The approved educational technology plan for Williamsburg James City Schools sets out a five year plan to meet the educational technology goals for the division. The primary focus of the plan “is to ensure educational excellence and equity, providing all teachers and students with the resources, knowledge, and skills to thrive in technology intensive, ever changing, global society in which we live.” The division plans to meet this goal using a strategy that addresses infrastructure, an instructional technology standard, student computing, administrative computing, support and training, and curriculum integration. The plan describes an incorporation of numerous technology tools into the educational environment and then the training and support component necessary to make them effective.
The vision laid out in this plan is very similar to the technology literacy model found in the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ICT Competency Standards for Teachers. The technology literacy model’s approach “is to prepare learners, citizens, and a workforce that is capable of taking up new technologies so as to support social development and improve economic productivity.” The UNESCO model also mentions making resources available and finding ways to incorporate them into the curriculum.
WJCC is currently in the process of revising the educational technology plan and that plan seems to focus more on the knowledge deepening model of UNESCO. The idea that students have more control over their own education by engaging with significant problems or questions of various subjects and then attempting to solve those problems or questions. This plan has not yet been approved and I don’t see WJCC making strides to meet the goals of that idea just yet.
Currently I am involved in the WJCC vision as an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher (ITRT). My role as an ITRT is to assist in the integration process. I teach the teachers how to use technologies to effectively instruct the students. My fellow ITRTs and I are on the front lines of technology integration. We are the ones providing the training and support to the teachers. We do this through division wide, school wide, team or curriculum, or one on one training sessions where we review and demonstrate appropriate uses of technology for instruction. Currently we are working to shift from basic instruction on how to use tools to greater integration of tools into instructional practice. We are in effective working to shift from the technology literacy model to the knowledge deepening model.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Session 7A Learning Community Participation
My plan for continued involvment in learning communities is as follows:
1.) Continue to be an active member of my team at work, which is a local learning community, by participating, sharing, and actively stealing all the good ideas that my team mates share at team meetings.
2.) Continue to reach out and communicate with my own informal learning network of educator friends as we share ideas and resources as we come across them.
3.) Continue to read the education blogs that I subscribe to in an effort to be aware of ideas and resources that exist out in the greater world.
Now on to how I really feel about this standard:
The ISTE NETS-T standard says, "participate in local and global learning communities ." Yet the proficient rubric we dealt with for this course said participation meant active contributions including responding to others. Here is how I feel about that.
While I recognize the value of participating in learning communities and the value that comes from learning from people around the globe, I take umbrage at the suggestion that to be an effective teacher who uses technology we should be actively participating in a manner that requires us to contribute. I believe active participation can include regular reading or subscribing to the information generated and posted by the community. Active participation does not necessitate my own contributions to that community. I recognize that a community filled with people who don’t contribute means nothing ever gets discussed, but at the same time a community that has no one reading or watching products placed before it also does not accomplish anything.
1.) Continue to be an active member of my team at work, which is a local learning community, by participating, sharing, and actively stealing all the good ideas that my team mates share at team meetings.
2.) Continue to reach out and communicate with my own informal learning network of educator friends as we share ideas and resources as we come across them.
3.) Continue to read the education blogs that I subscribe to in an effort to be aware of ideas and resources that exist out in the greater world.
Now on to how I really feel about this standard:
The ISTE NETS-T standard says, "participate in local and global learning communities ." Yet the proficient rubric we dealt with for this course said participation meant active contributions including responding to others. Here is how I feel about that.
While I recognize the value of participating in learning communities and the value that comes from learning from people around the globe, I take umbrage at the suggestion that to be an effective teacher who uses technology we should be actively participating in a manner that requires us to contribute. I believe active participation can include regular reading or subscribing to the information generated and posted by the community. Active participation does not necessitate my own contributions to that community. I recognize that a community filled with people who don’t contribute means nothing ever gets discussed, but at the same time a community that has no one reading or watching products placed before it also does not accomplish anything.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Session 6 - Authorized Use Policies
The AUP discussion really got me thinking about how to do a better job of communicating the important ideas found in an Authorized Use Policy. For those of you unfamiliar with this educational term it is a legal document that parents, teachers, and students sign saying they will use the technology provided by the school division in a proper way. That is for educational purposes only and in a way they were instructed to use it. I know that some of the problems with my division's policy include its lenght, the legal language used, and its mix of addressing behaviors and technologies instead of focusing on behaviors. The AUP is fast becoming dated because it does not address portable devices which our division is just now beginning to implement. Students have trouble following it because they dont really understand what it is that they are signing.
