Teachers Gone Digital

In the next couple of weeks, a little over a hundred educators from the CNMI would've signed up for a blog. Why now when its the end of the blog era, you may ask? Teachers are ceaseless learners, we continue to search for best practices and find opportunities to better ourselves. Blogging might just be one of them. 

So as part of our year long instructional tech course, here is my two cents about the topic on blogging.

A blog is a way of communicating or exchanging information on the web. It is a portmanteau that combines the word web+log. 

According to blogbasics, blogs had morphed from being a place for rants against your boss or gripes about the coffee shop down the road into informative zones that attract steady streams of dedicated followers. It stated that an average blog with a moderate following can actually generate a steady income for the blogger.

As an educator, I had shared best practices and collaborated with others in the same field through blogs. In the past, I had also used this as a tool to communicate with parents and students.

I think that the benefits and drawbacks of a blog is how readily available it is. It gives us an opportunity to collaborate with other educators on new research, emerging technology tools for the classroom, curriculum resources, and more. On the other hand, anyone can set up a blog and start spouting whatever comes to mind, including garbage. You have to plow through masses of blogs to find something worthwhile.

Meet the Hellions

Keoni Ryu Ruszala aka: Keoni Bear

Current Age: 3 years and 4 months

Outstanding Qualities:

• Tech Savvy: this kid was able to enter my password at a year and a half old. He could now operate the PS3 and sign in to Netflix with very little guidance.
• Impressive Memory: could repeat Curious George, books or movies word for word, even before the page or part comes up.
• When incomprehensible, he repeats the same phrase as many times possible until understanding is achieved. His face also moves closer to the speaker the more times the phrase is repeated.
• Cautious and observant. Waits for someone to get hurt before he makes the decision to try it himself.

Heart Stopping Moments:

• Finger stitches
• Drank the remains or Childrens Advil
• Stood on the toilet, slipped, and missed the edge of the tub

Leilani Deborah Ruszala aka: Baby Girl or Butt

Current Age: 22 months

Outstanding Qualities:

• Incredible Voice Range: has the ability to hit the high notes on  songs such as Wrecking Ball, Let it Go, and What does the Fox Say. 
• Future Fashion Guru: can name all the colors and (mis)match her choice of clothing (eg: red polkadot dress with purple rain boots).
• Big beautiful brown eyes. has perfected the side-way eye roll (for a lack of a better description) when asked to apologize or do things she deems irrelevant.
• Can turn on the waterworks at a drop of a dime, pouty lips included.
• Adventurous. Jumps into pools without warning.

Heart Stopping Moments:

I stand firm in my belief that the reason why I cant seem to list one is because she is a natural daredevil. It's almost expected of her to climb high unstable shelves and walk up to pet stray animals (which she both does). It might also be because she is the second child and we base our heart stopping moments on previous experiences.