You ain't got a thing if you ain't got that NING

You ain't got a thing if you ain't got that NING

So Much for Resolutions

Yes, that's right. I am finally recording an entry, 14 days into the new year. Things have been busy, both at home and back here at school. I am finding myself challenged with the ability to keep up with the many wonderful posts on my blog list that have convinced me that a change is in the air regarding how and what we teach. The amount of possibilities available are endless, and therefore overwhelming. While learning about all these new ideas and technologies that are in the wind, I am frustrated by the lack of enthusiasm or support by my peers. Change IS hard and old habits DO die hard. It takes a village, so to speak.
I am hoping that perhaps the best way to get faculty onboard is to use more ideas for professional development. One example, all our middle school teachers have been asked to open up a delicious account to start to save either professional development articles or articles that m,ight be of interest to their students. I suggested that teachers may want to have 2 accounts, one for themselves and one for the classroom. I am thinking about doing that myself in terms of the research the 8th grade is persuing regarding the primaries and , eventually, the election of the president in November. I have also created a wiki that contains links to a variety of topics related to our subject areas that I am hoping teachers will use as a resource as well.

Yeah, about that...

new year's resolution...blog weekly. I will keep saying it until I develop the habit and that will take like,what, 25 times. Lordy.
nteresting week of events with the archdiocese conference being part of it all. Out in the middle of nowhere with some computer and presenter problems, it wasn't really much. important thing was to be seen and start talking to people. There next meeting will be in February with my favorite tech rock star, Alan November. Interesting and poorly planned coincidence/ That is the second day of the ICE conference in St. Charles that will have Vicki Davis 9 Web 2.0 rock star) and Vinne Vrotny, the guy i heard at ISACS last year that got the wheels turning in my head. Hopefully, i will actually get to be in the 1/2 day workshop with Vicki Davis. also, I am hoping to find out more about podcasting as I have just had the tech department order 2o head phones for a middle school cart.
The lesson plans for grade 6 involving website evaluations seem to have gone pretty well. We will follow up with discussion this coming week. Jody has opened and started a blog to communicate with all regarding her travels in Egypt. i have just completed a webquest to use with the 8th grade as a connection to our trip this Friday to see Ella the Musical.
This week will begin with a bang as i will be traveling to the North Suburban Library Services in Wheeling to participate in a Big 6 workshop which again talks about the value of teaching students about how to evaluate a website.
All this on the heels of Hardey Day ( great idea, just not enough screwdrivers0 and a winter storm that caused Billy and the boys to loose power out in the wilds of Iowa.
hope I remember to blog next week as well:)

Talk is REALLY cheap

It seems to take a lot of discipline to make sure to put in daily entries in your blog, discipline that I am apparently lacking. So, it is a week later and here i go.
my original plan was to record some of the interesting information that I discovered at the ISAC'S convention in Indianapolis. It would involve moving my notes from my little green paper notebook to my blog for purposes of reflection and sharing. Anyhow, I lost the notebook and found it after a frenzied search that lasted over a couple of days.
the first speaker that I heard was Patrick Basset, president of NAIS. Interestingly, he referenced a video that I had already showed my middle school faculty at our first meeting,
" Did You Know" by Karl Fisch. He also recommended another video I had already seen on You Tube, " A Vision of Students Today." I hope to share this with the faculty at a later date. Mr. Basset was the first of many presenters at the convention to talk with great enthusiasm about a book by Daniel Pink titles A Whole New State of Mind as a natural follow-up to Thomas Friedman's The World is Flat which is apparently the road map and Bible of sorts for talking about skills for the 21st century.\Enough for now.

Talk is cheap

okay, so about a week later I write down my post. Hopefully, there will be quite a few so I can report some of my discoveries about education and the web and have a place to go REMEMBER what I had been thinking about.
My first thought is about the possibilities of a scrabble club for school. There is actually a national school organization for these clubs and the skill helps to develop a better vocabulary. while attempting a vocabulary site, I came upon Free Rice, a vocabulary game sponsored by the UN that gives 10 grains of rice for every correct answer that you find. with each correct answer, the difficulty level goes up. Interesting concept and I am hoping to share this with the students and faculty as well.
I have many thoughts about the ISACS conference that i just attended in Indianapolis. My wheels are turning and I am still trying to digest a lot of what I heard, and trying to figure out what I understand. next step, where to go with it.

Getting down to it

No more procrastinating!!The pros seem to feel that the best way to get yourself going with Web 2.0 is to develop the habit of blogging everyday. Doesn't matter if I am the only one who reads it. it is just about devleoping the habit and the practice .
SOOOOO much out there, it is difficult to comprehend how much has happend so fast with the use of the Internet. iIam try to read The World is Flat 3.0 and it paints a picture of a world vastly different from the isolated one I grew up in. As a teacher, the key words will be collaboration and authoring. As a global citizen, it is all about interdependence and ghlobal connectivity. Everyday, I am amazed at the possibilities.