A new year prompts us to make all sorts of resolutions, which, statistics show, generally make it with great fervor for about a month. In lieu of resolutions, I’m setting out three guidelines for myself for the rest of this year.
1. Blog, blog, blog. I have let myself get lazy, and truthfully, blogging spurs all sorts of new ideas. Not just the writing, but the reading of quality blogs. The great thing about reading blogs is that it can be done with those 15 minutes that you would have wasted trying to figure out what to do next. I find that reading what my cyber-colleagues write gets my brain moving like nothing else…which in turn excites me about writing. Even as I ‘m writing this I’m thinking I could turn this into a good classroom strategy.
2. Tweet like it’s my job. Twitter is such a rich source of resources and truthfully I am not always disciplined enough to use it well. I get absolutely lost in it. I’m going to schedule in some Twitter time to see what emerging ideas are out there- and then pass them on. I’m also committed to showing my fellow teachers what a rich source of professional development twitter can be.
3. Chill out. I need to remember that pedagogy is important but every use of technology doesn’t have to be rocket science. I get a bit hung up on how far up on the taxonomy chart my use of technology is. Sometimes success has to be the goal- sometimes engagement. Sometimes the tool just streamlines the job.
Wishing you all well for 2013!
