Really now. A dispute over leadership at a Henderson County church has turned from angry words to fist fights.   About 30 police officers from five agencies were called to break up fights Sunday at Greater New Zion Baptist Church in Fletcher. 30 policemen? how sad. Dozens Of Police Break Up Brawl At Church - Winston-Salem News Story - WXII The Triad .

I don't think there will be many this semester, but I can dream. Yesterday, I finished a project on school library impact studies. It was near midnight. I did take a break to go to the Wake vs VA game. Wake actually won and looked semi-sorta like a team. I need a cold read though to make sure there isn't something totally goofy in it. Today, I started reading for a project on leadership. I cut out a ton of laminated sheets for school and made a fraction web quest . At church, we had a speaker from Wales, Steve Levy . He preached from Philippians which was really cool since I've been working with memorizing it. What was a little different was his focus was on 4:2. You know the verses - the ones about the two chicks that can't get along. Who preaches on that? Well he did, and his emphasis was on playing church, treating church like a country club, not taking it seriously, hit or miss coming. And I am sitting there hanging on his every word. He was very clever in his word

Steve Hargadon will interview Karen Hume this week: Date : Thursday, February 3, 2011 Time : 5pm Pacific / 8pm Eastern / 1am GMT (next day-- international times here ) Duration : 1 hour Location : In Elluminate. Log in at  http://tr.im/futureofed . The Elluminate room will be open up to 30 minutes before the event if you want to come in early. To make sure that your computer is configured for Elluminate, please visit  http://www.elluminate.com/support . Recordings of the session will be posted within a day of the event at the event page. Event and Recording Page :   http://www.learncentral.org/event/134859 Karen Hume has written 6 professional development books for teachers. Her latest publication is  Tuned Out: Engaging the 21st Century Learner (Pearson Canada, 2010) . Her previous best-sellers include  Start Where They Are , and Evidence to Action . Karen’s writing, workshop facilitation, and keynote addresses revolve around differentiated instruction, which she sees as an organizi

Our friends at Near Emmaus , specifically Mark, have asked about our  Spiritual fathers in light of Peterson's upcoming book. I've already written about mine, Mark Corts . That post too was prompted by Mark Stephens. Dan posted about two of his. What I haven't blogged about is his funeral. I wrote about it then, but didn't blog it, so I'll post it instead here. This does NOT meet the requirements of the giveaway, but I felt inspired to do it none-the-less. We arrived at church at 9 am for the 10am funeral and the church was already quite full. I shared some of my stories with you and wanted to share some of what I heard today. Some I'd heard before, but some I'd not. Jack Homesley was in the first Tarheel pastoring group. He said he was honored to be invited. Who was he that Mark Corts had taken notice. At the time, he was pastoring a church of less than 100, and they were all unhappy about something. The building had no hot water and the parking lot was g

Today actually began yesterday when I was nominated with several wonderful candidates for our school’s teacher of the year. This morning started with an announcement that I had been voted teacher of the year. What an honor! I was totally blown away. Then I found out that I’d passed my 18 hour portfolio review for the MLS program. Both of those were so cool that I didn’t think anything else could be added to the list, but when I got home, I had an envelope from Carson Dellosa. I expected it would be the book I edited last summer for which I’d been told I’d be credited, but there were three books I’d edited and I was listed on all three. Skill Builders Math Grade 4 Skill Builders math Grade 6 Guinness World Records Math Grade 3 Woo Hoo.

I did conference sign ups this quarter on http://slyreply.com which worked pretty good, but had a couple of too many steps. I was wondering if I could set up one page of google forms and insert it into my class blog for sign-ups. I will research the how-to if it's feasible. I just wanted to know if this is feasible.

If you use dropbox, you'll like this. Dropbox - free storage increase. .

It is a pervasive trend. Anyone can run a library, can't they? Well, as a matter of fact, they can't. I've been reading impact studies on the role that librarians play in high test scores and there is a direct correlation. Not just with having a library. Not just with having staff in the library. But a direct correlations between a certified librarian and high test scores. Someone trained more than likely knows their stuff better. Stuff like finding materials for teachers, leading information literacy workshops, helping students understand research. But still schools and districts are making the decision that librarians are the place to cut. Austin ISD is a case in point today. I'm confident there will be somewhere else tomorrow.