My thoughts on that are to have the ITRT team create an educational video on the AUP to be shown at the beginning of the year as a refresher for teachers on the important parts of the AUP. The ITRT team could also create an educational video for secondary and elementary students reminding them of the important dos and donts with school technology. By showing and reminding students of these important rules every year, we would help to reinforce the message with in. One can always hope for these changes.
My thoughts on that are to have the ITRT team create an educational video on the AUP to be shown at the beginning of the year as a refresher for teachers on the important parts of the AUP. The ITRT team could also create an educational video for secondary and elementary students reminding them of the important dos and donts with school technology. By showing and reminding students of these important rules every year, we would help to reinforce the message with in. One can always hope for these changes.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Session 5 - Evaluating Resources
Let me evaluate the Capstone Course - it is poorly designed, dated, and the organizers make the participants feel like an after thought. Now I sound like one of those angry online people. On to something more exciting.
One of the tools my school division is in the process of gearing up is Microsoft Sharepoint. I am really excited about teachers using this tool as a collaborative communication medium. The tool comes equipped with capability to use discussion boards, blogs, wikis, document sharing, photo sharing, calendar sharing, annoucment sharing, and surveys. I think these tools have the ability to drastically reshape my division's educational enviornment. Many teachers don't do a good job of working on lessons collaboratively and sharing styles of teaching that are effective with various types of students. If the division can get teachers to utilize the Sharepoint site as a collaborative learning environment, I think a shift will occur in the standard of teaching in my division. If teachers had a repository of tried and true lessons on which they could continue to build and expand, I think we would finally start to see more consistent learning among students. The idea that you can go into your classroom, shut the door, and teach on your own for the whole day needs to stop. If teachers can work together collaboriatively the profession of teaching would drastically improve its product.
One of the tools my school division is in the process of gearing up is Microsoft Sharepoint. I am really excited about teachers using this tool as a collaborative communication medium. The tool comes equipped with capability to use discussion boards, blogs, wikis, document sharing, photo sharing, calendar sharing, annoucment sharing, and surveys. I think these tools have the ability to drastically reshape my division's educational enviornment. Many teachers don't do a good job of working on lessons collaboratively and sharing styles of teaching that are effective with various types of students. If the division can get teachers to utilize the Sharepoint site as a collaborative learning environment, I think a shift will occur in the standard of teaching in my division. If teachers had a repository of tried and true lessons on which they could continue to build and expand, I think we would finally start to see more consistent learning among students. The idea that you can go into your classroom, shut the door, and teach on your own for the whole day needs to stop. If teachers can work together collaboriatively the profession of teaching would drastically improve its product.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Session 4 Creativity part 2
This post is going to be specific to e-learning 2.0 - how Web technologies are shaping education an article written by Steve O'Hear. When I read through this article the first time, I got excited about all the different ways that technology can create really awesome learning environments. Then I thought about the schools I work in and wonder how to translate these ideas into things that these teachers will use. I see a big disconnect between technology and the classroom. My job is to bridge that divide, but I am still struggling on how to do that.
The first step, which is outside of my control, is getting the resources into the hands of teachers. So far my division has been doing a pretty good job of getting tools for teachers. The second step is getting teachers comfortable using the tools. I see blogging as a good first step here. Particularly with the Elementary students, a multi-authored blog around some of their reading in language arts would be a good digital step for teachers and students. I was really impressed with the one teacher who managed to get the author to join the learning environment. That is where I see real power in these tools. The third step, is to truly incorporate these tools. I was really impressed with the flickr annotation tool. That has great applicability in the classroom. Also, the ability to create podcasts of information which can then be shared with others increases the learning opportunities even further.
Refelecting more on the barriers to these projects, I really see a need to encourage teamwork and cooperation in the classroom. These are the kinds of projects that need teachers working together. Yet all to often I still see teachers on their own, shutting the door to their classroom when they teach. Administrators need to find a way to encourage more teamwork.
