Magistra’s Musings Education Blog

This blog post from Miguel Guhlin has him being tagged with a professional development meme for the Summer of 2008. It looked interesting so I am going to do it, too.

Here is the meme that Clif Mims sent to Miguel:

Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s technical skills, work on that advanced degree or certification, pick up a new hobby, and finish many of the other items on our ever-growing To Do Lists. Let’s make Summer 2008 a time when we actually get to accomplish a few of those things and enjoy the thrill of marking them off our lists.

My PD Goals for Summer 2008

1. Participate in the summer book group sponsored by CASTLE and Dr. Scott McLeod where we are reading, Influencer. Assessment: Reading the whole book and being a faithful participant in the online discussion in whatever format it takes. Posting to my blog about the experience.
2. Complete the online course for Online Course Development sponsored by ETLO and eLearning Alabama. Assessment: Having a completed 6-week course on Reading and Web 2.0 and creating a Moodle Course Shell for it.
3. Blogging on my personal and professional blogs at least once a week, but try to comment on other blogs I read daily at least 3 times a week. Assessment: On August 31, 2008, I should have at least 13 weekly posts on Fresh Fowlers and Magistra’s Musings. On August 31, I should have over 60 comments in my coComment account.

I tag these folks:

Katie Kinney, Jeremie Kinney, Sandra Hornig, Elizabeth Whitehead, Lisa Clayton

The Longleaf Writing Project is getting ready to do its spring professional book study groups.  I have not been as active in the Writing Project since it changed from the Capstone Writing Project to its current incarnation, but I hope to get more involved in 2008.  I used to be the Technology Liaison for the Writing Project in Tuscaloosa when blogging was still very new.  Now I have two blogs and think I can show others how to set them up and use them for personal and professional use.  Maybe we can get an online group together with some face to face meetings, too.

I would like to suggest studying any of these books:

1. Classroom Blogging 2nd Edition by David Warlick

2. Podcasting for Teachers by Kathleen King and Mark Gura

3. Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works by Marzano et al

4. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson 

As you can see, all of these have technology issues but are also related to writing especially in the online environment.

I am also interested in these titles:

Creating Literacy-Rich Schools for Adolescents (2006) by Gay Ivey and Douglas Fisher 

Teaching Writing in the Content Areas (2005) by Vicki Urquhart and Monette McIver 

Teaching with the Brain in Mind, 2nd Edition (2005) by Eric Jensen 

Hopefully, there will be some other folks in the Writing Project who are interested in undertaking an online and F2F (face to face) hybrid book study in 2008.