Week 3

This week I feel that there is a little more material I can use. I have long wanted to incorporate podcasts, but I'm feeling a little more inspired now. I'm not sure how I will use them, but I'd like to get students reading some poems and novel selections. I'm using Diigo a little more for myself, but I'm not convinced that it's important for students to share bookmarks. That feeds into one of my doubts about 2.0: there seems to be a worship of information in volume instead of depth and understanding. If there is one word that has become overused in the last couple of years, it is "connect." Everything is a way to "connect," as if that in itself is virtuous. Sharing bookmarks is connecting, but it feels to me like a distraction from thinking.
The most interesting thing I've encountered is the material about digital storytelling. There is a lot that we can do with the literary magazine. I have so many ideas that I need to slow down and start small or else I'll get frustrated. Audio and video links, links for allusions, author contacts are all possible, and more.

Week 2

I was in despair early this week. I came very close to "dropping" the course in the sense of no longer trying to do the activities. I would simply read what I could and skip the blog and discussions. It's too much work. I can't cut my sleep any further, and I was shortchanging my students. The wetpaint wiki site takes a very long time to do any little thing from logging on to fixing a typo. I'm not a stressed out person, but I was early this week. I was somehow able to get it done, but I'm still considering this option.
I read a number of the materials including a couple of things about RSS feeds. What the author says is true; it's very easy. I'm not sure that I see how they fit into the literature classroom, but I'm going to try to think of a way. I also looked at the Twitter for Teachers site. As Vladimir said to Estragon, "I remain in the dark." Both of these technologies encourage shallowness rather than depth. I am trying to keep an open mind, but both seem to require flitting rather that settling in and thinking.
I also read some material about wikis and visited a couple of the examples for language arts. What I saw looked like group plagiarism. I didn't look at them all, but I was not impressed as far as I went.
So here I am: energetic, experienced, not afraid of technology, having a good chemistry with almost every boy I teach, and feeling like I should retire in the face of this wave that doesn't seem all that constructive to me, though it certainly is new and different.

Week 1 Post 2

My resolve to use a real computer was confirmed when the IPad led me to make two typos because of this blasted virtual keyboard and the machine's desire to complete and "fix" my words for me. I later logged on to a computer with a full keyboard and fixed the errors so I would be able to get to sleep. Of course, I'm typing this on the IPad.
I noted in the discussion tonight (Thursday)that many people seem to teach in environments that have less freedom than we do. Though it's a Catholic school and we walk the talk on many issues, we are remarkable free to use technology as we wish. Challenges from parents regarding books and films are extremely rare. It's a good deal.

Week 1

Right now (Tuesday at 9:51 p.m.) I'm feeling grouchy about what I'm learning. Using an IPad, I set up my Diigo account. The Diigo toolbar didn't show up in Safari, and I couldn't drag the applet to the Safari toolbar. I added the special Diigo for IPad browser. The first document is supposed to be a Google Doc about the browser, but I got a message that said I couldn't view it because it violates Google's terms of service! This after the nice sounding young lady in the video assured me that Diigo "plays nice." At least I had a Diigo account address to add to my Wet Paint profile. There I discovered that "easy edit" doesn't work on the IPad. The tools come up, but I can't type. The lesson so far: use a real computer.

Week 1