I've had a digital camera for years, but until this week it hadn't really changed the way I used photography. Instead of sticking film in an envelope, I stood at the photo kiosk for a half hour every month or so.
I have been carefully filling photo albums for all of my adult life. Yet, it wasn't until last week that I asked myself: Why am I doing this?
I guess it was nostalgia for those childhood afternoons spent poring over the family albums on the coffee table shelf. Turning those pages, I looked into the faces of my younger selves and developed some sort of identity half constructed of memories. I wonder if my kids will get that same sense of transcendence using Flickr.
...
After Week 3's class, I plugged in my camera card, logged on and started to play. It was fun, but when I got to the tags the lightbulb really flickred (couldn't help myself) on. A photo of my son, Nick, holding up a blue gill is tagged with fishing, Nick, summer 2008. If I ever do a compilation of family fishing photos I'll type in fishing and it will pop up. For a slideshow of Nick, I'll type Nick and it will come up again. This sure beats hours spent digging through boxes and flipping through pages - not to mention the tedious task of putting all the loose photos back when the project is done.
I shared my photostream with a few contacts I'd lost touch with over the years and was excited to learn that my cousin, Kate, had stopped for a view. I'm going to take pictures at my family reunion this fall, collect e-mail addresses and invite everyone who is interested to take a look.
Don't get me wrong, I still plan to print out some pictures for my albums and my real blog - the front of my refrigerator - but otherwise it's Flickr from here on out.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Name That Blog!
When I worked as an ad writer, I was often assigned to name new products. This involved many tedious hours in a small cubicle compiling lists of possibilities for products such as lawnmower engines, rangehoods, forklifts and fuel additives.
So you'd think I'd be able to name a blog in one shot. This began as "bloggiest notion," which seemed like a clever play on words, but got old - fast.
Then, in an attempt to attract other future teachers, I tried "teacher-to-be" (taken), "futureteach" (taken), and "teacher-in-the-making" (" "), before settling on "off-to-teach."
The latter didn't last long because it simply doesn't make sense. ("Gotta go, guys, I'm off to teach!")
So here I am with, I hope, a final name for this series of rantings - "Runs with Sentences."
I hope you like it. More importantly, I hope you visit.
10-point trivia question: Who was the famous poet who was hired to come up with names for new automobiles?
So you'd think I'd be able to name a blog in one shot. This began as "bloggiest notion," which seemed like a clever play on words, but got old - fast.
Then, in an attempt to attract other future teachers, I tried "teacher-to-be" (taken), "futureteach" (taken), and "teacher-in-the-making" (" "), before settling on "off-to-teach."
The latter didn't last long because it simply doesn't make sense. ("Gotta go, guys, I'm off to teach!")
So here I am with, I hope, a final name for this series of rantings - "Runs with Sentences."
I hope you like it. More importantly, I hope you visit.
10-point trivia question: Who was the famous poet who was hired to come up with names for new automobiles?
A New World
I just hit the jackpot! I just found secondaryworlds.com - a site for English teachers by Robert Rozema. It's a blog with great stuff, relevant stuff about teaching kids English. It also includes literary scavenger hunts, postings of student work and podcasts of his students reading from great works of literature. The student reading of "Maus" actually made me cry.
This is all good, but I will never get my laundry done!
Research shows that "games" is the word most frequently plugged into school search engines. This posting makes an argument for developing video games to engage students. Kids Play Games Online
This is all good, but I will never get my laundry done!
Research shows that "games" is the word most frequently plugged into school search engines. This posting makes an argument for developing video games to engage students. Kids Play Games Online
Monday, June 23, 2008
Classroom Culture
Just read Pamela Felcher's "It's culture, not just class size" in the LA Times opinion blog.
This reminds me of something professor Mary Flynn (she doesn't have a blog) told her future teachers the first night of class: "You will have very few problems with behavior management if you take the time to build your classroom culture."
How do you do that?
By taking the time to get to know each student as an individual, by letting each student get to know you, and by letting them get to know each other.
There are many web tools available that have the potential to make students feel part of the classroom community as well as the global community of learner. But these are only tools. It's all in how we present them, teach them and use them.
The human touch is the real link.
This reminds me of something professor Mary Flynn (she doesn't have a blog) told her future teachers the first night of class: "You will have very few problems with behavior management if you take the time to build your classroom culture."
How do you do that?
By taking the time to get to know each student as an individual, by letting each student get to know you, and by letting them get to know each other.
There are many web tools available that have the potential to make students feel part of the classroom community as well as the global community of learner. But these are only tools. It's all in how we present them, teach them and use them.
The human touch is the real link.
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