Sometimes too much is too much. Blog, twitter, facebook and on and on and on. When does it become too much? It is great that many people use all these media tools for both personal and professional reasons but I sometimes feel enough is enough. Carpenters have many tools but sometimes using a hammer is all you need to get the job done. Having many choices are great but I am going to pick the one that will work for me and get really good at using it.

Find Your Purpose

"People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
"

Andrew Carnegie

This Carnegie guy knew what he was talking about because he has many buildings and institutes named after him.  Everyone knows that in order to have a building named after yourself you need to be either important, a President or dead.  Some people are all three. The “trifecta” of getting a building named after you. (I know that I am at least going to meet one of those criteria someday) If you want to excel in life, self motivation is essential but if you also knew that there was a potential to have a building named after yourself, you would be able to keep your spirit high no matter how discouraging a situation is because you would be like I want that building with my name on the side.  But you can’t promise a student that they will name a building after them if they do well in  class.  So the question is: What drives your students to remain engaged in a self-directed activity? The answer is for them to find their purpose.  In the movie “The Jerk” Steve Martin’s character Navin R. Johnson was motivated to find his purpose. Remember when he got is name in the phone book he stated, “Page 73 - Johnson, Navin R.! I'm somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that makes people. I'm in print! Things are going to start happening to me now.” That last part of his statement is what our students need to understand. Our students need to find their purpose and things will start to happen for them. I can’t think of a more powerful source of motivation than a purpose you care about. A purpose can inspire you to give your best even in the face of difficulties. It can make you do the seemingly impossible things. Like juggle cats. Or survive middle school.
While other motivations could inspire you temporarily, a purpose is something that matters to you and can inspire you indefinitely. It’s a spring of motivation that will never dry.   Whenever you think that you run out of motivation, you can always come to your purpose to get a fresh dose of motivation. 

Using tech in my GT class

Created a class menu for students to choose various sites on a wiki.  Sites included: Blogger, Glogster, Voice Thread, Google Sketchup and Xrtranormal.  Had students visit each site to see what each site had to offer.  The energy and excitement in the room was amazing.  Students were engaged and very upset when class was over. 

Erosion and Deposition animation

StudyJams Weathering and Erosion

Chapter Three motivation

Just finished chapter three and I am motivated to work on my Wiki.  I also liked the idea of students using a blog to reflect during the span of a project.  I find this E2T2 class great.  It gives me time to work on technology that I would not have time to do on my own. I also get to collaborate with other middle school teachers outside of my own building.  Thanks ECSD for this great class.

Already there!

In chapter two of Reinventing Project-Based Learning it states during collaboration you must be able to comfortable say... Ok, that worked but maybe try this next time.  It stated that that kind of feedback is wonderful.  What a great district we work in where we already have this type of collaboration imbedded into our schools.  

Enjoy the Blog

I enjoy the idea of the blog.  I hope what I have to share will be important enough for others to join my blog.  If not you will all miss out.  There is very much going on in my mind and I need to get it out.  This will be the venue.

Blogger Stalkers Stay Away!

First E2T2 Blog

Today at E2T2 I learned how easy it is to start up and manage a wiki account.  How you can edit and change your page but also your peers. I know I did a great job because I was given a free banana at the end of the day.