always learning

I always seem to find useful resources a moment too late…

But, that’s OK, because I know I can use them again in the future. This time around, I’m wishing I had read Mike Hetherington’s posting about the benefits of student blogging before I made my presentation yesterday. I did mention almost all of the benefits that he points out, but I missed number 5. Oh, how I wish I had mentioned that blogging supports differentiation. Ah well, hopefully everyone who attended my session will be anxious to find out my inner thoughts this weekend, and will read this post!

Another great one I missed out on yesterday, is this short article from McGraw Hill / Glencoe about how to use blogs in the classroom. Whenever I give a presentation, I always like to hand out one or two articles about the topic so that participants know that I’m not the only one that believes in the topic. I had a great article, of course, but it would have been nice to also have this one since it covers all the basics.

During the PD day yesterday, I also had a short chat with my IT Coordinator about George Lucas’s educational foundation, Edutopia . I had actually tried to buy their book while I was home this summer, but the shipment was delayed so long that I had to cancel.

I’m so glad he brought it up again, though, because it ended up causing me to read this article by Jan Hawkins which was written in 1997. Even back then (when I was still an undergrad) she was asking the same question we’re asking today (albeit with a slight twist): Instead of asking, “Should schools have computers?” we need to focus on a more productive question: “How are technologies best used in education to help students achieve and prepare for the world outside of school?” In other words, even back in 1997, educators were asking the same question I ask myself everyday: Why is technology driving education, when it should be education that drives technology?

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting a session on Blogging Across the Curriculum (still trying to figure out how to post a copy here since the file is so big…) at school. Even though this technology is so new to me, it has become so obvious that we can all use it in our classrooms every day, and each of us has the potential to use it in a different way.

Just because Peggy and I are doing individual student blogs on current events, doesn’t mean that’s the only way to blog in the classroom. How awesome would it be if the other sixth grade teachers took advantage of the work that we’ve done setting up the student blogs, and had them post on what their learning in the other subjects! I need to figure out how to encourage/enthuse some of the more reluctant teachers to take advantage of these new tools. Especially those that can utilize the groundwork Peggy and I have already laid with the sixth graders.

During my presentation, I kept referencing Will Richardson’s new book because he did such a fantastic job of describing how to unleash the potential of blogging for all of us. I hope that some of the teachers do go out and buy it (or at least borrow mine), because I feel like we only touched the tip of the iceberg yesterday.