1. 1999 – How To Win Friends And Influence People (buy on Amazon)
   Back when I was in college, I didn’t know much about social interactions at all. I was horrible with remembering names, I didn’t really make much eye contact, and I just sort of needed this book to really open my eyes to the incredible power that I had to really impact the lives of other people.I remember some of the people I knew in school laughing at the fact that I was reading a book about making friends. Since I occupied leadership positions through high school and college, most people just assumed I knew something about how to establish relationships. I didn’t. This book helped me get started in the right direction more than anything else I had ever done. It was also my first real experience with reading outside of a formal or even informal educational setting.
2. 2000 – The Bible (buy on Amazon)
   I grew up attending church, but never really had much of an understanding of what exactly the point was, besides because my parents made me go. In the fall of 1999, I began to realize the need to get back involved in church and in the spring of 2000 I made the decision to go to church every week. Over the course of that spring, there were some challenges I went through, but around March, my eyes finally opened to the truth of the gospel:

   Jesus lived a sinless life, took upon Himself my sin, paid the penalty for my sin (death), thereby atoning for my sin. He conquered death, rose again, and ascended to heaven, thereby clearing the way for me to spend eternity in heaven with Him.

   When that became clear to me, I wanted nothing more than to read everything I could in the Bible. I remember there were times that I’d have 10 minutes between classes, and I would go sit outside and read a few more verses in the Bible, just soaking it all in. It was an amazing time in my life!

3. 2001 – Mere Christianity (buy on Amazon)
   After
4. 2001 – Tortured for Christ (free from Voice of the Martyrs)
   I remember reading Tortured for Christ while I was student teaching and just being blown away by the things that the author Richard Wurmbrand went through in prison. Up to this point, my only real understanding of Christianity was what I had seen in the American church. I was shocked by his accounts of torture and mistreatment that he underwent at the hands of the communist government in the Soviet Union.Around this time, I also read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (buy on Amazon) and read of the horrible treatment of Christians throughout history. The amazing thing is to read of the reactions of these martyrs despite the atrocities inflicted upon them.
5. 2004 – Spiritual Leadership (buy on Amazon)
   As I came to the understanding that my role as a teacher was one of remarkable leadership, I was struck by the weight of that realization. My pastor recommended J. Oswald Sanders’ book Spiritual Leadership and through a series of succinct chapters, he digs deep into the heart of what it means as a Christian to be a leader in the world.
6. 2006 – The Total Money Makeover (buy on Amazon)
   One afternoon in the spring of 2006, I came home to discover that my power had been shut off. I was usually pretty good about paying bills, but because of my work schedule and my habit of living on the edge financially, I had overlooked one late notice too many. At that point, I made up my mind that I would no longer live that way.After some research online, I kept coming across this Dave Ramsey guy. I had heard Dave Ramsey on the radio a few times before, but never read his book. I immediately subscribed to his podcast and picked The Total Money Makeover up the next time I was at Barnes & Noble. I read it in a matter of a few days and began implementing his Baby Steps as quickly as possible. Since then, I have yet to have another incident with the power being shut off or not being able to buy something because my credit card is declined. The feeling of power is a great thing!
7. 2006 – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (buy on Amazon)
   After listening to Dave Ramsey for a while, I realized it was time for me to jump in deeper into the personal development books and the one that kept seeming to pop up more than most any others was 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. So I bought a used copy (Dave’s impact on my life) and began reading. It was pretty meaty and difficult to get through at times, but I plowed through the book in the summer of 2006 and it profoundly changed the way I approached many things.
8. 2007 – Revolution In World Missions (free from Gospel For Asia)
   While this book is available for purchase from Amazon, it also available for free directly from the publisher, so I’m once again not including an Amazon link to this book. The basic premise is that Americans are blessed financially beyond most of the world’s comprehension. So much of that money gets wasted when we send people overseas as missionaries and could be far better spent by simply sending the money overseas and letting native people minister to the natives of their nation. As a result of reading this book, I began contributing to help support three missionaries in India. These men live on $90 a month. Can you imagine anyone from the western world trying to live anywhere for an entire month on less than $100?
9. 2008 – The Pursuit of Holiness (buy on Amazon)
   The Pursuit of Holiness is one of the many gift books that I have received over the years. I got it, placed it in a bookshelf, and almost completely forgot about it. Then one afternoon I was looking for a new book to read and picked it up. What a monumental book! Jerry Bridges says some things in here that fundamentally challenged what I had accepted as true up to that point. To say that I underwent a slight change in regards to my view of the holiness of God as a result of reading this book would be a vast understatement.
10. 2009 – Blink (buy on Amazon)
    I bought Blink one week ago and finished it yesterday. Blink is about the immediate feeling we have about seeing someone or something. It is about the power of making snap decisions based on understanding rather than waiting to make decisions based on knowledge. I found no less than five things in the book that will directly impact the way I teach from now on.

