Friday, November 12, 2010

Blogging Topics....

Maybe every "anonymous" blogger reaches this point. I've been blogging for about 6 years (I had to just go check the first month shown on the front page), and to this date, I've never directly mentioned to anyone I know, husband, friends, teachers, that I blog. At first it was because I didn't know where I was going with it. Then later it was because .... who knows. Maybe it was a "once it's out, I can't take it back" type of thing, or a "if no one I know knows I blog, then I don't have to self edit" type of thing.

Last year, I got a rude wake up call. I had written about a student and her lack of class attendance and such. Then another student was joking with me and mentioned that this 1st student had seen that I'd blogged about her. What? First of all, how do you go searching for math teacher blogs as a student (why?), and 2nd of all, why this blog? So then that started me being more circumspect. Again, maybe everyone has to do this.

Then a month or so ago, a teacher in our district was let go because of her blog. She was revealing personal student information. Yeesh, more self editing. .... All this to say, there are a ton of funny things that happen at school, but I can't process in writing. So basically, now I feel limited to sharing teaching tips, which is not bad, but it sure would be nice to vent/laugh/process/write about various things.

Anyway, bla bla bla. Just "venting" (which apparently I can't do :)).

Here's one funny (safe) thing. For some reason, unbeknown to me, a student keeps associating me with llamas: "do you have a llama herd?", "llama lover", "llamas", "how are the llamas?". I just roll with it. It reached a pinnacle today, and I went online and did a "llama lovers" search.

Go on, I dare you to type that in. Apparently, there are full on societies of llama lovers. There are songs, pictures, blogs.... Then I got crazy and tried, "yak lovers". Sure enough. There's a "yak appreciation society", a "yakkin about yaks" site, .... platypus lovers? But of course! Oh my goodness.

Anyway, this student bought me a present today. Guess what it was. Yes, a small stuffed llama. Soft. Crazy. I think I can make it my evil twin and channel my evil teacher thoughts into it: "you! shut up!" What? That wasn't me, it was the llama speaking.

6 comments:

  1. http://pissedoffteeacher.blogspot.com/2010/11/your-rights-under-american-with.html

    I have a couple of things to email you when I can get my scanner working - yea!! Things to come!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi - I love your blog; I've been reading it just since the start of the school year and have found your thoughts and insights really helpful in teaching my geometry class. I have also 'borrowed' a couple of your worksheets, which has been wonderful as well - thank you for your generosity. I want to post documents on my blog as well; mostly for my students - my school's website has been down since August and I need to give them online access to notes, homework worksheets, etc. I have opened an account with box.net - the free one - but I don't see how I can have the 'floating box' of worksheets you have on your blog; I have only figured out how to post the worksheets individually. Can you enlighten me?

    Thanks so much - WM

    ReplyDelete
  3. I forgot how I did it, so I searched the web and found this:

    http://blog.box.net/2010/06/01/embed-box-net-files-anywhere-on-the-web/

    It looks like you can right click the folder you want embedded, then you have to cut and paste the code into your blogger template.

    It looks like I embedded that code after the
    "body"
    line of code in the template.

    Good luck, and let me know if it works.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It took me a while to figure it out; if you edit your template and go to "Add a Gadget", there is an option that allows you to copy in Html code, which you can get from the box.net website. So I did it - thanks for your help! I am not much of a blogger, even though I always intend to journalize a bit, but I like the idea of giving my students, and anyone else who is interested, access to some files.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Had a similar situation as your llama friend. Students kept talking about Bertoli ( or some similar name) It had no real meaning, but they thought it hysterical. I took over the situation by working the name into assignments and tests. This reduced the distraction efforts of the class and bonded us as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Had a similar situation as your llama friend. Students kept talking about Bertoli ( or some similar name) It had no real meaning, but they thought it hysterical. I took over the situation by working the name into assignments and tests. This reduced the distraction efforts of the class and bonded us as well.

    ReplyDelete