Baby Steps for Beginners, Part #1

I dedicate this post to my co-workers and friends at Westwood Schools. Although lately I've been snagging lunch in my room a lot due to a heavy workload, I admire them. I respect them. I believe they are the greatest group of teachers in the world at the greatest school in the world! I am honored to be among them.

This is a post about where to get started with all of this overwhelming Web 2.0 “stuff” and is designed to be a “menu.” Select the things that interest you and leave the things that don't. And remember, you cannot possibly take it all in.

1) Peruse best practices in your subject area.
I've been going through my del.icio.us links and working to categorize it by teacher or profession. I will be cataloging and going through them more in the future, but take a look at the websites that you can use or what other teachers are doing. Keep a notebook handy to jot down your ideas:

2. Set up your own delicious account.

  • If you cannot figure it out, download and print out these how-to instructions.
  • Then, go to my bookmarks and add me to your network — you can now share bookmarks with me and follow mine by going to delicious and clicking on “your network.” This will show you all of the bookmarks of those you've added to your network.
  • Add to your network some other great places with great links – the Wow2 show (where I webcast) and the edtechtalk channel are two of my favorite places for links.

3. Listen to an audio show or two while you're grading papers.

Just click on these links and click the play button. These will help you see what other educators are doing. Here are some specific shows that I have favorited, pick one that interests you:

It is important to hear voices because you will see that there are people out there like you who are scared but are jumping in and getting started too!

4) Take time to write down 3 goals of things you want to learn more about in the next 7 days! I call this my “big three” and I always take away a “big three” from all presentations or events that I attend. Here are some suggestions.

I will share more with you later. This is just the post for this week! This should give you one week of things to work on and think through.

I plan to make this a beginners series because so many people forget about the beginners! See you soon!

And I so much hope and dream that some of my fellow teachers at Westwood will take a look at this post and find something new here for them!

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Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis

Vicki Davis is a full-time classroom teacher and IT Director in Georgia, USA. She is Mom of three, wife of one, and loves talking about the wise, transformational use of technology for teaching and doing good in the world. She hosts the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast which interviews teachers around the world about remarkable classroom practices to inspire and help teachers. Vicki focuses on what unites us -- a quest for truly remarkable life-changing teaching and learning. The goal of her work is to provide actionable, encouraging, relevant ideas for teachers that are grounded in the truth and shared with love. Vicki has been teaching since 2002 and blogging since 2005. Vicki has spoken around the world to inspire and help teachers reach their students. She is passionate about helping every child find purpose, passion, and meaning in life with a lifelong commitment to the joy and responsibility of learning. If you talk to Vicki for very long, she will encourage you to "Relate to Educate" or "innovate like a turtle" or to be "a remarkable teacher." She loves to talk to teachers who love their students and are trying to do their best. Twitter is her favorite place to share and she loves to make homemade sourdough bread and cinnamon rolls and enjoys running half marathons with her sisters. You can usually find her laughing with her students or digging into a book.

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3 comments

James Christensen March 8, 2008 - 4:18 pm

Thanks for the beginner info! I really appreciate it. I’ve done the social bookmarking before, but the audio stuff and rss info is golden. Looking forward to the beginner series.

David March 8, 2008 - 4:35 pm

Hi,

I have a blog with worksheets I use with my kids (ages 4-6), and I was looking for some feedback.
I just linked to you, would you like to swap links?

Thanks

Dave

Willy Kjellstrom March 9, 2008 - 8:04 pm

Perhaps you or your fellow teachers might find my subject-based RSS feeds helpful (when they are more comfortable with RSS). I hope that you don’t mind that I used your del.icio.us account as a part of the aggregated feed…

http://kjellwr4.edublogs.org/

I enjoy the posts!

Comments are closed.

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Vicki Davis writes The Cool Cat Teacher Blog for classroom teachers everywhere