Welcome to Mr. Odle's Free Learning and Teaching Resources

About Mr. Odle...

June, 2011: Having finished my last semester of my second bachelor's degree (in English education) at Western Michigan University, majoring in English education. I have a couple of other requirements to take care of, but I am now, officially, looking for a teaching job (you can see my cv here, which I just updated).

In the meantime, I have been working as a substitute teacher at Schoolcraft Community Schools and Portage Public Schools where I am a preferred teacher, in addition to the Vicksburg Community Schools.

December, 2011: I am currently rewriting all the code for this site (HTML, PHP, & CSS). This is a major undertaking to ensure all my code is compliant with the latest web standards. Once this is complete, I will begin reworking current content, and then add tons more content.

Following Mr. Odle

Most of what I post here is fairly static: I post it and it stays here more or less unchanged, more or less forever. However, I do have a fairly active online presence, so there are a number of ways to follow my activities:

• You can visit my bookblog to see what I've been reading and what I think about it.
• You can follow me on Twitter. I post updates to this website here, as well as links to interesting articles that students and teachers might be interested in.
• You can visit my Edutopia profile. (Bit dull, this. I need to work on it some.)
• Even though I don't do anything on Facebook, I do have a profile there.
• You can also visit my profile on the MCTE Ning page. (Yeah, this one's a bit dull, too. I'll work on it.)
• Yes, I now have my own channel on YouTube.
• You can also visit my Wordle page.

I am working very hard on updates to all these pages. Busy, busy, busy! But go ahead and send me a message (see below) I will respond fairly quickly—within two or three days, at most.

Contacting Mr. Odle

I don't give out my email address to students, but if you want to send me a message, you can do so by going to my contact form. (This link is on every page on this website, in the right-hand column.)

Sharing What You Find Here

If you find something that you like here and would like to share it with your friends on Facebook or Twitter, you can use the sharing icons on the upper right hand side of this page to do that. You can also print a page by clicking on the printer icon or you can email a link to that page to your friends by clicking on the icon that looks like an envelope. You can personalize which sharing services appear by clicking on the red icon with the white plus sign in it and then clicking on "Settings" in the pop-up window which will appear.

I used to use a mailing list to keep folks updated about what was new and updated on this site, which was a lot of work. I finally found a simple way to create an RSS feed, which you can follow by clicking on the big orange RSS button in the upper right hand corner.

A brief note on file types

I've tried to include a bit of everything for everyone here. But most of what you'll find here are .pdf files. I like using pdf's because 1) it's easier for me to use MS Office or OpenOffice to create content than coding html, javascript, and css by hand, which is how I create these pages, 2) I have greater control over the format and appearance, and 3) you can download them to your computer and keep them more or less forever.

And be sure to read my note about paper sizes.

Why I've Created This Site

My one and only goal is to share what I have with whomever needs it or wants it. It's not my goal to make a living from this website (although you should check out my disclosure page).

My belief is that in this age of cheaply available electronic and internet technology, no student or teacher should suffer for a lack of materials. Unfortunately, too many do, even in the western world. Because I have some facility with computers, I am trying to create those materials that students and teachers need and which meet three criteria:

1. They are common tools or materials that are used on a regular basis (i.e., graph paper),
2. They are easily adaptable to distribution via the web, such as pdf files, (so you can't download a real ruler, but you can download a ruler file which you can then print out),
3. They facilitate actual learning, without merely being electronic "bells and whistles." It is too easy to assume that if something is on the internet or is computer-based, then it's a more valid learning experience than something that doesn't involve technology.

I find it a bit outrageous that teachers have to pay thirty or forty dollars for a book of masters, when they only need to photocopy one or two pages. Likewise, I find it ridiculous that a student should have to pay five dollars for a pack of graph paper when they only need a few sheets. Thus, my incentive to create and share.

Also, students are out of luck when it comes to excuses for not getting their homework done. They can't say that they ran out of this or that supply, when it was available online.

Thanks for stopping by...

As always, if there is something you would like to see here, or if you have questions and/or comments, please feel free to use the "Contact" link to the right to send me a message.

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Other Pages

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About

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The Footer

The bottom portion of each page is called the "footer." I've reserved this space for three important pieces of information: a list of works cited, citation information for this web page, and copyright information. I'll explain the purpose of each one and follow it up with some examples.

The "Works Cited" Section

As a teacher, I need to model how professionals in my fields (education and English) work. So when I've talked about what other people have written, you'll see a box at the bottom of the page that looks like this:

The MLA Citation Section

Because I am a professional and give credit to those whose research and writing I refer to, I also ask that others give me proper credit when using material I have created on the web. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't, simply because they don't know how to. Therefore, in the footer of each page, I include a section on how to properly city any page you find on my main website. (This does not include information you might find on my book blog. I am currently working on that.)

There are two dates in the MLA citation for a web page. The first refers to the date a page was last updated (which many pages do not include); the second refers to the date of access. These are separated by the medium; in this case "web."

Note that the MLA does not require writers to include the URL to the page you are citing, assuming that anyone can use a search engine to find the page in question. You only need to include it should an instructor or editor require that you include it. I provide it for you in the approved MLA format: in angle brackets after the date of access. If you must break a URL, do so only after a slash.

The Copyright Section

I include copyright information at the bottom of every page. For further information about my copyright and permissions, please visit my copyright and disclosures page.