At it again…

From What Do You Do with an Idea?

This post could conceivably be the third or fourth time I’ve declared I’m going back to blogging.  And it’s true this time too. Though there’s also more this time.  As before, I’ll be blogging mostly about education, including non-jargony summaries/reviews of current educational research.  I also do a fair amount of professional development work with classroom teachers, so have included a page with some information about that.  Near future additions include the typical academic stuff of CV and publication links (though most of those are available at the ResearchGate or Academia.edu links on the About page).  And I may begin migrating course information over here as Blackboard continues to disappoint in both general and specific ways.

This return to blogging is my small contribution to the Reclaim Your Domain movement, which is about reclaiming and owning your digital identity and stuff.  In my reading up on this idea, I’ve found it gets really technical really fast. And while I actually did a fair bit of computer programming in high school (considering it was the early ’90s), I’m a neophyte in coding/internet world of today.  I know just enough HTML to add line breaks and such.  I do care, though, about who owns my stuff and I generally want that person to be me.  And this idea of ownership it can be explained with less code and fewer acronyms.

As part of reclaiming my digital identity, I consolidated almost all of my various blog posts–going back 12 or so years–here. The Edublogs moved seamlessly (unsurprising given it’s the same platform). The Medium move didn’t work because their email got caught in my junk mailbox and by the time I discovered it, I’d already just cut and pasted.  And, in the course of the Blogger migration, all of the post titles disappeared.  So I’ll be spending a few months revisiting those, re-titling them, and publishing them.

So, happy Monday and here’s to writing more.

Institutions and Parents

Having a Facebook conversation with several educators turned scholars turned parents.  Such an odd intersection of identities and positionalities and all other sorts of fancy words.  And, yet, the kids go to school, the teachers show up to teach, and the show goes on.  I even missed my parent-teacher conversations this year because of a meeting at work.  And, yet, school still moves on.

Also shifting gears to the NCTE conference in Minneapolis in 3 weeks.  I’m going to be so tired by the end, but that’s okay. 🙂

Writing Again

When I’m feeling overwhelmed, my instinct is often to circle the wagons.  I’ve heard that this is actually the wrong thing to do.  When you feel tired, you should exercise.  When you have too much to write, you should write more.  When you don’t have time for interacting with people, you should make it a point to do so.

So I’m going to try writing here again. Little bits, yes, but writing.  Some bits that are currently on my mind:

A Domain of Their Own.

Intellectual property in academia.

Conferences: CSOTTE, NCTE, and LRA.

 

Organizing your time

It can be really difficult to decide how to allocate your time.  There’s so much that seems to need to be done RIGHT NOW!  This feeling of RIGHT NOW will only get worse when you have a whole classroom–and some huge number of students–who are your responsibility.  One useful way to deal with the onslaught of information, and the actions that information require, is the Urgent/Important Matrix.

Urgent/Important Matrix

What I think is so important to stress is that you can determine how you move through this matrix.  Everything isn’t really a necessity, and other people’s crises are not your crises (unless they are your students, and even then, might not be your problem).  Spending time tending to very important, but not urgent, things is really important for your professional health and well-being.  I’ve posted the matrix on my currently unused computer screen (seemed like a good use of the space).  I’m going to try and remember to pause, clarify, and decide using the matrix.

And now, to grammar

THE English language, we all know, is in decline. The average schoolchild can hardly write, one author has recently warned. Well, not that recently perhaps. It was William Langland, author of “Piers Plowman”, who wrote that “There is not a single modern schoolboy who can compose verses or write a decent letter.” He died in 1386.

Read the rest of the article.  It is a glorious romp through stodgy men complaining about the decline of the English language.

Srsly ppl, it’s like not that big a deal, because grammar.