It is a long time since I have used this blog. You will notice I have now retired from teaching after 35 years. But…… once a teacher always a teacher.

I work one day a week teaching teachers about blogging with their classes. I help them set up a class blog, how to create an about page for their blog as well as how to teach commenting skills to their students.  This often involves travelling to schools from one end of the state to another.  In two weeks time, I will be running three one day sessions for about 50 teachers in total who want to learn how to blog with their classes ranging from early childhood through to college.

I have also decided to take part in an educational technology MOOC #etmooc .  I took part in a mooc last year about looking at my digital footprint. This was run by Verena who is also one of the conspirators or facilitators for this new mooc. I noticed at their blog hub there are over 1000 educators taking part. WOW! Lots of global collaboration.

In February I will be getting ready to run the student blogging challenge. Hundreds of classes and students taking part with lots of ideas for challenges. I will certainly get some pointers from the etmooc that I can incorporate in these challenges.

ISTE2013 in San Antonio will be my next big stint of travelling. Hopefully spend time in Washington DC first, visiting the museums, then hire a car to drive the southern states of USA, to finally finish in Texas at the conference. I will be presenting Sunday evening about the student blogging challenge. I had a great time there last year where I met Sue Waters from Western Australia for the first time, despite us both living in Australia.

So that was a little about my retirement, relaxation and travel for this year.

PS I also need to spend some time on this blog to get it updated with links and perhaps some new categories and tags.  When will I find the time?

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