wrong with the textbook my school uses, the Prentice Hall Biology: NY State Edition. (I already complained about this "NY State Edition" marketing BS here). There is, of course, no perfect way to sequence a biology course. My preference is to start with big ideas or concrete phenomena, then work down to the abstract or microscopic level, but that is often a tme-consuming approach and I've yet to find a textbook written in this manner.

The Prentice Hall, for example starts as many texts do with the abstract scientific method, as if it were some piece of information to be learned, when in fact it is really more of a skill and way of thinking that has to be practiced. Then they move into the atomic/molecular level. Next a jump to Ecology, then back to an extended period of study of the microscopic & abstract world of Cells and then Genetics, followed by a unit on Evolution. I don't quite get the logic. The NYC draft doesn't improve much on that by throwing Human Biology and Reproduction in between Cell Bio and Genetics. But until I can write or patch together my own textbook, I'll have to just fit in with the existing paradigms.

So, here's a link to my rough outline, skeletal and subject to modification.

Slowly Returning

It's been a busy summer so far and I have spent barely a moment yet thinking about next year. I taught a course at City College for the month of July using GLOBE's hydrology protocols to do a little study of the Hudson River. It turned out nicely for the most part, my first experience teaching an entire course to adults, fellow teachers at that. I've done plenty of workshops over the years at various professional development venues, but this was quite an intense amount of work given the compressed summer school format. Luckily I had a very nice, bright, enthusiastic, hard-working, and forgiving group of teachers to work with.

I've also been dealing with some identity theft type of activity. At this point I don't know the extent of the problem, and I'm reluctant to say more about it for now. I have filed a police report and done all the necessary notifications and I hope the scoundrel gets caught. A warning for teachers, though, to be extra careful around school (with all the time sheets you have to fill out for extra work you do) with both your address/contact information and your SSN. I don't actually think my problem is related to school, but the experience has made me think hard about how easy it would be...

Lastly, with my transitioning to a new school in September I'm looking at about 45 minutes of commuting (door-to-door) each way and I decided I don't want to waste that time just staring at the advertisements on the subway car and day-dreaming. So I bought an mp3 player. And just to show what a geek I am, at this point it's loaded entirely with Science Friday podcasts. I might eventually add some music, but I would rarely listen to it except perhaps while running on the treadmill.

I expect to be doing a lot of planning over the next couple of weeks and will post my progress as it goes.