There has to be a beginning!

The statement is true of all thing, even the universe, which seems to be turning out well, so I have hope for this Blog which is the attempt of a sixty-five-year-old middle school teacher to become familiar with the world her students were born to. I am fascinated with the teaching opportunities presented by the marvels of Web technology. I began teaching when purple ditto masters and movies were the extent of our technology. In 1985, during course work for a doctorate in education, I actually learned how to make an overhead transparency by attaching a magazine picture to contact paper and soaking it in water. When the paper dissolved the dye (hopefully) remained on the contact paper and you had an overhead! I continue teaching, in part, because I want to see how the information revolution changes the field of education.

In reality, education has remained essentially static for over one hundred years. Perhaps the most significant change was the move from one-room school house to the same-age classrooms we see today. Other than that the movement has been back and forth rather than ahead. "Back to basics or on to values" have been the primary shifts during my thirty-seven years of teaching. But this, this could be the "big" change I have been waiting for and I intend to be here to see how things progress.

I hope that the Blog will be a way to expand the circle of people my students interact with since, I believe that will expand their minds as well. I hope to share ideas and resources with others who are using the same materials I use and I hope to discover new material that will motivate and turn many more of my students into readers and writers who know how to answer and ask the important questions.