I am a Technology Coordinator for two K-6 schools and have some scattered experience with these web tools and have not yet taken an online course of any kind. So joining in on this course is a way to accomplish a review and “play time” with these tools while also getting a sense of how I like taking an online course. As a technology coordinator, people just expect that I somehow already know how to use all these tools. I am sure librarians get the same kind of expectation placed on them. I used to have more “control” – meaning that people only had access to tools I had installed for them but now there are so many choices out there that each teacher can find and use any number of these tools and I probably do not know a thing about most of them. I think I want to identify some of the common characteristics of these tools, the FAQs and troubleshooting tips so that I can help people use the tools of their liking without needing to know each service separately. I am thinking it must be a little like when you know the genre of a book you have a sense of the type of book it is without needing to read every page. Knowing the genre gives you some baseline expectations of what the book might offer. Is this a useful analogy?
In starting the blog and in deciding to share it, I have this funny knot in my stomach as I am wondering who all you literate people are reading this. Will anyone read this? The only thing I know is most of you are librarians and used to critiquing writing so I do feel like I need to write carefully!
I don’t think I have ever been anything but a life long learner so the beginning part of this tutorial was a little dull for me but perhaps there are people who either don’t recognize that what they do is considered learning or that pursuing these different things would be a form of learning.
The learning contract is a sensible idea but I have never actually tried anything like that before and I am not sure that it is something I need. Maybe I need a written goal or maybe just a daily reminder from my calendar would help keep THE END in sight. The obstacles are almost always the same – time, interruptions, multi-tasking too much at once – but the way around the obstacles changes with every different instance. Another point that was made that we have to sign for things all the time, but actually we can do more without a signature now than we ever could before and different things take the place of a signature, like a PIN code or the security questions or the security number on your credit card. I write and sign very few checks anymore. Maybe someone could think of a creative alternative to an inked signature on a piece of paper as a means of committing oneself to a plan.
I decided to used Edublogs.org because it seems to be geared to teachers and students. I have started this blog as a blog type of “student”. I am interested in learning what the environment looks like from the student point of view not to mention I am a student!
This is the welcome message in the blog:
Welcome to your brand new blog at Edublogs.
To get started, simply log in, edit or delete this post and check out all the other options available to you.
There’s stacks of great supporting material too! Take time to view our some helpful introductory videos, read through our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) or stop by The Edublogs Forums to chat with other edubloggers.
You can also subscribe to our brilliant free publication, The Edublogger, which is jammed with helpful tips, ideas and more.
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