Dear Government:  I HOPE YOU ARE LISTENING!!

Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, spoke for 10 minutes about Education today, and how technology should be used.  He makes some excellent points, but the most powerful point he makes is that because of standardized testing, we are no longer educating students; we are training them to take ONE test.  Then, everything about that students is based off of ONE test.

To see the video of Chris speaking at the 140 Character Conference, visit ChuckNeuschafer.com and watch the featured video in the upper right hand corner.

Here is a video of Chris Lehmann speaking a TEDxNYED back in March:

I am a huge fan of WordPress.  In fact, I have created more than 30 different websites using WordPress.  So…I checked WordPress.org and found several plugins that allowed you to create a web site that is also a social network.

Mingle Plugin for WordPress

In looking at various plugins to turn my classroom WordPress site into a social networking site, I found the Mingle Plugin for WordPress…and what a GREAT FIND!!  This was extremely easy to set up.  In just a few hours, I created 4 sites for my classes.  They were extremely simple to set up, and the results…well…see for yourself.

Visit CoachNeuschafer.com and choose from one of the four classes in the top menu bar.  We just started using the site with one of my classes today (6th Math).  I let the students play around with it so they could learn the in’s and out’s of the site, and I was able to “fine tune” the site as they were giving me feedback.

So, in just a few hours, and with the help of some eager 6th graders, we have a very nice site using FREE resources.

Ning…thank you very much!!  In making the move from free sites, I was “forced” to find alternatives, and the alternative I found is a great one.

One of the added benefits I found very quickly:  students always forget their passwords.  They always ask me what their password is, and I ask them “did you write it down?”  Now, with a site that I have total control over, and don’t have to worry about Ads about how to pick up women in our area, I can actually look up their username, and reset their password.  No more wasted time waiting for students to login to our Ning site!