Culminating Proposal Assignment

My focus has temporarily shifted in the last few days away from my portfolio, to the culminating project proposal that we have recently been assigned to write. My sense initially is that I'm pushing myself, but at this point I don't really really know. For the project I'm planning on trying to start the roots of a network of teachers for my subject area. I know there are already these networks out there, but for the most part what I've seen are big discussion boards for lesson plans and resources. I want to create a network of collaboration. I'm looking for a small group of teachers to occasionally plan with, have students partner with students, and function as an audience for our independent work. My goal is to get five teachers and their students to join and participate in this network.

This is the part where I feel I've bit off more than I can chew. First, I don't have any contacts. For me right now I'm a bit unsure of how to make them. The second part I see as a challenge is that some place is going to need to serve as our networks hub, and I'm guessing a big part of that is going to fall on my shoulders.

I have a couple of leads:

1. Langwitches Around the World in 80 Schools
I'm going to need to scour this list for potential contacts and perhaps send out some emails.

2. I take students to D.C. at the end of the year, and the company I travel with also employs a lot of teachers of middle school students, so I'm hoping they can help me out, but we'll see.

3. I know a few people in schools in the area, who can hopefully point me in the direction of teachers of like mind and curriculum.

By a few people in schools in the area, I'm mostly talking about my wife and you, reader. If you know a teacher of social studies in your school with maybe 7th or 8th grade students, I would appreciate your help. Or even if you have a cousin who knows a guy, who gets his hair cut by a lady, who has a son, who goes to a school with a social studies teacher who would be interested I would still appreciate the lead.

You could email me any information to jmsymes@wolfmail.stritch.edu

Thanks for your help, or at least reading.

555 Portfolio

My biggest question that I've had with this project is what am I going to do with it, when I leave the friendly confines of Cardinal Stritch? I'm assuming that I'll be able to transfer it to my regular home version of Google Sites, but that's an assumption, and we all know what happens when you assume. Can I save it, move it, use it, because if I can't then that's going to put a serious damper on my enthusiasm. I say that honestly, because I am pretty excited about this idea. Especially after seeing that all my artifacts don't have to come from my Stritch work, they can come from my work work. I'm excited to share and put out some of the work that my kids have done. I'm proud of the products they have created with me. This year I've enjoyed, perhaps more than ever some of the new ideas we've worked on. I'll show you one here,

www.7oreligion6.pbworks.com

www.7oreligion4.pbworks.com


It is a wiki that each section of my class worked on after our religion unit. WARNING: It is not perfect, it is clearly the work of 7th graders, who were new to religions, wikis, and deadlines, but it is still pretty cool how they came together to create something. While there are things I'm not particularly pleased with how each wiki turned out. I am happy with their effort, and I'm convinced that this was a good first step for them to take in this area of content and delivery.

I have some other projects that I'm excited to share on my portfolio, but I haven't gotten permission yet from some students.

Final Note: I have some pretty good luck generally, things typically work out for me in the long run. This year I've been pretty down on myself because I started a Ning with my class, we were enjoying it, the kids were excited, but I've failed as a Ning master. I guess I wasn't quite ready or prepared to implement it, then today this link came across my Twitter page. Ning is no longer going to offer free sites. While I still consider this a failure on my part, I don't feel so bad about it, because I wasn't willing to pay for it. It feels like I'm even Steven.