Day 5 Reflection

Topics for Today

1. Last class of the summer

2. Past MACers

3. A look ahead

It is odd that it was the 5th day of class and also the last class of the summer term, but that is how it was.  Class was interesting on Friday, we were separated by cohort again.  It would have been cool to hear all the past MACers, but it was more personal with less people in each room.  Then we moved to the School of Information that had a pretty cool interior, but the room we ended up in was not the most conducive to our class.  We shared our panel discussions, and then discussed some of the other technologies we might see in our years of teaching.  When class was over, it didn't really feel like the summer term was over, but as I write this, I look forward to possibly sleeping passed 10 o' clock in the morning tomorrow.

It was awesome to meet and listen to past MACers, not only because it gave me encouragement and hope for what I can accomplish, but also because some of their stories were amazing.  We met a math teacher, a history teacher, and an English teacher, but they were more different than just their disciplines.  The English teacher was from a school for pregnant and parenting moms.  They have an urban farm, early education providers, and a project based curriculum that helps prepare those girls for adult life.  How amazing does that sound? Answer: Super amazing.  Then it was interesting to hear about the vastly different technological resources available to the other two teachers. One worked in a one-to-one computer school and the other worked in a school where his classroom/teacher computer stopped working shortly into his placement.  I am interested to see how technology class will be conducted when we are all in our placements and in very different circumstances relative of one another.

As much as I am grateful that we have August off (for the most part) I am really excited for the coming year. I have waited what seems like a long time to reach this point in my life and I can't wait to keep working and achieve a long-awaited goal.  I know it is going to be a lot of work, but I keep reminding myself that this is what I signed up for.

Fellow MACers, enjoy August and I look forward to seeing/working and learning with everyone in September.  

EduBloggers

Topics for Today:

1. EduBlogs

2. Using Tech

I dove into the EduBlog world last week.  I learned so many things just by peeking at them.  This week we had to go a little deeper, meaning commenting on and blogging about what we read.  I scanned the lists of EduBloggers to look for blogs about English. I found a couple I enjoyed, like this one and this one. I think it is a good idea to find teachers blogging about my content area, but I also find value in blogs about other content areas too.  Then I started looking at the general teaching strategies blogs.  I found http://www.teachersatrisk.com. I liked her writing style and the way she still seemed idealistic.  As I started thinking more, I like the general EduBlogs better or at least equal to the content area blogs because the advice is more applicable. Even within the content area of English, there are so many different genres and grade levels.  Sometimes the material is not relevant to what an English teacher could be teaching.  Teachers At Risk is a great blog that shares insights, resources, and practical classroom strategies.  

I liked this blog so much that I added it into my Google Reader. I was proud of myself for utilizing this resource. This only lasted a moment. When I logged into my Google Reader I had 135 unread posts.  Apparently I am good at finding cool stuff on the Internet, but not very good at actually reading it.  I hope this realization spurs me to go back and read those posts, but I'm not sure when.  I'm using the technology, I just have to be more efficient and more thoughtful with how I am using it.