Tough Winning a Road GAME-Draft

What seemed like a simple thing, creating and maintaining a blog, taught me as much about self-directed learning as I needed to know to help structure learning activities for diverse students to be successful with their content and their technological skills development and application. Designed well, technology infused curriculum allows for self differentiated, individualized learning that will serve students from various culturally and linguistically diverse households, engaging the students to collaborate and communicate creatively while practicing and applying metacognitive strategies and critical thinking.

I'd set up a personal blog a few years ago,with a few writings from the non-teaching portion of my life. I'd found blogger easy to use, and went back to build on what I had started and to allow myself one place to go to use either blog, the one required for class, and the more personal one that deals with issues of self, family, and home, all themes I stress in language arts classes with my students. Thus, some of the material from the one blog arose from modeling and sharing my own writing with some of my classes, as well as my peers in the CCWP in both 2002 and in 2011. Source about peers, and tapping into what one knows already.

I had a clearly defined goal: to learn to utilize a blog as a communication tool with students and ultimately, parents, too. I wanted to learn how to set up and publish to a blog on a regular basis. Although this coincided with multiple trips across country through California, both of the Carolinas, both of the Virginias, a steep sna rocky little corner of Tennessee and an accidental foray into Southern Ohio, I managed to experience all levels of frustration in following through with each aspect of the blogging process. Some of the actions I took in creating my blog worked well, and I was pleased with the results. Source on steps and metacognitive assessments along the way As I tried to add and edit and subscribe, I ran into difficulties, some of my own creation and some attributable to geography and quality of the network services I WiFi-ed into. In this way I recognize that the Mountain Culture along the Appalachian chain resembles that of my heavily Latino student population along the agricultural food basket of North Monterey County and the Salinas Valley salad bowl of the world. (Source this)

In my own search and destroy (ignorance) sorties into more advanced technology, I recognize myself as _______'s digital immigrant. While I may have been a fairly early adapter (oh, for the days of usenet groups and ads free internet), my skills stagnated, limited by my own frustration levels at trying new things via computer. (speech about the virtue of the Mac over the PC, but I digress) As technology advanced in the last thirty years (use source from NYT>>>) schools and large institutions remained slow adapters as evidenced by the discrepancy that still exists in our “digital divide'” Having experienced the digital divide as a digital immigrant, but one who came in when she was just a kid and she only has vague memories of dimes for payphones and pong, I know just enough to get buy, to find what I want, a lesson idea, or people from thin air and meager public records. In my actions, I am constatly monitoring my success. Blessed with ADD and OCD, I am easily frustrated and doggedly persistent at the same time, so my own learning comes in great leaps and slow progress, much like my golf game. Eagleton & Dobler's QUEST for technology integration enables teacher to focus on distinct but necessary skills of internet and online work, but frees the student to practice the 21^st century skills in what is in many ways, still 20^th century knowledge.

In Evaluating my own progress, I am my won worst enemy, often allowing the perfect to rub up against the deadlines of the good. This is true in my teaching as well: I want the very best, but the perfect lesson plan, like the perfect golf game, doesn't exisit, only our steps toward our stted goals: learning about cultural and historically diffeent times and places (Bles Me Ultima or To Kill a Mockingbird) or shaving strokes off my short game