Pam Nielson’s Blog

I attended the ICE-COLD Mini-Conference today in Lisle, Illinois. It was a very nice day of learning, networking, and (of course) eating! Below are a few of my notes:

Session 1: Using Google Applications to Make Your Life Easier with Erika Roberts

Ideas for using Google Docs:

• parent communication log for a department or team
• group presentations or group work
• sharing lessons/units/quizzes/tests/projects/etc. with others in the department or team
• collaborating on yearbook or newspaper articles

Ideas for using Google Calendars:

• scheduling spaces in the school (meeting rooms, gyms, computer labs, etc.)
• sharing school events (sports games, assemblies, club meetings) with staff and parents

Session 2: Makin’ Movies with Joe Brennan

Key idea: Movies help students express their deepest understanding of core knowledge or concepts. 

Story ideas:

• public service announcement
• newscast (of historical events)
• interpretation of a novel or short story
• demonstrating a scientific principle

Formatting ideas:

• movie trailers
• commercials
• reality tv show

Session 3: What’s the PLaN? Plurk, Twitter, Ning, Wiki…What does it all mean? with Wendy Sigele

During this session I revisited my dormant Plurk and Twitter accounts. I think I will give Plurk another try after Wendy’s passionate presentation. For her, Plurk has become such a valuable tool in her Personal Learning Network.

You know how they say the three most important things in real estate are location, location, location? Well, I say the three most important things in technology are backup, backup, backup! 

At the end of September, my almost two-year old Apple MacBook Pro started to have issues. I was trying to download some podcasts when I got a message that I had no more memory left. Uh oh. I immediately worried that something might happen and I hadn’t done a backup since February. I pulled out my external hard drive and went to work. Each time I tried to backup, however, I got an error message that said “Backup failed.” I tried late into the evening without any luck. I turned off my computer for the night and decided to give it a try after a good night’s sleep. The next morning my computer wouldn’t turn on. I got a gray screen with a flashing folder with a question mark on it. Not good. Apple did what they could, but they couldn’t save it. 

So now I’ve been trying to restore my “new” computer to the way it was before the crash. I thought for sure that all of my data since my last backup in February had been lost, but I was joyous to learn that my recent backup actually did work and I still have all of my 9200 photos! What I did lose, however, was all of my Quicken data because my previous backups of Quicken were on the internal hard drive. 

Moral of the story: Backup everything to an external hard drive that you don’t want to have to “recreate”–and backup often! And if you have an Apple computer, I urge you to invest in a .mac or .me membership because all of your bookmarks, contacts, calendars, and more are synchronized online.

I have decided to resolve to create a blog post daily–even if no one ever reads this. I think keeping a blog can be a good tool for reflection.  Often we are too busy in our daily lives to reflect, and that is unfortunate. For it is when we stop to reflect that we can truly grow–emotionally, spiritually, professionally.

For example, how often do you really reflect on your teaching practices? For those educators who blog regularly, the answer is probably “often.” For those of us who don’t blog or are new to blogging, I’ll bet the answer is “rarely” or “as required after an observation.”  Starting a blog purely for the purposes of reflection–even if no one ever reads it–would be a great way to “force” some reflection time into one’s day. And even though this is only my second blog post, I have found it quite relaxing and satisfying to have carved out a little time for reflection and goal-setting. Cheers!