Category: Education

This time around I talk about personal professional development.

Today’s the first day of school for students. Summer vacation is but a memory, as now it’s time for all of us to buckle down and do some serious learning.

Yes, I said “all of us.” You may be a teacher, but you’re not exempt from learning until you’re dead. (And perhaps not even then, but I digress.)

There are many ways for teachers to expand their skills as teachers. There are inservices (well, at least the good inservices…), graduate courses, and more literature available for self-paced study than you can shake a stick at.

Of course there’s another way, too. Remember all of the times a teacher has asked a class to write a report on something? Did that teacher honestly need to know more about that subject, or did he or she want the class to explore the subject themselves?

I suggest that we, as teachers, should all write reports regularly in order to help improve ourselves. Now I’m not suggesting 50 page papers on Mediaeval France, unless of course you’re that much into Mediaeval France. Rather, I propose that we write shorter essays on educational topics at least once a week. Trust me, it doesn’t take as long as you think to write up a single page of thoughts.

If you have a brainstorm and come up with several ideas at once, make a list and save them for later. I thought of two topics this morning before I came up with this one on the drive to work, but those other ones are safely recorded for future droughts of inspiration.

These essays could be kept private, but I hope that they wouldn’t be. One of the basic tenants of education is the sharing of knowledge, and you don’t need a doctorate to share concepts with your peers.

The only question is what media would best be used to share these essays with the world? It would have to be something easy to use, and something that would allow readers to give you feedback would be a plus.

I think I’ve heard of something like this somewhere. If only I could remember what it was…

Why don’t you send me an audio comment for my 100th podcast? Only a few more podcasts untill the big event!

I’m not from Australia.

I have nothing against the land down under, but I can’t even fake a decent Australian accent. I bring this up because a recent posting on a blog called “Using Wiki in Education” gave me a nice write-up, but got that minor detail incorrect.

I’m sure the author, one Stewart Mader, wrote the inaccuracy as an honest mistake. This is unfortunately more than I can say for some others out there.

It seems that people wiping their feet on the truth are coming out of the woodwork. Wired News had to pull more than one story by a freelance reporter who faked his sources, Reuters got its own black eye thanks to some doctored photos, and don’t get me started about fake MySpace accounts.

You’d think that at least textbooks would remain pure, with all of the checking and rechecking before they go to print, but no. I’ve used both art and health books (Yes, I taught health. My training as a Boy Scout and the son of an RN worked out well.) where I had to say “The book says this, but in reality, this.”

This all goes to show how much we need to verify our sources, and how much we, as teachers, need to teach our students that not everything they read is true just because someone managed to publish it.

Just think – if we could raise an entire generation of people that weren’t gullible enough to fall for spam, junk email might actually cease to exist. A daydream, I know, but hope springs eternal.

Why don’t you send me an audio comment for my 100th podcast? Only a few more podcasts untill the big event!

Lately I seem to have been bitten by the DIY bug.
DIY, for the uninitiated, stands for “Do It Yourself” – mostly because DIY enthusiasts would much rather put their own embellishments on everything they touch.

And with the internet it’s easy to find plans for hundreds of DIY projects – from using a soda bottle and some kitchen supplies to make an effective mosquito trap to attaching some remote control servos and a digital camera to a kite for some sweet arial photography.

The great thing about DIY is the wide variety of projects. You can pick something to do that’s as easy or as difficult as you want, and if you’re unhappy with the plans you’re given you can always modify them to see what happens.

I’ve been making my own t-shirts and web sites for over a decade now, but recently I’ve started branching out by creating handmade business cards, and most recently a wallet out of duct tape. (My next project will be a camera bag.)

Of course the spirit of DIY can be taken to school as well. For example:

After a Language Arts project where you have the students form groups to write their own stories, you can have them type them into PowerPoint to illustrate them and even record themselves narrating the tales. Instant zero-cost publishing!

Have the students use PowerPoint or any one of a number of programs that allows for visual design, and print the finished product on a t-shirt. Admittedly there is a bit of a cost for this, but if you shop around at office supply stores you should be able to get iron-on transfers for around $1 a sheet.

How about an analog example: Want to make a quick and easy seating chart? Use a sheet of posterboard and some post-it notes. Any time you move the desks around you can just move the notes. (And if you leave these babies on your desk you won’t have to deal with substitutes saying “Well I couldn’t find your seating chart!”)

There are also a few online enterprises that are more than happy to make your DIY experience a little easier:

• Makezine.com – more DIY ideas than you can shake a stick at.
• Instructables.com – from the makers of Makezine.com, these are user submitted DIY tutorials.
• Google Pages or WikiSpaces – make your own website for free.
• Lulu.com – publish your own book, for school or yourself.
• OriginalWorks.com – Students can have their artworks placed on a variety of products and have them made to order as a school fundraiser.

Hear yourself on my upcoming 100th podcast spectacular! Just click here and your web browser will use your computer’s microphone to send me an audio comment.

I’ll accept just about anything, including simple greetings or congratulations, shout-outs, reviews of products or services, commentary on recent events, or even plugs for other podcasts.

This is, of course, provided everything is kid-safe.

Think of it as free advertising that will reach an exclusive listener base. And yes, by “exclusive” I mean “small.”

In this podcast I talk about being famous for fifteen people.

In addition to silkscreened soup cans and pop culture icons, Andy Warhol gave us the quote “Everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

This statement has often been rehashed as people earned their own 15 minutes of fame (American Idol rejects, anyone?), but nowadays it’s more likely that everyone will be famous for fifteen people (according to people like Steve Dembo).

Don’t believe me? Well, you’re already famous … relatively. (I’ve talked about this before, although this time I’m going in a slightly different direction.)

Look at your students. Have you ever run into them outside of school? Did the older ones call out to you, smile and wave? Did the younger ones eagerly point out to their parents that YOU were their teacher?

I thought so.

To your students you ARE famous, more so than most politicians or heads of state. Granted this can make many of us uncomfortable, but I think that’s a good thing. If we’re uncomfortable with fame, then we know our ego isn’t totally out of control.

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a ham when I get up in front of a class, but at the DEN National Leadership Conference I was still genuinely surprised every time someone said “Oh, YOU’RE the Art Guy!” I know my students think I’m famous, but I didn’t expect to be so well known by other teachers.

I wasn’t alone in that. Josh Wolff, the Discovery Educator Abroad, is a teacher from New York that had the opportunity to tour the Pacific Rim while taking photographs and creating video webisodes. He knew they were going to be used for educational purposes, but nevertheless he seemed quite shocked when I told him my Kindergarten kids loved his webisode on visiting a tropical zoo.

He was reaching a wider audience than he had expected, and seemed visibly taken aback by that.

Naturally, I then did what any self respecting educator would do at that point – I got my picture taken with Josh, so this year I could show off to my students just how famous I am.