My post

I am with Ms. Whittaker right now. We are learning about blogging.

Storify Test

I just learned about Storify about a month ago. It lets you grab snippets from all over the Web to tell a story. I requested an invitation to use it when I first learned about it, but I did not get invited until this week. (It's still in beta.)

I feel like there is lots of potential for storyify in education. If you want to request an invitation, here is the link (requires a Twitter account): storify.com

Do not let the Texas Legislature play politics with education

Right now, Texas Senators and Congressmen are trying to sneak in a bill that will slash public school budgets by 15 percent.

If HB1 and SB1 pass:

• There will be 100,000 teachers added to the state of Texas unemployment roles instantly.
• Your child will be in giant classes, even in early elementary school.
• Services will be cut, including bus routes, after school programs, and extracurricular activities.
• The activities you cherish most from your school years (clubs, social groups, elective courses) will be unavailable for today's kids, who had the misfortune to grow up in a time where politics in Texas is valued more than education.

View this presentation by school finance experts Moak, Casey, & Associates to see the impact of reducing public education funding on your district:

• http://www.moakcasey.com/news/article.aspx?id=1992

This presentation was shown to all New Braunfels ISD employees in the wake of HB1 and SB1 to prepare them for the grim future:

• http://www.nbisd-tx.net/education/page/download.php?fileinfo=c2Nob29sZmluYW5jZS5wZGY6Ojovd3d3MTAvc2Nob29scy90eC9uZXdicmF1bmZlbHMvaW1hZ2VzL2F0dGFjaC8xMDYwOS8zNjIzXzEwNjA5X2F0dGFjaF8xNzU1LnBkZg==

Follow this link to find your representatives:

• http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/find-your-representative/

Write your legislators. Let them know that education is important for the state economy and young Texans and the state budget should reflect that.

Please share this with everyone you know who cares about our state and our children. E-mail me if you have any questions or ideas. We must act quickly.

Laura Hearnsberger
New Braunfels, TX
lhearnsb@sbcglobal.net

Group Video Project Reflection

I believe that the biggest contributor to our group’s success is our good working relationship. We have worked together before, and we make a good team. We each bring different skills to the team, are patient, and have a commitment to superior work.

One of the first things we did was create a new Google site to house our project plans and upload new content. It was divided up by week. We pasted all the content from each assignment onto its corresponding page, and updated it as we met. We typically meet on Google Wave. It allows everyone the opportunity to contribute and lets us keep a clear record of our plans.

We live in different parts of the state (far west, central, piney woods), so Google sites and Wave are indispensable tools for us. Since Alicia is the film expert, she took the lead on planning shots and handled the final edits. I have a background in writing, so I created the script outline and edited everyone’s contributions. Julie is the artist, so she created our storyboards and talked us through the plans.

We made all of our own content and did not hire actors, so we did not have to worry about copyright infringement. We did a thorough job, so nothing sticks out as a way we might have improved the public service announcement. It occurred to me after it was complete that it might have been interesting for us all to make a PSA from the same raw footage/script, to see how it turns out. But I do not believe that anything I would have made could top what Alicia did.

Don't Text, Don't Drive

Don't Text, Don't Drive by Alicia Brooks, Laura Hearnsberger, Julie Perez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

The Value of a Web Conference

Web conferences can be a great way to meet with others face to face when time or distance constraints make meeting in person difficult.

To be beneficial, it is important that certain rules be followed, just like at a traditional meeting.

The most important one, to me, is posting an agenda before the conference begins, and sticking to it. I have learned things at our Web conferences, but I feel like most of the time is spent troubleshooting. Since everyone is logged in as a presenter, anyone can mess up the view settings for everyone.

I do anticipate that our Web conferences will improve over time, and it is nice to be able to just go back and skim the notes. It saves time and is an invaluable resource.