My Beauty Best Teacher

The purpose of this blog post is to share with you six reasons I started with Blogger in 2005 and am here six+ years later, a view under the hood of blogger today (and some some upcoming changes that Google annouced at SXSW), and eleven things all of you who blog (especially Blogger) should do NOW. I know that my wordpress friends have access to lots of goodies and certainly that is a good platform, but Blogger is what I use.

Let's start with the ten things bloggers should do today. If some of them don't make sense, keep reading for screenshots and details on how this feature is used.

11 Things Bloggers Should Do Today:

1. Log in to Blogger in Draft - http://draft.blogger.com - this is the ONLY place I log in. It gives you access to the newest features including the ability to mobilize your site. (If you are on another platform, look on their blog to see if there is a way you can access beta features.)
   
   
2. Review your settings. All of them.  (Do this again when the new interface is released.)
   
   
3. Make sure you've made your blog go mobile. (Click on Design and Mobile in blogger.) Every website and blog should be mobile compatible and no, it is not automatic. I've tried Mobify and had a hard time with it so I like the automatic way Blogger does this for me.
   
   
4. Control your own feed. I recommend Feedburner but there are other services out there as well. This means you can "port" your subscribers over if you ever have to. (Make sure you go into your settings and redirect your feed.)
   
   
5. Activate an email subscription service. If you are a school this is essential. This is a feature of Feedburner but right now I use Feedblitz for this which interfaces with Feedburner. Many people still read email and with over half of adults in their email daily, this is coveted screenspace. Just make sure it is EASY to unsubscribe and that you follow the CAN-SPAM Act here in the US.
   
   
6. Backup your blog - Look at how you are backing up. Certainly, your blog is there on the server, but what if someone hacked your account and deleted your blog? Could you get it back without having to call the company? I use Backupify.
   
   
7. Syndicate your Blog to Twitter - Your blog should autopost a tweet when you update. You might forget and many people use Twitter as their RSS reader. I use Twitterfeed.
   
   
8. Syndicate your Blog to Facebook - I use Networked Blogs but you can use any service that sends your Blog online. I highly recommend you make a Facebook Fan page for this service.
   
   
9. Make it easy to send your blog to Facebook, Twitter, Wherever - I use Tweetmeme for the badge on my blog and the blogger widget for the bottom. I'm planning on adding a Facebook "Like " button. Make it easy to share your blog.
   
   
10. Look at Other Blogs and make a List of Features to Try. I get "under the hood" of my blog at least once a year for one to two days. I start by looking at other blogs and making lists of what I like and don't like to decide what I will do. Right now, I have several issues on my own blog: load time of widgets, want to customize background, make easier to share to Facebook, etc. I keep a list in my Paperless app on my itouch so when it is time I'm ready to go.
    
    
11. Be Real. Finally, blog well. Perhaps some of the best thoughts on the transparency and authenticity required to be a good blogger are in Guy Kawasaki's new book, Enchantment. Great read for everyone, especially bloggers.

Why I Started Using and Still Use Blogger
So, why would anyone use blogger? Here are my reasons. Look at your platform to make sure you've considered these issues.

1. Google Search Optimization
   When I started blogging in 2005, I was a noob at blogging but had been doing the search engine optimization thing since I started hand coding websites in 1995. Staying optimized for Google's search engine was a headache but I knew that if I went with Google for blogging that it would be optimized for Google. I've not been proven wrong in that my blog comes up quickly in searches of all kinds and doesn't have issues with the Google bot crawling, etc. that I've experienced with the sites that I've hand coded.
   
2. Ability to Customize using HTML
   For many years I had hand coded my blog into three columns and yes, I wrote it by hand in notepad. It is nice for a blogging platform to "do it for you" (like wordpress) but I didn't HAVE to have that feature. The fact that I can have direct access to my HTML and copy and paste it into wordpad is a benefit.
   
   So, when I see something on Timothy Ferris', Guy Kawasaki's, or even Techcrunch, I can look at their code (Go to View--> source in your webbrowser), figure out how they did it, and then do it on my own blog.
   
   The good news for those who didn't understand a thing I just said is that you don't have to do this anymore to have a sweet site on blogger. You can just go into templates and use their widgets and have almost anything. Feed services like feedburner (now owned by Google) can easily add widgets as well.
3. Ability to Backup
   I use Backupify to back up my Picasa web albums, blogger blog, and my gmail every week. If it is worth having, it is worth backing up. No, this feature isn't FROM blogger but is just one example of how many "plug ins" are available for the platform.
   
   
4. New Features Have Been Coming
   If Bing has taught Google anything it is that competition can come from nowhere and quickly. We've seen super-fast improvements to Google Docs as well as blogger. I no longer have to link all of my about information to www.coolcatteacher.com and statcounter.com has become less vital to tracking my stats. Yes, I sometimes get things later than other people, but that is OK.
   
   The new user interface announced at  SXSW looks cool and you can see it in their video below. (You'll have to watch a bit of a pitch about how great blogger is at the beginning.)
   
