radio silence!

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Nov 2006

Nor have I had a response to my query about gender and race gaps in our recent ELA scores!

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Nov 2006

Strangely enough, we've had no response from the Spanish teacher.

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Nov 2006

I know; I think the editing feature would go - but I could always volunteer to delete comments people wanted deleted ....which is awkward, but a decent fall-back option...

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Nov 2006

Old Grouch

Thanks!

-- CatherineJohnson - 28 Nov 2006

I've also enjoyed the editing feature, but I certainly would forgo it to be able to get on in a timely manner

-- SusanS - 28 Nov 2006

I know I've been seeing the "internal server error" messages more frequently when I first try to load the main page.

Seems to me that a standard blog-- provided it offered post catagories, and preferably allowed posts to be assigned to more than one of them-- could get the job done. (Like anything else, the selection and assignment of catagories would be critical to success! (Then there's always the problem of importing the old archives...)

Of course you'd lose (or have to figure out a way to replicate) some unique features like WikiWords^?. Another variant is the ability of commenters to upload images to the KTM server: Most blogs don't allow that. (In fact, most disallow <img> tags in the comments altogether.) Then there's the constant-pitch "typewriter text" posting. There is a <tt> HTML tag that does this, but the only weblog I've run into that accepts it is Slashdot.

It's been my impression that most bloggers are forthcoming with info and advice when asked. If you're serious about change, here are some folks who understand the technical issues and seem to be willing to chat about them:

• Andrea Harris, who, in addition to her own blog (which uses categories0, is administratrix of Tim Blair's high traffic site. She's running Word Press. Tim was formerly on Blogger, he's now running with Expression Engine.
• Bill Quick, who is in the midst of a migration between Movable Type and Word Press. His site has a neat option that produces an alternate rendering of the main page with reader comments displayed inline.
• Pixy Misa, lord of MuNuviana^? (the collective of 150+ weblogs that are subdomains of "mu.nu"). The MuNu^? sites run a mix of software. Some of them are high-visibility and high-controversy, so he's had to develop some pretty sophisticated spam-trapping and abuse-control tools. Pixy is in the process of writing his own ground-up blogging system (called "minx," IIRC).

-- OldGrouch - 28 Nov 2006

Verghis Koshi was in town this weekend!

One of the things we talked about is the fact that Kitchen Table Math is SINKING (i.e. accumulating glitches by the day) - we need to move.

Carolyn says it's mostly written in PERL (SP?) - so if anyone has any ideas, let me know.

I can't imagine Carolyn can scare up enough time to deal with the whole thing.

I wonder if we should just switch over to a normal blog & keep the archives here???

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

I'm going to try pulling down that graphic & see if that helps...

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

A song or a skit?

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

Hi Tracy

My guess the principal listened politely.

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

oh no!

I wonder if this graphic messed things up.

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

My daughter had to make a model of a cell for her 7th grade science project. Alternatives to making a model included making up a song, or doing a skit. This is the only class she has like that. The rest are at grade level.

-- BarryGarelick - 27 Nov 2006

Have I mentioned the fact that my sister, this fall, told the principal of her school that her 8th grade daughter would not be doing any more coloring for school assignments?

How did the principal take it?

-- TracyW - 27 Nov 2006

The front page is hosed :-(

Only the "core frame" is visible.

-Mark Roulo

-- KtmGuest - 27 Nov 2006

family tree

Hi —

I’m wondering whether you could post instructions for assignments on edline. (The vocabulary practice quiz is great! Thanks!)

Christopher has lost his binder, so we’re going by his memory as to what Thanksgiving break’s “poster project” is.

We’re hoping this will be the last such assignment, by the way. Christopher has had no instruction in graphic design and neither have we. We’ve never felt it was particularly fair to grade students on innate talent for graphic design and illustration, especially given the existence of large gender differences in fine motor ability.

Ed and I are both wondering whether, in place of future graphic design projects, Christopher can do extra work in Spanish.

I’m ordering workbooks to supplement the course; perhaps he could do several pages in a Spanish workbook instead of drawing family trees or pasting pictures onto a posterboard.

Or perhaps he could write sentences and paragraphs in Spanish.

We’re open to anything; we just don’t want to have to supervise any more visual arts assignments when not one of us, including Christopher, has had training in the visual arts.

Thanks —

Catherine J.



This is a Thanksgiving compromise, fyi.

My feeling about the Thanksgiving family tree assignment was, Let's not and say we did.

Ed said, No, we'll do this one, then we'll say we don't want to do any more.

So we've just spent the last five minutes arguing about whether a proper family tree would have one couple at the top, or two.

Ed thinks it ought to start, somehow, with my folks & their four kids plus his folks and their three, and then drop down from there.

So it turns out that if Christopher were doing this assignment for French, not Spanish,^* there might be all kinds of different couples pictured.






Note! All relationships are from the perspective of the red figures.

oops

wrong again

you can do it in Spanish, too


[pause]


Have I mentioned the fact that my sister, this fall, told the principal of her school that her 8th grade daughter would not be doing any more coloring for school assignments?

Her daughter is in 8th grade, and tests gifted.

She had to color in a picture of a neutron or something. Then, in class, she had to pretend to be an element from the periodic Table.

Hi! I'm Cesium!

Everyone was bummed about having to buy more crayons for their 13-year olds, and my sister kept saying, "Just tell them you're not doing any coloring."

Nobody seemed to think this was an option.

So now my sister has pulled her daughter out of the school and she's doing Independent Studies for the year.

We don't have Independent Studies here in New York.


^*the fact that Christopher is studying Spanish is a major sore point around here
familytree

-- CatherineJohnson - 27 Nov 2006

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• Posted by: CatherineJohnson
• LogDate: Nov 26, 2006 @ 19:58