By Any Other Name

It’s been a while since had the chance to blog regularly. Hopefully I’ll be able to get super organised in this last week of hols and have a relatively relaxed term! I said, hopefully…

I did a small makeover here at this blog. I’ve changed the name from The Rise of Reflection (which just wasn’t sitting right with me for I don’t know what reason) to Wanderings and Wonderings.  I’ve also changed the header. All the pictures were taken within a 5 -10 minute walk from my house. I’m pretty lucky to live in the place I do!

So, if you are reading this through a reader, stop by Wanderings and Wonderings for a quick look and let me know what you think. I’ve added a few things to the sidebar too so if you think they are too distracting please let me know.

I think that the ability to change your identity – or parts of it – is one of the great things about Web 2.0. If something doesn’t suit you anymore, you can alter it. Of course there is value is maintaining an identity and for this I make sure I use my real name everywhere, but that doesn’t mean I can’t change the titles of things or pictures etc etc. I love that!

Twitter Abstinence Syndrome

Found this cartoon via a link from Langwitches. LOL.

Astounding Ourselves

Here are some quotes for this week. I have these ones pinned to the corkboard on the wall beside my fridge so I read them on a daily basis.

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.” – Johann Wolfgang van Goethe

“If we all did what we were capable of we would literally astound ourselves.” Thomas Edison

Related posts:

Deep and Meaningful Quotes for Monday

Tuesday Time Out

Alright March, do your worst…

It’s amazing how out of touch I actually feel after two very busy weeks which have kept me away from Twitter and my blogs. Two weekends of visitors, then one away in Melbourne, Year 7 camp and some really hectic days at school have meant that this is my first post in ages! I also have to admit that I’ve had to hit ‘Mark All As Read’ in my reader. I looked at all the feeds and wondered if there was any I could get rid of so that my unread feed numbers stays down a bit, but I ended adding some instead! Aagh! :-)
Right now, watching the Sunday night movie, I’m reconnecting myself to the world that has become such a normal and integrated part of my life that I really notice it when I can’t get to it or interact with it properly for a few days. Of course, I am still in the minority as far as educators in general go. This was part of a conversation that Sue Tapp (@sujokat) and I had when we met face to face at the Port Fairy Folk Festival a couple of weeks back. Here’s the photographic proof! It was lovely to meet Sue and to also be invited by her to a Bloggers Feast in May. (I may not be able to make it though as it’s a Tuesday night dinner and I live three and a half hours from Melbourne, which is a bit far during the week!) I just love that this network is becoming real too, as well as being something that exists only on my laptop.

March hasn’t finished yet either, despite the fact that I am now technically on holidays. I’m off to Melbourne tomorrow night to rush around catching up on a couple of things on Tuesday, and then I’m off to Adelaide for three days for some training on the Professional Standards for LOTE Teachers (I will then come back and in turn train LOTE teachers here in Vic). Then, staying with friends for the weekend and competing in Run For the Kids. Well, the only competition I am really entering is to actually finish the race running as much of the 5.76 km course as I can. I’ll have a friend with me so see how I go!

I am really looking forward to next week as that is when I’ll have some time at home. I want to get some really decent planning done for Term 2 so that I can actually reclaim my weeknights and weekends. That of course, remains to be seen though.

Hello again to those of you reading. Thank you for staying with me. My wit and wisdom, in all its glory, will return shortly… :-)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

3 Series on Blogging: 5 ways to get into the groove

mac kitty1. Read Blogs That Interest You. Use Google’s Blog Search to find a blog that interests you. Or you can use the Technorati search engine for blogs, which is really blog central. Check Blog Pulse to search a particular term and see the blogging trends. Read a few blogs that are in your interest area – get your student to read a blog in their interest area, and blogs of other students. You will see that people write about anything that means anything to them and there is someone out there who is interested in reading it.

If you’d like to know how you can subscribe to blogs and get new posts delivered to you rather than checking several sites for new stuff, watch the RSS in Plain English video from The CommonCraft Show. Or you can check out my very first post on technoLOTE called Introducing the Web 2.0 World.

2. Decide what type of blog you would like to have. There are NO RULES! There are many different types of blogs. If writing often is not really your thing, you could have a photoblog where each post is a photo rather than text, or a blog of your students’ artwork or completed maths problems with short descriptions. You might want to check out this post on different types of weblogs.

3. Get into the habit. Blog about anything and everything and regularly – whether that be once a week, every couple of days, or every day if you’re really keen. Start thinking about how you can turn opinions, events, conversations, and discoveries into blog posts. Make a time for your blogging (amongst all those other things you have to make time for – I know). There are many benefits to reap from it, one of the greatest being the network and community you can build around your blog. More on that in the next installment of this 3 Series.

4. Plan some blog posts. I often do this – not to say that my posts always work out to plan – but I usually have some idea. Doing a bit of planning helps you to focus your reading a bit more and starting to think of things that you can write about. Just as there are different types of blogs, there are different types of blog posts. Darren Rowse of Problogger wrote a post on 20 different types of blog posts which is definitely worth checking out.

5. Keep it up. Rather than thinking ‘I have a blog, but nothing to write on it really’ or ‘Why would I have a blog? What would I write on it?’ It’s important to realise that YOU DO HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER, and so do your students. It’s so easy to be reluctant to blog about something, or to ask someone a question. It is so easy to just assume that you have nothing to offer because someone else has already written about it or because you don’t feel as though you know enough. Blogging is not about being an expert. It’s about self expression and reflection, and generally just having a go. Again, a great network can be built around your (and your students’) blogs.

I’d love to hear your blogging stories, so please leave them in a comment or email me jess (@) technolote DOT com

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