   
   
   
5. Cool Tools Interact with Blogger
   
   I love Zemanta (helps quickly add links and photos to posts), Tweetmeme (the cute Twitter button on the top left), Disqus (my comment moderation service), Twitterfeed (feeds my blog into Twitter), and Networked Blogs (feeds my blog into Facebook), Kindle Publishing (to feed my blog onto the Kindle), Diigo (the bookmarking service that feeds my links into my daily news blog post) and several other tools that don't come to me right now. Because blogger is one of the leading services, I have few compatibility issues. Yes, sometimes wordpress people get things before me, but if I can't hack my site, usually I know the service will be coming to me soon.
   
   
6. Moving Your Blog Takes You Backwards.
   Some people like change for the sake of change. When you're dealing with a blog - even if you know how to move your subscribers using a service like Feedburner - you're leaving all that traffic and conversation behind. It is literally like splitting off part of you. I know people like Doug Belshaw who have had to move but still have issues with links to old posts.  If you do it and have your reasons - do it ONCE but if you keep moving, you'll just not make best use of yourself.
   
   I don't move because every link and every subscriber are precious. I've spent six years of my life building up the conversation and sharing things that are very important to me. My family has given up time with me for this blog and I'm not going backwards. This blog is very important to me and my life, not just monetarily, although certainly I've received some excellent speaking offers from my work here. Blogging is important to me because it is what I do and who I am. Onwards and upwards - don't go backwards. In this case, moving would be moving backwards. Not going there.
   
   
7. I don't have to advertise.
   
   Lots of free services are supported with Google ads. I do use Amazon affiliates when appropriate, however, I've made a decision not to sell links nor use Google adsense at the present time. I'd like you to know that I am writing about what I share because it is something I like or believe in. The fact that Google doesn't force me into doing their adsense service is a positive for me. I know the traffic I get means that I'm giving up money, however, I hope that those who read my blog will come see me speak and buy my books when they come available.
   
   I don't hate Google ads, it is just that contextual ads mean that things contrary to the message of a post can easily appear. For example, when I tested it, I had a page on term papers and had ads selling term papers come up. Sure, I can exclude certain types of ads, however, as an educator, I have decided this is the right move for me, who I am, and the message I carry.

No, I'm not 100% Google or 100% Microsoft or 100% Apple or anything. No zealotry here. I am attracted to whatever works the best and the most affordable price. I don't mind spending money if it is necessary, however, Blogger just works.


New Blogger Features "Under the Hood"
For those of you who want to "compare" - let's look at the back end of my blogger blog today, knowing that some of these will change.
 
Blogger Posts and Pages
I can post blogs or "pages."Blogs, like the one shown below are individual blogs. You can add up to 10 standalone "pages" like the one I have on the top bar of my blog including Freebies and About Me.

The current blogger interface. The "in text links" and "context recommendations" are from the Zemanta plug in for Firefox that I use to generate links.

New blogger interface announced by Google.

Blogger Statistics
I've been using statcounter for years and have also recently used some alert services, but the new statistics tracking is a START. The most important thing to me is the backlinks. It is important to me to comment when people link to my blog. This has become a bit more challenging now that my blog is distributed over so many platforms, however, I like how statcounter lets me see just about every place I'm getting traffic to my blog. Then, I can go comment and read what they are writing. You can see that the referring URL's that I'm getting now are limited. I care about even the 1's and 2's and don't get that as much.

Current statistics tracking page for one aspect of stats - links.

Blogger Templates
There are many more templates and the ability to customize the web fonts that you use. Still, for me, there aren't quite enough choices and the ability to customize templates is a feature most named by my wordpress friends. This is an area where I'll need to do some customization work over the summer. I and most of you like to look different and personal to who we are. I like the colors of my blog but have some work to do.

I do, however, like the widgets that we have now which requires less "geekiness" on my part as I can modularly edit HTML instead of getting into the code.

Current back end of my blogger template. You can see the gadgets or "widgets" as some call them.

Mobile Sites

It is vital to "mobilize" your site. This is one reason I have our school news on blogger and then feed it into the website. Deploying via email subscription and mobile sites is important to me. It is easier to let Google handle the work. This is something you have to go into Google draft and activate, however.


Commenting 
I still use disqus for a multitude of reasons, including the ability to moderate through email, however I set up disqus to sync my blogger comments. This way I can go back if and when blogger catches up to the robust features of disqus. It is a pretty simple setup and worth it. For most people, though, blogger comments with improved spam are doable.


I do not believe in "closing" posts as I think that this is a bit of legacy snobbery. Do we think that those who come later to a blog post do not deserve to be heard. I still get great comments on old posts and sometimes older posts just go active for some reason - let the conversation continue! Disqus is great at zapping the spam that hits older posts.
 

Current blogger commenting system which is improved, however, I still use disqus.com.

Disadvantages
Blogger isn't perfect. No blogging service is. My biggest issues right now are:

• Limitations in China - In the last month even when using a VPN, the google blocking situation in China has become almost impossible to get around. My friends are reverting to yahoo mail and shunning google docs for things like Zohowriter. This is why it is important that I syndicate my blog in other places including Kindle. I don't have a complete answer to this as the situation in China and filtering Google has become HUGE.
  
• Glitches - Little glitches like the linking problem that I've been having while posting today can become annoying. What blog doesn't have glitches.
  
• Crash - I did crash halfway through this post, however, I've found that most often it happens in new browsers (I'm using Firefox 4) and with plug ins (Zemanta caused the last one.)
  
• Scheduled Posts -I schedule many of my posts. I have to be careful because at least one time out of three the scheduled post DOESN'T happen. I'm not sure why.
  
