Month: November 2011

I was very fortunate to attend Fall CUE this year. Well, I attended half of Fall CUE. My wife and I headed over on Friday after school, missing the first day. It wasn’t too difficult to convince my wife that we should go. “Want to go to Napa Valley for a weekend” was all the convincing it took.


I was worried that only attending one day would not be worth the time and money (I was attending on my own dime.) I need not have worried. The biggest problems I faced was in deciding which sessions to attend. Every time slot had two or three sessions that seemed to be designed specifically for me. 


All of the sessions I attended were worthy of giving up a Saturday for, but the highlight of the day for me was a session  led by Michael Niehoff and Jon Corippo of Minarets High School. They started off by telling the audience that we all needed to have at least two electronic devices out and use them during the session. Then they told us that we were expected to talk among ourselves during the session and be noisy. I think we met their expectations.


The part that really knocked over my cheese cart was the discussion about the use of social media in the classroom. Now I use a lot of social media outside of the classroom. I am on Twitter, Facebook, Google+,  Flickr, and probably a few more I can’t think of right now. But I have always kept a fine line, I don’t accept friend requests until a student graduates. I am not keeping anything from them, but I think there are a few things about my students I do not want to know. Having them in my social networks opens some doors that I am not sure I want open. 


Jon said I was afraid of Facebook. I think he is right. But I am thinking about it.