Thing #5

In my search for photos, I looked for computer and business images. The pic below really stood out, as it shows how far personal/desktop computers have come (Its an old Apple III). I would use photos like this in showing the history of computers (which is in the TEKs for my class much to the consternation of my students, who seem to think that BCIS class is supposed to be all facebook, all the time).

Flickr is a good resource to have, but as a technology teacher, I can foresee that the students would need to be reminded time and again to be mindful of copyright issues and to make sure they use the Commons area of Flickr. They simply don't always grasp the fact that just because something is on the internet, they aren't allowed to copy and paste it for whatever they want. Its so easy to do that, too.

What kind of hands-on lessons could we as teachers use to reinforce that concept? (wow, I'm blowing my mind with all this deep thinking)

Thing #4

Sent email to register officially for 23 Things. Easy task. Got an out-of-office reply from Vaughn, the person in charge of registering, which said they are out of town for a week. Very jealous.

Thing #3

Creating the blog and Avatar was a lot of fun. In last blog I stated that playing is easiest of the learning habits...well, I definitely played around with this one! For those who might have trouble making up their minds, this one would be tough as the possibilities are endless.

Thing #2

I think that the easiest habit for me is #7 1/2, which is to play. Being a master procrastinator (I'm Yoda, or the teacher in "Kung Fu" that taught Grasshopper everything), this one comes even easier to me. 

Seriously, I feel that we CAN learn if we "play" and experiment with new skills we are learning, as that can show us ways to do things that might not have been discovered (or at least published) before. If we can give our students a basic framework of what we want them to accomplish on a given assignment, but allow them to "play" and come up with their own solution, they might surprise us with what they come up with.

The hardest habit for me, not so much in teaching but in other parts of life, is probably #1; I don't always go into things with the end in mind, but rather like to go day by day. As a coach, I have been working on getting better at defining what the "end zone" is going to be before I start.