The first step, which is outside of my control, is getting the resources into the hands of teachers. So far my division has been doing a pretty good job of getting tools for teachers. The second step is getting teachers comfortable using the tools. I see blogging as a good first step here. Particularly with the Elementary students, a multi-authored blog around some of their reading in language arts would be a good digital step for teachers and students. I was really impressed with the one teacher who managed to get the author to join the learning environment. That is where I see real power in these tools. The third step, is to truly incorporate these tools. I was really impressed with the flickr annotation tool. That has great applicability in the classroom. Also, the ability to create podcasts of information which can then be shared with others increases the learning opportunities even further.
Refelecting more on the barriers to these projects, I really see a need to encourage teamwork and cooperation in the classroom. These are the kinds of projects that need teachers working together. Yet all to often I still see teachers on their own, shutting the door to their classroom when they teach. Administrators need to find a way to encourage more teamwork.
Session 4: Creativity
Creativity seems to be all the rage in education these days. This summer Newsweek had a whole magazine dedicated to the issue. Yet, I wonder how much of this focus is coming about as a counter balance to the government mandated standards that are in place? It is hard to encourage creativity when students have a set of facts they are required to memorize.
For this course, I was asked to take a look at Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity. Intermixed in this comedy routine were a few points worth mentioning. Ken says we should treat creativity as importantly as we treat literacy. He wonders out loud how we manage to kill a childs ability to take a chance and be wrong as they progress through the years of schooling. Then he says that the education system punishes mistakes. I agree with that point because the government mandated standards are either right or wrong. You don't have room to make mistakes. Students who make mistakes cost schools. I particularly liked his comments about the hierarchy of subjects in education. He says that math and science are at the top, followed by the humanities, with the arts bringing up the rear. Even in the arts some like music and visual arts are more important than something like dance. This jelled nicely with a comment I heard recently from Diane Ravitch. She said every child should be required to learn to play a musical instrument just like we require math or science. Her arguments in favor of this were that it required practice to get good, brought benefit to society, and when you got good at it you could do it with others. I digress, the final point from the talk that I agreed with was his comment that our educational system was designed for the 19th century industrial world. On this I agree whole heartedly. We can not prepare students for 21st century work in a 19th century system.
As part of this session, I have also had the opportunity to explore the TED videos more closely. So far I am pretty impressed. I plan to spend more time exploring some of these short informative videos.
For this course, I was asked to take a look at Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity. Intermixed in this comedy routine were a few points worth mentioning. Ken says we should treat creativity as importantly as we treat literacy. He wonders out loud how we manage to kill a childs ability to take a chance and be wrong as they progress through the years of schooling. Then he says that the education system punishes mistakes. I agree with that point because the government mandated standards are either right or wrong. You don't have room to make mistakes. Students who make mistakes cost schools. I particularly liked his comments about the hierarchy of subjects in education. He says that math and science are at the top, followed by the humanities, with the arts bringing up the rear. Even in the arts some like music and visual arts are more important than something like dance. This jelled nicely with a comment I heard recently from Diane Ravitch. She said every child should be required to learn to play a musical instrument just like we require math or science. Her arguments in favor of this were that it required practice to get good, brought benefit to society, and when you got good at it you could do it with others. I digress, the final point from the talk that I agreed with was his comment that our educational system was designed for the 19th century industrial world. On this I agree whole heartedly. We can not prepare students for 21st century work in a 19th century system.
As part of this session, I have also had the opportunity to explore the TED videos more closely. So far I am pretty impressed. I plan to spend more time exploring some of these short informative videos.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Session 3 - Assessment
The skill of "bubble guessing" as Diane Ravitch recently called it during a lecture at my alma mater, is not very in demand in the working world. Yet that is what our schools have as their central focus because of the current requirements from our government. In this session of my Capstone course I am being tasked with looking at assessment.
For those of you who are uneducated about the ways of education, their are two basic kinds of assessment. The first is the one that most people think of when they think of assessment and it is called summative assessment. These are things like end of unit tests, the SAT, final exams, and even quizzes. The second kind of assessment is called formative. Formative assessments are not supposed to count in the gradebook. They are assessments made as students work towards mastery of information and skills.
According to Catherine Garrison & Michael Ehringhaus in the article, "Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom," “Summative assessments happen too far down the learning path to provide information at the classroom level and to make instructional adjustments and interventions during the learning process.” Now I disagree with the first part of their statement about summative assessments not providing information at the classroom level. I think they do provide valuable feedback on a teachers instruction. I do agree with their point that summative assessments happen too late for the teacher to do anything about it. At this point most teachers are moving on. If things are really bad they might reteach certain concepts. If only they had used better formative assessments they might have recognized their errors earlier and prevented the reteaching in the first place.
