Common Sense Classroom

I started this blog in April of 2008 as part of my homework for OpenPD, my first organized experience with web based professional development.  As I swiftly taught myself to adapt to monitoring and contributing simultaneously to a ustream chat, skype backchannel chat, ustreamed vodcast and corralling my 7 and 9 year olds in the background (I was participating from home most days – I am woman see me multi-task), my little suburban Texas world was forever changed.   Darren Draper and Robin Ellis’ pet project allowed me to connect with and learn from folks, like Cory Plough and Sue Waters (yes Sue, I know there are no pictures – again – I promise to do better in my next post), from across the U.S. and around the globe.  I learned about how people were using blogs and wikis, and began to reflect upon how maintaining a personal/professional blog, in addition to my very active and demanding classroom blog, could help me grow.  To this end, I completed my homework for the course by starting my own edublog, and faithfully posting to it – for all of two weeks. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t have anything to say (those who know me, know that I am rarely at a loss for words), the problem was that it was end of year crunch time here in my little corner of the northern hemisphere.  My poor blog got lost in the rush of busy-ness.  Often thought of, but not acted upon.

Then came summer vacation, and I did just that – I vacated.  I fled to the much cooler, mountainous New Mexico territory with my mother, the kids, and very limited Internet access (sans husband, who still had a few weeks left at the tech center).  I returned home  just in time to prepare for our trip to NECC 2008 in San Antonio.  Poor blog, no time for you . . . even if I could remember the URL.

Then there was NECC 2008. Boy, talk about inspiration!  I must have begun 8 unfinished posts while I was there and shortly thereafter, only to realize later that my brain was so boggled by all of the information and conversation I attempted to consume and contribute to, that not a single one of them made any sense.  Alas, my poor little blog seemed doomed to neglect. 

I have spent the last three weeks since NECC filling my aggregator with the blogs of all of the great folks I was fortunate enough to connect with during the conference, and have spent a great many hours neglecting my family while pouring through them, leaving a comment here and there. I have engaged in the conversation and begun to establish quite the little personal learning network via twitter (I was a longtime holdout, but the words “powerful tool for professional development” are very motivating for me).  I have wondered if given the amount of elapsed time, if I have missed the posting boat when it comes to NECC.  It’s not that I have been procrastinating exactly; it’s more like I have been reflecting and processing all that I have learned.  And all that I need to learn.  And the fact that I will never know everything that I need to know, in order to truly make the positive and profound impact that I hope to make on the lives of the children I am priviledged to teach. 

I have learned through the many blogs I have been reading, the microblogging I have engaged in on twitter, and all of the conversations of which I have been privileged to be a part, that I am not the only one who reflects upon these things which flutter through my overactive consciousness.  I’m really not all that abnormal a breed – there are many “overthinkers”  and “overdoers” in this world, and I am delighted to have finally found them.  I believe that this is where this little blog will finally fit into my life, in a way that makes sense. 

For better or for worse, I have found my way back to my Common Sense Classroom blog.  I invite you to continue to meander along with me; as I endeavor to explore all of the things that will help me make my classroom a place of amazing adventure, that can be explored with just a little bit of common sense.