fun stuff and useful links
presentation opener
If you've seen one of Barry's presentations and want to take another look at the trivia slides he often plays, click on the screenshot to the left.
music
Barry regularly performs on a variety of traditional Celtic instruments: guitar, tenor banjo, bouzouki, hammered dulcimer, and bodhran. His band, Planet Reel, makes frequent appearances in and around Memphis. You can visit their website at www.planetreel.com.
connect with other language arts professionals
There are a lot of great sites out there to help you connect to other English teachers. Barry recommends the following two ning social networks in particular:
The NCTE ning - http://englishcompanion.ning.com
The English Companion ning - http://ncte2008.ning.com
It's also great to become a member of professional organizations. Barry belongs to these organizations, among others:
The National Council of Teachers of English
The International Reading Association
The Tennessee Council of Teachers of English
The Shelby Memphis Council of Teachers of English
technology in the classroom
Barry uses technology extensively in his own classes in a variety of ways and often presents to teachers on ways of using technology in their instruction. Here are some resources that Barry uses in his own teaching:
Social networks and shared note-taking: check out nings, wikispaces, and pbwikis
Cool word art (insert a chunk of text and get it back as a poster): Wordle
A nice vocabulary site with flashcards and games for the words you enter: Quizlet
Another vocabulary site - translates words on a web page or text into active links to a reference source: Voycabulary
For making and giving online quiizes: Classmarker
Check out more of the online resources Barry recommends here.
tennessee shakespeare
In the fall of 2008, along with his wife, Barry composed and performed the music for the Tennessee Shakespeare Company's inaugural presentation, an outdoor production of As You Like It. TSC has new productions planned for the 09-10 season; visit their website to learn more.
other interesting stuff
Here are some other sites and articles that might be of interest to teachers:
~Sites of authors and presenters whose work is useful to middle and high school language arts teachers: Jeff Anderson, Carol Jago, Kelly Gallagher, Deborah Appleman
~Here's an interesting diatribe against Strunk & White
~If you're interested in controversial ideas about education, check out some of the pieces written by Alfie Kohn
~The blog of unnecessary quotation marks - fun for English teachers