I should be learning all I can about technology and teaching while I’m on my one year personal sabbatical but I’m not. Well, I am but not as much as I have the time to. I’ve done a little rearranging on my weblog, as you can see. So when I was working, I had the desire to learn more about technology – but no time. When I’m not working, I have the time but no desire. Anyone else feel the same way? Also a factor is how much there is out there that a teacher can explore and use. It is a bit overwhelming. It would be nice to have someone walk you through it.
Getting someone to walk you through it…..The problem arises when a district forms a workshop because they must address the ‘techy’ teachers and the ‘non-techy’ teachers. Have you ever noticed the ones that are the loudest during a workshop? It’s the ones who are non-techy. The rest of us just sit around twiddling our thumbs while we wait for a thorough explanation on how to access one’s email. Only the real serious ‘techy’ teachers have enough motivation to learn on their own. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they have the responsibility to turn around and teach it to other teachers. Who has the time to do both when you are responsible for grading papers, filing forms and calling parents? If teachers were to be given time to explore this ‘tool’ would they use it wisely? What is ‘wise’ use of technology in teaching? Is blogging a ‘wise’ use of a teacher’s time?
I’m sure questions like these and others are being addressed and will be addressed in the coming years. (An example already is how some districts have already made a ruling about when a teacher can blog and on what machine they can blog.)
Back to my own situation, I may have to tap into my son’s vast knowledge of how to write code to get my website to look the way I want. He also points me to new technologies and interesting articles. I’m lucky. He’s a good teacher: patient but busy. Here is my official THANKS for his help!
I have to say that I think blogging is something teachers should definitely be doing. The question, of course, becomes, “What kind of blogging should they be doing?” I don’t see much value in perpetual gripe session blogging. But blogging as a way to reflect and to bounce ideas off other educators (and non-educators) is a great way to grow as a professional.
I really like the site! Adam is obviously a good teacher!
Adam mostly points me in the right direction. This is a template that is available through WordPress that I thought was very well laid out and efficient. That’s the easy part.
I can follow some coding but its just like learning any language, I’m very slow at it so I get his help to do it quickly. Most of what he does all day is write code to create websites. He knows lots of little tricks. Every so often, he will ask me to look over one of his creations as the common everyday user. You’ll find a link to his weblog on my first page – I have collected some of the websites he’s shared with me if you would like to see them.