NCTE Winds Down

Today is Tuesday, and the NCTE conference is just about over. Actually, most of the people have left already. The only ones remaining are those who are attending workshops, executive board meetings or other conferences. I am here for the Conference on English Leadership, an excellent group of leaders in the English teacher’s world. It’s actually a bit strange–I have been on CEL’s executive board for three years (I came off the board last night), yet I am not an official leader in any way. CEL believes that we are all leaders.

One of the great things about going to NCTE is that you gather so many ideas for what you need or want to do within your classes and through other professional avenues. I always make a list of things I want to do. Last year my focus was on writing, and I made myself a list of five pieces I wanted to write. Unfortunately, I only completed one of them. This year I hope to do better, as my list is a little more ambitious:

  1. Work with Jim Mahoney to set up a CEL blog with NCTE.
  2. Finish the article I started on Saturday for Terry Bigelow and Michael Vokoun’s column in English Journal.
  3. Enroll in an online course such as this one.
  4. Look into establishing a writing group with teachers in my school.
  5. Write a proposal to present at NCTE about our writing group.
  6. Write a proposal to present at NCTE, continuing to work with Bill and Bud, thinking about our use of technology in the classroom.

So hopefully I’ll get through many, if not all of these. Deadlines will be the killer.  The proposals are due in January, so I need to get busy.

Hope you all have a good holiday weekend. I fly home to New Jersey tonight, teach a half day tomorrow, and then have a few days off.

November 21, 2006. Uncategorized. No Comments.

Headed to Nashville

Tomorrow night I’m heading to Nashville to attend the NCTE annual convention. This really is a great convention and I always learn a lot. This year I’ll be presenting a session about using blogging and related technologies in class with Bud Hunt and Bill Bass. They’re both English teachers and are both much more advanced in their use of technology in their classes. I hope to learn a bunch from them. Our session is on Friday at 2:30–if you’re going to Nashville, come check us out.

Also, we’ve set up a wiki for our presentation for folks to go to after the session is over. You might also want to check that out. Bud is hosting it here.

And the last thing is that I don’t believe that I’ve posted the addresses of the sites I’m using for my blogs and wikis. My classes’ blogs are over at 21publish.com and I’ve set up some basic wikis over at wikispaces.

Hope to see you in Nashville.

November 15, 2006. Uncategorized. 2 Comments.