Too good for an educator NOT to pass along! Lie to your professors, risk being eaten « scientia et sapientia .

awful this season? I've got my own theories rattling around in my head, but I'd love to know what you think! So, tell me please!

If you are curious about cholesterol, this is a pretty good explanation. When Is High Cholesterol Ok? | LIVESTRONG.COM .

This is very good. Regardless which side of this fence each of us falls on, it would be so much more effective to say exactly what we believe and not just give the simplistic label that someone may or may not understand. Saying What You Believe Is Clearer Than Saying “Calvinist” - Desiring God .

I don't have the device itself, but the program is loaded on my computers and iPod Touch. I never paid much attention to the little location thingy because I just plowed through a book. BUT and this is huge, I finally was able to buy a Kindle textbook and I was so excited until I'm to use a rubric on page 129. No problem. I can't figure it out, but it's got to be able to convert to page numbers. I hit Google with my question. And the answer is: ding, ding, ding It can't be done! There isn't a way to convert. What's more, Amazon has told multiple students that their way is superior. APA style even has a citation using Kindle locations. Well, whoopdidoo. That doesn't do a student trying to find a specific location in a book a lick of good. Nook on the other hand (who I have not been supporting as much as Kindle) does have page numbers. Guess who will be getting my ebook business in the future?

check out #savelibraries . Lots of good remarks about why we need libraries coming in fast and furious! HT

Writing tip of the day: guard your writing time « scientia et sapientia . Good advice. However, I'm finding more and more that I have to fight for all aspects associated with my work time. I can't plan lessons if I have meetings. I can't teach students if the phone is ringing or people come to the door asking questions. I can't meet with parents if every free moment is allocated. This list goes on. Everyone is making demands on our time that could deeply interfere with our work if we let it.

I'm working on a paper - Library as a place or service. Trying out google notebook to organize my research. Sections: Paper basics Reading list Works Consulted - formatting as I go. Hoping this will help at the end. Notes and quotes for each consulted work worthy of noting Emerging outline So far so good.

Since I started the MLS, reading has gone completely down the toilet. If I didn't listen to books on my laborious drive, I'd get little but textbooks and journals read. I noticed that I'm collecting books in anticipation of the day I can read freely without guilt. I spend a little time each day looking at reviews and scrounging for freebies. Of course it will take me years to get them all read at this point. mmmmm unless I quit work just to read - which is an attractive idea!

I absolutely abhor the fact that the book I pick up most often is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association . Why don't I have this stuff memorized by now!?!

Good words from both Dr. Black and Mr. Norelli on writing book reviews! Amen, Dave Black! Publishers Do Deserve Better! | Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth .

via Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior - WSJ.com . Article is by Amy Chua, author and Prof at Yale Law School. I've got mixed emotions on this piece. She is using the term Chinese Mothers as a catch-all for VERY strict parenting. Thing is, I thoroughly believe she's right about how western society so protects children's self esteems that they barely know how to reach any goals. As a society we've crippled them. I see it at school all the time. Kids get bent out of shape because I ask them to sit in their chairs correctly or come to class with supplies and then use them. I totally agree with the struggle of leaning new skills. No, they aren't fun in the beginning. The fun does come after the struggle when the accomplishment is clear. Western kids in general don't know that feeling. They are allowed to give up when things are not easy anymore - not even anywhere near when they become hard. Success comes with hard work. Some successes take even more work. Children ha

New American Academy in Brooklyn Is an Experiment in Class Size - NYTimes.com . Title is actually: 60 First Graders, 4 Teachers, One Loud New Way to Learn Problem is, it doesn't sound like anyone is learning ...

I have really fallen for web 2.0 tools that allow me to access my work from any computer. I've been using http://live.com for Office file storage. It's got some advantages over google docs since it's specifically designed for MS office. However, google docs is really hard to beat for sharing and collaboration. I resurrected google notebook to help with organizing lessons and materials to go with those lessons. I like that it's integrated with my gmail account and google docs. I hate that it is no longer supported by google. Since I'm taking two classes this semester, I have been looking for organization tools. First one I found was Toodledo which is a powerful to-do list that allows for folders, due dates, prioritizing and notes. I like this one, but it is one more site to which I have to log in.    Looking for google integration led me to manymoon . Manymoon is a project management app that works with your email, calendars, and google docs. You are limited to on

This is pretty interesting if you'd like to know how WordPress pages come together. Edudemic » The Cheat Sheet For How Your Blog Works .

