Happy Birthday to My Blog!

Holy Cow! An entire year has gone by already. My intent with this post was to reflect on my Ed Tech journey over the past year and all that I have learned, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to put it into any coherent form. When I think about all I have learned my mind jumps from one thing to another like a drop of water on a hot skillet. Therefore, I will simply make a random list about my growth over the past year.

1. I STILL can't believe that I went to the Google Teacher Academy at the Googleplex last summer. That day started this whole wild ride and I've loved every minute of it. Sometimes I'm successful with all of the cool tools I learned about and sometimes I'm not, but it's always interesting. I feel very fortunate to have had the experience with Google and the fabulous presenters that day. As a result, I have become MUCH more of a tech evangelist. Our students use technology to get information every day, but it seems that many in education are reluctant to tap into that.
   
2. Within a week of attending GTA I had started this blog and joined Twitter. As I've said before here and here, I learn something new on Twitter every day. For me, Twitter is primarily a professional thing; I follow teachers and other education professionals. Just last night, because of Twitter, I found the YouTube Reporter's Center and links to several blog posts summarizing sessions from NECC '09.
   
3. In the past year I've learned to be less afraid of technology. Actually, I'm not sure that I ever was afraid of it, I was just cautious. This week I've given my blog a facelift and earlier in the year I finally figured out the timeline gadget in Google Spreadsheet. Both of those tasks would have been beyond me a year ago...not so much that I couldn't do them, but I would have been afraid to try.

So, where does this leave me? I know I still have much to learn. I find I spend much more time thinking about how to make my classroom more student centered. I believe this is especially important now that I am in a journalism lab. The dynamics of the physical layout, in my opinion, demand a different way of teaching and learning. There are new tools that I want to try (like Skype). I want to attend more webinars this year and plan to 'attend' this year's K12 Online Conference in December.

I am looking forward to learning this year. Stay tuned for updates!

Day 29: Teachers, Promote Thyselves!

Well, the "30 Days to Being a Better Blogger Challenge" is almost over. I'll be sad and a bit at loose ends when I no longer have a task each day. Today's challenge (or rather yesterday's, but I'm not getting to it until today) is to be a Rock Star. Yes, teacher, promote thyself.

I've noticed over the past couple of years that many teachers are loathe to promote their own accomplishments. I have found it difficult to get teachers to talk about their continuing education, professional memberships and activities or their honors and awards. When you do back them into a corner they will speak about it, but they seem to speak with great reluctance. I'm not sure why that is. I was part of this group in the past, but I'm getting better about letting people know what I am doing.

How have I done this? First, on my Retaggr card (which also serves as my profile here) I have put many of my professional activities including the fact that I'm a Teacher Consultant with the California Geographic Alliance (and have been since 1994), that I'm a Google Certified Teacher, and that I am a Certified Journalism Educator. I also added that I am the 2008 Secondary Teacher of the Year in my district. That was a hard one for some reason. I have also added my professional activities to my email signatures on my district and other email accounts. On my gmail account, I also added my Twitter name and this blog address. I even got business cards at 123Print. My business cards now have my professional affiliations, my Twitter name and my blog address.

There are a few things about which I am still not overly comfortable discussing. For example, I don't spend a great deal of time talking about my role as the lead California Coordinator for My Wonderful World, a National Geographic-led public awareness campaign to highlight the need for geographic education in our country. Within my geography circle, I do talk about the campaign, but at my site, I'm pretty quiet. I am fortunate that the district curriculum director is interested in the program, so she gets me talking about it all the time.

So...why is it that teachers seemingly don't want to be rock stars? I'm not sure. Has this post been easy to write? Not really. I wonder if there is something in our make up as educators that makes it difficult for us to promote ourselves. As educators, we do need to promote our accomplishments more. We can start within our own circles of education, but eventually we need to expand beyond that. Teachers, Promote Thyselves!

Day 2 of Blogger Challenge: Site Statistics

Day 2 of the Be a Better Blogger Challenge asks us to start thinking about site stats. This is a good idea as we never know when we might need them. I started this blog as a result of my participation in the Google Teacher Academy last June. Part of my responsibility as a Google Certified Teacher is to get the word out about Google Tools for the classroom and other Web 2.0 tools. I decided that one way I could do that is through a blog. CGTs do periodically report on what they are doing, so having site statistics could be useful.

As recommended by Steve Dembo, I signed up for a free account at Site Meter to track visitors to my site. I had previously been using ClustrMaps, but it doesn't give detailed information. I have been able to see that my blog has had 101 hits since September 1, 2008, but I think many of those are me. I can also see where my visitors are on the map which is pretty exciting since I've had visitors from five continents!

One of the things I do like about Site Meter is the detailed reports I can get even with a free account. I can even exclude my own computer from stats. I am looking forward to see who is visiting this little blog and where they are coming from.