Blogging Exchange

I’ve been sitting in Starbucks since 5:30 a.m this morning. I decided if I was going to be up, dressed, and working, it may as well be with good coffee and free WIFI. I’ll head off to work proper about 7:00.

I’m very excited about a new project I am doing in Think.com with my friend Nicole, a new, enthusiastic, and creative middle school teacher from Pennsylvania. We each have six computers/communications classes, so we are pairing them up for blogging and commenting. I think the kids will really enjoy it and get more of a feel for the conversational and community aspects of blogging. We’ll do it for the last few weeks of school prior to the winter break. (Oh, yes, that’s just 17 teaching days away. Not that I’m counting!) We’re busy preparing and comparing prompts and rubrics this week. It looks to be shaping up to be a great

I’m struggling this week to finish up some projects we began before Thanksgiving. The 8th Graders are making multimedia presentations about web site evaluation, and despite the hook of multimedia, are dragging their feet. This is such an important topic but they still think it’s boring and irrelevant. My 7th Graders are doing multimedia presentations about web research. They like the unit but it seems like this particular group needs more reteaching and alternate explanations than most. My 6th Graders, almost always sweet and cooperative, are making Web Safety Contracts with a desktop publisher after the web quest on the same topic. I felt their excitement pick up yesterday after I showed them some samples of all the different possibilities.

This time of year it’s so easy for instructional and personal time to slip away in the crush of activity. My goal is to make each hour meaningful, at least as much as is within my power, given the holiday distractions. I hope your next few weeks will have more of the joy and peace meant for the season than the credit-card based frenzy it can sometimes become if we are not careful.