Getting My Feet Wet

This is my first blog, really my first time putting something "out there" for other people to respond to. I feel shy and excited at the same time.

I need to do this so that I can teach students effectively.

In an age of imagination and communication, my subject - English - is more relevant than ever. If I try to teach it to my students using only a pile of dusty textbooks and some worksheets, what message would I be sending them? Why would they bother to listen?

Literature teaches us to think deeply and critically, to tell our stories and connect them to the stories that have been told before, to write and edit with grace and clarity. And to find poetry in unexpected places. English teachers of the past had to work so hard to engage their students. I am an English teacher of the future. Everything is right there for me. Students are already and engaged and doing this. All I have to do is convince them that what they are doing in all those hours they spend online is "English."

There's an article on Louis' Tech-Lou-ology about finding ways to use students' cell phones in the classroom. The last line of the article speaks to the unstoppable power of technology: "Now that the genie is out of the bottle, don't expect it to be put back."

Why on earth would we want it to be?