Thing # 3

Setting up this blog has been a slow process for me. I am not completely there yet; I still need to move the avatar from Yahoo. I would much prefer a picture.

Last year I had one student who began blogging on a computer program my school has just begun to use. The program is called ANGEL (and lucky for them, they have recently been purchased!). My hope is to have all my students blog on a nightly basis; that is, if they can keyboard. I have been surprised at the number who are not comfortable with key strokes. For them I might try some sort of keyboarding program for 10-15 minutes or so and then ask for a sentence or two.

My kids, with the occasional exception, think that they cannot write. My theory is practice, practice, practice with a good dose of positive feedback. I think blogging could help this and I know they would love creating an avatar. I have to find out if we can create an avatar in Yahoo or somewhere else and then move it to ANGEL. I like the fact that Yahoo avatars are culturally diverse. The whole process will, I think, be great for "grabbing" kids.

Thing #2 -- Curious

If you know me, you are used to my questions about everything under the sun. If you don't, I may take some getting used to. Whatever work I am doing, I have to learn as much as possible about the subject. So, I have learned about dyslexia, remedial and developmental reading, structurally unemployed women, non-traditional careers for women, banker education, books and stationery, real estate finance and loan documentation, adult education,current trends in reading education, techniques for educating boys and so on. Lately, my life long learning task is twofold: researching material relating to "at risk" students and their parents as well as (here's the question) how do I become more computer literate?

It is exciting for me to learn in all types of contexts. I saw a made for TV movie and found out about the "Great American Teacher's Club," Ron Clark's program in Atlanta (http://http//www.ronclarkacademy.com/shop/index.asp). I read a newspaper article about monetary rewards for students and determined that there is money out there for incentives. I become aware that a non-profit called "Children At Risk" located in Houston, TX has a program that may work for my students. I attended professional development trainings and learned about real world ways to teach inferences. I could go on and on. For me then, the more variety in learning sources, the better I like it.

The hardest habit for me presently is using technology to my advantage.