Web Compliment Day!

David Warlick called my attention to Jennifer Wagner's idea for Web Compliment Day, the antithesis of No Cyberbullying day! My compliments to fellow blogger Jennifer at The Technospud.

She writes: If last Friday, March 30th, was Stop Cyberbullying Day, then I would like to make THIS FRIDAY — April 6th – CYBER COMPLIMENT DAY!!

She is working on a good idea that I am trying to spread here as well. It is tough being on the other side of the world and being a day late, but it is the thought that counts.

So....here are my compliments!

I would first like to compliment my good friend, teacher, colleague and go to man Jeff Utecht. The man at The Thinking Stick and U-Tech’s tips keeps me thinking, rolling with new ideas and amazed at the power one Mariner’s fan can possibly have in any given day. He recently spent a great amount of time figuring out how to get the M’s games to stream through at work, and frankly I didn’t have the heart to say….”ahhhh… dude… we’re suppose to be teaching here!”. He gets done in one day what takes mere mortals like me a month. GREAT WORK Jeff! I look forward to changing the world with you!

Thank you to Doug Johnson and the Blue Skunk Blog! Great thinking stuff which I read with enthusiasm each time. He comes up with great quotes. Doug… here is one for you:

"Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways." -Samuel McChord Crothers

To David Warlick who visited us here in Shanghai in February for some heavy lifting and hard work. My compliments to you on your thinking, your energy and your great thoughts around educational change. Your words continue to have an effect on our work here at SAS!

To Christian Long at Think:Lab and Beckett-to-be for keeping me mentally stimulated and celebrating fatherhood! GREAT WORK Christian! His educational manifesto idea will be one that keeps me coming back and reading it again and again. I apply the ideas in my daily work.

My compliments to Scott Mcleod and his 100 Principals/100 Blogs project and the blog Dangerously Irrelevant I am not sure where he stands with the project, but this principal now has three blogs (one for each of his schools and one for himself). I think you can do three tally marks for me thanks to your encouragement! His collaborative blog Leadertalk is one of the best blogs going!!

Technorati Tags: cybercompliment, cyberbullying, Blogging

Maddie's Minute- A Learning Experience

In my wandering and wondering around the blogsphere I found Think:lab. The gents name who runs the blog is Christian Long, but I refer to him as the father of Beckett, with whom I have become quite fond. You see, Beckett is new to us here on this planet having just been born on September 6, 2006, and is finding his way around the world with the guidance of his parents. His father has dedicated himself to documenting his life and has provided a special way for us fathers to see what our relationship really means from another father’s perspective and alas, I believe we may see what it means to the children themselves. The blog “Beckett-to-be" apparently came from some frustration of paper and pencil.

Christian writes in his Think:lab profile:

“Beckett-to-Be” blog – We first learned that Karla was pregnant on New Years Eve day…and the daydreaming began immediately. After failing to keep several hand-written journals of my soon-to-be-father experience, I finally realized that a blog would not only offer a great way to keep track of the experience, but it’d eventually allow our child’s grandparents and family to keep up-to-date on his evolving life. Hence, the name of the blog: a testament to the fact that he’ll always be growing, exploring, changing, and ‘be’coming."

I, like Christian over a year ago, found out that I was to be a father (again) sometime in January- frankly the date escapes me- and while I was sitting on the couch watching the tube and keeping up on my RSS feeds, I came upon “Beckett-to-Be” blog. I giggled, smiled and even shed a little tear here and there as I read each passage and entry. Christian must be a pretty good guy and frankly, I think this man would be the type of character that I would like to have as a next door neighbor. We don’t have next door neighbors- in the United States sense- here in China, but if he lived nearby I think I would like to shoot the breeze over the proverbial back fence and let our kids play together.

When I discovered this blog, which I still read, I passed along a note to my wife. She had never blogged before and was a bit “anti-blog” as I spend a fair amount of screen time at work and she was wondering why I would do so at home so much. Nonetheless, I just dropped her a line with the url and a note that said, “this is really nice”. Next thing I know, my daughter Madeline (who is now 3 years old going on 35) now has “Maddie’s Minutes”. My wife Amanda was inspired and motivated and is now an avid blogger too! As I sit here typing this she is on the other couch doing her entries and working on her school work.

I have heard over and over that common sense would tell us that by making a work tool a life tool, we guarantee full implementation and useful application to the work environment. Just give the teachers computers to use at home and work and you will see increases in the classrooms. Show them how to apply their knowledge to their world and you will see them showing the very same (and probably more) applications to the educational environment.

Wanna see an example? http://maddiesminute.blogspot.com should be your target. Leave her a comment and let’s see who else we can inspire and pass this powerful tool along to the children in our classrooms!

Thank you Christian for the inspiration and the efforts with your son Beckett! He is one cute kid! I hope that Amanda and I can be blessed with another healthy and intelligent child like we have with Maddie!

13 posts, 1125 page views...

13 posts, 1125 page views...



This was the content of the email from my friend and blog helper Scott McLeod in Minnesota giving me some information about my page hits for my school blog, Elementary and Middle School Pudong Express. I have been participating in the 100 Principals/ 100 Blogs project, and Scott had me all set up and running like the wind in a short few days. I have since added this blog to give me someplace to personally run with some space to do my own reflections, and less about what is going on in the classrooms and playgrounds.



So... why am I so interested in my school blog stats? Frankly it was common sense for me to think that given the opportunity to EASILY post information that is EASILY found and read by a community members would be a popular mode of communication. Skeptics were common, and frankly quite annoying but.... 13 posts and 1125 views means that a lot parents are getting their information from this blog!



Thanks Scott for getting me off the spot and into this world of information sharing. It really is all about the conversations!

Technorati Tags: Elementary and Middle School Pudong Express, Blogging, leadership, 21st Century Literacy, Principal's Blogs

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