Comments on: A gigantic teaching window http://blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2008/04/28/a-gigantic-teaching-window/ A "teacher to go" blogs about teaching, technology, and education in general Sat, 11 Oct 2008 05:20:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Dee http://blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2008/04/28/a-gigantic-teaching-window/#comment-120 Dee Tue, 06 May 2008 16:27:32 +0000 http://blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2008/04/28/a-gigantic-teaching-window/#comment-120 I just posted something similar and then landed here! LOL - great way of looking at it. I always use the picture window analogy (I'm from the generation where you had a large picture window in your living room) and I never even thought of the bathroom window. I love it - thanks for sharing this thoughtful article. I just posted something similar and then landed here! LOL - great way of looking at it. I always use the picture window analogy (I’m from the generation where you had a large picture window in your living room) and I never even thought of the bathroom window. I love it - thanks for sharing this thoughtful article.

]]> By: Candace Hackett Shively http://blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2008/04/28/a-gigantic-teaching-window/#comment-119 Candace Hackett Shively Sat, 03 May 2008 12:35:11 +0000 http://blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2008/04/28/a-gigantic-teaching-window/#comment-119 Nancy, Unfortunately, we cannot teach common sense. We can model and explain good professional practice, thinking aloud about our decisions (not preaching about them) and airing incidents that demonstrate the logical consequences of poor judgment. We should not tell today's teachers, as Ohio EA recommends, to avoid a web presence. (Pen and paper can deliver poor messages, too, but we still use them!) Professionals of any age and in any field should work to provide a reasoned, deliberate transparency if they choose to offer a clear web window into their lives. Teachers must meet an especially high standard and can, in turn, model it to their students. Today's middle and high school students, reading the profiles of their teachers, are tomorrow's newbie teachers and other professionals. Anyone in the classroom today is working at a precedent-setting time, demonstrating how these tools can be used in positive ways (or not). We need to do it right and "think out loud" as we do--aren't blogs a great tool for just that? Nancy,
Unfortunately, we cannot teach common sense. We can model and explain good professional practice, thinking aloud about our decisions (not preaching about them) and airing incidents that demonstrate the logical consequences of poor judgment. We should not tell today’s teachers, as Ohio EA recommends, to avoid a web presence. (Pen and paper can deliver poor messages, too, but we still use them!)

Professionals of any age and in any field should work to provide a reasoned, deliberate transparency if they choose to offer a clear web window into their lives. Teachers must meet an especially high standard and can, in turn, model it to their students. Today’s middle and high school students, reading the profiles of their teachers, are tomorrow’s newbie teachers and other professionals. Anyone in the classroom today is working at a precedent-setting time, demonstrating how these tools can be used in positive ways (or not).

We need to do it right and “think out loud” as we do–aren’t blogs a great tool for just that?

]]> By: Nancy Slattery http://blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2008/04/28/a-gigantic-teaching-window/#comment-118 Nancy Slattery Thu, 01 May 2008 05:07:31 +0000 http://blog.teachersfirst.com/thinkteach/2008/04/28/a-gigantic-teaching-window/#comment-118 Thanks for providing a sensible way of thinking about a troubling idea, Candace. At the risk of sounding like my grandmother, we can certainly shine the light if we can be sensible about where the illumination lands. A teacher is so much more than what s/he shows in the classroom. Background, hobbies, possessions, travels, friends, religion, family, pets, food – all of this comprises the complex person who designs learning experiences for important young people every day. My web presence can show a little more of me than ever comes out in the classroom and I’m not worried. I’m proud to share my blog from my travels to England to those who care to see it, even though it’s perhaps not completely educational. With that being said, I’m still worried about the questionable commonsense of the young teachers in the Washington Post article with Facebook or MySpace profiles that shine a little too brightly on perhaps entirely too much. What are they thinking? That the light’s dim? Off? Thanks for providing a sensible way of thinking about a troubling idea, Candace. At the risk of sounding like my grandmother, we can certainly shine the light if we can be sensible about where the illumination lands. A teacher is so much more than what s/he shows in the classroom. Background, hobbies, possessions, travels, friends, religion, family, pets, food – all of this comprises the complex person who designs learning experiences for important young people every day. My web presence can show a little more of me than ever comes out in the classroom and I’m not worried. I’m proud to share my blog from my travels to England to those who care to see it, even though it’s perhaps not completely educational.
With that being said, I’m still worried about the questionable commonsense of the young teachers in the Washington Post article with Facebook or MySpace profiles that shine a little too brightly on perhaps entirely too much. What are they thinking? That the light’s dim? Off?

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