I started blogging and seriously following other educators on twitter last May. After a great high at ISTE11 in Philadelphia last year where I thought, "I see the brilliance of twitter and blogging!" I have slowly gone downhill. Part of the problem is that I see other educators who have amazing ideas and seem to have them all worked out. They've actually implemented tons of ideas and been at it for years. I'm a relative newbie, though I do have enthusiasm and curiosity.
So for several months now, I've felt like I had to be the New York Times of blogs to put anything out that has any meaning. Stop in tracks. That's over. Recently what I've read is blogger after blogger saying the important thing is to be genuine. Admit mistakes. You don't have to be perfect. And after all, this blog is most of all, a record of my path and my ideas.
Therefore, here is my fresh start. I'm at home on a sick day. Decided it was a good time to play on my ipad a bit and explore some of the zillions of apps I have downloaded but not used. Don't want anything too serious, after all, I am sick. I opened rad.io (the downloaded version on my ipad) and was instantly impressed with the enormity of options available. I'm listening to German music from the 1920s as I blog.
"Imagine what a music teacher could do with so many genres of music at her fingers?" Being not musically inclined whatsoever, I had a hard time imagining.
But an English teacher could have a field day with something like rad.io. Students could analyze tone. They could look at rhyme scheme in some songs. They could do a literary analysis of a song. They could compare and contrast two very different genres. Okay, probably the English teacher would not use the German station from the 1920s for this, but - imagine then what the German teacher could do!
And in just the few minutes that it's taken me to write this blog, I've heard two songs that I know when they are in English. I have unintentionally learned a bit of German and a bit of music history.
This may not be the New York Times of blog posts, but it's enough to remember what I learned today.
So for several months now, I've felt like I had to be the New York Times of blogs to put anything out that has any meaning. Stop in tracks. That's over. Recently what I've read is blogger after blogger saying the important thing is to be genuine. Admit mistakes. You don't have to be perfect. And after all, this blog is most of all, a record of my path and my ideas.
Therefore, here is my fresh start. I'm at home on a sick day. Decided it was a good time to play on my ipad a bit and explore some of the zillions of apps I have downloaded but not used. Don't want anything too serious, after all, I am sick. I opened rad.io (the downloaded version on my ipad) and was instantly impressed with the enormity of options available. I'm listening to German music from the 1920s as I blog.
"Imagine what a music teacher could do with so many genres of music at her fingers?" Being not musically inclined whatsoever, I had a hard time imagining.
But an English teacher could have a field day with something like rad.io. Students could analyze tone. They could look at rhyme scheme in some songs. They could do a literary analysis of a song. They could compare and contrast two very different genres. Okay, probably the English teacher would not use the German station from the 1920s for this, but - imagine then what the German teacher could do!
And in just the few minutes that it's taken me to write this blog, I've heard two songs that I know when they are in English. I have unintentionally learned a bit of German and a bit of music history.
This may not be the New York Times of blog posts, but it's enough to remember what I learned today.
1 comments:
You have an interesting blog. we both share common interest. Passion towards learning. My blog gives English language tips using simple acronyms. I am sure it will help you too. Recently I coined S MA CAPS (Pronounced See My Caps), an acronym/a Mnemonic to recall types of count nouns. It stands for Society, Measurement, Animals, Containers, Abstract, Person, Shape.
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