• Beauty. OK, Wordpress friends - your blogs are prettier. They just are, but if you can't be found then it is kind of like a flower in a box. (I'm not saying you can't be found but it does take some intentional work on your part.)
• Blogger Bar - You have to remove this manually.
  
  

Lost: The Ability to Share

Some rights reserved by Ashley R. Good

For 20.5 hours according to Blogger, posting was down.

There is an important deadline this Sunday for a prestigious award that you didn't get Friday morning when more of you would have read it.

Lost: Two Days of Posts
So far two days of posts have been lost. Wednesday and Thursday are gone.

A post on the best time management apps for the iPad. (Corkulus, 2Do, and NextThing) A post on being an original, and one other post.

Lost: The Backup of the Posts
Backupify has backed up  Google Docs, Gmail, etc. but perhaps in celebration of Friday the 13th it DIDN'T backup Blogger as it says it did (probably b/c my blog was down when it tried.) So much for redundancy.

Guess this is why many savvy bloggers use Windows Live Writer and perhaps I should go back there for composing posts to have an extra backup on PC.


Lost: Links Broken
Retweets now link to nothing. I have places to get these posts back but if blogger restores, will I have problems?

Lost: Conversations
Several posts have been actively shared and discussed in the last few weeks:

• Facebook Friending for Schools 101, 
• 7 Golden Rules of Twitter,  
• 20 Questions that Will Make You a Better Person.
• The Classroom QR Code Implementation Guide,  
• 15 Fantastic Ways to Use Flipboard etc. 

Those links stopped in their tracks when this blog was down.

From 50+ retweets a day down to nothing. STANDSTILL.

Some rights reserved by Josef Dunne

FOUND: The High Standards of Retweeting in the Educational Space
Many people wonder if others retweet without reading.

You don't have to wonder about the readers of this blog! The shocking decline of retweets actually shows that most of readers here DO READ and then retweet. (The Cool Cat Teacher blog has very well educated readers, after all! ;-)) 

That is comforting and encouraging and says a powerful message to those trying to send JUNK through the educational space. We check our links. Oh yes!

Not Lost: The Comments

www.disqus.com

 The comments some of you made here during those two days ARE NOT gone ( Disqus is the commenting system here) except for those orphaned by the dissappearance of their parent posts. Disqus is a better system anyway than the native blogger commenting system in Blogger.

Not Lost: What is Really Important
Did you die without getting my posts or my blog for two days - I doubt it. Who is that important?

Some rights reserved by Will Clayton

We celebrated my daughter's birthday, went shopping, ran several miles, screened some PHENOMENAL videos for this year's NetGenEd project and got our annuals at school this week. 

Some of you still called me about speaking at your conference next year and that is cool too.

Found: Identity Theft Warning
Not the kind of identity theft that comes from someone stealing your credit card and driver's license number.

The kind that comes from thinking that something IS you.

The Cool Cat Teacher blog is an important part of my life right now, but it ISN'T me.

Should I "lose" this blog today, "lose" all of the friends, "lose" any kind of influence I may have, it would hurt but would I cease to exist? I doubt Boots the cat pictured in the top right hand corner of this blog cares a bit. And you can't lose people who are really your friends if they are still alive.

Is there anything in your life that you're doing right now that if you could not use it or access it that it would cause you to be physically upset? Are you allowing your identity to be stolen by something you do? Beware of Identity Theft, my friends.

FOUND: Identity Reaffirmed
This blog cannot steal my identity. The nature of social media itself might not cause groupthink but it certainly causes group speak. We need people to talk about what needs to be said not what he or she said all the time. Some originality.

Sometimes you would think that some of this technology is going to save the world. It is not. Nothing replaces the hard working, attentive, well educated teacher. Nothing. Why is so little said about what is really important in the classroom?

I am personally reaffirmed to be an original me. Please be an original you.

Found: The Gift of Blogging
When we thought we were losing Mom to cancer several years a go and she pulled through by the grace of God, we told Mom she'd have to put a bow on her head at Christmas and walk in the room and say

Some rights reserved by howcheng

"I'm here. I'm your gift this year."

This week is a reminder to me that this blog along with the readers and retweeters are gifts. Put a bow on your head.


How can a blogger love her readers? When you come up to me at a conference and you've felt the words I felt -- it gives purpose to the time spent alone plugging away at the keyboard.

How can a speaker love her audience? When I see you there, some of you stressed about the grading. Not knowing how you have time to do pd but knowing you need it. Pulled in a million directions. Most of you sitting there with wounded hearts over a student, a situation, a test score. To teach means that you are archery practice for the most careless inexperienced generation alive. You deserve the best because you are the best.

You deserve writing and speaking to help you know that:

• You CAN help schools transform into a 21st century learning model without sacrificing content. 
• You CAN help us reach every child with an amazing, personalized education. 
• You CAN overcome the Achilles heel of our generation (an over-reliance on test scores as an indicator of effective education) and still teach.
• You CAN parent this generation to be successful. 
• You CAN be an amazing administrator who understands teachers. 
• You CAN be in school IT support and understand the teachers in the classroom. 
• We CAN work together to learn about each other's countries and cultures and improve the understanding in our world!

You are a gift, may the good Lord let me be one right back.

