A teacher in his own right.

Last week my favorite uncle passed away. He lived on Cape Cod so we didn't see each other as often as I would have liked, but I did make a concerted effort to visit him and my aunt frequently over the past year and a half. As I attended the special tribute to him after the funeral, it dawned on me what a great teacher he was. He was a life teacher and everyone who came in contact with him learned something from him. His children and grandchildren inherited his love of music and are actively involved in musical careers. Others who got up and spoke of him talked about the values he instilled in the younger generations: respect, compassion, patience, and most of all love. The tribute was a celebration of his life and I, for one, am a better person for having known him. As a future teacher, if I can pass on the aforementioned attributes to even one of my students, then I will succeed in carrying on my uncle's "life's lessons taught" legacy.

Blogs in Schools

Blogs in schools...I know this isn't new, but...WHAT A CONCEPT...to those of us who are computer immigrants, while at the same time learning to become future teachers, blogs will enable us to access a whole new world right in our classrooms. This excites me! Building class portals will enable us to send our students homework assignments, a class syllabus, handouts, rubrics, class rules, and presentations, etc. without having the students come back to us and say, "I didn't know what the homework was." (Richardson, pg 21)...Ohhhh, wait a minute...didn't Technology post our homework assignment to our blackboard?...and did I not email her because I didn't access the blackboard and was confused about the homework assignment? Well, I may still get confused but I now know to access the blackboard(which she advised us to do after each class). This will hopefully eliminate any future confusion . Blogs in schools will also give us access to information and classrooms around the world. Our students will be taught to think more analytically, and blogs will be a powerful medium where we can collaborate with other educators. As new teachers we will also become new learners.

Many school districts need to "step it up" and become aggressive with technology. Today's students enter school more technologically advanced than teachers, and it's time for school districts to step into the 21st century. Teachers as learners need to play catch up with their students in order to tap into their own creativity and the creativity and innovations that students have to offer.