Blogs, Wikis and Nings, Oh My!

This was a productive weekend.  On Friday afternoon, I browsed through several English teaching blogs, adding several to my Google Reader (Mr. B-G's English Blog, Edumacation, and the Cool Cat Teacher Blog).  Then on Saturday night, I discovered the Making Curriculum Pop Ning and I started exploring the English Companion Ning.  All of these resources put my mind at ease as I am tasked with preparing my three lesson micro-teaching unit and my first unit for UHigh.  I was just DUMBFOUNDED by the sheer amount of awesome ideas I came across in just my cursory browsing.  It's great to know that I don't have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to teaching stuff like The Great Gatsby or Brave New World.  And when I do come up with some awesome unit or some great way to relate a subject to my students, I can't wait to share it with the community.

 

I'm grateful that I'm beginning my teaching career in this age of technology, and I'm also grateful that teachers are still figuring out cool new ways to use it.  When I join in the discourse, even though I'll be a novice teacher, I'll be on a similar playing field as the others as far as this emerging technology is concerned.

 

It was also really cool to see some of the literacy strategies we've spoken of in class being used in the "real world".  Especially on MC Pop, there were entire discussion threads devoted to multiple modes of perception (UDL) and ways of making content relevant to students.