Living Longer, Healthier Lives

There are 2 subjects that need more attention in some schools: Physical Exercise

and Nutrition studies. We educate the mind but what about the body? Daily exercise promotes a healthier lifestyle. With the higher obesity rates in children, why is this not a priority in some districts? I was delighted recently when our government implemented a mandatory 20 minutes of daily exercise for K-9.

What about nutrition? Nutrition goes hand in hand with exercise. Why is this not a priority in the upper grades of some districts? Students should be taught about proper nutrition so they can make healthier food choices. Some students, of course, would still choose the foods they currently eat, but at least they will know what they are eating.

Have you thought of this before? How much exercise and nutrition education do your students get? If we want our students to be life long learners, do we not want them to live a long life too? Of course we do.

Using Delicious in the Classroom

I discovered Delicious.com about 7 months ago. It has made organizing my teaching life far easier and as a result added to my classroom. If you are not familiar with Delicious it works like this: it allows you to get to your bookmarks from any computer, anytime, anywhere.

To get started download an add on for Delicious on your browser and start bookmarking. If you want to access your bookmarks from another computer, you can do it in 2 ways: 1) You can sign in to Delicious to access or 2) You can make your bookmarks public and just type the web address of your bookmarks. Once you type the address you are off and running.

The way I use Delicious is quite simple. Since I do a lot of my work at home, I often bookmark at home and then access those bookmarks at school. For example, if there are several youtube videos I want to show students on Planets, I bookmark them at home and then load them when I go to school in the morning. Moreover, you can open each bookmark in a different tab or window. I find that convenient. Just right click on the bookmark and choose the option you want.

The way of organizing Delicious bookmarks is different from the standard practice of browsers. Delicious does not use the standard “create a folder” format. Instead you tag your bookmark. You can tag your bookmarks with as many tags as you wish. At first I found this awkward because I was used to folders. However, being able to give bookmarks many tags allows for you to access a bookmark easier. It is true when Delicious says “Tag your bookmarks. Collections will naturally emerge.”

I hope this has helped you to understand Delicious. I welcome any comments adding to the benefits of Delicious.