Ruth’s Ruckus

Yesterday at the VSRA governing council meeting, I introduced 50+ educators to bookmarking on http://del.icio.us !!  We will begin collecting and exchanging bookmarks as a professional organization.  I am excited!!  Many of them were not familiar with social bookmarking and so I was glad to introduce them.  Thanks to Steve Dembo  for the challenge to “build the choir”.

Vicki Davis has set out a challenge at http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/11/play-web-20-truth-and-dare.html Truth/Dare/Double Dare and I accept!

Do you spend any time talking about proper methods of e-mail? Not quite sure what she meant by this question, but I post about email use over at my work blog: http://ppsblogs.net/ruthokoye

Do you have a facebook or myspace profile? Yes I do.  It’s not really a great profile, so I’m hesitant to share it.  I’m just beginning to look into facebook as my goddaughter has joined and sent me an invitation…

If someone wrote about you, is your name hyperlinkable? (Do you have something they can link to?) Yes.  I have a two blogs. This one and the one from work mentioned above.

Do you know the names of all of your students? I’m really bad with names, and when I was teaching my students were quite aware of my diificulty.  I made up nicknames that I could remember for some and called most “sweetheart”

If your students have computers in the classroom, do your students make ongoing eye contact? When I taught and had computers in the room, my students were using them!  They weren’t looking at me…

Are you unafraid of what would happen if youtube, myspace, and facebook were allowed in your classroom? As a public educator, I do need to worry about student safety, however I would feel better about youtube and myspace being available if students were taught how to appropriately use these materials first.  Teachers at the elementary level (where I teach) should make used of free services to teach students how to use these types of materials before we let them.  www.imbee.com; tappedin.org; and the new ad-free Ning groups would be perfect to teach students how to use these.

Do your students collaboratively create documents? While I am familiar with wikis and googledocs, I’ve not used them with elementary kids at this point

Do you expect your students to complete their reading assignments? Kids never completed their reading assignments when I was teaching.  I never completed them while I was in school.  If we changed a few things like the publishing options, I think that might change.  If kids knew they would be blogging a response to a reading, they might know they can’t fake it.

Do you assign papers and grade them after reading EVERY WORD? I learned very quickly that I did not want to read a million papers, so I stopped giving boring assignments like write about…I used lots of options like create a brochure, do an oral report…that way I could really grade things fairly.

Have you ever given assignment and allowed students to create content on the public world wide web? I do now that I am in IT. 

Do you allow students to post content WITHOUT premoderation? I don’t think I could do that.  I teach elementary school.  They are still learning about what is appropriate.

If you allow students to post online, do you subscribe to 100% of their content in your RSS reader? No.  I post their stuff.  So I read it before it goes out there.

Do you comment on your student blogs? Yes, sometimes. 

Is more than 50% of your content relevant “to life?” (Ask your students) I think so.  I use lots of real life examples to get my point across.

Do all of your students open their textbook for your class on a weekly basis? When I taught they did in class.

Do you give reading assignments that include web content? Not usually

Have your students been taught methodologies for assessing the validity of web documents? I try to include that when I am teaching lessons that include research

Do you give students projects where they must manage themselves, multitask, and deliver a comprehensive output that is relevant to your topic? YES!!

Have you changed anything significant about ALL of the courses you are teaching THIS YEAR? Yes.  I’ve added blogging.

Do you care? Of course.

Here’s the video that started it all:

Neither of the administrators in the buildings that I am assigned to would caare about this, but I am showing this to my immediate supervisor.

I was reading Scott McLeod this morning…Yes, morning – it was very odd – and saw this post about Kim Moritz the blogging principal that we’ve all heard about. While I didn’t really read Kim’s blog, I knew about and checked it from time to time as those in my aggregator referenced her. It’s not that what Kim was saying wasn’t important, I just have enough reading trying to keep up with the edtech folks that I’m trying to read. Anyway, Kim’s latest post http://ghsprincipal.edublogs.org/2007/10/26/g-town-stops-talking/  references something that I am struggling with myself.

It is inevitable, that our professional goals sometimes take us to new positions. Kim has gone from principal to assistant superintendent. In her post she talks about having been a good principal and loving her job. She is taking a break from blogging because she doesn’t yet see the place for it in her new position.

The idea of leaving a job you love to follow your professional goal is something that I am struggling with right now. I know that I am having a rough patch right now, but generally speaking – I love my job. My teachers know it, my boss knows it, and the other TRTs in the division know it. But I am finishing a doctoral program in educational leadership. I went into the program for principal certification. Logically, when the dissertation is done, I should be moving on.

I just stumbled on this great job before I could finish. When I applied, I thought this job was meant for me. Who looks for someone with elementary language arts background in a technology field? Language arts folks that I’ve known have always been a little tech shy. Even I just dabbled before I got the position. I just happened to have the right combination of education. Undergrad in computer programming and grad in reading – I used to say this job is a combination of my two great loves.

The question remains – should I move on? Or will I find that I’ve moved on from something that I was really good at like Kim?