Quick Hit
07 Jul 2010 4 Comments
in all about me, blogging
With record-breaking temperatures in our fair region and no central AC, I’m happy to be taking a little break and heading off to have some summertime adventures with my girls and their grandparents. We’ll be staying cool, going to see a show and spending lots of family time together.
I’m scheduling a pair of posts to be published while I’m gone that are a bit unusual for me, so while I don’t usually do this, I’m going to make a pretty blatant plea for comments on those. Pretty please with a cherry on top? I’ll make sure to get some computer time in so I can engage with the comments too; you’ll see why that might be useful.
In the meantime, why not go enjoy some other pursuits? If you’re in the mid-Atlantic, I suggest staying indoors or as close to a body of water as possible. Perhaps you’d enjoy a fresh new(ish) blog to read? If so, may I direct you to Hyperbole and a Half? This is one of my recent finds, and Allie manages to hit that precise and endearing combination of heartbreaking and hilarious that is the hallmark of all the best personal blogs. Try her posts on never becoming an adult, the awkward situation survival guide and the sneaky hate spiral, for starters, and thank me later.
New Gigs
01 Jul 2010 4 Comments
in book reviews, teaching, technology, writing Tags: book reviews, teaching, technology, writing
One of my summer goals was to challenge myself more as a writer, and another goal of mine this year was to renew my commitment to my poetic practice.
Today, I think I’ve made some progress on both those goals by taking on some new regular writing challenges.
Right now, you can read my first review of a book of poetry over at JMWW, a quarterly online journal run by local Baltimore writers and editors (among others). I really enjoyed reading and reviewing Scott Owens’ Paternity, and will be doing another review for them in the fall. Reading new poetry is always exciting, and Owens’ style is especially inspiring to me. Yesterday I spent some time in my poetry notebooks, with one new draft and one old, and it felt so good.
In the near future, you’ll be able to see reviews and features of mine at Instructify, where I am officially a regular contributor! I love their focus on teaching smarter, not harder with concrete strategies for teaching with technology and creativity. I’m working on my first feature right now, and will be posting reviews as well. I haven’t taken on a regular freelancing gig in a few years, back when ePregnancy was alive and kicking and under the editorship of the fabulous Dawn, and I think this will be wonderful for me as both a teacher and writer.
I still have a lot on my summer to-do list (look over there in the sidebar if you want to see it), but I’m feeling pretty good about where I am.
Blogging will resume after the Fourth of July holiday–enjoy your weekend!
Using Rubistar
30 Jun 2010 3 Comments
in teaching, technology Tags: teaching, technology
One of the teaching tools I tried for the first time this year is Rubistar, a website that is part of the 4 Teachers group of websites, developed by The Advanced Learning Technologies project at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning (a mouthful, I know). I had mixed success, but I think there’s more potential there than I have yet uncovered.
So far, I have found it most helpful while creating rubrics for unconventional projects, like digital storytelling and response blogs (document), where the students have no expectations of grading because they’ve never done a project like this before. There’s also a good amount of customizable rubrics for different subjects and skills, but I haven’t used many, and I’m looking forward to digging deeper into their “Inspiration Page”.
One aspect I don’t like: there’s a weird time limit on some pages and functions. So while you’re creating your rubric, you have this ticking clock and have to keep saving to make sure it remains “Active” while you’re editing. I don’t really see this point of this feature, other than making me anxious that I’m about to lose my work! There’s also a way to make them interactive, but it seems to require a site license. If your school uses Blackboard or Moodle, it seems it would synchronize well. I would consider the site license if I end up using the site frequently, because it might help cut down on grading time and make the experience of being graded more consistent for my students. In English classes, I find one pitfall to be that students often feel that the grading experience is a very subjective one, and therefore inevitably unfair. Right now, I usually copy the rubric I’ve created there into a word document, then ink it with my stylus for each of my students. I like to add space for “teacher comments,” so I can add encouraging or positive feedback, and also to add point values in each row box.
My goal is to have the rubrics available as each project is assigned so that students can use them as a guide while completing the work, as part of my overall goal to incorporate more scaffolding in my course. I’d like to have some kind of way for the students to use them as checklists before they submit the work, even, somehow. But this year, I sometimes developed projects and assigned them without taking the time to think about the rubric, which made me dread grading them because while the work was exciting, I was unsure about how to assess it. That was my own fault, so I’m not blaming Rubistar, but I think that did hinder me in experiencing the full potential of the site.
If you’re a teacher, do you use rubrics? How do you create them? I’d love to hear from anyone who has used the site or something similar as a rubric creation tool.
The Meaning of Tinkering
28 Jun 2010 1 Comment
in blogging, teaching, technology Tags: blogging, technology
When I first started blogging, lo these many years ago, I used Blogger.com, had the most basic of templates, and composed each blog post on the fly, not giving much thought to revising or crafting. I didn’t know how to post images, had only a basic working knowledge of HTML, and gave little thought to what my blog was for and what impression it gave. Posts went live in an instant, I never planned very far ahead, and they were often riddled with errors and typos. Blogging to me meant a release, an outlet, a connection the writer I wanted to be and the people I didn’t want to lose. My blog was just that, a place for me to blog, and I rarely got a comment from someone I didn’t know, much less had never met.
These days, I debate templates and tags, add and subtract widgets and categories, edit and revise the static pages I’ve carefully written, email with WordPress support people when a featured option isn’t working, and periodically check featured links to make sure all are still vibrant. I stockpile blog drafts in a OneNote notebook so I can polish and rearrange until they’re just right, add drafted posts to my account, give them a final polish, sometimes schedule them ahead of time, and watch as they post to Facebook and the comments pop up like mushrooms, many of which bear familiar friendly names but faces I wouldn’t know. I own my own domain name, post documents and photos, have thought seriously about moving to a self-hosted WordPress site or learning CSS, and do it all under my own name.
