one teacher’s journey

Tonight, as I was getting Zachary, 6, to bed, I asked him again about his first day of Kindergarten. Because he is repeating, he is being given “special jobs” by his current teacher. The conversation went something like…

Dad: Just remember, Zachary, even though you are helping and you know a lot of things, you still have a lot of things you need to learn, too.

Zachary: (distracted) Yeah.

Dad: You know, even I have things I don’t know. I’m still learning stuff, too.

Zachary: (surprised) You are?!?

Dad: Sure.

Zachary: But you’re the teacher!

Dad: You think that because I’m the teacher, I know everything?

Zachary: Yeah!

Dad: Nope, even I have teachers.

Zachary: Who are your teachers?

Dad: Well, I learn from a lot of people. I learn a lot from other teacher friends that I talk with on the internet. I also learn from things I read, and things I do. I even learn quite a bit from my own students.

Zachary: (long confused pause)

Dad: What do you think of that?

Zachary: Cool.

Yeah, cool.

My summer school students have entered the blogosphere. I finally set aside my apprehension and posted an “assignment” on my classroom blog, asking them to respond to a couple of traditional questions about Of Mice and Men. It is nothing too technological; just using new technology to do something old. But, it’s a start.

That is one thing that resonated with me while reading Richardson’s book: a suggestion to “start small” (I think I read it there…). I suppose that is what I’m doing, and I should give myself some credit for that.

I have so many questions still; many of them related to the technical aspects of blogging: how do trackbacks work? how do I use technorati tags? how do I do a better job of linking students to one another (blogroll? bloglines? RSS feeds?)?

I set up Sage in my Firefox browser, loaded a few feeds into it, and I like the possibilities I see so far.

Setting up each of the students on Learnerblogs.org was a little clunky. Most of it had nothing to do with the website itself; thank you to those who are offering the space and maintaining it! We educators love free stuff! But we had issues here with email addresses, computer issues, etc. Eventually, though, they all ended up with a blog of their own.

One thing I need to do in the future is decide on some policy issues, i.e. responsible use. And how do you balance the need to protect kids and make parents happy, and allow for true conversation and expression to take place. I need to do some more reading before the school year starts in September.

I also need to explore the possibilities of housing our student blogs on our own server. Our tech guy found some pretty clear instructions for using WordPress (which I am so far impressed with) on our own server. Now we just need more server space….

Ah, so much more to say.

I am ashamed to admit this, but this blog was created about a week and a half ago. Yes, this is my first post.

I don’t understand my reluctance to begin blogging. I love dabbling in technology, new things, cool geeky stuff. So why the dragging of the techno-feet? Perhaps it the perfectionist in me. I want to get it all exactly right the first time. I don’t want it to be messy and disorganized and awkward.

In truth, I can’t remember the last time I was so excited, chomping at the bit, to incorporate something new in my teaching. It started at the end of the school year when I picked up a copy of Will Richardson’s book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. It’s a dangerous book–practical tools and tips mixed with a boatload of tough-to-refute arguments for using this relatively new medium in the classroom. Next thing I know, I’m creating a blog, then a wiki (there’s nothing on it yet, of course!), then I’m talking to the tech guy at school and swapping ideas and concerns. Then I’m determined to use my summer school English class as a group of guinea pigs to test out the awesome power of blogs in the classroom.

Yet, I write this late at night at the end of the first week of summer school, having yet to even mention blogging to my students, let alone getting them up-and-running.

Again, why the reluctance? Fear of failure? Perhaps. That is certainly the roadblock in non-technology areas of my life. But this just isn’t me. I usually embrace new technology when some other colleagues panic.

I have to come to grips with the fact that the art (or whatever it is) of blogging will require me to push the edges of my comfort zone. It’s a process where I can not wait until it’s all nice and neat and boxed-up before I bring it in to the classroom. It may be messy, and that’s part of the charm. I realize that it’s ongoing, continual, a process.

Which is why I can more easily force myself to stop this post in mid-thought, without a clean and perfect ending, and go to bed.