Our same authors argue that formative assessment should not count in the gradebook because when the early formative assessments, which happen when students are still grasping concepts, are averaged with the higher scores that come towards the end of an instructional time period the resulting average does not adequately reflect the students learning. Particularly if that student demonstrates strong mastery of a subject by scoring well on the final formative assessment.
So what makes good formative assessment? According to our authors it is descriptive assessment aka giving students lots of feedback. The authors suggest goal setting, observations, questioning strategies, self and peer assessment, and student record keeping as some ways to promote formative assessment. My issue with descriptive/formative assessment is that it can be very time consuming in an environment that is seriously pressed for time.
I like both kinds of assessment and when done correctly they can paint an excellent picture of a students actual academic achievement.
For those of you who are uneducated about the ways of education, their are two basic kinds of assessment. The first is the one that most people think of when they think of assessment and it is called summative assessment. These are things like end of unit tests, the SAT, final exams, and even quizzes. The second kind of assessment is called formative. Formative assessments are not supposed to count in the gradebook. They are assessments made as students work towards mastery of information and skills.
According to Catherine Garrison & Michael Ehringhaus in the article, "Formative and Summative Assessments in the Classroom," “Summative assessments happen too far down the learning path to provide information at the classroom level and to make instructional adjustments and interventions during the learning process.” Now I disagree with the first part of their statement about summative assessments not providing information at the classroom level. I think they do provide valuable feedback on a teachers instruction. I do agree with their point that summative assessments happen too late for the teacher to do anything about it. At this point most teachers are moving on. If things are really bad they might reteach certain concepts. If only they had used better formative assessments they might have recognized their errors earlier and prevented the reteaching in the first place.
Our same authors argue that formative assessment should not count in the gradebook because when the early formative assessments, which happen when students are still grasping concepts, are averaged with the higher scores that come towards the end of an instructional time period the resulting average does not adequately reflect the students learning. Particularly if that student demonstrates strong mastery of a subject by scoring well on the final formative assessment.
So what makes good formative assessment? According to our authors it is descriptive assessment aka giving students lots of feedback. The authors suggest goal setting, observations, questioning strategies, self and peer assessment, and student record keeping as some ways to promote formative assessment. My issue with descriptive/formative assessment is that it can be very time consuming in an environment that is seriously pressed for time.
I like both kinds of assessment and when done correctly they can paint an excellent picture of a students actual academic achievement.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Thoughts on Session 2 of my Capstone Class
Project Based Learning is a great instructional idea. You start a class with a big idea or question which gets students thinking about their own questions. You provide opportunities for students to research their questions and then get the students to take what they learned and create a product for public consumption. My issue with this kind of project is that the school does not have nearly enough technology based resources to pull this off with every teacher.
The struggle I am having right now with this program is that I don't have a good understanding of how to teach at the elementary level yet. I don't know what these students can do. It makes it really hard for me to plan a lesson, not knowing what they are capable of learning. My formal training is at the secondary level and this is my first year at the elementary level.
I like the curb cut analogy being applied to technology instruction in the classroom. When curb cuts were introduced for individuals with handicaps it also benefited other people. In education, accomodations designed to help students with learning disabilities also can benefit the other students in the class. I checked out the National Center for Universal Design and Learning and watched their introduction video. The ideas sound good, but once again I didnt come across any practical applications for the classroom outside of closed captions on videos.
As I dive deeper into UDL I am recognizing value, but at the same time recognizing some of the immense hurdles to creating lessons of this nature. In parituclar the resource of time. To truly design a good UDL lesson you need to do things in triplicate in various forms with various components. The examples mentioned at http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter4_4.cfm are just too time consuming for a regular teacher to design, day in and day out. Over time, say the course of a few years, I think a teacher could get to this point in their lesson planning. I like the idea of selecting tools that have built in flexibility. The article also argues that digital tools, just by being digital, have an inherent flexibility that other tools do not.
Another component of this lesson is Gardner's multiple intelligences. I am curious to know what the latest research is on this subject because I was under the impression that recent research has debunked some of Mr. Gardner's ideas on multiple intelligences. Multiple intelligences obviously ties in neatly with UDL as these two both get at the idea that lessons should be designed to engage a wide variety of student interests.
