Off & Running

We're off and running as of last Friday! I went over rubrics with my students, and was pleased to realize that some of them remembered what they were from last year and could give examples. That kind of synthesis and application is usually really hard for my students, so to have them be able to associate the word 'rubric' with how I graded their scrapbooks and their end-of-year science projects was a good feeling.
We had a few technical difficulties: I was bitten by the "linked media file" in PowerPoint, but fortunately, I had a version of the file that I had printed to a PDF using Acrobat 8 Professional. I've been using Acrobat since version 5, and love the freedom it gives me in making materials for my students! Acrobat 8 allows you to embed media files, and so I was able to pull up that file and show the students the very short clip about rubrics I downloaded from unitedstreaming.
Our other technological issue was one of those ancient jokes that tech support people trade in their down time... "Didja hear the one about the teacher who couldn't get the computer speakers to work because they weren't plugged in??". I wish I were kidding. I had no idea that was the problem because the speakers were providing sound, albeit at a very, very low volume. I figured it was an issue with the line into the computer.
And of course, the tech issues had me running late through the lesson again. I did get it explained to the students, briefly, and had time to show two of them their Blogmeister accounts. We had two students log in and post very brief messages, but it was really a moment! At least for me.
After seeing that the log-in was a bit complicated for my students, I made a cue sheet for posting to the blog, just like several of the "computer how-tos" I've made. I posted a general one here.
I was also discovered a feature that makes all of the effort of blogging worth it: Blogmeister runs the student posts through the Flesch-Kincaid Readability test. It also gives a grade equivalence for student writing, which I think will be a valuable hook.
I shared the information with the Dean of our special education department at school, and she suggested I present the information as a mini-inservice at a staff meeting for our department. I'm not sure I really want to do that... I'm always worried I'm going to step on toes or have other teachers say that this is a stupid idea and not worth the time and effort.