What I Learned...

If I had to sum up what I discovered while reading teacher blogs, and really, other blogs, is that blogging isn't always easy. Its hard to keep it fresh and interesting. If you do not post often, people won't read your blog. In fact, they make become actively annoyed if it isn't updated regularly.
I see the lack of updating often on other Red Cross chapter blogs, and when we started blogging for the chapter, I had to promise our Chapter Exec that we would have at least one post per week. In the beginning, it was a struggle... My partner and I have a list of "back up blogs" should there be a week when nothing is happening at the chapter. The topics are like our very first blog post which was an "interview" with the chapter and include ideas like favorite disaster books or movies, disaster foods, etc. The same is true of Twitter: I try very hard to tweet at least one update daily from the chapter's account.
Last week, we used mobile Read/Write Web tools to post about our trip to Kings Dominion. Every hour or so, I used TwitPic to send a picture taken with my cell phone's camera... the links to the photos were posted to Twitter & our Facebook status. I was truly surprised at the number of comments we received when I got home later. People really wanted to see this stuff!!!
I must admit that I'm having trouble coming up with a specific unit, mostly because I know that I can't blog with my students... I'm thinking about doing something with community service/service learning, maybe. I know I want to encourage writing, but beyond that? I don't know.

Summer Classes

This summer, I decided to take two on-line classes that explore using digital portfolios and Web 2.0 (Read/Write Web) tools. Arguably, I'm already using Web 2.0 in my classroom, but I am hoping there are some positive suggestions on how I can incorporate the tools in a more structured fashion. The students enjoy doing it, but I think the quality of some of their projects leaves a bit to be desired. I'd also like to be able to use the tools without feeling like I'm being sneaky. Logically, I know that I'm not doing anything wrong as long as we don't publish anything, but still... It seems a shame that my students can post and get feedback.
I'm not talking SecondLife here, or Facebook, but blogging would be really nice. So many of my students need to work on writing, and they hate it. I might get more response to vocabulary activities or summaries or resumes or job research if the students could post to a blog and then get feedback.

I've also become heavily involved in my Red Cross chapter's social media efforts, and regularly blog about events the chapter has participated in. We have everything connected through Facebook, and I have another volunteer & friend helping with the tools. We also have a volunteer that goes to the scenes and takes photographs for us to include. I see this as a good way to show the citizens of our county what the chapter does, and how we provide services. I'd like to step it up a bit, too, though, add a little spice to some of the posts.

And, of course, coming up with a way to incorporate the digital portfolios. I really think these would be a fantastic way for my students to have input at their IEP meetings, but the goal of most of the meetings is to get done as soon as possible. I have some problems with that, although I do understand why getting them done & over is important. But I really bought into the self-determination thing when I was in grad school for transition planning.

Ideas are, as always, welcome!