Thing 1 and Thing 2

Why are you participating in 23 Things? What do you hope to learn? What new insights did you have during Thing 1? How does writing on the Internet, knowing anyone could read it, change how you write or feel about writing?

My initial reasoning for joining the 23 Things program was to get in some PD time outside of school, that was free. I figured it would be easy to do, because I am familiar with many things out there. But there are a few things I'd like to know more about. I have a Master's Degree from EMU in Educational Media & Technology. It's interesting to see how things have changed in the past 4 years, since I graduated. But, when it came down to getting started a couple weeks ago, I felt a strong lack of motivation. Maybe it's the season, maybe it's the lack of motivation of my students rubbing off on me. I really don't know. But.....

I did NOT expect to be inspired in the first THING! The article...was interesting. I can't imagine what kind of set-up/start-up work that took. But with everyone seemingly on board, it couldn't have been too difficult. The video, that is what grabbed my heart stings. That was what reached out a smacked my face and screamed, "Why are you sticking to traditional when you have this strong personal interest in technology?" So, I immediately e-mailed my co-teaching partner to tell her of my new found inspiration, because we were just talking about how we could motivated our unmotivated at-risk & special ed. kids. She's not nearly as excited by this as I am. The question becomes, how do I squeak this into our already packed curriculum, that she doesn't really want to give me any control over. Details...shmetails...as I stated in my response on Thing 1, we are constantly taking cell phones & mp3 players from students. There has to be a way to use those. I'm sure I can get the rules bent for my inspiring lessons. Well, I hope. Now, to find and create those inspiring lessons.

As for writing and posting on the web, I've been doing that for years. In college, I had a website that I created (after teaching myself HTML because there weren't readily available page creators back then) just for fun, with people I was chatting with all over the US. I've had some kind of online profile since then too. I'm terrible about blogging, preferring Facebook because I can "blog" in one or two sentences quite effectively. And, I can create longer blog style notes whenever I feel the urge or simply need to vent. I do not accept friend requests from students and I make it difficult for them to find me or view my pages. I do, however, have a few younger "friends" from church and family. Because of that, I do try to filter what I put out there and how I put it. Also, with my Mom suddenly appearing on FB, I've felt the need to be a little more filtered (but only a little).

I recently let my classroom website die, because no one used it but me and I couldn't justify the expense. There was a blog area on there that I would occasionally use. Now that I've been "forced" to create my own blog, I'm thinking already about how I can use it in my classroom. It is a constant fight to use technology in my school and this year, the defeat has rung loud and clear in my world. But this 23 Things is a light, shining bright enough to catch my attention and inspire and motivate me...where will I go from here? Someplace amazing I hope!