One More Thing

Thank you for your patience and all your positive comments along the journey. I experienced fun, frustration, satisfaction, anger, achievement, etc., etc. I really enjoyed the activities of making things. I was hooked at the beginning by creating my Avatar. I will definitely keep my blog going and hopefully make it functional to my role as a principal. One thing I should tell you is that I have frustrated many professors in my time with my reflections. I often don't go as deep as they would have liked. I think it's just part of my personality. My wife would probably attest to that as well. Again, thank you for all the effort you have taken to guide us step by step through 23 things.

Thing #23

Oh, I'm finally to 23. I like the time clock countdown on the 23 things Ning. I found the badge but was not able to find widgets. I think I really should have finished all of this before TAKS week arrived. I am zapped of most of my mental faculties. I did like looking around and reading postings and blogs of educators on various subjects. I know that I am not there yet in terms of using social networking within my role, but I hope to be more proficient in the future. Goodness, I am just getting on Facebook and I already am falling behind in accepting friends. http://23thingsters.ning.com/main/embeddable/list

Thing #22

Okay, I finally broke down and joined Facebook. I have been dreading getting to this point, because I have always been opposed to MySpace and Facebook. I can't get over all the personal information floating around the internet for all to see. I have been apprehensive and I have a very close friend who has been on may case about "getting over it." My profile is very limited and will remain that way until I do "get over it" and become comfortable with the sharing aspect of Facebook. I do understand that as educators, we need to be familiar with these tools because our students are using them. Here is the link to my profile: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=1610966893&ref=profile

Thing #21

I created my own webpage on igoogle. Cool! Now my gmail account page doesn't look so boring. I will continue to tweak it to make it fit my style. The page currently has the following topics: current comic by Calvin and Hobbs; weather information; local news, national news, sports updates; movie schedules for local theaters and a few other items. I also looked around quite a bit on the Google Book Search. I found a book (I say that alot) I want to read about golf and I'll tell you why. Often, a golfer waits for the bad shot to happen. It is very difficult for most golfers to maintain the positive thought processes necessary for a quality round. When I go out and really feel good about playing and hit lots of good shots, it's still in my mind that the bad shots and the bad hole that will ruin my round is just around the corner. I need to be mentally stronger and focus on what positives will happen. Therefore, I want to read the book titled Extraordinary Golf: The Art of the Possible. I don't know if it will cure any of my mental weaknesses, but it sure can't hurt.

Thing #7b

Here is an article that discusses a circumstance we all run across from time to time: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/2009/04/other_duties_as_assigned.html
Why me? Why do we need this? What's the purpose? Have you heard any of these questions when trying to create a plan to make the campus run more efficiently? I think we all have experienced the barriers or apprehension from others as we "change things" or "try something new". I still have Leader Talk as a google reader and I really enjoy many of the articles in Education Week. I think I will look for the book “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done” (Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck and skim through it to see if I can pick up any good tips.

Thing #20

I was fortunate enough to take a mini class with Dr. Armand and explore some of the facets of googledocs. Have I made to most of my training???? I'm sorry to say no, but I do have plans to utilize the training in the future. As I looked at the principal's to-do list, it reminded me of last year when Daron started creating the list and asked for suggestions by email. He took such great initiative in getting a common list together. Now that it's created, all principals can go in and edit to their particular needs as well as help others with things they don't often think about until they are in a time crunch or under a great deal of stress. Googledocs offers such a cool method for professionals to view, collaborate, edit, plan, etc., etc.

Thing #19

Voicethread is not one of my favorite tools. It's probably due to experiences with the tool in the past. It is often used in connection with the presentation of important information. I think you have to be careful when using this tool with students because it tends to lend itself to the Ferris Bueller method of teaching "Bueller, Bueller, Bueller, anyone, anyone, anyone". Hopefully you have seen the movie to understand the reference. I feel it is easy to make the information very dry if you're not careful and that is the last thing our current generation of students need. I'm sure there are ways to spice up a presentation using voicethread, but as I searched, I found more dry presentations than engaging presentations. By the way, here's a trailer to the movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s-oGumvPz0