Many folks like to introduce themselves at the beginning of the school year sharing who they are and what their philosophies are for the classroom learning environment. Kids just love this part as well (yeah right).
This is the most painful part of the year for me. At the elementary level when I taught first grade, they were zoned out from me within minutes. They just wanted to hit the centers I had set up. At the secondary level in the middle school classrooms, they sat politely because they knew the drill. First five or ten minutes of each new class was the “Hi, I’m Mr. Floyd, and….” part of the class. Boring. I try. Lord knows that. I just do not have the artsy fartsy bones in me.
Then, I come across folks like Beau Bergeron. This kid (23 years young) has a wonderful sense of conversation. I am more than happy to learn from those younger than me when they are so dadgum (Texas term) creative. I guess I can blame testing for my lack of creativity since it all started when I was in school (thanks H. Ross Perot), but probably not. Anyway, I digress. Take a look at what Beau has created below and enjoy. Most of all, take some time and think through the first impression YOU are going to create when the kids and parents come this year. I realize James Dobson says, “Don’t smile until Christmas.” But what impression do you want the kids to get about what your expectations are? I want to set the bar high and have them live up to them. When they see I put more energy into the classroom than I have to, hopefully they will do the same. It’s worth a try. Realize what you do speaks so much more powerfully than what you say. First impressions. Then, when you are ready to work on your own, shoot me an email. Let me know what I can do to help you create yours.
Enjoy Beau’s mind and imagination. PS - Realize he played this video on the white shirt he wore to the event.
Wordle is a neat new visualization tool that will use either words of your choice (even in passages) or the tags from your Delicious account to create a neat looking cloud of words. Mine is below. I find it interesting that Professional Development is the largest since it is really where my heart is in education. I find it the best way to affect positive change for the most students.
For the record, this would make a cool little tool in an art program to see what types of designs students could come up with using just words. Also, it would be fun to use the words from a poem or essay to see what a literacy passage would look like. Any other ideas for instructional use? Remember, design is of the utmost importance for our students to practice since it pushes the abstract part of the brain. It is but one of the skills our students should practice to engage creativity. Alas, that is for another post. Anyway, it is a simple tool to use and another way to utilize technology in the classroom. The creations would make for a unique art gallery in the hallway or office windows.
I had the privilege to be a part of a conference call (Yes, land lines. Oh the embarrassment.) with severalotherTexaseducators who blog as well as a few of the important NECC people at ISTE. We spent an hour or so batting around ideas of what was going to happen at NECC 2008 and what could/should happen at NECC 2008, which happens to be in San Antonio this year. From an educator’s perspective, I do not think NECC could be more open and willing to meet our needs and interests.
With the online conference planner to pre-schedule your session and the online planner as a place to create this agenda to print or retrieve online (is this thing iPhone/iTouch friendly I wonder), any participant can be organized and prepared for a full schedule of events.
One really neat thing that came out of the conversation was about the opening social. If you are going to be in San Antonio on that Sunday, do not miss it. If you are not going to be there yet, you won’t have to miss it. You see, ISTE has taken the steps to recreate the event in Second Life. Yep, you will see other SL’ers and the atmosphere, and my favorite part, even the band will be in SL. What a deal! These folks have gone out of their way to show the power of collaboration with these tools. Only if other organizations would pick up on that. Sigh.
So no matter whether you are into iPods, leadership roles, open source software, higher education, tech products, or even just online communities, NECC has a place or a session for you. EdubloggerCon and the Blogger’s Cafe are already in the works to make a return trip to NECC. I assure you, it will be very difficult to stand in the convention center (or any of the hotels) and ask out loud “Who wants to discuss (insert ed tech topic here)” and not find a willing participant or two. It is the perfect conference to unconference.
As for me and my conversations, we will be all over the Riverwalk. After dark, you will find me by the pool with some BBQ, Cokes, and great educator friends during the evening solving all the world’s problems (or at least Texas education’s). Welcome to Texas!
My apologies to Robert Frost. And to be accurate, I actually took two posts marked Unread.
I have had two blog posts saved in my Bloglines account for what seems like eternity. They are too good to mark as read, yet they are blaring at me with each stroll past. I have no idea what to do with them. They make bold statements that educators should hear, yet they can be inflammatory each in its own right without thorough discussion of the context.
So in the spirit of sharing my current thoughts, here are the two things Darren Draper and Sylvia Martinez have published on their blogs that have me pondering:
“Virtually all learning difficulties that children face are caused
by adults’ inability to set up reasonable environments for them. The
biggest barrier to improving education for children, with or without
computers, is the completely impoverished imaginations of most adults.” - Alan Kay (Scholastic Administrator, April/May 2003)
Both make awesome points and serve to inspire the bendable and tick off the rigid. Which one can you relate to the best?
I realize I have not hashed these two things out very well in this post. My goal was to archive them on my blog so that I would be forced to discuss them with others or at least revisit them together on a regular basis until I get it all organized in my head. If anyone wants to discuss/debate the content and context, comment away. Otherwise, these remain in my head until further notice.
I had the privilege to be a part of a conference call (Yes, land lines. Oh the embarrassment.) with 
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