Blogush

 Check out those middle school numbers!  And look at that 12th Grade number.  These are from a Met Life Study.

Just saw a tweet from budtheteacher who had this to say:

I will never cease to be amazed by folks who teach classes about blogs who don’t actually blog. Sheesh.

Maybe we should stop doing PD on how to use 2.0 tools in a classroom. It should all stay focused on teacher’s personal lives. Teach them how they can use these tools to strengthen some aspect of their life, or how to use them to just have fun. Let’s face it, if a teacher has no interest in using them personally, they probably won’t use them in class.

There is another reason, and one that I think is even more important. I tell my student teachers that they should always do any project that they are assigning to the kids for the first time with them. It is the only way to get into the head of the kids as they try to solve the problem posed in the project. With podcasting it is really hard to hear your own voice played back. It is really hard to let loose your deep thoughts with a voice you hate to the entire world. It’s really hard to talk into a mic with no one on the other side giving you all the physical and oral cues that one is accustomed to in a normal conversation.  If you have tried it, you will approach podcasting in a whole different way with your kids.

With blogging you are all of a sudden writing to a potential world wide audience. If you are not a wonderful writing, the pressure in incredible. If you are a good writer you have no idea what I am talking about. You can never put yourself in my shoes, or get into the head of a student with a similar problem. At least I get to sit at home alone and write and I don’t have to sit next to Mr. Valedictorian as he writes another great post that will get 32 comments. It has taken me 8 months to become comfortable enough to just sit and spontaneously write a post — this is the first one.  I will never grade a blog post.  I would stop immediately if someone started to grade mine.  I also know how much it sucks to not get comments and go and find those students who don’t have a following and leave a comment to let them know someone was there.

All lessons should start by connecting the concepts of the unit to a personal experience.  That is how the brain processes and learns new things.  Lets stop telling teachers that 2.0 tools will improve their kids performance, until we have  convinced them that they will improves theirs.

Warning: DON’T TAKE THE FOLLOWING SERIOUSLY

I think it was an Australian blogger who wrote a post about how people should include a picture of themselves on their blog. Something about letting people see the real person behind the words. I am coming out against that practice. I like using my imagination to create an image of the person I am listening to or reading. Some of the people that I have been reading or listening to for over a year have become real people in my imagination. Their hair is cut a certain way, they wear certain clothes, and they walk a certain way. Along the way many of my images have been shattered. It turns out that many of my imaginary 2.0 mentors don’t look like what I imagined them to look like in real life. I would just like to go over my biggest disappointments so far in 2008.

The first is Ben Hazard of pdtogo:I have listened to almost all the podcasts but 90% of the time I only listen to the first ten minutes. I love it. I have always pictured Ben with very neatly combed hair to the side, a pastel polo shirt on, collar up, a pair of those boats shoes with socks up to his knees, tan shorts, round glasses that were too big for his face, and he was as skinny as a bean pole. Well about two weeks ago I saw a picture of him and it shattered my image.

Next is his co-host Joan Badger– I had a crystal clear image of her in pajamas(now wait, in one podcast she mentioned that she could wear pajamas and nobody would know),  hair all a mess pulled back in a pony tail,  a tie died t-shirt from a college sorority that she took from her roomate, bunny slippers, and somewhat bowlegged. Well I just saw a picture of her last weekend and it shattered my image.

Next is Steve Dembo of teach42 fame – yes Steve, I am still waiting for my invitation to the kegger – I am most disappointed with Steve. After reading his stuff and listening to his podcasts I knew for sure that he had thick black hair in a pony tail. Tattoos — you know those big ones you wish you did not get when you were 18, jeans, black boots, a leather jacket, a wallet on a chain, and he drove into his presentations on a Harley. I just watched a presentation of his a couple of weeks ago. Well…again, my image was shattered.

Howabout just one more…this one is a little different…I have seen what Kevin Honeycutt looks like right from the very beginning of when I started listening to him. His podcasts I caught early on showed him sitting in his car. But something I saw recently really surprised me. I saw him standing next to a picture of a llama. I never realized he was that tall!! I always thought he was about 5 feet tall. But he was bigger than that llama and llamas are pretty tall. My image of a short little man walking around the Kansas Prairie was shattered.

Alright, since you asked, one more.  There is one person that I am lucky to not have seen his picture. Doug Johnson. I have read his blog on and off for a year. I know he is a short, squat, cigar, crushed hat, beard that is white, no hair, I mean nothing on top, slick talkin’ Minnesotite. He looks weathered, in a way that makes someone look tough, not old. He has been on one too many ice fishing trips without a shelter, even though people offer him a beer and he accepts, he would rather have a malted milk. He is definitely a hunter and has a stuffed rabbit, no deer, no moose head above the computer he works at. I hope that image is never shattered.

I was going to post their pictures here, but I don’t want to shatters any images that other 2.0 going educators might have. If any of the above characters read this post — sorry I have to stop to laugh because it would probably quadruple my readership–I hope you know that I love you all and you all had a role in how my kids turned out this year.  This is my way of saying thanks.

I was up at the high school today for PPTs. I noticed one of my favorite students of all time sitting in the lobby to guidance. I haven’t seen her in at least a year and sat down to chat.

ME:Hey Kelly what are you doing in here?

HER:Future stuff, career stuff.

ME:What are they going to do to you?

HER:Give me a personality test.