FOUND: The Importance of Diverse Platforms
Be it Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube it is focused on the same mission of inspiration, effective technology education, and the nobility of teachers. Two days of downtime on blogger stinks but it isn't the end of the world. There were other places I could share.

Not Lost: The Last Six Years of Links
Some have told me that I'm less of a blogger if I use Blogger.

"Everybody whose anybody is on word press, " I was tweeted.

To use a southern expression: HORSE HOCKEY!

Links are more important than the platform you use. I'm not giving up the links built to this URL over the past six years because of one outage. Whether you use Edublogs, Wordpress, Typepad, Tumblr, Posterous, Blogger, Elgg, or whatever, if you stick to it, know your audience, consistently post, you can be a contributor in your blogging space.

If I were a Seth Godin, I could go where I wanted and the traffic would follow, but I'm not. When I reach 100,000 followers then I could probably move with minimal problems, but not yet. I'd hire someone to handle the headache.

Bloggers who are beginning and move their URL early on are taking a step backwards. Yes, I own coolcatteacher.com and vickidavis.info and tons of other domains. I can configure them in my sleep. If someone thinks I'm not professional because of my URL, so be it, but right now, I feel I should stay here to keep momentum and conversations going.

I want to be a full time teacher in the classroom who encourages and inspires other teachers to be their very best even when they don't feel like it and when the world offers nothing but criticism and right now, I'm not ready to move my blog.

Staying the Course (for Now)
We'll wait and see what Blogger does in the future but meanwhile, I've got grading to do and a graduation movie to make and the final deadline on the Flat Classroom book due in three weeks. Time to sit tight and make it through the next few weeks. Knowing Google, they'll aggressively deal with the problem and implement those new changes we've been hearing about soon enough. (Dynamic views has me excited! See the youtube video  in this post.)



Sometimes it is good to have things you care about crash.
 
Maybe we learn to find what we've had all along and to lose the unimportant. We lose the unimportant and find out what we're really doing with our lives.

Blog well. Be real. Be noble.

"What we have is a failure to communicate,"

says the warden to Cool Hand Luke in the movie by the same name.

Exactly.

Between Firefox 7 Beta, the add ons for the browser, my free antivirus software Avast, and the upgrade to Blogger, something is wrong.

I have several computers that I work on: my Vista PC at home, my large Win 7 Lenovo Think Center m90z at home, and my HP Win 7 64 bit laptop at school. All nice, well tended machines.

But there are times when NOTHING works right and I've been having them for the past three or four weeks with this blog.

It came to a head on Monday when I wrote an excellent post responding to a New York Times article that I dare not link to. Not because I don't want to give you the link, but because, I've found if I open a different window and go there and copy the link, that somehow blogger will stop responding as it tries to save a draft and I'll lose this post too. I lost that post. I hope to write it again -- when I have time.

I try Firefox and Chrome and sometimes it happens in both, so it might actually be Blogger. But sometimes I'm not on blogger or anything like it and suddenly the new windows I open in Firefox or Chrome suddenly stop responding at all. The little circle just turning around and around.

It just isn't anything I can put my finger on, nothing I can really point to. I have Avast at home and AVG at school - nothing there. I use a heavy duty firewall at home and a gateway firewall at school - again a disconnect. I typically crash in Blogger and the one time I opened a post to resurrect it at school, it crashed on me there too.

Technology is an ecosystem. It is becoming harder to troubleshoot - at least for me.

I find it hard to believe that all three of my systems have problems - in fact, I'm pretty sure that they don't. Unless I just attracted unwanted interest on that post about Kevin Mitnick's new book that my sister berated me for even writing: Dumb, Dumb, Dumb,

"Vicki, never write anything about hackers lest they turn on you." she said.

Yes, but still. I guess there is a person in me that wanted to speak up for those people hurt by the book that will never even know I wrote the post - OK, so I guess I'm a bit dumb. Or perhaps just idealistic.

So, I've just written a dead, linkless post just for the sake of writing one, I guess. I may have to fire up Windows Live Writer and start blogging in there again - it is a nice offline blog post editor. I love using the Zemanta add in and have it on Firefox although there are problems in Chrome where I don't have the add in.

Something's just not quite right. I'm still here. I have an epic post I'm working on about parenting and another one as well.

The other problem is that I've had to disable my Diigo plug in on Firefox 7 and that is what I use to send you your daily spotlight. So, the question is - What is going on? I'm going to figure this out. It isn't that I'm not writing - I'm writing more than ever with the final proofs for the Flat Classroom Book due this week and the new book on collaborative writing's first deadline this past Tuesday.

I've got lots to write about and share with you. It is just somehow when I open this trusty blogger window, I always get hung.

Maybe it is time to un-beta everything and just go back to what works. Maybe that is what I will try next. There is a time when Beta products are in beta for a reason and now may be one of them.

Until then, remember your noble calling, teacher. Remember that great work often has great obstacles and that we have to keep on plugging ahead anyway.

Remember your noble calling, teacher. I will.

While I was reading some of the responses on my blog, one especially caught my eye from blogger- Lodesterre. I thought that it deserved front page billing. He makes the point that there are differences in schools west of the park (upper north west) versus schools east of the river (far south east) in terms of the level of resources, support and educational leadership often lacking in these schools. It seems to me that this blogger's argues that Rhee's decision to terminate and/or buy-out a 'significant share' (Rhee's words) of the entire DC teaching corps does not represent a substantial education plan. Certainly I do not know of any research-based practices to support terminating a significant portion of your work force. Lodesterre sums it up this way : "..teachers are the heart of education. Well, a doctor doesn't replace the heart in a sick body. First the patient must be made strong, then you replace the heart."

