b movie

I haven’t got much to say right now–but I’m afraid to not post. I want to keep this one going. I will say I’m pretty amazed that it’s 2:45 and I’m still awake. In the last years, I’ve been enjoying the other side of night so much that I’m usually in bed long long before this. But the cool breeze and quiet that are drifting in and out of the windows are reminding me of how fun the night is.

When I was in Japan, my wife and I had great friends in Oyama. About once a month, we’d go to have dinner with them, and at about 10:00pm decide to go to karaoke. The four of us love singing, so we’d always get the all night package and end up staying till they kicked us out at 5 am. We were always tired, our throats sore, but we felt great, oddly awake. When we’d get finally get home at about 6, the rice fields would be covered in dew–drops hanging on the tips of the grass. Don’t totally know why–but I always felt so awake (after a short nap, of course) on those days.

Short note on how to use tech in the classroom. Not sure about this, but I’ve been wondering if maybe it would be better to have one wiki/blog/per class, as opposed to having all 160 of my kids post in one place. I hate separating them, and I love the interclass collaboration, but I love thinking about how much easier it would be to assess students if there were groups of thirty that corresponded with my classes.

Then–if I did that, I could stagger assignments so that I could maybe only have one set of thirty essays to grade a week–I bet I’d get them graded faster and feel less stresses. Hmmmm. Will have to keep thinking about this one!

One last thing–thank the lord for Apple Inc. so graciously replacing me keyboard for free (as a result of a ‘design flaw’) but the new ‘b’ on this thing doesn’t work so well. With no disrespect to those with a certain connection to the letter ‘b’, I never figured it would be much of a problem. It is. It’s driving me crazy. This is what my typing sounds like:

pitterpitterpitterpitterpitterpitterpitterpitterpitterpitter.PUSH.PUSH.sigh.PUSH.PU.pitter   pitterpitter.PUSH.PUS.pitteretc.

 

My Eyes are Burning

I have spent more time online in the last three days than in a LONG time.  So before my dry eyes crack and fall out of my head, I want to explain how delightful, and addicting, it has been to get sucked back into the blogosphere.  There are so many wonderful people writing so many exciting things about education right now.  I just got finished reading about another “we need tech in schools to keep up with the texting youth” video (this time posted by Pearson ed…) which, at first seems inspiring until it closes with, “this is the death of education, but the birth of learning” or something like that.  I’d hate to think that we need to kill education (as I sit here working on homework…).  Anyway, every since we watched the “did you know” video at a staff meeting, I have been contemplating how to make learning meaningful for my students, and just when I get good ideas, I have to go to another staff meeting, or dept meeting, or I have to grade 162 essays by the end of the week.  You get the picture.  I don’t mean to complain because I love teaching but man, I get so sad to think that, like other years, I will spend all summer online getting great insight and working on making myself a much better teacher…then the year will start, and I will no longer have time for personal growth as I am focusing on the ISBE standards, ACT prep, and the social/emotional lives for a small village.

 

Social Distortion Part One

I want to love social networks. I have a myspace account, but I never-ever use it, and secretly hope that Tom will delete it someday. I have a facebook account, and rarely use it, except when I respond to e-mails telling me that I have an invitation to be a rock star or poke someone or join a man-club–all things that I ignore because I don’t understand them. However, I am slowly getting connected with old friends that I would love to keep in touch with…

What then, is the big hang up? Pictures. I am afraid (literally) that I don’t have enough pictures to post on my social network. I have like three pictures of myself, and they’re all taken from my computer–too close with a hazy blue and yellow palette. I don’t have any American Eagle-commercial pictures of my friends and I all smiling and running across a field, or playing on the beach, or hanging out in a club.

So what would I put on a social network? Words? A blog? Will people really read it? Isnt’ the multimedia what people are looking for? Will I embarrass myself if the picture in my profile remains the same for more than 3 months? Will others be embarrassed for me? Or even worse, will I be showing my friends that my life is less interesting than theirs? Maybe I should just suck it up and start taking pictures of me gardening, me working on my scooter, me doing the dishes, me reading a book–I’ll show them–I’m interesting too!

Stay tuned for more installments of why I’m no good at social networks.