2,000 Hours

Through one of the many blogs I read – The Edublogger – I heard about this intriguing new project: 2,000 Hours. A fellow English teacher, Charles Ripley, is going to document his teaching-related hours for the next year, starting with the summer.

This could be a fascinating way to approach issues like teacher pay, and is a creative way to use the blogging platform – I can already picture students documenting their learning throughout the year with a blog…

Of course, after reading Mr. Ripley’s initial post, I cannot help but recall some of the great clips from the Daily Show a couple of months ago on similar issues.

In any case, I’m sure 2,000 Hours will be a fascinating site to follow over the next year.

One-to-One Advice

I recently found out that my English classes will have a set of dedicated netbooks next school year, which is unbelievably exciting for me. I can’t help but think of all the possibilities for reading and writing when students have frequent and consistent computer access in the classroom.

As I’ve thought about next year, however, I realize that I don’t have a lot of experience in this sort of classroom and that there are a slew of teaching/learning issues and management issues that I haven’t faced yet.

So consider this a call for advice – how do you manage a one-to-one classroom environment? How do you ensure that your students continue to learn effectively in a one-to-one classroom? What issues should I expect to face next year?

Any help you can offer would be much appreciated.

A Little Error

A pitfall of maintaining multiple blogs simultaneously that I hadn’t discovered: accidentally posting something to the wrong blog. Subscribers may have received a post meant for my baseball team blog on Edumacation. My bad.

Just a quick note on that, though: I’m finding that a team blog is a really effective way to communicate with parents quickly and efficiently, particularly if they know how to use RSS feeds. So far I’ve used our team blog to communicate practice schedules, picture information, important team documents (like spirit wear order forms), and now schedule changes.

I’m starting to think that, in addition to our normal class websites, a class blog might be a neat way for parents to get a regular glimpse into our classroom.

Excel for Educators

"ilustra-construindo-macro-excel" by FelipeArte (on flickr)

I’ve been working on several projects lately and am really engaged in one particular project: Excel for Educators.

In my role as a technology teacher leader, I have been trying to find some training/learning opportunities that teachers can truly benefit from. The lack of attendance at prescribed trainings and the poor response to topics like “Web 2.0 Apps” and “Making Learning Visual” is moving me towards more specific trainings with tools that we already have but may not know how to use.

After polling a number of teachers, I found that learning how to use Excel is one such learning opportunity. As a result, I’ve been working on an Excel for Educators training – looking for ways that teachers can maximize Excel’s more powerful features (you know, on top of making neat, clean tables). In doing this, I’ve been putting together a list of basic functions, basic formulas, and some intermediate formulas that teachers can use for practical, every-day stuff. For example, I’m including how to use formulas like AVERAGE and MIN, or for the more advanced users, using the IF formulas.

I’m wondering, though, what else people are using Excel for in their classrooms, either as a teacher tool or with students. If you have suggestions for teachers using Excel, I would love to hear them.

One additional FYI: As I finish up materials like this Excel for Educators training, I will be creating additional pages to house them, so be on the lookout for some new pages on Edumacation.

A New Philosophy of Blogging

"Rodin's Thinker" by steven n fettig, on flickr

As mentioned a while ago, I’ve been giving some thought to a redesign – both in terms of the appearance/layout of the blog and the thinking behind why I’m doing this. If you’ve visited the site recently, you’ve probably noticed that I’ve hit the appearance/layout redesign and I’m pretty happy with it.
As for the philosophical thought process, I’ve given a lot of thought to how and why I do what I do on this blog. I thought it would be a good time to share my thought processes.

Why do I blog?

This was the starting point for me in redesign. Initially, I think it was purely to get involved in the onlne conversation and try to put in my two bits. Last year, I learned about RSS feeds and started subscribing to blogs, but I felt like I couldn’t share my side of the conversation. Essentially, it was a way for me to make my voice heard. Blogging was a chance to use technology, assess its value, and share information. As I have done so, I’ve become convinced of the power of blogging – the empowerment of having a voice, the encouragement of being heard, and the value of online PLCs.

As I’ve continued to blog, I think my purpose for doing so has evolved. At this point in my blogging life, I think there are three purposes for maintaining this blog:

1. To ask questions and seek feedback regarding teaching, technology, and/or education in general.
2. To share stories, links, and other resources that might benefit other educators.

How Do I Blog?

In rethinking what I do here at Edumacation, this was a more difficult question for me to ponder. When looking initially at successful blogs and “blogging tips” websites, there one consistent message that I heard: posting frequently is vital. In fact, I believed this to such a degree that I wore myself down trying to post at least a couple of times a week. Amidst planning, grading, coaching, mentoring, and everything else I had on my plate, I was forcing myself to crank out good content every couple of days.

As I’ve read more and written more, however, I have come to one significant realization: posting frequently is not a necessity. Very simply, it’s the old adage of “quality over quantity” that makes a blog successful. As an exemplar of this, I point to one of my favorite blogs to read – Smart Football. At times, I get very frustrated with this blog – Chris, the blogger, posts fantastic content, but posts are infrequent and sometimes sporadic. But here’s the thing: I am almost craving his next post, simply because all of his other posts are of such high quality. I find myself checking my reader regularly, hoping that his next post will be up. The quality of his posts become far more important to me than the quantity. Does this mean I post once a month? I certainly hope not. I think, as a practical goal, I want to post at least once a week. But it makes sense to me that, if I don’t have any good resources to share or questions to ask, posting for the sake of posting seems silly.

The Upshot

This seems pretty simple to me – write fewer, higher quality posts. In my mind, “high quality” posts are those that meet one or both of my purposes for blogging (see above), particularly #2 – sharing resources that benefit educators. It is with this in mind that I am going to be posting less frequently, but focusing my efforts on bigger “project” posts. An example would be this post – something I spend a couple of hours composing and refining. Another example is a resource page and corresponding post I am working on (something for all the busy teachers out there to look forward to).

So there you have it – a little explanation of what you’ll be seeing here at Edumacation for the forseeable future. If you have suggestions or would like to see something, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment – I’ll be sure to respond to everyone’s comments. Thanks for reading.