NYC TECH TEACHER

TeachersPayTeachers.com

2007-02-23T13:26:00.000-08:00

I love it when a site owner/founder calls himself a revolutionary, and then sells out to Scholastics!

WHAT A JOKE!

I know one of the founders of TeachersPayTeachers, not personally-- but via email,
This guy is a skank.

First he ripped of the idea from some little known company that was trying to do what he called revolutionay, and now he sold out so quickly...

So much for creative genius...

I ask that all who have joined KBT ask for a refund, and put their works on www.wetheteachers.com

Please follow my lead!

The New Yahoo! Kids

2006-12-19T12:54:00.000-08:00

Since the early 1990's I have been checking out good sites for kids on the web...

A few weeks ago, seems yahoo decided to part way with the name "Yahooligans" and is now focusing on the failing brand name Yahoo!....and are callinit Yahoo! Kids! Beta....as if they did not have a Yahoo for Kids before?

1st, for those of you who did not know what Yahooligans was in the past. I will give you a small recap: Basically, it was the regular Yahoo! with a bunch of Icons, and filtered websites....plain and simple.

While I have to commend the idea, the truth was, that Yahooligans was a CRAPPY site.
Never got much traction, and the top guy who ran it, ended up at another big "Player" site, called Kaboose.

So, as I was surfing the Yahoo! news section a few days ago...(I have to admit, Yahoo! does have a good news section) I ran into this add. (on the left) Notice how they are trying to lure parents: "A special gift for parents" A Safe, Fun place on the web, introducing Yahoo! Kids.

Lets think for a second about what this means:
a) Most parents and teachers know GOOGLE, and so do 6 year olds...
Guess Yahoo figured its brand for Kids (Yahooligans) was just not fun, and nor was it catchy...
b) So now we have the tag line: Safe and Fun...

Alright then...first lets understand what Yahooligans, sorry, what Yahoo Kids Beta has done...before we even compare what it is today with what it was in the past:
1st) It's changed it's look from a crappy looking site (below are images of its evolution) to a site packed with so many ads, that my kids (and that means yours too) won't know what is an ad, and what is not---another way to fool our brainwashed kids with a series of "I want this, that...etc..." and for sure, make a couple of extra bucks.

2nd) More ads, more ads, more sponsors, and more misguided search results...

Are you ready for this one? dear readers, not only does Yahoo help the Chinese government by sponsoring Censorship...here is the icing on the cake:
Not only does it copy the previously high ranking, high page views "non-commercial" sites...but it works to destroy them, by becoming the Wall Mart of the web. That is what Yahoo does.

Don't believe me? Ok, I know of this one site...which had, back in 2002, over 20,000 search results on YAHOOLIGANS....

When Yahoo, and that "particular" company realized what was going on, Yahoo! instead of trying to work something out with our friendly webmaster, ended up syndicating content from our friend's competitors....and then, it simply developed its own content...initially, it was a single category...then another....and another...untill our friend's web pages were totally gone....

Why and how? For you webmasters out there, you know that search engines are your lifeblood..
What has happened over time, is that the search leaders, (it seems except Google) have the ability to find the following:
a) What people look for
b) How long you stay on the site you clicked before you come back
c) Therefore determine what kind of content a specific demography (in this case kids)
is likely to like/dislike etc...(they then use their monopoly ... to make disapear their creative sources...and I will quote one of Yahoo's own:

"Those generally lacking in creative inspiration have taken to just sticking a "y" on the beginning of something and then declaring it "a Yahoo! thing." Obviously, this requires no brainpower at all....
Jeremy Zawodny
Technical Yahoo!)

IT IS SICK.

Yahoo! uses the Billions of dollars they raised in the 1990's to not simply conquer the web, to dominate what YOU see, and to try to take credit for any creativity that did not come from within their ranks.--and now worst, what our kids see.