I pose to all who blog here: How would you rate Rhee's 5 year education plan ? What other solutions to education reform would you propose particularly for some of our poorer and most neglected schools ? Keep in mind that the reality is that many teachers and administrators do not voluntarily choose to work at these schools given the location (far SE), discipline issues, lack of parental support, crime rate and lack of resources and administrative support, etc.

lodesterre said...
"My school does have instructional coaches, but then I work in a pretty good school. A lot of the schools do not. Go into the SE, SW, NE and parts of NW that don't look like Cleveland Park or Chevy Chase and you have a different world. With each step closer to Anacostia and beyond you will find yourself in an alternate reality. I used to work in one of those schools before being excessed by an administrator, I might add, who was a nightmare and used the procedure to rid herself of anyone who stuck up for the children (believe it or not). Look at where Chic was, Nalle. If you had ever been to that school, and I have numerous times, or knew someone who worked there, and I do, then you would know that the school does not have everything it needs.

Many of us were far from perfect as beginning teachers. We all needed help to survive our first couple of years and certainly could have used more. Imagine a teacher in a school where the coaches are pulled to do a thousand different things by the administrator. At my old school I had a reading specialist 8 days the entire year. I documented it. This was in a school where the reading scores were way below what they should have been. The reading specialist was always running some errand for the principal. I made noise, complained through the proper channels and was excessed at the end of the year.

The schools that need changing most are beyond dysfunctional. They are in conditions that go beyond "bad" teaching. To focus on the teachers and believe that getting rid of all of them will change things is short sighted. I honestly believe that you first build the support structure you need to have in place before you start putting up and painting walls. I don't see Rhee's plan. I know she has it on the DCPS website but to me it is more of the same: get rid of the teachers, replace them with TFA and DCTF and NTP teachers and our world will be transformed. There is no coherent, substantial plan that she has had in place. Her professional development and her family support plan have come as afterthoughts - thrown in after numerous complaints were made. Her one idea of change is to bulldoze and rebuild. This is a waste of talent and resource that, despite what you may think or say, does exist in these places.

There are fundamental issues which Ms. Rhee has felt can be dealt with after replacing all the bad teachers. She has said that teachers are the heart of education. Well, a doctor doesn't replace the heart in a sick body. First the patient must be made strong, then you replace the heart." (posted by The Washington Teacher).

According to Obama himself, we are only days away from fundamentally transforming our country. Watch him say it by clicking on this link.

Okay, so if Obama thinks electing him will fundamentally transform America, let's see what that means. First, electing him is a personal event- either he personally as dictator will transform America, or he personally will be at the center of policies that transform our country. Either way, the way that he talks again reminds me of fascism, as I wrote about here.

Next, America is a free-market democracy based on a Constitution of laws. Electing him will change that? To what? A socialist dictatorship based on personal political power? Like Kenya? And people want that? People cheer about that? Scary.

At "He's Not my President", this blogger thinks that what Obama is saying is that as President, he will abandon the US Constitution and create a new Living Constitution. That's one take, and consistent with Obama's statements on the Constitution.

Over at Sword at the Ready, the blogger reaches the conclusion that Obama is going to fundamentally transform American into "a Marxist state tyranny where Whites, Jews and Christians will be purged and misery is applied equally among the “little people” while the Elites running a politburo are enriched off of our substance." I hope that's not the case!

The conclusion that the blogger Combs reaches is a good one- "if you value the Constitution, if you value the founding (fundamental) principles of this country, if you value liberty — hold your nose and go vote for McCain."

Several months ago, inspired by my reading of Exodus 20, I wrote a post about the importance of the First Commandment- Thou Shalt Not Have Any Gods Before Me. As I wrote earlier, this is a pretty easy command by God to understand- believe in God, believe in his power, and worship him and no other gods. This means that you should also refuse to 'worship' other things- money, reason, sex, success, environment, beauty, logic, status, etc.

In my post I went on to say:

As a conservative teacher, I am surprised at how far our schools and our society has strayed from this simple commandment. Most public schools teach students to worship reason and logic, and they teach students to not worship God. Schools are increasingly becoming anti-God, and are finding new ways to prevent students and staff from worshipping him in order to follow some perverted interpretation of the 1st Amendment.

The point of this statement was to point out that schools are not observing the first amendment or even a separation of church and state. Instead, schools are actively sponsoring the worship of other gods and are using their power and influence over students to actively attack the Christian church. It usually isn't obvious, but the fact that they have classes on diversity, international relations (or even Islamic studies), the portrayal of religion and religious leaders in history books, the absence of any mention of religion in science classes, or the fervent avoidance to any religious texts in English classes- in these ways, schools have tried their hardest to evict God and anything that sounds like God from their walls.

Look at the textbooks that your children take home, ask your child what was talked about by the teacher in their lectures, and by a fly on the wall in staff lunch rooms or between hours and you will hear a lot of public school teachers openly mock and disrespect religion, especially Christian religion.

