Get ready for life!

I have added pages for juniors, seniors and parents. The pages include checklists for getting ready for college. There are links on the sidebar to online websites to obtain more information.  I started a page for students who are not college bound.  This is a work in progress.  Check out the webcasts that are listed.  These are done by students for students. Now at this point I need to include an inspirational quote to inspire everyone that it’s not too late to get started-I will work on that too.

Here is a very good article about being prepared for today’s world.

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational_leadership/oct08/vol66/num02/Rigor_Redefined.aspx

Podcasts and webcasts were the highlight of this week’s lesson.  Many high school students are reluctant to speak in front of the class.  With options like these, students could record their presentations.  It would be fun to conduct sample job interviews to help students become more confident.  Students could research a job and then be the reporter and record what they learned about the job.  

For this blog, preparing a podcast that is an interview with a casemanager from DVR for example, could be more interesting to students and parents than just reading about DVR(Division of Vocational rehabilitation).

This is fun stuff!

After learning about wikis this week, my idea for generating responses from others in the educational community might be best served by setting up a wiki.  A conference presenter many years ago said that students will learn if one can make a connection with something they know.  In the classroom or when talking to students about getting ready for life, I often compare it to a game of football.  I think it would be neat to get examples of how others use sports analogies to motivate learning.  Along with that I would like to collect quotes from athletes and coaches and others that promote student learning, self-esteem and so on. So to start, I am reading Tony Dungy’s book Quiet Strength and he says “When a game ends, win or lose, it’s time to prepare for the next one.  No matter what happened yesterday, you have to be ready to play next Sunday.  That’s how it works-just like life.”

No matter how old you are, do you still wonder what you want to do when you grow up?  I have been teaching in a high school in Delaware for 30 years and one of my responsibilities is to help students with special needs get ready for life after high school.  I want to make this blog educational for students, parents and teachers.  I hope to list resources in Delaware that will help students get to where they want to go after high school.