Another excellent post by Michael Linsin. 10 Reasons Why You Should Never, Ever Yell At Students .

Completely agree with Dan's assessment of where Grisham has gone. I haven't read The Confession yet and now I can look forward to it! I am a HUGE John Grisham fan. I got hooked with The Firm, and have stayed a fan for 20 plus years. The past few years have been disappointing. I personally think his publishing schedule needs to slow down. He's big enough to tell his publisher to go take a hike and give him a couple of years on a novel rather than crank one out every year. The past few books have drifted. It was like Grisham didn't know what he wanted to write. The Broker and The … Read More via Apprentice2Jesus

OK, so copper prices are going up. Is the price of anything going down? Police say Freeman tried to snip the live wires with a bolt cutter, but suffered a high-voltage shock . . . Did I read that correctly? tried to snip live wires with a bolt cutter? Really? and he expected to live through it? Wow. story

Do you know how to find the owner of an email? A friend got an email that was more than a bit bizarre. No name and a less than informative email name. I searched it on google to no success. I also searched for reverse email addresses and found some sites that indicated they could tell me the info, but these charged and there is no guarantee that the info will be there. Suggestions?

Now doesn't that title just say it all! And why in the world would she leave him anything? The News & Observer reported Thursday that Elizabeth Edwards left all her possessions to her three surviving children. Her last will and testament names as the executor of her estate her eldest child, lawyer Cate Edwards.

HT Mine is: Ecclesiastes 11:5 NIV As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things. Fine yours. And please share!

fingers crossed they at least keep the score semi close. Dismal year so far . . .

This young blogger, Paul Himes, is the son of an online friend of mine, John Himes aka John of Japan . Paul is also a student of our dear Dave Black and finishing up his PhD at Southeastern . Blog is Paroikos Bible Blog .

Here's the book I made with the downloaded materials. Instead of getting a moleskin, I made my own. Here is the Philippians insert (PDF) from Tim Brister . Lined Paper 2 col I made if you'd like to do this but can also make your own little book. Nothing special or difficult, but no need to reinvent the wheel. It's a docx file. Here's the outside and a page from my homemade book.

Still experimenting with things to do with Greek Yogurt. My latest attempts were all about making cheese - this ended up close to cream cheese in both texture and taste. I began with plain yogurt, a sieve, a bowl and a couple of tea towels. Sieve goes in bowl. Towel covers sieve. Yogurt is scooped out and placed right on the towel. I did this last night and put it in the fridge. I also put a plastic plate over it in the fridge. This morning, I pulled the towel out with the yogurt on it and put a dry towel into the sieve and then turned the yogurt into the fresh towel. Lid back on, and put it back in the fridge. This afternoon when I got home from school, it did indeed have a taste and consistency very close to cream cheese.

Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to “get in touch with your feelings,” fine—talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts.  ~William Safire AdviceToWriter … Read More via scientia et sapientia

From Free Technology for Teachers … Read More via Math & Science Resources

I printed off the material. Looks like a good plan. In the summer of 2008, I came up with the crazy idea called a "memory moleskine."  The goal was to memorize the book of Ephesians before the end of the year.  Since then, that Ephesian memory moleskine has resulted in 4,000+ people joining in.  With a number of people desiring to do it again, I pitched the idea of memorizing the book of Philippians beginning in the New Year. Let's face it. Memorizing Scripture can be a difficult discipline, espec … Read More via Provocations & Pantings

Woo hoo! Information for my first course is in. Love getting an early start. Looks like a ton of reading and writing. What else is new? ;) Waiting on the other one now, Instructional Foundations.

