This semester has been the craziest of my life. I have taken several steps: Newly engaged, purchased
a house, interviewed and accepted a new position, served as an assistant
department chair, and led a candidate search and interviews for my current
position. As if all of these things were
not enough to cause delays in my full focus on material of this course, it
turns out that I purchased a house with many hidden issues. As we all know, teachers don’t get paid a
lot, so I have been forced to fix things on my own, and not very successfully. I am stilling living out of boxes and with
out a working shower. With all of this,
I have become more aware of the power of Professional Learning Networks. It can be overwhelming for sure, but it is
also stable. You can access as much or
as little as you can handle. The tools
we have used are designed to make our lives easier, not more difficult.
Feedly is a awesome tool for anyone who wants to stay in
tune with the latest and greatest. The
ability to pull so many resources to one central location saves me so much
valuable time. It is something that I will
definitely continue to use.
I have tried blogging before and again in this course. It is something that I enjoy from time to
time, but have difficulty keeping them up to date. As a math person, writing has never been one
of my strong suits, however put to paper my thoughts help me to reflect on what
I have learned, read, or experienced. It
is a very powerful tool even if others do not interact with you. Blogging in
the classrooms is a great why for students to work on their writing and peer
editing. I wish the English teachers at
my school had our students blog more. I have been trying to come up with a way
to use it in my math classes.
I enjoy listening to podcasts but not making them
myself. There is nothing better than
being able to be productive in the care while you are driving. I go through periods of time in which I
enjoy reading and others in which I have a hard time. Podcasts are a great way for me to continue
to hear others thoughts or discussions on topics.
I have had a twitter for years and have only posted a few
times. I have never gotten into posting
the things I do to the world. I do use
twitter however to follow a group of visionary math teachers under the name of
twittermathcamp. I will continue to use
this and I see it playing a bigger and bigger role in schools with the ability
to easily distribute information to students, communities, and parents.
I have been exposed to Delicious before and have never
really gotten into Social Bookmarking. I
am sure some have found great use out of it, but not me.
Diigo is a tool that I have heard about before but never
really looked into. I shared it with a history teacher at my school and he is
in love with the collaborative annotating that can take place. He is using it with his students as they work
on research papers.
Although I have had a lot going on, the information in this
course was very helpful and I wish that I would have been able to take full
advantage of the course. It has opened
new doors for me in extending my own learning and professional
development. I really enjoyed working with
the other students in this course. I
feel that I am better off.
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