We began our winter break today so this will be my last post for the next week and a half or so.

As I said earlier, the feedback from last Friday's workshop has been overwhelmingly positive. So much so that I hesitated to publish it here for fear it would sound like bragging. I'm publishing it nonetheless for two reasons:

    (1) I always encourage my children and students to brag about their accomplishments — we shouldn't be afraid of sharing what we do well.
    (2) I'd like to keep a record of it for my own reference. In some ways I've begun to think of this blog as my personal mental filing cabinet.

In the areas of animation, content and satisfaction the ratings were universally the highest possible.

These were the responses to Please comment on any positive aspects of this workshop:

• »You touched on many valuable areas, but most valuable aspect was the different ways to use a blog site.
• »Your passion is infectious. Show up at [our school] in a month and see it in action.
• »Tons of info. Almost too much.
• »I am excited by the possibilities offered by these technologies. I'm looking forward to experimenting with this over the holidays.
• »Great eye-opening experience. Thank you Darren!! Please keep me updated at [my email address]. It would be [good] to have some interesting and insightful discussions about the future of learning using blogs with some of our colleagues. This discussion needs to take place. Thanks again!!
• »This was great! I did not know how to do any of this before today. I need to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.
• »Fantastic!
• »You are an extremely knowledgeable presenter — and an obviously committed educator.
• »Great tango metaphor! Your enthusiasm and practical down to earth classroom examples are profound! Having your "skyped" guests online was very enlightening.

These were the responses to Please comment on any negative aspects of this workshop:

• »None (x3)
• »Create a second workshop on creating your blog. We know that we want to use it. Help us make it.
• »Not enough time to play.
• »None other than running out of time. I suspect this could be a 2 day workshop.
• »So much in so little time — I needed more time to practice in order to remember what I did.
• »Too much info for one day! Could have spent 2 — more slowly.
• »Perhaps for Windows users one might explain Mac minimize and close functions. Need more time to absorb many of [the] features, but you definitely cause participants to think!

These were the responses to Any additional comments, compliments, concerns, complaints, confusions or anxieties?

• »Please send me links/tools you have that you didn't post on this site.
• »Baby steps will get me there.
• »WOW! So much info, so little time. I'll really need to play with this.
• »Thank you for you passion and enthusiasm — I'm going to give this a shot and see where it goes.
• »I would like to present this to my department and my administrators. I would like to propose to have you come in to do a presentation to either my admin, my team, and/or the leadership council at [my school].
• »Thanks Darren!
• »Our dialogue over lunch will I'm sure prove beneficial so we can meet the needs of all students and teachers in our division. Thank you for your frankness and willingness to push the envelope. Great job!

In the week following this workshop there have been a spate of new blogs in our little corner of the edublogosphere. I'd like to encourage any readers of this blog to drop in and leave folks encouraging comments. You'll accomplish two things by doing so:

    (1) Tangibly demonstrate how blogs bring the world into your classroom on a daily basis.
    (2) Foster the growth of a new edublogger. Let's give them a warm welcome to the edublogging community!

Here are the new blogs that came about directly because of this workshop:

• »Pre-calculus mathematics 30S
• »A Deer in Headlights
• »My Wacky Kids! They Make Me Smile...
• »Grade 7 Math @ Sargent Park
• »S2 Consumer Math
• »Evaluating Professional Development

One comment that came up several times orally was that teachers wanted a step-by-step walk-through setting up a blog on Blogger. One of the things I really like about Blogger is their straightforward, simple interface. However, there are a lot of things to consider as you work your way through all the settings. I think I'll write an abridged version of Rip, Mix, Learn that does just that. I'm doing another OLÉ, & RML double header in January and again in February — that'll be my testing ground. ;-)

Have an excellent holiday season; and remember, spread some good cheer in the comments to our new edubloggers! ;-)

Cheers!