Food for thought

Thanks to Derek, I found the Making Teaching Public website. The site offers a look at some great teaching and great teachers from around the country.

What impresses me most about the site is just how public these teachers have made their teaching. I wonder at times just how much of my teaching I am really ready to make public. There are days when I am ready for the world to see what I do, but there are other days when I find I would rather keep it quiet.

As I have made my teaching more public by putting it on Moodle, by including wikis and webquests and blogs, I have fewer moments that I wouldn't want others to see. Not that everything goes perfectly, but I feel more like I am following a coherent plan. The secret, I think, is that I reflect much more on my uses of technology than I used to in my strictly textbook-based days. While my reasons for doing what I am doing may not be any more valid than they were before, the fact that I have thought more about them and expressed them more coherently seem to give my classes a more solid base. And it gives me more confidence in them, too.