In my post I directed people to learn more about religion and God by clicking on some links that I found were helpful- they took you to about.com's site on religion. This brought my blog to the attention of the atheism and agnostic blogger for this site, and on his site he decided to attack my views.

This blogger feels that caring about students morality and values and trying to put in place a society closer to God's views "could be one of the problems in America's public schools." In his view, it is a problem to even speak of religion, and the mere thought that someone in public schools might personally care about religion terrifies him. How could he be an atheist and deny God and have people read his blog if people learn about God in schools? Oh, the terror!

Here is the real root of his concern- "I doubt that this Conservative Teacher can find a single example of a society which has enforced Christian dogma and which was just"- in other words, he has so lost his faith and is bitter and angry at the world that he strikes out at it, hoping that if he can tear down God somehow he will be less alone. He thinks that the Christian church is particular has made the world worse off, and suggests that attempting to follow Gods laws makes society bad. I'd find him sad if he wasn't running a blog that thousands of people a day read and take advice from.

In his anger at the Christian church and his hysteria over protecting the liberal interpretation of the first amendment, he misses the point entirely. Read the comment section and you'll see what I mean. According to readers of this blog, God is an "imaginary god," "this world already lacks any gods," "What god?", or mock God by calling him the "Flying Spaghetti Monster." One reader even a says "I hate Enki the incestuous Sumerian semen god and want him dead. Don’t know why, maybe I just want to worship myself, or I don’t want to be accountable to anything bigger than myself. Or I hate love and hope."

No where do I see in the post on Austin's Atheism Blog or in the comments is my original point disputed- that once you disconnect people from God, they are disconnected from reality and usually in their desperation resort to worshiping other false idols, whether it is the state or other men.

JANUARY 22, 2010

Been pondering on rewards and awards. The inevitable onslaught of upset people after the EDublog 2011 award finals has begun.

But some have asked why we should even have awards in education. Shouldn't teaching be reward enough?

When it means judging the unjudgeable, not a good idea
In my church youth group, my youth minister created an "Eagle Award" for the "best Christian" youth. He said kids needed an award at church to make the kids want to come and compete for that award.

In this case, I didn't like this award and rightly so. As a Christian, walking daily with God IS my reward and the greatest rewards come later in heaven anyway. In this case, the journey is the reward and to create an award is to judge something on the inside that no one can see: motivation. We have to be careful about casting judgement on others and that is what I see a lot of happening.

When you point a finger at someone, you always have 3 pointing back at yourself!

Rewards vs. Awards
The looks on my eighth grader's faces as I knocked it out of the park teaching filmmaking yesterday. That was a blast. By the end of class we were huffing and puffing we were working so hard. That rewarding lesson was great for all of us.

My Daughter "Didn't Win" with her Flat Classroom Video
Today, the Flat Classroom projects will have our awards show at 8 am to announce our winners.

I haven't told anyone until now that this semester's project has a very special student in it: my daughter. She's special to me. She wanted to win the Flat Classroom project video competition more than just about anything.I wanted it for her.
Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project


She spent over 20 hours drawing each frame by hand in Paint.net and importing. Julie and I have an agreement that when our students are in a project, that we completely distance ourselves from judging. Fairness is essential.

I've seen the final list and my daughter didn't win anything huge. She did make the list. Am I disappointed? Of course. She's disappointed. Am I glad we had the competition. YES! It spurred her on to do more and be more. She's going to dissect the winners and prepare for NetGen in the spring because she loves making movies. She will learn and do better next time.

She didn't win but did that mean she lost: no! She gained a valuable learning experience.

The Grindstone of Life
Life grinds on you. You can choose to let it either it polish you to a bright, shiny gem or grind you down. It is all how you take it.

Did I lose or did I learn?

So, what about the edublog awards?

Joe Bower raised his concerns in a post "Why I Don't Like Edublog Awards" and Melissa (who had commented on my original post mentioning the Edublog awards) said:

"Thanks for posting this! I actually commented on someone who was nominated for said award. She was encouraging her readers to vote for her because she wanted to be awarded the "best teacher blogger." I was really turned off by this because I thought...what message is she sending to her students if she did not win said award. I asked if she needed the award as validation AND was having 1,000 followers not enough validation. I don't think she cared too much for my comment, as she mentioned that I was passing judgement on her...no judgement, just curious of why all the self promotion for an award saying that you are the best teacher blogger. No worries...I will remain a follower."

My response about the edublog awards on his blog:

"I think these are great comments. Melissa commented on my blog. The reason I wrote my post was because I was nominated in five categories and, to me, I didn't feel I deserved a lifetime achievement award after only 6 years of blogging. So, I said which awards I felt that would mean something and best teacher blog was one of them. I also wanted to thank those who nominated me. It is a pain to nominate for those awards and I should acknowledge that. Enough of that.

Secondly, all awards are flawed. Especially ones involving online polls. (Author's note: See my post about the online poll involving a Redskin player trying to stack the poll for his cousin versus our school's quarterback to see just what I mean.) This poll was based on ip address. That means if someone really wanted to and thy had a mifi card, they could turn it off and on again and vote all they wanted. Hopefully no one did that but the fact is that it is easily hackable. The awards were given in most categories with just a couple of hundred votes. Not many.

Online polls are flawed. Period. See these for what they are. The people who win must mobilize their friends, fans, family and schools to win by ASKING. Period. You will see that behind everyone who won. If you want to win. You ask.