The struggle I am having right now with this program is that I don't have a good understanding of how to teach at the elementary level yet. I don't know what these students can do. It makes it really hard for me to plan a lesson, not knowing what they are capable of learning. My formal training is at the secondary level and this is my first year at the elementary level.
I like the curb cut analogy being applied to technology instruction in the classroom. When curb cuts were introduced for individuals with handicaps it also benefited other people. In education, accomodations designed to help students with learning disabilities also can benefit the other students in the class. I checked out the National Center for Universal Design and Learning and watched their introduction video. The ideas sound good, but once again I didnt come across any practical applications for the classroom outside of closed captions on videos.
As I dive deeper into UDL I am recognizing value, but at the same time recognizing some of the immense hurdles to creating lessons of this nature. In parituclar the resource of time. To truly design a good UDL lesson you need to do things in triplicate in various forms with various components. The examples mentioned at http://www.cast.org/teachingeverystudent/ideas/tes/chapter4_4.cfm are just too time consuming for a regular teacher to design, day in and day out. Over time, say the course of a few years, I think a teacher could get to this point in their lesson planning. I like the idea of selecting tools that have built in flexibility. The article also argues that digital tools, just by being digital, have an inherent flexibility that other tools do not.
Another component of this lesson is Gardner's multiple intelligences. I am curious to know what the latest research is on this subject because I was under the impression that recent research has debunked some of Mr. Gardner's ideas on multiple intelligences. Multiple intelligences obviously ties in neatly with UDL as these two both get at the idea that lessons should be designed to engage a wide variety of student interests.
Student Research in the Classroom
Again, my random thoughts on the reading Student Research in the Classroom
When students conduct research in the classroom using the Internet they need to be able to do the following:
Develop evaluation criteria (I am not really sure what the author means by this. My guess is that they want students to set up some boundries of what to search for and what to look at.)
Search for research sources (aka use a search engine. In following some of the discussions in the course, I have noticed a desire by many teachers to get students to move beyond Google or Yahoo in their search habits)
Evaluate those sources (very important skill for students)
Use the sources for a purpose (creation of something with information)
Give credit for the sources they use (proper citation)
So lets look at some Web 2.0 directories
Kathy Schrocks's Guide for Educators
A nice collection of tools, most of which I knew about.
Top 100 Web 2.0 Tools of 2009
Decent list of tools, but again I know about most of them.
Go 2 Web20
Huge list, but difficult to figure out what each listed item actually does.
I am thinking that I will use a wiki tool to serve as a the creative portion of the lesson and then I will need to find some kind of search enginge, maybe even use a portaportal for the information gathering portion.
When students conduct research in the classroom using the Internet they need to be able to do the following:
Develop evaluation criteria (I am not really sure what the author means by this. My guess is that they want students to set up some boundries of what to search for and what to look at.)
Search for research sources (aka use a search engine. In following some of the discussions in the course, I have noticed a desire by many teachers to get students to move beyond Google or Yahoo in their search habits)
Evaluate those sources (very important skill for students)
Use the sources for a purpose (creation of something with information)
Give credit for the sources they use (proper citation)
So lets look at some Web 2.0 directories
Kathy Schrocks's Guide for Educators
A nice collection of tools, most of which I knew about.
Top 100 Web 2.0 Tools of 2009
Decent list of tools, but again I know about most of them.
Go 2 Web20
Huge list, but difficult to figure out what each listed item actually does.
I am thinking that I will use a wiki tool to serve as a the creative portion of the lesson and then I will need to find some kind of search enginge, maybe even use a portaportal for the information gathering portion.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Develovping A Community of Learners
These are my random thoughts on Developing A Community of Learners by Diane McGrath.
The quick summary of the main points:
1. Encourage Metagcognition
2. A learning setting designed to engage students in group work that allows them to collectively reach a goal they would individually not be able to do.
3. Encourage learning along many different angles. (Basically, dont stay stuck on standards.)
4. Promoting an environment of discussion with its own norms and rules
5. All group members taking responsibility for the project and working together respectfully
My first thought is that this idea of creating simulated working environments does not apply as well at the elementary levels as it does at the middle or high school levels. I think you can still do it, but you have to be more careful in your planning and implementation.
I really believe in the idea of a community of learners and that you need to work to create that community. It does not just happen.
