Mblog

    Wow, I am on overload w/info, but look forward to spending time at home w/this stuff at our WebToolsBlog. That sucker is LOADED w/STUFF 4/me to study to get myself up to SPEED. Ha! Gimme a few months, OK?

    I have NO idea what to do w/RSS, for example, or how to get it on my blog. But I’ve got resources and I know how to get to them thanks to this class, and so I shall!

    Thank you so much, Geoff, and all you other bloggers out there who have paved the way, so newbies like me have an easier way of it!

    As my daughter sez, u guys rock!

M

  On this day Geoff wanted us to put a link to our wikis on our blog. I have nothing on my wiki, cuz I don’t know how to put anything on it, so why put a link there? I’m on my home computer now, editing this entry. Maybe later I’ll try to create a link to my wiki. So far, all the links I’ve tried to create on my home computer are not working. I’ll try to figure out why when I’ve a bigger block of time to work at it. (I DID figure it out! I’m in EDIT mode right now, so those links DON’T link, but once I post this edited version, those links WORK.) This insight might seem pathetic, but I feel PROUD that I got it!

   I’m still pondering differences betw wiki and my blog. I liken my blog to leaving my journal lying around w/the pages open, inviting you (reader) into those pages. But only I can write in it unless I invite you in by leaving a comment section open at the bottom of each Post.

   Ach! I barely know what I’m saying! I feel like a First Grader!

   Thank you, Vicki Davis, (Cool Cat Teacher!) for writing comments in my blog! Way cool! This was so empowering, and how good of you! I made a connection. The blog worked!!! And, on my very first day of adding a link, which is so absolutely amazing! This makes the world seem smaller and bigger at the same time. We are (the whole world) connected! Thanks to this truly amazing tool called the internet, and this other amazing tool called blogging.

    What did I learn today? I learned more about RSS feeds, how to better check out GS’ blog , find things at home on my own. How do I feel? Kinda stupid, but hopeful. I look around the classroom and see others who are WAY further along in their grasp and understanding of all this content, but recall Geoff saying if  I become proficient at blogging and that is my main goal, why two thumbs up! So, yeah. That’s a realistic goal for me at this point. How might I use this in a classroom? Can’t yet. Don’t know enuf. But at least I know more about the possibilities!

   So, once again, thank you, Geoff. You rock, and so does your class! Muriel

    Geoff wants us to send him our blog urls, and he came along and got mine, so now that is done. Off the hook!

    I am totally fried at 12:10 PM, and need to go pick up my grandson. Nothing is making sense to me. I’ve forgotten everything except how to type!

   It will all come back to me, right? Thanks for being so patient w/us, Geoff! You’re a super teacher, and I know I will love adding all this new STUFF to my repertoire filed under Things I Know. But for now, I ain’t there, and the list is still long under Things I Don’t Know (about web tools, heh-heh).

    Onward and upward! The only way to go from here!

 of WebTools4Teaching. I found Cool Cat Teacher blog and added it to my email. (And created this link!) Look forward to studying from this woman who looks 2B an expert. I have so much to learn abt blogging! This new adventure is a way to keep New Mind.

    Being new at something is a tentative, tender thing. We rely on others helping us, and on sharing what we know. One of my fave teachers sez she thinks backward from the end result she hopes to get from her students, imagining each step along the way back  to the moment she first introduces a concept or Lesson Plan. She watches for pitfalls or what-ifs that might occur and plans for those, if possible. I try to do this, too, but only succeed at abt 60 percent. With blogging I’ll be more at about 20%. O-kay.

    And, when it comes to Widgets I am at Ground Zero. I get behind bcuz I cannot find sites that I just visited. (Watching someone else reminded me how to do this.) I can’t find the screen on my computer that GS has on powerpoint on the big screen on display 4us. This frustrates me.

    So. Feelings: 1. pleased abt getting the link 2. frustrated abt not being able to easily find sites & open a screen to view what tchr is showing us 3. kinda helpless and hopeless at not EVEN getting a start at the Widget thingie. But tomoro is another day! And, I still think this blogstuff is cool!

Thanks, Geoff!

    I like this first day of class. I liked watching GS go clickety-click fast as we watched him set up stuff and figured to myself, “Hey, if he can do this, I can do this.” Probably not as fast and not as thoroughly and not as adeptly. But. Eventually. I. Can. Do. This. And, that empowers me.

    I want to be able to use this tool w/my students. I’m doing a semester w/7th graders at SWMS this fall, and I wanna be able to use these tools w/them, to encourage them to blog, thus encourage their writing, and to read what they write.

    Until today I’ve had a disdainful attitude abt blogs, bloggers, thought, “HOW narcissistic!” Hah! Our lives ARE narcissistic. Who’s running around inside our brains all the time, anyway? Only ONE person, and that wud be moi. Humans are wired for narcissism. Nobody else runs our show, the movie of our lives, unless we give our power away.

    When the focus is sharing and connecting, narcissism is a nonissue.

    I’m excited about what we’re doing, and I say thank you, Geoff!