Don't ask. Don't win. The name of the game. I don't apologize for telling my readers about the awards for this reason. You never know unless you ask.

But I think it is fine to have these conversations. We should always know that the best value of the eddies or any other award like it that is popularity based is to help us find new voices. Help us see new people. Truthfully, every link to the eddies opens up more conversation.

It is ok. In life not everyone can get an award and not everyone deserves it. The best awards is always knowing that you helped someone. None of us would ever blog just because of the eddies, that would be silly. But it would also be silly to ignore something that recognizes excellence in what you love. I get up every morning at 5 am to write and set up my tweets for the day. Blogging and Tweeting is very near and dear to my heart.

Just see these for what they are and it is fine. But to have nothing to recognize rank and file teachers means the only educational writers would be journalists etc and that would be sad.

None of us will unfollow you for this post. It is well written and has good points. Likewise, Melissa, no blogger worth a flip would take your comment with offense. When you ask like I did it is a risk you run and there are always people to disagree with something in every post. It is the nature of this beautiful wonderful online conversation. Up with edublogging."

It is a fact that the more people who vote in the Edublog awards, the more it will mean and the less likely someone could hack it. Does that mean we should get rid of the edublogs because it is flawed. The Academy Awards are flawed too, but we don't get rid of those. All award systems are imperfect, especially online polls.

I think the thing that bothered me most about Joe's post is this. He says:

I realize this isn't going to win me many fans, and I'm likely to lose followers on Twitter and subscribers to my blog, but I guess that would be my point. 

People often imply that they risk having people not follow them because they have a contrarian viewpoint. Long live the contrarian. We need more people who can disagree respectfully. And we don't want group think. If we are to be bridge builders we listen to all sides of an issue. We include everyone and treat everyone with respect.

What about ISTE?
A note on ISTE. I have NEVER had a session accepted where it was just me. ISTE cares about "we" presentations -- or groups of people. Lots of people will have their feelings hurt. Lots of deserving, amazing people. But ISTE has a rubric as well and when you have groups of people, the rubric is obviously stacked in your favor.

Don't be disappointed, look at what was accepted and learn.

We win some we lose some
Yes, it is trite but it is true. Right now, you could say I "lost" the Edublogs. Sure, I was second to Stephen Anderson (@web20classroom) in the Twitter category but still. I didn't "win"... or did I? (Honestly I had like 90 votes and he had 120 - not huge vote counts either way but he has 36K followers to my 26K -- I would agree that his numbers speak for themselves but 26K is nothing to sneeze at. Neither one of us compare to the millions that follow rock stars - just keeping perspective. I know Stephen does, that is why he's such a great guy and so many of us like him.)

There are awards I don't even apply for any more. The fact is that most awards in education judge your pedigree as a major factor in the awards and I don't have it. I'm a private school teacher who didn't go to a school of education. That is OK. So really, there are just a few things I can "go for." Those very few things I can... I do.

The fact is that links build traffic and if your business is online and you are writing books and creating projects that depend upon social media and education, it is important to your livelihood and life to get on every list and awards program you can. I love my babies and this blog is helping send them to college.

I gave up a 6 figure income to go into teaching and am just fine with that but now in a year my first child will go to college. Everything I may get from this blog or book writing is heading to help pay for college. Honestly, today, I have no idea how we're going to do it. If I put my name out there and let people know and they choose to vote for me, then that is great. If I get more people who find my blog and like it because of it, that is a good thing. But I'm not going to sit around and say "poor me" and not at least ask. No way. I love my babies. It is a risk I'm willing to take. I'm putting out there my motivations and not hiding them -- that is transparency. For you to judge me any other way is to judge but certainly that is your right.

I really wanted to get accepted as one of the TED Teachers. I worked sooooo hard on that nomination and even had about 10 of you on Twitter join in and nominate me. It was risky to even mention it on Twitter because if you're doing anything in this world some people are going to love you and some people are probably going to hate you. It is the nature of doing anything worthwhile.

So, we were supposed to hear from TED on Monday. They said we would. We haven't. To me, this means, I didn't make the list or even the cut. Am I dissapointed... of course. Will I try again... sure. Will I take anything away from the 10 who get picked -- NO. I'll tweet them and blog them and share them. They are winners and we all win when we encourage good teachers.

Jealousy is a bitter lunch that will make you sick and anemically unable to contribute.

So, the only way to become a loser is to act like a loser.

Losers wallow in self pity. Losers only care about themselves. Losers whine when they don't get their "fair share."

Well, life isn't fair and few people share.  Awards are part of life but if you teach or blog, you should be doing it for the rewards of the conversation and helping people but if an award happens, then, great.

Win with your actions
Winners encourage others. Winners share in the conversation. Winners root others on and congratulate the winner.  Winners look at their rewards and keep perspective about awards.

Awards are flawed measures. They are an attempt to find best practice and we certainly need that.

If they spur us on to excellence, then great. I know they spur me on to excellence because I want to be the very best I can be. Not because of the awards but the rewards but I make no secret about wanting to be world class.

OH, but you can judge me.

"Vicki needs validation. Vicki should be happy with all her readers and followers."

Oh, yes I am. I'm thrilled with those things. Every time a major newspaper or someone asks me to write - I'm in heaven. I love to write.

