Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Slowing down

I've shot my mouth off way more than I'm comfortable with during the past week. It stems from being involved in this really exciting, motivational Skypecast from Wesley Fryer - and then dealing with things working against all the stuff we talked about in my classroom. For instance, my district now blocks of all blogger.com sites. Then last week Flickr was put on the global block list as well. That was a real heart breaker for me - and it will be for my kids, as the promises I made them about their artwork on their bogs just went out the window - but they don't know yet. Next - how about del.icio.us? Not long on the unblocked list, I bet. Skype? Not long, either. It gets me down. Then Nancy Willard posted another warning to the wwedu list about all the dangers of MySpace.com. I wrote back saying it was discouraging to see that message, another nail in the coffin of education embracing web 2.0 stuff, and now I must write back saying why. Don't have the time or energy tonight.

So, going from sky high to bummed out has put me in a contrary, cynical mood. I should know better than to blog at that point - and should certainly not be posting comments on blogs. Time to take a deep breath and slow down.

Stuff I'll do very soon that WILL make a difference:
  • Work with my kids on discussing what makes an interesting blog posting - finish up the conversation that started when a boy asked in class, "why do the girls get all the comments?" Then we'll write/blog about it, of course!
  • Schedule and do a second Family Internet Night - for the families that couldn't make the first one.

Got to leave the other stuff behind, let the world go where it wants, make a difference where I can.

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