Notes from West Egg

Over the past few months I’ve been browsing blogs, clicking on links and gathering information about how I want to incorporate technology into my teaching this year. It’s been a fascinating survey, and I particularly enjoy the enthusiasm and sincerity with which my teaching colleagues “out there” and the technology experts write about the newest developments.

At times I thought my head would explode from the overload, but I kept coming back for more because I began to see the vague outlines of some ideas building (rather like a tag cloud… big 18-point yes to Ning, but a tenuous 9-point maybe to Animoto, etc…). I learned how to create a del.icio.us page and just kept posting websites on it to go back to. It felt like a particularly great buffet, and I enjoyed overloading my plate. 

Once school got out in mid-June and I’d moved my stuff over to my new classroom at the high school, I came home and made a to-do list. The technology tasks included:

1. Create a website that will be the permanent home to the course overview, rules, contact information for parents and “about me” profile. Thanks to iWeb on my MacBook, this was very easy and fun.
2. Build my part of the school wiki, which will be where I post weekly homework and where students post essays, video and where I will link to resources. The school started the wiki last February and most of my incoming 10th graders will be familiar with it. Building my part of it was more difficult than the web page, and does not feel intuitive. I’m going to be a team player and get on board with the wiki; I think from a student vantage it would be useful for them to go to one place rather than 6-7 teacher websites.
3. Create a Ning social network for my students. This will be the place to informally discuss ideas, watch videos, brainstorm, socialize outside of class and get creative. The Ning was easier to learn than the wiki, and I’m pretty happy with it so far. I have two videos on it and many ideas that I want to try with students.
4. Build a blog. This is it, and I’m happy with it so far, but have found the functions of edublogs.org to be the most difficult to learn. I think it’s just me.

There were many other non-tech items on the list, including reading Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind and Donna Foote’s Relentless Pursuit. One of the items came before everything else, and that was to pause long enough from my research to attempt to write out my philosophy. I felt the need to focus on the bottom line for my work, the big picture stuff, before building an infrastructure or deciding what to experiment with. This bottom line would guide me and help me to say yes to some aspects of Web 2.0 and no thanks to others. The purpose I came up with looks like a circle, with four tasks each pointing to the next. Students will:

• Develop enthusiasm for literature
• Read important works and understand why they’re important
• Write clearly and will style
• Communicate effectively through logic, argument and emotion