ME:What are they going to find?

HER:That I have no soul.

ME:Why do you have no soul?

HER:High school.

Found this on  http://blk1.edublogs.org/

Tom Chapin’s “It’s Not on the Test” website

I have a kid who is driving me crazy this year.  They are an eagle but they spend all of their time with the chickens.  I can’t quite figure out how to convince the kid that they are an eagle.

“Eagle & Chicken”

A man once found an eagle’s egg and put it in the nest of a barnyard hen. The eagle hatched and grew up with the rest of a brood of chicks and though he didn’t look at all the same. He scratched the earth for worms and bugs and played the chicken’s games. The eagle clucked and cackled, he made a chicken’s sound; He thrashed his wings, but only flew some two feet off the ground. That’s high as chickens fly, the eagle had been told. The years passed and one day when the eagle was quite old. He saw something magnificent flying very high and making great majestic circles up there in the sky. He’d never seen the likes of it. “What’s that?” he asked in awe, while he watched in wonder at the grace and power he saw. “Why that’s an eagle,” someone said, “He belongs up there, it’s clear. Just as we, since we are chickens, belong earthbound down here.” The old eagle just accepted that, most everybody does. And he lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.

Just something I was messing with and ran out of time. I would love suggestions for images for all the slides that don’t have any.

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Every  teacher should graduate with an MS in “Brain” instead being a BSer in “teaching.”

Just a thought…

I have often joked around with the kids that it would be really cool if everyone walked around with their own personal theme song playing out loud. There have been years where I have actually played music for each kid as they walked to the front of the class to make a presentation. It was very cool. The type of music you listen to really tells someone else a lot about you that they can’t tell from looking at you or even after having a conversation with you. What would you play for the class and make an entrance to?

Here is mine:

I would start off with a modified version of the announcement that KISS uses before every show. “YOU WANTED THE BEST, YOU’VE GOT THE BEST, YOU’VE COME TO THE GREATEST CLASS IN THE WORLD!!!” Why not start with high expectations! The class would go wild at this point and I would enter with choreographed moves to Alan Parsons song Sirius followed up with introductions of the students(Think Chicago Bulls opening music). I actually started the last unit by handing out the guidelines to their project to Sirius. All I needed was a roaming spotlight.

Since you have spent the last 30 seconds of your life reading this, why not take 15 more seconds and leave a comment with the music that would be the soundtrack for your life!

If you come in with 100% of your energy everyday for 100 kids, and one child each day sucks up 20% of that energy, how do you divide up your remaining 80%?

If you have 50 minutes for 25 students and one child takes up 10 minutes of your time, how do you decide who is not going to get any of your direct attention that period?

How many kids did you not have a conversation with today, last week, during the last month?

200 minutes of direct class instruction each day. 100 students each day. Don’t even come up with 2 minutes per kid per day — During the 50 minutes there’s 5 minutes to intro class, 5 minutes to wrap up, one kid gives an answer that lasts for three minutes, one kid requires five minutes of help, and the kid who was absent needs yesterday’s work explained and I ask big D why he’s so sad. The office calls the room looking for a student, the squirrels have a fight in the tree outside the window, a student going to the lav trips over the cord unplugging the projector, and little J forgot his notebook, textbook, and pencil and wants to know what he should do about it. With the remaining minutes I am suppose to get my kids ready to take on India and China, be nice to others, collaborate with their classmates, and stop to explain why we don’t use the word retard in class. If I want to use technology I have to take more time out to coach the kids in how and when to use it, prepare them to think locally, globally, abstractly, solve problems, draw conclusions, be empathetic, and there is also this Social Studies Curriculum I am supposed to be covering. It is so much easier to give the kids a textbook assignment with a worksheet follow-up, give a detention for calling a kid retard, close the blinds, not use a projector, sorry Little J you are not going to your locker, dude come back after school to get the make-up, make them work independently in rows, use only paper and pencil, just worry about getting them to memorize the facts for the test, connect learning to grades, coercively manage their behavior, and then I bet I would have no problem covering the curriculum and not have arrived home this evening totally exhausted.

Is there one person in my building, my town, my state, that feels the same way? Why do I feel so alone in my exhaustion as I experience severe growing pains as a teacher in transition from 1.0 to 2.0. This isn’t suppose to be happening 17 years into my career. Is there some Uber Freaky Teacher Anonymous group meeting at some bar that I could attend? Would I go? Am I really just alone as I feel? I should stop and go and make a multiple choice, true/false test for tomorrow instead of setting up the recording equipment to record their Pecha Kuchas( oh so cool) digital storytelling videos for our wiki. I would be so much more relaxed, sit down tonight and watch bad TV, eat something that has lots of chemicals in it, crank up some Iron Maiden, spend a minute outside listening to the second day of the Spring Creeper chorus(oh so very cool), and then maybe decide if I want my blog to continue to be some form of therapy for me, or to be a place to engage others.

Kind of funny, decided to throw on some Maiden via an internet site before I posted this — first song that came up:  “Running Free” followed by “Heaven can Wait”  There is a message in there somewhere.  Oh wait, Metallica is on…the song…not kidding…”No Remorse.”   Fine I am better off being a stressed out 2.0 wannabe stopping the class for 5 minutes and discussing why we shouldn’t call one another a retard and putting the Mexican American War on hold…I have “no remorse” for doing what I do.