• Be Brave.  For some reason I am quite self-conscious about announcing my blogs on Twitter/Facebook.  This is the most important step for me to gain some readers!
• Be a More Active Reader.  I have a small handful of blogs that I follow seriously.  I should do more commenting on these blogs and use some of their posts as starting points for my own post ideas.
• Read More Blogs. Upping the number of blogs I follow would probably make me a more rounded blogger, which in turn would help me to come up with ideas for my own posts.
• Add More Pictures/Media.  Enough Said.
• Network, Network, Network!

After reading the challenge post, I have realized that I can safely post images to my blogs using Creative Commons licensing.   I didn’t realize that by using FlickR, I could find the licensing information right there, and images without fear of breaking a copyright!

While working on this challenge, I realize it takes some time and effort to appropriately post images into a blog.  I know I will be using this often in the future, however, I plan to create my own images as much as possible to help alleviate the stress I tend to feel over copyright infringements!

**image by liewcf released under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

I am going to go bookmark today’s challenge post right now, to keep the reference handy!

Thanks again for the help Teacher Challenge!

I decided to join the challenge in early December to help me get back on track blogging and using Twitter for professional resources.  From 2008-2010 I participated in a group through our educational service unit known as “TIG“, Technology Integration Group.  Close to once a month we met to gather ideas for integrating technology into our classrooms and then share them throughout our schools.  It was great. It gave me an opportunity to play around with new ideas and talk with some great techies out there.  I was regularly logged into twitter and gaining so many resources every day.  This year, however, my run with TIG is over and I am feeling less and less connected to the web and web tools.  I am hoping that blogging regularly will help me to stay encouraged to read other blogs and stay updated to new things out there for my classes.

I am also hoping to overcome some previous challenges I have encountered with my blog.  These include coming up with original ideas, writing in an entertaining fashion, posting regularly, developing followers (so far I have 0!), and many more I am not thinking of at the moment.

Happy New Year!

Google Docs has been a life saver for me so far! I have been able to create lots of notes,assignments, and tests and have them immediately show up in a location where my sub can find them.  I loved Google docs before, but I don’t know what I would do without it now!

I will update later how things continue to go (today is only day 2), but I have planned a lot of things to be completed via Ning and Wikispaces.  I anticipate that each of these websites will help me to stay connected to my classes even while at home! So glad to have access to technology!

At the TIG meetings, discussion keeps going back to the schools’ filtering policies and how these sometimes diminish the things we could be doing in our classrooms with technology.  Without even talking about youtube and other video and images sites, I want to develop my own rational for why Twitter should be available at school.

Reasons I Want Need Twitter at School:

Links, links, and more links!! Last year I got so many links to great educational tools and sites while skimming twitter at school.  There are countless activities I tried and/or learned about just by using my Twitter PLN.  I constantly used ideas and websites from twitter.  Some days I would change my plans in the middle of the day after reading about something someone on Twitter used.  This year I have not had Twitter at school and have noticed that I have not tried many new things in my     classes.    I have tried a few new web tools in classes, but usually this happens right after a TIG meeting while the tools are fresh in my mind.

Motivation. Reading about other teacher’s successes and problems helps me to face my day every time!  One teacher I follow posts his class’s agendas every morning.  I love to see what he’s doing.  He is also a science teacher so I can compare my daily curriculum and feel that I am on track (this is always nice for a new teacher).   Teachers are constantly getting and giving advice through twitter.  Reading these helps me tremendously throughout my school year.

Encouragement. There are not  a  lot of teachers in my building that I seek out for encouragement and advice during the day.  Twitter definitely provides this to me.  I can get instant feedback if I need help with a topic, if I need links, or if I need advice on a situation.  I am not going about this alone!

Reflection. Using twitter during the school day led to my own self-reflection each and every day.  I could think about and get feedback on what I was doing in the classroom all day long!  Reflection has always made me a better learner, person, and teacher.  Without twitter at school, I find it hard to reflect on what I am doing each and every day.  I do not want to blog every day or even every week.  Just thinking in my head has not proven effective enough to make changes the next day.

Current Events.  What else can I say.   As soon as something happens, it can be found on the twitter stream.  I couldn’t believe it when there was an earthquake in Nebraska this year and I had to hear about it from my non-techy husband!  He emailed me the info and said I should use it in my classes.  There is no doubt in my mind that had I been on twitter that day, I would have known with enough time to discuss the event in my classes the day of! I

With all of this said, I feel justified in saying that I am a better teacher with Twitter.  I do have access to Twitter at home, but I have found that other teachers aren’t posting the useful links and discussions outside of the school hours.  With the use of Twitter at school, I think that I am a more excited and motivated teacher, and this trickles down to the students who see me excited about new ideas and technology and are also more excited to try new things at school.

1.  Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy on January 3rd

• I read this in one night — it was hilarious! I am five and a half months pregnant as of today (Jan.5), and could completely relate to Jenny’s experience in pregnancy.  There are so many things that you don’t feel comfortable talking with others about and wonder “Am I the only person this is happening to…..”  This book is an extremely quick read; it’s short with short chapters and keeps you wanting to turn pages as you go — I couldn’t (and didn’t) put it down!

2. I am currently reading Desperation by Stephen King.

So far: This has the scariest first chapter of any book I’ve ever read!

3.13

4. Alex Cross’s Trial

Good book: This book was different from what I’m used to. It’s about racial prejudice and discrimination in the south in the early 1900s.  The main character, a white lawyer trying to help the blacks,  gets hung during the book but survives.  Progress is made in the Mississippi town where the book is set, and it has a happy ending.

5. Darkly Dreaming Dexter

I LOVE the Showtime series Dexter.  This is the book the series was based off of.

6. Kiss Guide to Baby and Child Care (Keep It Simple Series)

7. The Naturalist – E.O. Wilson.   I am reading this for a grad class and it is really surprisingly good.  Ed Wilson is a self-proclaimed life-long naturalist.  The books discusses how he came to study ants and work as a professor and researcher at Harvard.

8. Microbe Hunters – Paul De Krief.  Also a book for a grad class and also surprisingly good to read! I recommend reading this if you are interested in science at all.  I plan to try to incorporate into class somehow..even if just for extra credit opportunities.

9. The Double Helix – James Watson.  Book for a grad class, however I am finding it very boring and am having a hard time paying attention while reading it.  If you are interested in DNA at all, you may enjoy it though.

• Flip Video Camera
• Webcam to Skype and stream with
• mini laptops

• practice tests
• discussion board
• paperless classroom or limited paper in classroom
• links
• wiki

Things that worked well this year:

• Wikis: earths science, forensics
• Layered Curriculum units as formative assessment
• Media Projects as summative assessment
• Interactive Whiteboard notes – Promethean
• Review games
• Grading System

Things that did not work:

• Chemistry jumped around some
• physics also jumped around
• forensics: soil unit
• standing at whiteboard giving lecture — definitely does not fit my style
• cleaning system – not often enough, not organized enough

Things I did well this year:

• relationships
• showing my personal side (i.e. favorite music, hobbies, family, pets)
• getting to know individual’s “things”
• trust- this went a long way with most students
• had fun — students knew I was having a great time, commented on this fact often
• Continued to learn — went to lots of professional development days at ESU6, NETA, used Twitter for other teacher resources
• Reflected on my teaching — right here, talked to other teachers, talked to students about what worked and did not

Things I need to fix before next year:

• Freshman — too little structure at beginning of year?
• Too lenient with some students –got taken advantage of towards end of year.
• Less guidance of labs (inquiry model) led to more choas — need to find a balance
• Sometimes held a grudge for a little too long.