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!
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
If I was an iPod I’d be…
My first iPod was a first generation Nano. I got to know how to use it, what it could do. I actually didn’t really think I wanted one, but my boyfriend (husband now) thought he’d like to buy me a new ‘toy’ so I got a nano for Christmas. I had no idea what it could actually do before I started playing with it, and I loved it. Loved it loved it loved it. I was downloading podcasts and uploading CDs in no time.
Over time though, I learnt more about my little nano and I wanted to do more with it. I found then that there were some restrictions. The small screen was well, too small. There was not enough memory for everything I wanted to put on it. It wasn’t video capable. I wanted to do things with it and add things to it that it wasn’t able to do.
My first venture into the edublogosphere was technoLOTE. At first I was nervous, and unsure about how it all worked and what I was doing. I thought of some pretty good ideas and wrote about them. I stopped for a while and then went back to it with some new ideas. I was enjoying it and going ok. Then my understandings of blogging grew and I found there were some restrictions with my first blog. I find that I want to write about things other than technology and lots more about my reflections as a teacher. I don’t think technoLOTE is really the place for this as it really is intended to have a language teaching and technology focus which is not what I always want to write about. I was watching many conversations happening over blog posts and wanting to write something similar but felt a bit restricted by the concept and focus of technoLOTE. I just love reading little anecdotes and stories on other people’s blogs about something funny that happened that day or something that engraged or engaged them as teachers, regardless of what subject they taught. The audience I envision for technoLOTE will consist mainly of teachers who know very little about Web 2.0 (well, until they meet me that is!). Initally, they will not be looking for or will be confused by material on the blog that isn’t directly about language teaching.
A few months ago I ventured further into the iPod world and now have an 80GB iPod Video which does everything I want it to do and more than I’m sure I haven’t discovered yet.I can play movies and videos and watch vodcasts. I can store the entire contents of my laptop on it and carry it around with me. I can use it to show photos and videos in class and I’ve recently bought a voice recorder for it which I have got many plans for. (More on them later).
I am now venturing further into the edublogging world and have started this new blog.I have new understandings about what I want from the edublogging world and I am now putting the tools into place to deepen those understandings.
I want this blog to be a conversation about learning and teaching. I want to enhance this blog, and others I have, with some regular podcasts (and to enhance the podcasts with the blogs). I want to have a place in the edublogosphere where I am Jess McCulloch, educator/teacher (as opposed to Jess McCulloch language teacher). technoLOTE is for my language teaching self and technoChinese is for my Chinese language teaching self. Ah, the delight of multiple personalities!
I think also that initially, before I learned about what blogging is really for, I saw myself setting up a website for teachers and so I thought I had to have most of the answers, an idea which can be restrictive and make writing forced sometimes. I love writing (I was the kid who had several diaries and was absolutely rapt when she got a blank notebook and pencils for a Christmas or birthday present) and it was a bit frustrating to feel restricted. It took me a while to understand what things I really wanted to write about and where the best places were to do that.
I still use my first gen nano - I run with it. It’s still helping me achieve some of my goals. I will still use technoLOTE as it will help me be a better language teacher and will hopefully provide some good resources to other language teachers. But my development as an educator/teacher of children - which is what I am first and foremost - will be recorded here.
So, if I was an iPod, at this stage I would be an 80GB Video, with designs on an iPod Touch or, eventually an iPhone. If you were an iPod, which one would you be?
P.S The pic of the ipod with voice recorder attached is mine, but the nano isn’t. I got that image from flickrcc.
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Online Identity Crisis
I’ve got quite a few different names happening in cyberspace and I’m wondering if it’s too many? In some places I am technolote, in others it’s jessmc, or jess_technolote or fishkeeperswife (yep, my husband used to have a passion for keeping marine fish that was very time consuming) or even furrypenguin! Eek! Surely this is ridiculous? I think I need to have an identity that is usable both in the edublogger and personal spheres so that I don’t have to have different accounts for professional and personal use. When I started all this blogging it was with my site technoLOTE and so that is the identity I started with. Now, I’ve got a few other ideas about what I want to do and I’m not sure I just want to be known as technolote. I’ve got a couple of great projects coming up that have nothing to do with teaching LOTE which is why this conundrum has struck me. The name techolote won’t mean much for those projects. So, is it a good time to change some usernames around?
I think it’s important to separate yourself from what you do sometimes. I teach LOTE (Chinese) but that is not who I am. I find that at school both staff and students have a great deal of difficulty separating me as a person from my interest in Chinese and China. I went to a book club meeting a couple of months ago and I put a block of chocolate on the table to share, only to be immediately asked by a colleague ‘Is that Chinese chocolate?’ Why would it be? If it was a particular occasion like a cultural celebration day or something like that, then that question would almost be expected. When I take other classes as extras the kids think that just because I am the one who is taking them that means I am going to suspend all programs and teach them Chinese. They may think that of other subject teachers too, and I’m not suggesting it’s only me, but it is a bit frustraing. Like when I walked in to take a P.E extra: “Oh, does this mean we are going to play Chinese games?”
Not everything I do online, in life, at work or at home has got to do with my technoLOTE site or my teaching of and interest in China and Chinese language. I’m considering making sure I have an identity in all these spheres that points first to me as a person, rather than an occupation.
