It's August 1st!

This entry is brought to you by crows.

You know, I feel pretty great right now. Not just because I've been out of classes for two days, but because a real, live edublogger responded to a comment that I wrote! I'm usually very nervous about posting comments on weblogs, especially if they belong to people I don't know in my life outside the Internet (notice how I am refraining from referring to said life as "real" life. Internet life is "real" life, too.)

Basically, the Cool Cat Teacher encouraged me to start my own blog so I have it to look back upon later in my teaching career. While it's too late for me to take her advice about starting my own weblog (thanks, Jeff and Kristen!), it does encourage me to keep updating this lovely weblog of mine in the future. I'm going to try to keep it strictly related to education, which may be hard at times, knowing how much I love to go on tangents. I'll just try to make sure that the starting point of the tangents will be related to education.

I really enjoyed having former MACers as guest speakers on Friday. Each of them had interesting stories to tell about their use of technology in the classroom. The most memorable part of the presentation for me, though, was when the second speaker mentioned that when he was in school, he was a special education student. I wonder if his students know that. I feel that if they did, he would be a great encouragement to the special ed students, as he is a living example of a special education student who has grown up and accomplished many great things. What a great role model.

This particular speaker also talked about how he makes technology wish lists. Oh man, that sounds so exciting. I hope I get to do that when I'm a teacher! It sounds a lot like writing Christmas wish lists for Santa back in the day, only instead of asking for a pony or an Easy Bake Oven, I can ask for computer programs that can help me create electronic ponies and bake electronic food for my students. These things can totally help me enhance my teaching, if I use them correctly, by which I mean creatively. I wonder if writing these technology wish lists in crayon and delivering them to the technology person at my school with a cup of hot chocolate and a plate of cookies will increase the likelihood of me getting the pieces of technology I desire. I mean, it worked on Santa all of those years... Also, do technology people have elves that slave away all year making electronics? If yes, where are they hiding? Also, can I keep one as a pet? Man, I am going to have so many questions to ask the technology person at my school in the fall. I think I'm going to need to start making a list.

This concludes my reflection of Friday's class. Now run to freedom; the whole month of August lies ahead of you.

Also, on your way out, please enjoy my angry crow wallpaper inspired by the lovely piece of art at the beginning of this entry (one of my friends is actually using this as his desktop background):

Enjoy your time off, everybody! I'll update this blog periodically when inspiration strikes, so check back from time to time.