In this podcast I lament the possible upcoming drought of educational blogs/podcasts, then review my plans for next year’s Art Club.
This is the time of year when educators (at least in this hemisphere) start talking about the fast approaching summer vacation. Last year there was a trend among the edubloggers and edupodcasters – one that involved paying more attention to the real world than the blogosphere.
I understand this perfectly. Frankly, when I’m visiting my father-in-law in Pennsylvania and using a dial-up connection because where he lives even my cell phone works only half the time, I really don’t want to be uploading (or downloading) any large mp3 files.
Still, this concerns me. Yes, summer vacation is a time for teachers to recharge and relax after having braved 180 days with screaming, crying, and papers not handed in on time (and that’s just their coworkers!), but it should also be a time for looking ahead to the next year.
So that’s what I’ll hopefully be podcasting on this summer. Well, that and the couple of conferences I’ll be attending.
Case in point: Art Club this year was a lot of fun, but I think I can make it better. I’ve already teamed up with my base school’s music teacher, and next year the club will be half visual arts and half music/drama. We’ll each get 15 kids for an hour, then swap.
I’ll try to handle the blogging differently as well. I was so hung up about trying to schedule days where all the kids could blog at once that I didn’t even think about having a couple of kids on the computers at a time until the year was almost over. With me running the blogging time like a station I should be able to do a more analog lesson at the same time the students are showing off the fact that they’re digital natives.
I may still schedule a computer lab day next year, but only one day. We normally meet in the media canter, and the three computers in there should do just fine for the rest of the year.