So have you read any of these books? What are your thoughts? What other books would you recommend for me or other readers?


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I’m hosting the next EduCarnival at my blog (http://imadreamerteacher.blogspot.com/), and there aren’t a ton of submissions.  Since you have a widely read blog, I was wondering if you could post a short thing about how people could still submit today?  It’s too late to do it through the form, but they could email me links directly at imadreamerteacher@gmail.com.

EDIT: It’s now too late to submit…but check out the EduCarnival V2 Issue 11 anyway.


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The Baby Steps Intro

Budgeting

Baby Steps

Debt Snowball

The Emergency Fund

Retirement Investment

College Savings

Pay Off Mortgage

Be A Giver

Build Wealth

Live Like No One Else

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I began reading it this afternoon and came across the following paragraph on pages 12-13:

Whenever we meet someone for the first time, whenever we interview someone for a job, whenever we react to a new idea, whenever we’re faced with making a decision quickly and under stress, we use that second part of our brain [the adaptive unconscious]. How long, for example, did it take you, when you were in college, to decide how good a teacher your professor was? A class? Two classes? A semester? The psychologist Nalini Ambady once gave students three ten-second videotapes of a teacher — with the sound turned off — and found they had no difficulty at all coming up with a rating of the teacher’s effectiveness. Then Ambady cut the clips back to five seconds, and the ratings were the same. They were remarkably consistent even when she showed the students just two seconds of videotape. Then Ambady compared those snap judgments of teacher effectiveness with evaluations of those same professors made by their students after a full semester of classes, and she found that they were also essentially the same. A person watching a silent two-second video clip of a teacher he or she has never met will reach conclusions about how good that teacher is that are very similar to those of a student who has sat in the teacher’s class for an entire semester. That’s the power of our adaptive unconscious.

Now while the focus of the book is more on the power of intuitive gut-based decision-making, the takeaway for educators is pretty amazing.

It follows pretty much the same logic as a comment I recently saw on The Yellow Board where one younger band director was complaining about his classes this year that are out of control. The response one reader gave was basically to begin class looking to send 5 kids to the office. The poster added that whenever he did that, he did not have any trouble with the class whatsoever.

I think I’m going to try that approach with my woodwind class of 65 on Monday!

“65 Students?” You might ask. Yes. Some would say that is a huge disadvantage for the students in that they don’t get much individual attention in class. I have actually found that to not really be the case. Malcom Gladwell agrees with me. We have after school sectionals, and while there are a few students who demand more attention than others, most of the kids in that class actually tell me it’s one of their absolute favorite classes. Even the ones who didn’t like band last year!

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The Impotence of Proofreading

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Miracle Workers

Tony Steinberg: Brave Seventh-Grade Viking Warrior



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He says the problem with teachers is, “What’s a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”
He reminds the other dinner guests that it’s true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it’s also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we’re eating, after all, and this is polite company.

“I mean, you¹re a teacher, Taylor,” he says.
“Be honest. What do you make?”

And I wish he hadn’t done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won’t I let you get a drink of water?
Because you’re not thirsty, you’re bored, that’s why.

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven’t called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, “Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don’t you?”
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).

Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?

I’m sure this transcript has made the rounds of educational institutions worldwide, but when I saw it, the passion that Taylor Mali emits during the presentation is awesome.

