Friday, January 22, 2010
Work on Just One Thing
Surprisingly, I seem to have a little time to myself this Friday morning, so I thought I would explore some of the blogs I added to my Google reader. I'm glad I did, because I just got some of the best advice I have received in months. English teacher and writer, Jim Burke, posted a piece called "Work on just one thing" yesterday. He writes about how neither teachers nor students can work on everything at once. We all have 10, 234 other things we could be working on as well, but in order to get better at any one thing, we need to focus our attention on that one thing. This is exactly the advice I need when I am trying to get my classroom blog working well. I have been introduced to RSS and am trying to figure out a way for my students to utilize this tool. I have just create a Wiki, a Ning, and a Twitter, none of which I have used yet, but all of which I was very excited to create and to at least think about using. Jim Burke's advice was very timely. I will work on blogging and blogging well! And when the time comes to move on to RSS, Wikis, Ning, and Twitter there will be 10,234 other pieces of new technology to work with... one at a time of course.
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2 comments:
This is great advice! It's so easy to feel overwhelmed, especially because it's exciting to think of the possibilities these new things offer.
I agree with Jim on this. I would add that a priority for teachers should be finding that one thing to focus on. In other words, we have so many options available, it's important to determine that one technology (or limited constellation of technologies) that best serves our core teaching philosophy and practice.
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