Thoughts on Moving--A Metaphor

I moved last week, and I re-discovered how much work it is to do that. As I was packing and unpacking boxes, scrubbing floors and wiping windows, it occurred to me that moving is a great metaphor for transitioning to new technologies as a teacher.

Sure, it is easy to stay where you are, to do what is familiar, and to learn to live with the shortcomings of your current "house." I think that as teachers, that is a very safe thing to do. "Why re-invent the wheel?" or "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," are two representations of this.

I don't mean to imply that we need to get rid of everything we are currently doing in our classrooms. We don't. As a point of fact, I just moved across town. I do believe, though, that if we shift the center of our activity to a different location, we can find a better place for ourselves and our students. I realize that it takes a lot of work to keep up with the latest technological resources and to learn how to utilize them effectively in the classroom. However, I also truly believe that if we put in the time to make the shift, we will all find ourselves in a better place.

Viewing Webpages

I am enjoying looking at all the different webpages people in the class are coming up with. The all have their own style, and I can get a lot of good ideas from looking at what everyone is doing.

I still need to look more into copyright and fair usage issues for my own website. I did download some images, but I want to make sure that it is legitimate to use them. I'll add to this blog when I find out more.

As for the issue of copyrights, it seems that you can informally copyright any work you do by simply writing "copyright" on it, but you would need to register it at the copyright office (for a $75.00 fee) if you decided you wanted to take someone to court for infringement of copyright.

The fair use information I found was much foggier. There is fair use of certain things for educational purposes, and sometimes other purposes. For example, if you are critiquing a novel, it is fair to quote the novel without the author's permission in order to critique it. That makes perfect sense. But it does not necessarily follow that I can copy anything I want to any place I want because I am a teacher. If I am making an educational website, does that mean that I can use any image I want in any way? That hardly seems right.

I'll need to do some more reading.

Starting a Blog

I never thought I would be starting a blog--I haven't felt the need to make my thoughts public for everyone to see. Besides, I generally say what I think any way.

The purpose of this blog is to record the changes in my thinking on uses of technology in the classroom--the middle school classroom, to be specific. I am embarking on a Master's in Educational Technology. While I have always embraced multiple uses of technology in the classroom, I imagine that this course of study will be a way for me to explore even more approaches to technology, and I anticipate that my thinking on technology will grow accordingly. Check back here regularly to find out whether that appears to be true!

I'll also post interesting links and ideas I have encountered. I am a teacher of Japanese and English / Language Arts, so I imagine most of my specific ideas will be most useful to World Language and Language Arts teachers.