But I've lost more awards, competitions and contests than I've won. I've lost 5 beauty pageants and won 1. I lost 15 elections before I started winning as I ran for offices. Each time I competed, I became better.

Competition is life. Awards are part of them. Some choose to compete and some don't want to. That is a personal choice.

But anything that recognizes and rewards excellence in the field of education - as long as the system of judging is fully disclosed -- has my vote.

Keep perspective. You are a winner because you are a teacher -- that is your reward. Awards come to only very few and if you're fortunate enough to be one of those, use it well

but if you don't win --- don't be a loser. 

You're a winner for just being in the game at all. (Please do not imply that I think Joe Bower is a loser for his post. I think he actually expresses his thoughts in a respectful way.)

Remember your noble calling teacher. The only way to lose your nobility is to give it away by acting in ways unbecoming to your profession.

Happy Holidays and thank you for taking the time to read all the way to this extremely long, rambling post. Just had to get this off my chest.

Hash reports:

Alfred Sirleaf is an analog blogger. He take runs the “Daily News”, a news hut by the side of a major road in the middle of Monrovia. He started it a number of years ago, stating that he wanted to get news into the hands of those who couldn’t afford newspapers, in the language that they could understand...[continue reading]

This weekend marked the two year anniversary of this blog, so I thought that it would be fun to look back a bit. As I wrote in my inaugural post My Goal, this blog is primarily an outlet for my thoughts on education, teaching, local politics, and national politics. My background in government, business, and education has given me a unique perspective from which to comment on these subjects and I have continued to do a lot of different things in these areas, and so my hope was that these experiences would further the political discourse in this country and maybe even educate some of my readers. What motivated me to put together this blog and what continues to motivate me to spend the hours each week on it is the desire to make the world a better place.

My blog has been described as "like Glen Beck, minus the Mormonism" by one of my readers. Another reader wrote to me and said "What I like about The Conservative Teacher is the focus on national and regional politics, the reporting -- often in real-time -- on the dynamics of the liberal fascism of today's public schools, and the entertaining mix of popular culture. I read The Conservative Teacher every day, and you should too." Some people have said that my blog "gives them hope that there is actually still conservative teachers in education," and others have written that "each post is fun and entertaining and informative."

It is surprising how many regular readers that I have and how many people my blog has reached. Oh, I know I'm not a huge blog, but based on the numbers, I am the biggest conservative teacher blogger in Michigan. Each year has more and more people are checking out my blog, linking to it, adding it to their list of favorites, and emailing friends and family links. This year alone alone twelve thousand new readers have found their way to my blog! And they are not all from the US- I have readers from the United Kingdom, Australia, South Korea, India, Germany, and Italy, and have even had readers from Egypt, Iran, Russia, Turkey, China, Pakistan, and North Korea.

Being a blogger means that I am part of a community and could not have spread my message and observations without the help of other bloggers out there. In particular, I would like to thank Pundit and Pundette, TheBlogProf, Vox Day, Net Right Nation, Right Michigan, and For A Better Day- thanks for letting your viewers know about my blog.

Based on reader responses and feedback, here are some of their favorite posts on politics, the environment, teaching, and popular culture- be sure to check them out!
Democratic Aide implicated in Scheme to Bilk Millions out of taxpayers through Michigan Film Credits, Obama Nicknames, Coon Hunting, A Bear Named Obama, Teleprompters, Queen Touching, and Bush Fighting Zombies, or David Petraeus says a special Cherokee word to soldier in coma, soldier wakes up!.

On July 6, 2010- Stephanie McCrummen, a Washington Post writer featured a story about Sousa Middle School Principal Dwan Jordon, titled : "D.C. Principal's hands-on tack transforms Sousa Middle but also ruffles feathers" Sousa Middle School is located at 650 Ely Pl. SE, Washington, DC. The problem with McCrummen's story is that it reads like the political propaganda that we have come to expect from the Washington Post with Jordon being featured as Superman who comes to save the day of course courtesy of Chancellor Michelle Rhee who handpicked him. At first glance, I couldn't help but wonder how this local story made the front page of a major newspaper but it is to be expected given the Post's unequivocal history of supporting anything Chancellor Rhee. As DC activist, Robert Brannum reiterates in his DC Examiner column, "major newspapers like the Post are all too often willing to advance Chancellor Rhee and her protege's as innovators who all by themselves save public education." McCrummen unjustly portrays Sousa's former teachers in a demeaning light by using one example of a teacher being physically abusive towards a student when she digs her fingernails into him and other negative laden adjectives describing teachers as resistant to Jordon's strategies and emotional when she refers to them as humiliated and traumatized. At no time does this reporter take the time to examine what positive attributes (other than Jordon) these teachers had at their disposal that contributed to their ability to significantly raise test scores at Sousa before they were terminated or left of their own accord. Even the sub headings in this story credit Principal Dwan Jordon with positive captions like "Prove Everybody Wrong," " It's Beautiful" and "What's Wrong? " while teachers were conveniently featured under the one heading of "Feeling Humiliated". The problem with this type of reporting is that it is a fairy tale that doesn't exist and as Conducting the Inner Light teacher turned blogger writes: "it is fluff reportage that only compounds the problem DCPS has, a problem that will not improve through such one sided reporting nor one sided debates."