Saturday at Maple Hill Farm

I'm writing this while sitting here at the conference, so the day has is not over yet, however, it feels like a good time to reflect. I feel like the workshop space provided me with a really critical jump start. Teaching is exhausting, but coming here today has spurned me with a much need injection of motivation, and so like a hamster, I somehow managed to get into my wheel and keep spinning even on a Saturday. I hope this doesn't seem like a negative analogy - I really do feel a renewed sense of purpose and vigor. Being a relatively new teacher (third year on the job) I still feel like I am always reacting in my class room - not thinking ahead (beyond a vague notion of where we're going) more than a day or so. Today has given me a much clearer idea of what I need to do to complete and publish this project, and it has also given me a much clearer way to see ahead and plan this educational experience for my students.

Specifically, today I learned how to create an online survey using google docs forms, and also how to analyze the data. I plan to have my students respond to the survey before and after the project to see if we can get a clearer picture as to how effective this project is.

I also made an outline for each page of my "book" for the digital Is website and began fomenting my thoughts for the writing piece of each page.

I also developed ideas for video clips to create for each page - I would like to augment the survey with video interviews of students while we do the project - to hear their voices on digital writing and their reflections on the "process" of the project, and I would also like to include video created by students - not sure what the content will be yet for these...

So...it was a good day!