I have so much to say and so little time to say it!
Let me push the rock up the hill with this little note about my new work at Pioneer Valley Regional School.
We have our new Middle School Lab – my classroom – fully operational. We installed the SMARTboard last week. We have only to add an in-room printer and it will be complete.
When we assembled the table we set the height at 28 inches, which is working very well. We have a carpeted floor so we all have swivel chairs. We also have room for work tables in the center of the room, and plenty of closet space for all sorts of supplies and equipment.
We have four host computers and sixteen clients. We are running N-Computing for our environment. The only drawback is we don’t have a USB in the clients.
All in all, it’s a great space. I hope great things will happen here!
I do not believe that anyone is really, wholly a professional in what they do if he or she are not, too, an amateur.
An amateur is a person who does what they does what they do for the love of it. The word was coined toward the end of the 18th century in France.
Remember, as well, that a profession, in the sense commonly used in our culture is only the third or fourth definition, attributed to the word. The first have to do with making vows, keeping vows, and communities where such things are done.
If being an educator is a professional, no teacher is truly a professional unless they are an amateur, too.
I think of what brings true joy to me in my life as a teacher and it is all about being fulfilled, not paid. When there are dry times, a check does not bring rain. When there is a peak experience for my students and me, it is not because of what I earned or the scholarly article I’ll be able to write about it.
Mike Richards is the author of Notes From Millie D , and a technology teacher/integrator in Arundel Maine. He is one of seven or eight techno-geek-education types in the USA who aren’t in San Antonio this week for NECC. I only know him through blogging, tweeting, and plurking, but his writing/offerings are outstanding. He dusted off the following list over a year ago. It has gotten legs again this week. In June 2007, Mike wrote:
Computer Network Knowledge Applicable to your School System
File Management & Windows Explorer Skills
Downloading Software From the Web (Knowledge including eBooks)
Installing Computer Software onto a Computer System
WebCT or Blackboard Teaching Skills
Videoconferencing skills
Computer-Related Storage Devices (Knowledge: disks, CDs, USB drives, zip disks, DVDs, etc.)
Scanner Knowledge
Knowledge of PDAs
Deep Web Knowledge
Educational Copyright Knowledge
Computer Security Knowledge
At that point, Web 2.0 was just infancy. Making a May 2007 edition what things would you add to the list, but more importantly, what would you take off the list?
How would you alter the list in June 2008?
I have already formulated and distributed a ’skills survey’ to develop resources and expose weaknesses based on the, soon antiquated, NETS-T: One-liners on a chart with boxes to check indicating level of ability. With the new NETS-T in hand, perhaps I can formulate a survey that may be valid, appropriate for a year.
My Twitter and blog compatriot Clif has challenged me to do a round of PD and to challenge others – I’ll let him tell us:
I’m a big fan of goal setting. It can provide a road map for the short or long-term and can be an effective motivational strategy. I have set a few professional development goals for this summer and have challenged a few of my friends/colleagues to do the same thing. Yesterday I realized that I could set this up as a blog meme and hopefully encourage some of my online friends to achieve a few items from their To Do Lists. There are a myriad of ways to approach this, but I’ve opted to take the short-term, easy-to-assess approach, but I’ll leave some wiggle room for you to customize it to meet your needs. The official information is below.
Directions
Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2008 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.
The Rules
Pick 3 professional development goals and commit to achieving them this summer.
For the purposes of this activity the end of summer will be Labor Day (09/01/08).
Post the above directions along with your 3 goals on your blog.
http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/ - Larry has average almost three posts per day over the last month. I’m sure that this has gone on for ages. He started with “The Best of…” series that continues on, and he has an awesome English Website.
Silvia Tolisano
http://langwitches.org/blog/ – Silvia posts so many high quality, informative posts that I am amazed. She does her “links of the Day” and average 1.5 posts per day over the last month besdes that “links” post. She has a gift for breaking down software and is tireless in annotating images to amplifiy these efforts.
Miguel Guhlin
Miguels blog “Around the Corner” at http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/index.htm – is a joy to read. He tore loose this weekend and published six posts. His interest is not caregorizeable, but whatever he writes about draws my attention. My favorite from the weekend was “Ubuntu Story”.