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Guest post from Karen Schweitzer, the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes about online degree programs for OnlineDegreePrograms.org.

Teachers who are looking for technology to implement in their classroom can find many different resources online. From presentation apps to educational microblogs, the Internet has everything teachers need to improve learning experiences and productivity in the classroom. Here are 15 free ed-tech resources worth exploring:

Empressr – Empressr is a free, online presentation tool. It can be used to upload photos, audio, and video. Uploaded information can be shared publicly or with a select group of people.

Web-Chops – This unique web app makes it easy for teachers to share portions of the web with their students. Web-Chops allows you to collect and organize content from the web and transform it into your own custom pages.

Mindomo – Mindomo is a versatile mind mapping tool that makes it easy to create, organize, and share your ideas. It is a great brainstorming tool for the classroom.

Writewith – This easy-to-use web app can be used to collaborate with multiple people online. Writewith users can upload a document, assign tasks, chat, and track all changes.

ThinkFold – This structured outlining tool allows you to collaborate with others in real time. Thinkfold is a good way to brainstorm, organize notes, and turn plans into action.

Bookgoo – Bookgoo is a free web app that can be used to highlight and annotate student documents that were created on or uploaded to a classroom PC. This handy online tool is also great for students who want to share work with each other and get instant feedback.

SlideShare – SlideShare is the world’s largest presentation sharing community. It can be used to upload class presentations, share class lessons, embed presentations into a blog, and find interesting slideshows.

Edmodo – This microblogging site was created specifically for teachers and students. Edmodo can be used to share notes, files, assignments, grades, and events.

Edublogs – Edublogs is free blogging platform for teachers and students who want to start their own education-related blog. Special features include 20MB of free space, import/export capability, and blogger tutorials.

Flash Card Machine – The Flash Card Machine can be used by teachers and students to create and share flashcards online. Cards can be organized and built into customizable sites.

KeepandShare – KeepandShare is a secure file sharing network that’s perfect for the classroom. Students and teachers can store and share files, photos, documents, class calendars, and more.

Google Docs – This free web based suite of tools from Google gives classrooms the ability to collaborate and share assignments online. The suite includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation tool.

Zap Reader – Zap Reader is a speed reading program for reading text on a computer. You simply insert the text into the web based program and start reading. Zap Reader users can read up to 300% quicker without losing comprehension.

Evernote – This free web app allows you to capture notes, lists, reminders, research, and more. Evernote can be accessed with any Internet capable device, making it easy for students and teachers to access research and notes from home.

Eduslide – Eduslide is free software that can be used to create and publish educational content online. A few of the things you can create include slideshows, chat rooms, wikis, and testing modules.


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The potential of Google Wave is still pretty amazing, but the implementation of it so far is not there.

That being said, I have to keep in mind that it is still in alpha testing phases right now, and thought it has been unresponsive at times, it has not yet crashed on me. These two facts are pretty solid for the infrastructure so far!

What is the potential? Well, clearly it has some pretty far-reaching possibilities in the use of collaborative education and group work in computer-enabled classrooms. But I’ve been thinking about some other school implementations that could be possible:

1. Curriculum planning
2. Departmental communications
3. Intercampus
4. Plan parent conferences with multiple teachers and multiple schedules
5. Share links to web resources
6. Campus improvement planning
7. Schoolwide calendar/scheduling
8. Faculty meeting follow-up
9. Teacher appraisal sign-ups
10. To-do lists
11. Keep information current between work, cell, and home
12. School newspaper/newsletter article development
13. Local newspaper publicity article development
14. Twitter-like communication between faculty without the Twitter-like time drain
15. Share lesson plans with substitutes/administrators/department chairs/other teachers

Besides the school-related uses, I can imagine some others:

1. Collaborative book study (I’ve started a Bible study with friends this way – copy a chapter or so, add friends to the wave, add some comments/links/videos)
2. Group blogging
3. List of music educators (this could also include math teachers, administrators, whatever)
4. Storing favorite web resources in one central searchable location (the archive is an amazing feature of Gmail)

If these ideas have been done, let us know in the comments. Also, if you have some other ideas for great uses of Google Wave, share them in the comments as well.

