EduCarnival V2 Issue 9--State Fair of Texas Edition

Well, howdy pard-ners. Did ya really think we could have a carnival in October without Big Tex? Seriously folks, even Oprah showed up at the great State Fair of Texas and tried some of that fried butter and what she called “corn doggies.”

So here we are meetin’ and greetin’ under the 52-foot-tall Big Tex. Our post pickins’ was a bit slim this go-around. I guess all the rain here kept some of you away. Either that or those pesky grades being due kept you from exchanging your red pen for a corn dog.

Now, before all ya hatas out there start, please note that the Fair Committee (ahem, that would be me) decided not to include posts that solely appeared to aim at sellin’ stuff. This is not to say I don’t indulge in shameless self-promotion from time to time myself--(Have you pre-ordered my book?)--but let’s rent a booth along the midway and hawk our wares that way.

So, here we go…

Oh, there’s Joanne Jacobs by the corn dog stand talking about that dangerous little boy, Zach, who brought his little cub scout thing to school. Horrors. Thank goodness he didn’t bring a spork!

Mr. Teacher is getting warmed up for the ring toss. He could use a little fun after spending four days administering benchmark tests and watching the kiddos getting stumped.

Hey y’all, forget about that 1,100 pound pig. Just when you thought it was safe, well, here we have the 20 Weirdest Courses Online & Offline… I can learn about YouTube, how to walk, study zombies and so much more. Zombies, you say? Oh, Jeez Louise, why not? It’s not any weirder than my bout with shape shifters.

And speaking of weird, I’m A Dreamer has a short little post on How Not To Behave During Parent/Teacher Conferences.

Anyone care to guess the average IQ of people along the midway? No? OK. Teacher Food asks if we really care about the average SAT scores of our neighbors or are there more important things we need to be teaching in our classrooms.

Old Andrew from Scenes from the Battlefield ponders hard work and the tendency for folks to think that learning requires little effort.

Over at bloomin’ minds… oh wait, make that Minds in Bloom, we have eight nifty ways to put creativity and critical thinking into your busy day. And then let’s go over or I suppose I should say down under, to Footsteps of Aristotle who wants to know why we denigrate our colleagues instead of learning from them.

Let’s give a big cheer and a shout out to Pat over at Successful Teaching who reminds us about the important role parents play in their children’s education.

DetentionSlip brings us up-to-date on a New York kid who wanted to start a Bible club and Michelle Hogan wonders if it’s time to stand up and bully the bully.

Watch out for Nancy Flanagan over at Teacher in a Strange Land. She was feeling a bit snarky, but now wonders if name calling is never right.

And, while we’re running willy-nilly down the midway, you might want to check out this odd assortment of stuff… twitter feeds for med students, 100 free tools to tutor yourself in anything and 100 awesome iTune feeds for teachers. Spangler has some Halloween stuff for sale, but he also has some free science experiments for stuff like blowing up pumpkins and such.

Oh my… it’s getting late. We better head on back. As if we didn’t eat enough at the fair, my friend the Scholastic Scribe offers this nifty little pie recipe.

OK, OK, OK so that nifty pie recipe has absolutely nothing to do with life in the EduSphere.

OK OK OK so she didn’t even submit a post, but I say the world would be a much better place if perhaps we ate a little bit more pie. Think about that while you’re thinking about this… Submit your next posts for Education Carnival using this handy dandy form. I think the carnival moves back over to Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable next week.

Well folks, that’s it. As I always say,

“I’ve got this feeling that there’s something that I missed…”

–Snow Patrol

And, if I did, my apologies.

Please email me with any problems or broken links at mybellringers@gmail.com. I, of course, would appreciate any links back to the carnival.