Using the Exxon Valdez spill as the focus of a deep study is a great idea. Translating that into my discipline, I think back to a professor I had at William and Mary who used a current event big idea, the nuclear option in the Senate, as a focal point around which the course revolved. The issue I see with this idea is that you need to have someone expert enough in their subject area to identify good big ideas. I see this as a challenge again at the Elementary level based on the way instruction is set up with teachers teaching every subject. It is easy for me as a social studies person to identify good deep study options in my discipline. If you ask me to find one for math or science I don't know that I would be as good at it.
It really drives me nuts when an author can not demonstrate a concept with a simple example or illustration. This author does not provide any good, concrete, real world examples.
I like the comment about limited technology resources because it forces students to work together instead of in collaboration. The students may not like it at the time of the assignment, but it teaches them valuable workplace skills in the long run.
The quick summary of the main points:
1. Encourage Metagcognition
2. A learning setting designed to engage students in group work that allows them to collectively reach a goal they would individually not be able to do.
3. Encourage learning along many different angles. (Basically, dont stay stuck on standards.)
4. Promoting an environment of discussion with its own norms and rules
5. All group members taking responsibility for the project and working together respectfully
My first thought is that this idea of creating simulated working environments does not apply as well at the elementary levels as it does at the middle or high school levels. I think you can still do it, but you have to be more careful in your planning and implementation.
I really believe in the idea of a community of learners and that you need to work to create that community. It does not just happen.
Using the Exxon Valdez spill as the focus of a deep study is a great idea. Translating that into my discipline, I think back to a professor I had at William and Mary who used a current event big idea, the nuclear option in the Senate, as a focal point around which the course revolved. The issue I see with this idea is that you need to have someone expert enough in their subject area to identify good big ideas. I see this as a challenge again at the Elementary level based on the way instruction is set up with teachers teaching every subject. It is easy for me as a social studies person to identify good deep study options in my discipline. If you ask me to find one for math or science I don't know that I would be as good at it.
It really drives me nuts when an author can not demonstrate a concept with a simple example or illustration. This author does not provide any good, concrete, real world examples.
I like the comment about limited technology resources because it forces students to work together instead of in collaboration. The students may not like it at the time of the assignment, but it teaches them valuable workplace skills in the long run.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Whats in a Name?
Whats in a blog name? The name of your blog is everything and yet nothing all at the same time. A name is important because it sets your brand and Seth's Blog says your brand is important. I thought about naming my blog after myself, but Joanne Jacobs cornered that market. I could have picked a really cool random word and coupled it with the word life, which is one of the most popular words in a blog name, but sadly Piepald Life was already taken. Even though a title is supposed to convey the essence of your blog, I wanted to keep it short and simple so The Smart Passive Income Blog was not going to work.
So what drove my naming decision? Ultimately it was my wife who suggested using the word Reflecting and Blogger's software telling me that after 15 other choices this combination of words was finally available. I am an optimistic guy so Reflecting Hope sounded good enough for me and is a name really that important?
Why blogging? For some time I have been reading blogs and admiring the opportunity some people have taken to use blogging as a way to Get Rich Slowly. Some people write blogs about Stuff Christians Like or put out their 2 cents worth on Bridging Differences. Others talk about Leading Smart or fancy trends in Pop Economics. I am a Lazy Man and Money is tight so I figured this was a cheap, fun way to practice my writing skills. A technology instruction class called Capstone, finally got me started on this project because I have to blog about my experiences in the class. I am hoping that I have the discipline to continue the blog beyond the end of the class. So here we go.
So what drove my naming decision? Ultimately it was my wife who suggested using the word Reflecting and Blogger's software telling me that after 15 other choices this combination of words was finally available. I am an optimistic guy so Reflecting Hope sounded good enough for me and is a name really that important?
Why blogging? For some time I have been reading blogs and admiring the opportunity some people have taken to use blogging as a way to Get Rich Slowly. Some people write blogs about Stuff Christians Like or put out their 2 cents worth on Bridging Differences. Others talk about Leading Smart or fancy trends in Pop Economics. I am a Lazy Man and Money is tight so I figured this was a cheap, fun way to practice my writing skills. A technology instruction class called Capstone, finally got me started on this project because I have to blog about my experiences in the class. I am hoping that I have the discipline to continue the blog beyond the end of the class. So here we go.
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