Confessions from the Couch

Blogging PD

On Monday, I went to Professional Development on Blogging. Because I have a blog, read others blogs and regularly update it, I wanted to attend so that I could get ideas for use in the classroom. Turns out the class was for people who had never created a blog before. They spend most of the day learning the purpose a blog and setting one up. I walked away with very little of what I came for; however, I did not leave empty handed:

Our district’s policy on blogging: There is NONE. However, one of the facilitators reminded me that I should be careful despite my pseudonym. He said that he was reading cases all over the country about teachers were being fired for things they published online. It got me thinking. So, I decided to read up on it. I didn’t exactly run into things specifically about blogging. But some interesting cases of teachers being fired blew my mind. When a teacher was asked about the Iraq War, she stated “I honk for peace.” She was fired b/c her place was to teach the curriculum and not give her opinion. The courts did not overturn this case. In thinking about all of this, I have decided to maintain my anonymity and I will not do anything that has to do with my blog on a school computer or network. Instead it will have to wait until I get home in the fall. Also, I will NEVER tell my students about my personal blog. I will password protect entries that may be damaging to school district and students as well as strong personal opinions
SKYPE–I knew about Skype but I’d never really used it before. OMG, I’m in love! It’s so much better than Yahoo or AIM. The only problem is I have no one to SKYPE, boo hoo! (Except for the class facilitators) I would suggest some of my readers become my buddy, but I’m practicing anonymity. LOL.
While everyone else was working on setting up their brand new blogs (at edublogger), I spent the time dividing my classroom website, so that I could have a wordpress blog there. Later this week, I’ll work on customizing it and setting it up. It took me two hours to do this! TWO HOURS! I kept putting in the wrong address and it kept sending it to this blog. Can you imagine if a student ended up at my blog? Shoot me, now!

Uncategorized | Miss Teacha | June 25, 2008 1:55 am

6 Comments

By TeacherMom, June 25, 2008 @ 6:42 am

Hi Miss A,

I am using Skype for a French class this summer. We have mixed results – when it is a busy Internet traffic time (at night, for example), the performance creates delays,etc that make it really difficult to communicate. However, I love the idea and hope the technology improves. I would be happy to Skype with you to practice. Email me if you’re interested.
By Frumteacher, June 25, 2008 @ 6:45 am

Too bad the course didn’t offer what you hoped for!

What about setting up a blogger blog for school, so that you’ll be sure your personal wordpress blog won’t be discovered by your students?

I’ve downloaded Skype, but it doesn’t really work yet. Maybe we can Skype some day.
By Edward Carson, June 25, 2008 @ 10:39 pm

so much for academic and intellectual freedom
By Eric, June 27, 2008 @ 9:25 am

Sounds like you’re in front of the power curve! Way to go! I’ve not used Skype, but I will I suppose.

Thanks for the note awhile back ago. I can’t say I’m back, but I am lurking a little.
By Eileen, June 29, 2008 @ 7:36 am

This is a good reminder for us all, to try and maintain our anonymity.

Eileen
By Hugh O'Donnell, July 18, 2008 @ 9:58 pm

“Can you imagine if a student ended up at my blog? Shoot me, now!”

You got me laughing out loud with that line!

I’m going to reference this post on my blog. I’m talking about anonymity versus being out there. There are a lot of good pieces of advice about teacher blogging floating out there, but nothing to tie them together.

My post won’t be comprehensive, but who knows, maybe one of us will be inspired to put up a wiki about the bi-polar world of edu-blogging.