I found a new blog that looked interesting enough and plunked it down in my reader to keep tabs on for a probationary period. Every post looks something like this in the reader: Neighbor's high tech mower Wikipedia <!-- //Disable right mouse click Script //By Maximus (maximus@nsimail.com) w/ mods by DynamicDrive //For full source code, visit http://www.dynamicdrive.com var message="Function Disabled!"; /////////////////////////////////// function clickIE4(){ if (event.button==2){ alert(message); return false; } } function clickNS4(e){ if (document.layers|| Well, that's no fun. I've clicked on a few if the title was descriptive enough to lure me in, but really, this is just a mess. *unsubscribe*

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health: The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow. Crunchy numbers A helper monkey made this abstract painting, inspired by your stats. The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 24,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships. In 2010, there were 350 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 1069 posts. There were 67 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 12mb. That's about 1 pictures per week. The busiest day of the year was December 22nd with 969 views. The most popular post that day was The birth of Christ in the digital age . Where did they come from? The top referring sites in 2010 were networkedblogs.com , mail.yahoo.com , newleaven.com , mail.live.com , and facebook.com . Some visitors came searching, mostly for aba

The Shadow Scholar - written by Ed Dante, a shadowy name.This guy makes $66,000 to write student papers. Maybe I'm in the wrong field. What was rather ironic through the essay was that he could point out the inadequacies and lack of ethics in his clients, but didn't mention his participation in the cheating process as cheating. He is providing a service. He is working. You've never heard of me, but there's a good chance that you've read some of my work. I'm a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can't detect, that you can't defend against, that you may not even know exists. He does ask this and it's a very good question: Do you ever wonder how a student who struggles to formulate complete sentences in conversation manages to produce marginally competent research? How does that student get by you? So how do they? Has educati

Discussion of musicals reminded me of this one that I saw with this man in it!

Wake forest made the mix. Wide selection of sports. NBC year in sports pix Slide 26: Diving for paydirt Wake Forest running back Josh Adams dives over the goal line to score a touchdown against Presbyterian College in Winston-Salem, N.C. on Sept. 2.

My friend Wendy mentioned this on FB, so I went looking for a recipe to see what it had in it. From the food network : Ingredients 1 bottle Zinfandel wine 1 1/2 cups whole milk 1-ounce quality milk chocolate, finely chopped Cocoa powder, to garnish Directions In a medium saucepan over medium-high heat boil the wine until reduced by half. Meanwhile, bring the milk to a boil. Place the chocolate in a small mixing bowl and pour the reduced wine over the top and whisk making sure all of the chocolate is melted. Pour half of the hot milk into the chocolate mixture and whisk to blend. With the remaining milk, froth with a hand blender or a milk frother. Pour the chocolate wine mixture into small cups and spoon some of the milk froth over the top, garnish with cocoa powder and serve hot. mmmmm donno that it sounds that good . . .

Reading through Jonah in the car today and here are some things that struck me in one way or another. God tells Jonah his plan and Jonah flees from God's presence. Where did he really think he could go that God wouldn't know about? The men on the boat didn't want to throw Jonah over even though they were frightened by what he had told them. They actually tried to row to shore rather than kill him. Why would they do that? If man is totally depraved, what made these men, who had been pleading other gods for their own safety, not want to save themselves by killing him? How big would a fish really have to be to swallow a man? The people of Ninevah repented - beginning with the King. What had happened in the king's experiences that made him react this way instead of hardening his heart? Jonah gets mad? Who does he think he is? He wants an entire people to be killed so he can save face. What a ton of gall. It seems Jonah excelled at getting mad about all the wrong things.

We also went to see Tron: Legacy last night. It was pretty good. I was more interested in how they did the younger versions of Bridges and Boxlietner. Thirteen was great!

These are called Oopsies. I found the recipe online looking for a bread substitute and found these at Your Lighter Side . They were easy enough to make and pretty tasty. They are bun size and kind of like a medium firm meringue. Basic Recipe: 3 eggs separated 3 ounces of cream cheese (not softened) cream of tartar (1/8 tsp) Pinch of salt Preheat oven to 300 degrees. greased baking sheet Whip the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff in a bowl. Mix the other ingredients in another bowl. I used a blender for the other ingredients and then poured it over the whites to fold in. Place large spoonfuls of the batter onto the baking sheet. This will make six bun-sized pieces. Place in oven and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for a few minutes, then remove and place on a cooling rack. I made the first batch following the recipe exactly except I didn't have any tartar and I substituted 1/4 tsp on baking powder. Second batch, I wanted to find out i

We went to Rockfish last night for dinner. What yummy food and pretty reasonable. We had some wonderful Ahi Tuna nachos. Rare tuna on cucumber with a sweet and spicy sauce. Very Asian tasting. Ron had the fried shrimp and I had blackened catfish and shrimp.