Out of all the blogs that I read through, the one that I connected with the most was Josh Stumpenhorst - Stump the Teacher. The thing that I liked most about his blog posts compared to the others is that he seemed to 'blog from the heart'. I found his blog posts to be thoughtful, inspiring, and made me reflect on myself as a teacher. If I'm going to go back and check out any blogs during the school year, it will be his. I also found it pretty cool that he is from Naperville.
My favorite post that is on his blog is about how many teachers think about wrapping up a school year, and what message it can send to our students if we are 'counting down the days to summer'. His blog post is below:
I thought that the curated resources had some nice information on them. The one that I liked the best was Edutopia. The site is nicely organized and easy to navigate to find specific areas of interests and ideas. The posts on their site are definitely relevant to what is going on in our classrooms today. I liked the videos, the few that I watched gave some great ideas to try out with my class including the one below called 'Rolling Out a Game' with a Classroom.
The insight that I took away from some of these blogs (particular Josh's) is to be real in what you post...feeling that you can post what you find to be good, exciting, frustrating, and overwhelming in learning as 21st Century Educators!
Erik,
ReplyDeleteI loved Josh's blog that you posted. I agree that our resources should not close up shop before the end of the year, like our RC does. I know I closed up my room early because I had a summer camp using my room the next week. I think it would be great if we were given time at the end of the year to clean up after the kids had left.
As far as your comments about posting from the heart, I don't think that will be a problem at all for you. After working with you for over ten years, I feel that one of your greatest strengths is that you put your heart into your students. Parents appreciate how well you get to know their kids and the connections you make with them. I have found that you always speak from the heart and that is what makes you a wonderful teacher.
I was wondering if we could use one of Josh's suggestions about counting down how many days until the next school year. Especially with our fourth graders who all are nervous about changing schools. We could use some of the new technology resources that we have learned to communicate with staff from Skokie. It is nice when the kids get to interact face to face with staff, but in reality that is difficult. If we could use resources like Twitter or Google Hangout, it might help ease some of their anxieties and get them excited about changing schools.
Great idea to partner with Skokie teachers via hangouts. Lucky that we have Meghan and Susie in the class, I'm sure they would be willing partners. You could even create a monthly check in and then when the kids come to Skokie for shadow day, they will feel way more connected.
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