Chocolate Thoughts

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Choc
I can always tell when I shift into my "need more time to read and figure out what to do with the information" mode.
The bag of dark chocolates in my desk starts emptying. It’s not me, mind you. I have no conscious recollection of grabbing, unwrapping, and sticking in my mouth the hundreds of pieces of sweet, bitter chocolate squares that seem to disappear during the day.
After sharing, showing, and collaborating with teachers and students the past couple of months, this week has been quiet. Grades and comments are due, and teachers, understandably, don’t have me on their minds.
So I am catching up on my reading, and when I do that, I eat chocolate.
This morning, for example, I skimmed DyDan’s blog to discover Patrick had a new post I hadn’t read yet. Good stuff about motivation and world domination.
But there was also a new read, and what a powerful voice she has: I am bound by law to have a sugar-bombed beignet and chicory coffee on Sunday morning at the Cafe Du Monde this weekend…" And that’s her writing about food. Wait until you hear her voice on teaching and homework….and she mentions Tom whom I read and follow. Gotta go there now….
More chocolate.
That post sent me to the ASCD website, where various bloggers summarize the recent conference…and link to things like "what the best teachers know and do." Save to read later.
WHY didn’t I think about going there? I wonder, as I take another piece of chocolate from the bag.
My Google Reader still open, I see Kim Cofino has shared a post–Arrgghhh, a new blogger, at least for me. Do I click and add yet another read? Skip it? No, Ok, ok, I say to myself, as I unwrap what I determine will be the last piece of chocolate this morning and read more on the McKinsey report and Finnish teachers.
My mind is also thinking back to the SOS podcast I listened to this morning, where I bumped into Sheryl….which reminds me, I gotta call Hiram to check on the PLP progress…..just one more piece of that blasted chocolate.

Something tells me I need to get back in the classroom or switch to apples.

Image: ‘Fairtrade chocolate pieces‘
www.flickr.com/photos/60364452@N00/903391978

Sometimes you just have to play

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Fireshot_capture_16_online_office_w
With so many online options for writing, publishing, and archiving, it’s difficult to know which tool to use. Don’t you sometimes feel you just flit from one tool to another?
But sometimes you have to play.
This morning, based on a post by Michele Martin over at The Bamboo Project, I tried (again) Zoho Office. I like it!
Here a sample of the Notebook, which I might use with my class. I like the way it organizes and embeds everything from websites to videos.
I’ve been singing Google’s praises for some time, but I think I could be talked into switching.
Ah, she’s so fickle.

The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.

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Glasses

Some of us have been talking about how it is harder and harder to sleep at night. After all, if we wake in the middle of the night, we can hook up with teachers from Australia, discussing blogs or wikis. The other day at breakfast, I listened to teachers from China and Korea talking about 21st learning skills (I was late to school).  24-7, people are twittering, blogging, thinking, challenging, discussing. What if we miss something?
Well, you know, if it’s valuable, it will re-surface. My goal is to focus on each week, one day at a time. We’ve got some amazing learning going on at my school, and I want to be sure I am present in the moment, not trying to ram every new tool coming our way down teachers’ throats.
So, the measured breathing continues. I attended a Celtic service at
the historic Episcopal church in town this evening. Meditation, guitar
hymns, and candles contributed to a time of quiet reflection and
prayer. I needed that.
This week promises to be interesting with a presentation to two of our upper school classes entitled, "Where are your footsteps leading?" and then one for the parents to bring them up to speed about what we are doing with technology.
Of course, I don’t want to focus on the technology but on how we are trying to re-frame our teaching, using the technology tools available. Twenty minutes is not enough, but it’s a start.
As much as I want to prepare our students for this uncertain future, I want–more than that–to make sure they develop a love of learning and a passion for life. To be curious. To care. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
"Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living." John Dewey.

Taking a deep breath

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Remember
Because sometimes you have to do that.

Instead of yelling and screaming about Google Team Edition and how it has corrupted some of my users’ accounts, I’ll share some links to projects happening around school:

8th
grade history students researched Union and Confederate soldiers’ lives
during the Civil War and wrote a poem as if a
soldier or a family member affected by the war. They used
JamStudio to actually create the music (having to use as authentic
instruments and beat as possible), then used Audacity to record their
own lyrics.Here are two examples:
http://tinyurl.com/2ys798
http://tinyurl.com/2fbhfr

Upper School history students rap!
http://tinyurl.com/ywam9d

Math screencasts for students to use in class and at home:
http://tinyurl.com/2p3mv4
 

And sixth-grade French and Spanish students are working on public service announcements using Audacity:
http://tinyurl.com/2cb4m4

Today we are spending the day uploading comments to the Many Voices Darfur blog, a student blog created my Mr. Mayo and Wendy Drexler. Though one teacher asked students to do this as a class assignment, other students are spontaneously joining in today.

My eyes are burning from burying my head in My Google Reader this week. I am definitely going to try this and then this.

Finally, I am so looking forward to having Dr. Gardner Campbell come speak to us (inspire us) next month. A brilliant English professor at the University of Mary Washington, he is a
leading advocate of using web 2.0 (why do I hate that word and love the concept?) to change the face of
teaching and learning. If you haven’t heard any of his podcasts, you should visit his page.

I’ll bet he wouldn’t
mind if I Ustreamed it to you all. And maybe I could talk one of my newest Twittering colleagues to manage the back channel chat.

Breathe…………….