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Today is the day. Thousands of new users will be presented with the opportunity to get their hands on Google Wave.

What is Google Wave?
Google Wave is a brand new technology that positions itself  as the way Email would have been made if it were invented today. (Watch the 1:20:12 long video clip)

Imagine a combination between Email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, and Skype all bundled into one. Now imagine it being drag-and-drop easy, live-updated, and being constantly improved. Then throw on top of that an eager community of developers seeking ways to make it even easier to use and more powerful.

Cool, but what does it look like?
I haven’t gotten my invitation yet, but am eagerly awaiting one soon. Lifehacker has a great Google Wave First Look that they posted today. It has some really cool pictures that help you get a better idea of what’s going on. Back when it was announced on May 28th, Mashable posted Google Wave: A Complete Guide.

And how could it be used in my classroom?
Here are some of the uses I can see

• Replace wikis
  I know a lot of teachers out there use wikis, and they are useful. I like the functionality that they pose, but I also know there are some challenges they have. One nice feature of Google Wave is that it allows a combination of public as well as private communication within a wave.
• Playback
  Ever been absent during an extended group project? Wonder what you missed? The playback function of Google Wave is amazing in that it allows you to see step-by-step what has happened in the development of the wave. This can also come in handy for the teacher to see how well groups are working together and how much participation is going on.
• Group work
  One of the huge advantages to Google Wave is that each person in the wave can edit things at the same time. We’ve all been in groups where one person writes, another person thinks, and the other people sleep. I also remember some group work on computers where so much time was wasted trying to find the right font. What if Font girl is responsible for making it look pretty, smart guy is responsible for doing research, and keyboarding goober is responsible for typing it all in? Everyone could be assigned a specific role and work on the same project together.
• Teacher involvement
  The way I see it, each group would be set up by the teacher and each wave would include the teacher as well as the students in the group. One reason I didn’t like group work when I was in school was because I either did way more or way less work than the other people in the group. If an individual student has a complaint for the teacher, he can simply private message the teacher, explain the problem, and then the teacher can view the playback and see that the other students may not be working as hard. Tattling has never been this simple!
• Publishing (Embedding)
  After a project is completed, it can be embedded into a website or Facebook group page or something. Yes, there are even plugins to embed waves into blog posts (at least for WordPress and Blogger).

So needless to say, I am excited about this new project and looking forward to seeing how I can use it both personally as well as in my teaching. It won’t be an overnight transformation, and I don’t see email being abolished completely, but I do see it as a pivotal point in the development of online communications.

How do others see Google Wave impacting education?
I thought I would do a quick blog search to see what other people are talking on this subject:

• Google Wave & Education, First Impressions
• Google Wave has great potential for education
• Google Wave in Online Education
• The Google Wave Will Change Education Forever
• Google Wave: 5 Ways It Could Change The Web
• How Google Wave Could Improve Education: Group Work
• The Real Meaning of Google Wave
• Who will ride Google’s Wave?

EDIT 10/03/09: This video was posted on Lifehacker yesterday:

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I read your blog.  I also write my own blog.  I started my blog when I wanted to quit.  I spent about a year thinking about that.  I realize now that I don’t want to quit anymore.  I thought maybe my latest blog about why I don’t want to quit anymore would be of interest to you or your readers.

So I jumped on over to check it out. What an inspiration it was, too! Her blog Teacher, I Don’t Get It has been up for a little less than a year. I was indeed impressed by her latest post, Hope and the Difficult Journey. In it, she briefly summarizes her first twenty-five months of teaching and outlines how she has hope for the future now and doesn’t want to quit. What I like about it is how she lists some of the things that have really helped her cope with the situation.

1. Don’t give up, even when you feel absolutely useless. We all feel that way at times.
2. Surround yourself with positive people.
3. Avoid negativity like the plague.
4. Learn something from everyone with whom you come into contact.
5. Enjoy the journey.

I really think you should check her blog out. It will brighten your day!


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