Friday I stopped by to say goodbye to a long term substitute who has been working in a 6th grade math class. He had started out in a special education classroom, but was moved when that position was eliminated. He is going off to do his student teaching so he will be dually certified in special education and elementary education. He starts out in third grade. Good luck, Rick!
As a parting shot he said he had sent me some questions on my forum. Oops. I have kind of let it slide since I came on board as guide in October, 2009. I decided to take a good look and see what was what.
What a mess! I can see why people don't use the forum. It has become a dumping ground for all sorts of online schools, dubious products and online retailers that have nothing to do with special education! Some web pages and products do have something to do with special education, and some of them link to my site to add to the discussion and information on their sites. I'm cool with that, but don't try to disguise it as a discussion about celebrating Christmas in public schools (somebody trying to sell sheepskin rugs online.)
I spent a lot of my long weekend working on cleaning it out. I will be posting a new "Welcome to my forum, please extend some courtesy" rules this next week. For now, I've closed down all but seven (down from twelve) folders. I will continue to clean them out and moderate what goes in at least a couple times a week. People who try to spam the forum will be locked out, though they certainly can re-register. That doesn't mean that those of you who blog on your own and would like to connect will be unable to: please just use the "New Website" folder to post information about your site. If I find it in the general discussion or teacher's place, I will delete it.
If you are promoting or providing a new product, please use the new product forum. If you have found a special ed tool you want to recommend to others, please use this folder.
If you speak Spanish, knock yourself out. I won't be moderating that site, except to check for entries that are not in Spanish.
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