As I reflect on what I have learned during these last 10 weeks, I tend to go back to the 1st assignment to talk about the 3 most important habits (for me) of “7 1/2 Habits of Life Long Learners” . At that time, I felt those habits most important to me were ;

No.2 : “Accept responsibility for your own Learning” – As I went deeper into the course, I found that I had to overcome my own initial frustrations at not being able to remember a particular format for getting an assignment completed. My first inclination (concerning computers) has always been to “call somebody” but through this course, I have been given the tools to solve just about any question and even experiment on my own. Even if I do have to “call someone” occasionally, I will know more about what to ask.

No. 4 : “Have Confidence as an effective learner” – I had designated this as my most challenging habit and I was correct. My confidence in “Learning how to Effectively Blog” did seem to present a challenge to me every time I opened up my edublog and started to write ” Thing…”. I have always been a firm believer in You don’t really feel confident that you have learned something until you begin to share it with another. “Blogging” is not always about trying to teach something, it is also about sharing plans,ideas,beliefs…etc. My Blogging assignments have given me that confidence and I intend to use it every chance I get.

No.7 : PLAY – This part was not difficult for me. I will have to say that I had sooooo much fun playing with all the new tools that I sometimes forgot that I had somewhat of a deadline to meet. I even think I stumbled on a simple way to lose some weight. There were a couple of times that I was so immersed in what I was doing that I forgot to eat lunch or even a snack and recently, when I weighed myself, I had lost 7 pounds.

I think that if I keep expanding and exploring from this point, I will really have gained some insight into the inevitable trend in education and how it is conducted in the future. We will all grasp the obviously good ideas and tools with gusto and crawl cautiously through the “Tripe” and we will, at the same time, train our students and our own children and grandchildren…etc. to do the same.

What is so refreshing about Blogging, is that even young children can have the chance to share ideas and opinions on their level and be collaboratively creative about their chosen subject. In Duck Diaries the children were free to write their ideas and opinions without having to worry too much about spelling.

There were two Blogs that I read about environmental concerns. One was about the need to use alternative means for getting your groceries home. I have already begun to do this myself, so this especially related to my life. The other was about our being more conservative with the use of the precious resource; water, which is very close to our hearts here in Atlanta. These are examples of ideas that allow other people to collaborate on an original idea for a solution.

Although I love to read, I am mostly reading articles in magazines, the newspaper or special interest websites. Now, I have added various Blogs. I do love a good chapter book but because of some visual problems , I have difficulty reading for long periods of time. I think the blog by Mark Ahlness about the volume of reading his students do, even though they are not reading in what we might consider a traditional way, says a lot about how information will be “consumed” in the future. To expand on that thought, the blog on “Rationale for Educational Blogging” did a nice job of giving reasons for using the Blog as a way of teaching students responsibility in public writing, how to collaboratively connect and learn from others and have confidence in their own ideas and opinions.

There were two more sites that really interested me, especially since it made references to “The Arts in Education”. Since I am an instrumental music teacher and a product of the Arts being taught in school it really spoke to my rationale for why we as teachers need to find some time to encourage the students to use their ” Creativity” and talents. Within that Blog was a film of a very inciteful talk by Sir Ken Robinson on why we might be killing that creativity.

This past year, We ( Prescilla Chang and me ) initiated an assignment that allowed our students a chance to explore their creative side. The students were told to compose a tune ( only 4 measures long) . They were given 10 basic rules of composition but the rest was up to them. This gave them a chance to show us and themselves what they had learned about music, so far. We had some students who ran with it and even added text ( which was not assigned) and also came to us asking for more staff paper to make their tune longer. We also had some students who used the minimal amount of space , which was OK because we understand that everyone is not interested in composing.

We (myself included) need to more occasionally, raise our heads out of our lesson plans and tune into our student’s needs to explore their own modes of learning and creativity. Yes, there are many Blogsites that are publishing inappropriate and incorrect information but I am sure with our informed guidance, the students will learn to be able to disseminate the ones that are worth reading.