Teach42

Been quiet ’round these parts! Between the move, the baby, and some major hassles with the ol’ ball and chain , blogging has gone to the bottom of the list for November. Want to know how out of it I was? I had no idea that the Edublog Awards were accepting nominations right now and they close tomorrow! Go figure, eh?

So let’s do a little brain dump for ya’all with highlights from November and a few things I’ve been meaning to get to.

First of all, Baby@Teach42.com is still baking nicely We have another video and some more photos, but I haven’t had time to edit it yet and the last thing I want to do is subject ya’all to 20 minutes of an alien like baby sleeping. But things are good, mommy-to-be is good and we can’t wait for him to arrive. I’ve even found the perfect shirt for him to wear at NECC.

The house is also moving right along. Thanks to Craigslist, we’ve been slowly but surely selling off our old furniture and replacing it with slightly used ‘new’ furniture that fits the house better. We’re still trying to get the little stuff done, like hanging up pictures on the walls and get the office settled, but it’s all getting taken care of slowly but surely.

Still no podcasts lately, even though I’ve done a ton of presenting on podcasting! I feel like such a hypocrite sometimes, teaching hundreds of teachers how to podcast when I haven’t put one out myself for months. Someday soon though (heard that one before?). I’ve also had the chance to present The New Permanent Record a few times now, virtually and in person. It really seems to strike a chord with people and has really driven home how important it is to make people more aware of what students really are doing as we speak online and what we can actually do about it. It seems as though everyday I hear another story of students who set themselves up for failure due to their online actions.

Not too much new on the gadget front, except that I got one of those ridiculously cheap PC’s from Best Buy on Black Friday and it has Windows Media Center 2005 on it. I’ve got it hooked up to my XBox 360 and I gotta admit, the combination of the two really work well together. I put all my videos and music on the PC and then play through through my stereo and HDTV using the XBox 360. Pretty sweet! I think tonight I’m going to try out Orb so I can see if I can get my music and videos on the go from my PC to my cell phone, laptop or PSP. Heh, that’s how much of a geek I am. I’m not satisfied with just having a ReplayTV (another brand like Tivo) and a DVR from the cable company, I also have to bring every other gadget in the world into as well! Ah well, it keeps me on my toes.

Only other thing to share for right now is that if you haven’t checked out DabbleDB yet, you absolutely must. It’s simply one of the coolest Office 2.0 apps on the web right now. The more I use it, the more I love it. And we’re really starting to get into it here at the office. We’re alll about the Dabble, baby. When you first start playing with it, you probably won’t quite get what it’s for. Watch one of the screencasts that they have. It’ll blow your mind. Trust me when I say that you’ll find a use for it in y our school somewhere.

That’s about it for now methinks. Really I’m just trying to get things wrapped up so that I’m as ready as possible for when Dembo 2.0 comes home. Crib is put together, walls are painted and we have this amazing mobile that plays “Imagine” by John Lennon. Now all we need is a crying screaming bundle of joy to put in it

Any day now!

Blech. Site got hacked again. Something corrupted my current theme template as well as changing a bunch of permissions throughout the site.

At first it went back up with the old theme but I think I have the current theme working again.

Wotta a pain. HOpefully the latest and greatest security update will keep the bogey’s out of the system.

Quite a bit of what i do for Discovery is only available to customers, but this one is open to anybody and everybody so I thought I’d throw a plug for it out here too.

If you’re a fan of David Warlick (and let’s face it, if you’re reading this blog then he’s probably on your required reading list already), he’ll be doing a live webinar for Discovery Education’s EdTechConnect series on Wednesday November 15th at 5:00 EST.

Free live webinar with Warlick, you can’t beat that.  If you do want to register, you can find the link at the ETC homepage. 

Just to whet yer appetite, here’s the description he sent us.

You can not attend any kind of conference today without someone standing in front of you and saying, “You must read “The World is Flat.” In this enormously popular and talked about book, New York Times columnist, Tom Friedman makes the case for a world that is increasingly global, where industry is crossing political borders not only for natural resources and cheap labor, but also contracting for the intellectual talent. The emerging and increasingly ubiquitous Internet is promoting a world where geography means very little when it is talent that helps you accomplish your goals.

Over the past two years, we have also seen an enormous flattening of the information landscape where more and more of the content that resides on the Internet comes from conversations than from formal publishing. Individuals are writing and publishing their own digital magazines (blogs) and some of them are making a living at it, entirely independent of publishers and printing.

So what about our classrooms. Are they flat too?

Registration is limited to 200 people, so if you want a seat, register soon!  Heck, grab a projector and sit a group of your teachers down to watch it as a team!  

See you there

I’ve talked about Vyew before and how I think that it’s one of the better ‘Office 2.0′ applications out there.  Well, now it’s gotten even better. 

Vyew 2.0 has just entered into public beta. For those that don’t remember, Vyew is a free webinar solution, similar to Webex which is what we use here in the office.  It supports document sharing, whiteboarding, teleconferencing, desktop sharing, and more.  Pretty darn robust for a free application!  The new version allows you to store multiple Vyewbooks (sort of like an overall presentation including slides, whiteboards and more), layer objects on top of each other like you can do in Powerpoint, and desktop sharing for OSX oriented people.  Plus it looks cooler

If you have any need to do virtual meetings or distance learning, give Vyew a shot and see how you like it. You can’t go wrong with free and it seems to stack up pretty well to some of the big boys.

Yes, this is a graphical reprsentation of Pi.  I’m not sure how you can use this in the classroom or anything, but I just find it incredibly cool.  Now where can I order a poster of this…

Yesterday I posted whimsically that that I would sell of my blog in a heartbeat if I could actually get even a fraction of what one website ‘estimates’ it’s worth.  That got me thinking though.  When I worked at my last school, I was extraordinarily careful about making sure I never named where I was working or spoke negatively about it.  Even when I felt I had justifiable reason, I didn’t want to be the latest on the SimplyFired blog. 

I’m pretty careful here at Discovery as well.  There have been a few occasions of self-censorship, and it’s definitely in the back of my mind before I click submit.  But here’s a little early morning question of scruples for you:

If your employer called you in told you that if you didn’t quit blogging you would lose your job, what would you do? 

Shut it down and return to the classroom?  Close up shop but become an underground anonymous blogger?  Start writing a letter of resignation? 

The reason I ask is that I’ve found that Teach42 awakened a part of me that I never realized was lying dormant.  I knew I enjoyed writing in high school, but I never thought that it was something I would carry into adulthood.  And I never NEVER imagined that it would directly influence my career in the way that it has.  At this point blogging has opened up opportunities for me, created friendships, and helped me hone and refine my own thoughts and beliefs in profound ways.  Can I say the same for my occupation? 

I have to admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed working for Discovery.  On the verge of my one year anniversary with the company, the job still surprises me and presents new challenges on a regular basis.  As with any job, it has its ups and downs, but on the whole there are far more ups than downs.  But if Discovery Education decided that blogs were a liability to the company and that I had to make a choice between my job and Teach42…  Well, let’s just say I hope that I never have to make that decision because I hate being unemployed. 

I love my job and truly believe in the company.  But for some reason, blogging represents intellectual freedom and lifelong learning.  Teach42 represents me in ways that nothing else can.  You can learn more about me from this blog than from my cubicle, my house and my resume combined.

When I taught kindergarten, I always emphasized to the students that they couldn’t go wrong if they stayed true to themselves and verbalized what they were thinking.  This is my place to do that. 

So what would you do?  You can always answer anonymously if you’re concerned about the wrong person reading  your response.

Your blog or your job?  Make your decision.