I think blogging has definitely made me a better writer, but maintaining this website has also made me a better website producer, which has been invaluable as I build and maintain the Sharepoint website I keep as a teacher and encourage my students to blog. I have a much better sense of what a visitor to a site might want, how to arrange things for readers to easily find them, and what value there is in visual appeal and flow. Above all, after years of tinkering with blogs and websites, I have a certain level of comfort, trust and familiarity with website functions, HTML, and the power of self-publishing.
So not only has blogging given me an extensive course in writing, but also a valuable confidence in my ability to master the rudiments of website creation and maintenance. One of the added side benefits of having my students blog and use discussion boards and wikis is that they get to experience a taste of that confidence too, and maybe even start to build the faith it takes to tinker.
Thinking About Twitter
23 Jun 2010 13 Comments
in media mentions, teaching, technology Tags: technology
To Twitter, or not to twitter?
The most public use of Twitter these days has been microblogging celebrities: Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears duking it out for the most followers, B- and C-Listers making every banal thought public, all kinds of celebrities saying goodbye to one of their own. But the White House and the Library of Congress are doing it, and so are an increasing number of Senators and Representatives.
Athletes, politicians, writers and more are using Twitter to send 140 characters out into the world, as many times a day as they like. But in my rounds around the teacher-tech world, it also seems like more and more teachers are hopping onto the Twitter train, both for their own use and as a classroom tool. You can find teachers by subject area, look at a twitter for teachers dictionary, follow Teachers 2.0 or join in on EdChat. Dana Huff and Jim Burke of English Companion and Ning fame are twittering, and I’m reading about other great reasons teachers should use Twitter. I’m working on a digital writing workshop project this summer, and so my thinking about Twitter may end up in the mix. I did a texting activity with Catcher in the Rye this spring, so I’m open to using Twitter in a similar way, but also I’m intrigued by the “backchannel” possibilities.
I also have some non-athlete, non-celebrity friends who use Twitter, the kind of friends who also use Foursquare and are usually on the early-adopter edge. Some of my favorite bloggers are also Twittering, and even some of my favorite writers. I like a good smart parody Twitter as much as the next culture geek.
But will I be twittering? I just don’t think so. The form itself doesn’t appeal to me as a writer–I’m still in the shallow end as far as texting goes, for that matter–but as an observer, it’s definitely intriguing for how it breaks down the public/private wall between celebrities and fans, and also how it captures real-time thinking and communicating for posterity.
Your thoughts about Twitter?
A Little of Column A, A Little of Column B…
13 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in all about me, cooking, family life
The Good: I’ll be spending the upcoming week helping to facilitate a week-long professional development workshop I attended last summer. This is a new step for me, and I’m excited to stretch myself this way.
The Bad: I have a summer cold. The kind of summer cold that gives you head and face aches, the kind with a sore throat and stuffy runny nose. The kind my cold meds don’t seem to touch. The kind that makes you want to sleep in and not be peppy or professional.
The Good, Part Two: We’re having a dear friend over for dinner and making a light, lovely summer menu: kale and radish chips, arugula-redleaf salad with strawberries, lemon spaghetti with chicken and parmesan, and homemade pink lemonade ice cream. We’re getting to use some of our very first CSA share, and won’t have to turn the oven on (much), which is a plus on a hot and steamy day like today.
The Bad, Part Two: I’m feeling over-cluttered. Too much kinship with this guy. I’ve been relatively messy my whole life, but lately, when I’ve come home from long days at work to be greeted with such a messy, cluttered landscape, it’s been hard not to let my mental/emotional landscape not feel messy and cluttered too.
The Good, Part Three: I’ve spent a fair part of the weekend cleaning around the house and doing some things I’d been putting off for weeks, like cutting the front grass, trimming the front hedge, and other generally good things to do. I felt really productive yesterday, and that felt really good.
The Bad, Part Three: My car’s in the shop this weekend after a little spot of overheating. The cause and price of the solution are as yet unknown.
The Awesome: That after all, there’s nothing too catastrophic on this list, and overall, things are feeling pretty peachy keen around our way.
How’s by you these days, as summer splashes down?
Through a Blog, Darkly
09 Jun 2010 2 Comments
in all about me, blogging, poetry Tags: blogging, poetry
I’ve been blogging for over seven years now, the first four years or so in an anonymous blog before I started and switched to this one. My third blog-birthday in this space is coming in July, after over three hundred posts. Making the decision to blog under my name gave me a much-needed rebirth as a blogger, but entailed making many other decisions in order to write more carefully and thoughtfully now that I would be publicly accountable.
Even in my “All about me” posts, there is so much I don’t write about, for so many reasons. Much of what I don’t write about here are the darker patches, the secrets and hurts I only share with those closest to me, the occasional case of the the mean reds, long-standing family or personal issues that rear ugly heads from time to time . There are many boundaries I’ll never cross in this space. I’ll never blog about my husband or marriage, about my children or other family members, in ways that would make them uncomfortable or be significant surrenders of their privacy.
But then, am I being honest? Am I portraying a misleading picture of my life, that I have it all and juggle it all with a smile on my face? Is it fair to only discuss the positive aspects of my job, my personality or my family life and never the negative, fair to anyone who might read this blog and then feel inferior or insecure, feel like I’ve got it figured out and they don’t?
To anyone who may read this blog and feel that way, I’ll leave you with some excerpts from two Walt Whitman poems, words that have comforted me before when I have been in need of it. The first is from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” the second and third from “Song of the Open Road.” All are deeply resonant for me, and I hope they will be for you as well.
It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall,
The dark threw its patches down upon me also,
———————
(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)
…….
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words
can tell.
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