Thank goodness Chapter Two is as full of useful information and thoughtful ideas, as chapter one is or at least to me seemed so) barren! Indeed the chapter chuck full of ideas, that my blog today and its focus do it a bit of injustice. Even so, I feel fairly comfortable writing almost solely about ideas that are MOST striking or meaningful to me. Future posts should allow more contemplation and writing about other ideas introduced in the chapter but missed here.
The concept of the online, digitized archive, as introduced with the mention of "Meredith's Page” (19), so appealed to me truly in a heightened manner. It was the first concrete example of a blog that epitomized the qualities the author heretofore had only generalized about, an at last here was one super example. It also occurred to me that a blog can be a life saver for the disorganized person. It can be a haven for what I (AND OTHER EXPERTS I AM FOLLOWING) call the ADD TRAIT type person, thinking and including too many thoughts/actions at once-- most of the time. . You might imagine what my Richardson book already looks like: almost each page boasts a holds a really mound-like mess of de facto colorful handwritten marginalia, (written in different color pens, mostly because I lose writing implements by the hour, only to come upon them again by chance); one good thing about all this – including he must have marginalia is that a book like this is worth keeping and I must truly value the book and take lots of hyper vigilant- care related to its whereabouts, as haven’t lost it yet.
It’s not surprising that the notion that so grabbed me above broadened itself into an even grander scheme, when the author added the topic of class portals. The reason? I am or can be so caught up in the process of annually reworking curricular mapping (that is making major changing in timing, instructional method and level of focus —rather than in n the curricula themselves) so I change the way I present the curriculum and thus many, many lessons plans every single year. In great measure this is based on the radical variation in abilities and s disabilities of my students and their IEPs and because of the highly variant disciplines in which I teach-- biology (first and second levels) English language arts and a double nonequivalent two sections of structured reading. I make such changes for the reasons noted above but also because I want to be the most effective I can be; this bumps up against my areas of challenge, all revolving around “organization.” I always take too much time, am way too busy keeping up with reviewing and redoing lessons and activities and reading and homework and in class labs, and inquiries, and --well you know the drills…
Suddenly, the author introduces the class portal! THE ORGANIZATION IT PROMSIES IS MORE THAN WELCOME: The notion that whatever I produce would be right where I want it-- on my blog on class portal -- every time—is more than tempting. In addition, presently I feel as if I get endless requests for copies and re-copies and feel it really takes a lot out of me to provide these items over and over again, searching, finding, reproducing , etc. on my part –No wonder I am so taken with the idea of the blog being the sweetsop for the "losers" ( those of us that regularly misplace things) of this world --and that the spot can be made even sweeter with addition of multimodality examples and work, with the touch of keyboard buttons and some know how re gadgets, widgets, content in nonword form. Potentially a huge weight appears on the verge of being lifted off my hyper-vigilant teacher shoulders. I can actually envision high level orchestrations and surety of the command of content , as it will all be where I put it , once and for all. Not just that, my student’s input can be right there as well. I am so taken with this, my current idea for a BlogSpot that I am apt to name it sweetspot; just as surely as it exists is on a baseball bat or a golf club-- once found time after time, it certainly can breed consistent and reliable success--a hit out of the park, or a hole in one. I can envision parts of that t now, first the request: “Oh Ms. Kahn- do you have yet another another copy of x or y?” When that happens is it possible that I’ll feel I have suddenly changed in to an efficient expert rather than a bumbling “professor?” After all, I’ll be able to calmly reply: “Oh, that again? That’s right on the class portal. Why not get it yourself?”
For me and others like me, compensatory strategies have been the saving grace of our kind; thus, a compensatory blog seems a little like manna from heaven. Perhaps this type of compensation via blog is particularly meaningful for me as a professional because, throughout my career (s) the sole methods that of extreme use to me (with or without the technology component) are those that are, indeed, organized chronologically. (AND that has been true ever since my first assistant started keeping “chrono-files" for me) arranged by nothing more than date – of course at that time, the system included hole-punched actual “carbon copies” of everything I wrote placed in a binder with most recent work on top... oh those ancient times....
Of equal import, for more than a decade and a half I kept photo files before they were digital almost solely chronologically--and that was when we had actual physical files of contact sheets and strips of negatives literally in plasticized sleeves, as well as transparencies and slides in old fangled Kodachrome (25) and Velvia 50 formats.
So, as noted above, the blog’s intrinsic format is even more meaningful to me because the only method of organization at which I have been exceptionally successful at has been chronological. On that count too, the blog meets my natural bent; I always appear to know WHEN I have done "something." So armed with that kind of chronological memory /recall, the blog - iteration seems particularly sweet. Oh, this thought and resources comes just in time for me as well; five days and I’ll be fifty nine years old (with the spirit of a 29 year old ???), so with a little bit of luck, this course, this book, and some practice, I can be right where I’d like to be before age 60 (in sprit then, before the age of 30).
In closing, I admit some feeling of guilt because the relief and gratefulness about which I have just written have taken up more than my share of blogging for this chapter. In reality the chapter offers much more of import I have NOT written about! I can only hope my fellow bloggers do.
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