Productivity and Technology

First of all, welcome to my professional blog. I thought about having a welcome post, but then I thought that I should get right down to business.

I'm a tech guru. I assume that some of my future readers might be as well. I also like to be creative and make things. As I started working on my blog, digital teaching portfolio, and website, I really wanted to do some cool stuff. Cool stuff takes time.

One of the things that I think all teachers and basically anyone who has a life should do is carefully way options. I could spend hours developing my own blog, porfolio and website. It would be fun. I would enjoy myself. Unfortunately, it would also keep me from actually doing what I wanted to do: blog. One day I might do it too, but why re-invent the will. So, I'm using wordpress like crazy. Wordpress for the blog, wordpress as a CMS, and wordpress as an information and direction hub. For me it came down to what the purpose actually was. Will I do some web development for fun? Sure I will!

I had a computer teacher say something wise to me once. He said that often times computer gurus take 10 hours to develop something they need, when there is a suitable option readily available. 10 hours coding or 10 hours blogging, working, sleeping, eating, watching tv, being a human? I think we all know what was chosen.

So, this rambling mess might not be the best way to start off my blog, but I hope it get a message across. Part of our own productivity is based on our own priorities. Productivity means different things for different people.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Standing Desk

Image
I've read all about standing desks. I like them. I'm never going to be a full-time stander though. I like to stand and work on days that I don't stand in front of a classroom all day. But, after 4 hours of teaching, I prefer to sit. I'd seen this great Ikea hack  a while back about a cheap standing desk . We went to ikea this weekend, so I decided to give it a try. I switched out some of the ingredients mentioned in the aforlinked article . I used $3 brackets and a $1.99 shelf. I also went with the black-brown look. Lack side table  - $9.99 Ekby Valter - 2 X $3.00 Ekby Laiva - $1.99 It was still under $20! Hopefully it will continue to work for me.
Read more

Why do Interfaces always change?

It's been a long time since I have written anything. I logged into the new blogger today with it's new interface. I upgraded to Lion with it's newer interface. Why do people always change the interface? Why are there so many themes, skins, or whatever you call them? I think I might have an answer. Really I've boiled it down to two possibilities. First, perhaps the new interface is "better." I'm assuming that software giants like Google and Apple do market research and usability testing. Then again, they might not. Better said, they don't do it the way I think they should. Perhaps they get feedback via email or other communications. Maybe the designers who use the software just realize that somethings need to change. The reason I think that they do it though, is to prevent the appearance of stagnation. If gmail still looked the same as it did when they released it, people would think that it was old and out of date. However, I don't remember two...
Read more

Dana Ferris at BYU

The Linguistics and English Language Department at BYU is sponsoring a lecture series on second language literacy. Today, Dana Ferris was the speaker. It was great to here her speak. She is a very intelligent person with a clear perception of the field. She provided some very helpful insights about teaching. She listed 10 things she feels are the most important in developing literacy. Extensive reading Vocabulary Development Text Selection Reading Strategies Reading/Writing Assessment Peer Response Teacher Feedback Grammar Instruction Written Corrective Feedback Collaboration Among Faculty One of the things that I enjoyed about her was her attitude toward working with others. She said we don't need be prideful and that we don't need to have a chip on a shoulder. We should be willing to work with English departments and all departments to help ESL student write better. This really stuck out to me. We, as ESL professionals, don't know everything. She also ...
Read more