On the other hand, there is something to be said, for rotating search results (or what some call the 'google dance'), and that is that it enables "anyone" to enter the market "fairly"....but when a search engine with as much "power" as Yahoo! simply and totally REMOVES, sorry, REPLACES sites that are better, safer, and simply more sticky --- that is just outright wrong.

I no longer work for that lost website I mention earlier, but I have proof of what I say, and am not going to jeopardize them here....but I will tell you this:
There are no longer any listing for any of this company's pages on the new Yahooligans....sorry Yahoo! Kids Beta.--But I am sure they don't care much anyway, they now have more traffic than Yahoo Kids did in the past...

But I guess the truth is in the name: Yahooligans, or the people behind it, are just that--Web Hooligans -- Bullies.

Boycott that site, and all Yahoo! properties.

SAFE??? go visit http://www.yahooligans.com and judge for yourself....but don't take your kids with you...

The screenshots:

Yahoo 2006-2007:

Sites for teachers

2006-11-07T11:09:00.000-08:00

I am trying to build a list of sites for teachers...
Please post your sites here!

Thanks!

Why I Started This Blog

2006-10-26T09:13:00.000-07:00

Today I got really p'd off when I read the following:
"The more than 2,000 struggling students at high-poverty city schools who signed up for federally funded help from Socratic Learning Inc. knew they'd be working online with a tutor they couldn't see.
What they didn't know was that tutors were actually in India - and that none had passed background checks authorizing them to communicate directly with city kids, according to schools investigator Richard Condon."

This really ticked me off....sure they are a lot of other things that I had wanted to talk about, but...this was just Too much. While I have been a passive (non-web writing) teacher for a while, I figured it was time I said my two words, which you will probably be the only one reading anyhow...

As a member of the tech community, I thought my own works..as various as they may be...would be enough to promote my views and ideas...But Today, on October 26th 2006, EVERYTHING about me is about to change! It's time I yell out my frustrations and the undeniable craps that the web--and PEOPLE--have helped built and create these past years.

So we'll start with this Company...Socratic Learning Inc.
it's a nice website....No questions there...and I don't believe the NY Dept of Education can be as Naive and stupid to have fallen into a trap without prior knowledge!! It's my understanding that to get gvt contracts takes a lot of work and a lot more red tape...

But before I go any further..lets check what simple truths and problems this example actually demonstrates--and sustains...
a) Too many jobs (esp tech jobs) are being sent overseas.
b) Individual Americans are loosing the Economic World War in favor of "cutting costs"
c) There is no quality control--when it comes to service.
d) Our govt institutions are [obviously] not immune to this.

and now....we even let our kids be taught by Indians! I have nothing against anyone.
But...However unbiased a teacher might be, there is something called "cultural heritage"

I don't believe that the traditions of India, which include --may I remind you--child labor, extreme persecution-- inequality-- low incomes etc...and the list goes on...applies to the western world as a whole.

if the corporations on which this country was built, must lead the desecration of the American worker at the costs of Profit margins--FINE....BUT, if these same economic requirements are to let our kids be taught by civilizations that are inherently different, and that may at some point cost us the freedoms we enjoy today. We have gone too far.

Education is the basis of any civilization. It is therefore by nature, Biased.
If I were to learn about WWII from the Japanese, I would get a different point of view than from an American, a German, or a Frenchman. SURE, there is great wisdom to be derived from learning from different perspectives...but do elementary students have this wisdom?

I am sure there are many Teachers here in the US, that would be willing to answer an email here and there, and "tutor" these kids. We have over 2 Million teachers in this country, all of which are underpaid. (granted, I am sure Socratic Learning made a big Profit on cheap underpaid Indian workers--wait, are they real teachers?)

In any case, I am venting....
There are a lot of free online tutoring services that are available online, and it would have cost the NYC dept of ED a lot less money to compile a list, do research, or even set up its own US based system...SHAME ON YOU.

The full article mentioned here can be found:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/465237p-391506c.html