Sometimes people do things that really catch your attention. They may do exceptionally well at something, and our response, impressed by such a feat, is to tell them that we’re impressed.

That rocked!

Author Seth Godin, however, says something about this.

You don’t rock all the time. No one does. No one is a rock star, superstar, world-changing artist all the time. In fact, it’s a self-defeating goal. You can’t do it.

His point? Try “rocking” at something for just 5 minutes. A day. Don’t aim to be doing profound things all the time, but instead, baby-step those things you can do an extraordinary job at.

I think the advice also fits in line with something else Godin said earlier this month:

Very few people wake up in the morning and feel like taking big risks or feel like digging deep for something that has eluded them. People don’t usually feel like pushing themselves harder than they’ve pushed before or having conversations that might be uncomfortable.

You might not feel like climbing the big mountains all the time. What’s important is mounting small hills, each one in stride, not conquering everything, just little things that you can do that make a difference.

Matthew Barfield has published some informative Promethean vodcasts… check them out!

My educational colleague in Virginia, Dr. Karen Richardson, has been named the new executive director of the Virginia Society for Technology in Education. Both of us are board members for VSTE, and Karen was recently selected to lead the organization through this role starting this summer, after Dr. Daniel Arkin’s retirement.

Karen has had a wide variety of experiences in education including classroom teaching in middle school, high school and, now, higher education. She also has extensive experience with teaching and learning online. She is a certified online instructor for PBS Teacherline and CaseNEX and has both developed and taught content for these organizations. She is teaching an online Master’s level course for Virginia Commonwealth University. These experiences, as well as her recent doctorate in Curriculum and Educational Technology from The College of William and Mary, provide a unique, insightful perspective on public education, particularly in Virginia, which will be of great benefit to VSTE and its membership.

Karen has been to Goochland more than once in her role as a professional developer for VITAL. For teachers not sure what VSTE is–membership is free and the organization is doing great things. Visit their website today and sign-up for membership. I know I’m glad I did back in 1999!

Don’t click this link.

(Rotates the entire webpage in Safari 4.)

I tried for the first time this afternoon to record a professional development session. I used a wireless microphone and ScreenFlow from Telestream.

The class was on MIT’s Scratch, and six teachers from Goochland participated at GES library media center. I’m currently going through the export process now. I will likely share it online, but restrict it to Goochland personnel only. It captured my voice and everything we did at the Promethean board.

We saw this technique being used and promoted recently at EdTech 2010 in Ashland, VA by keynoter Dr. Tim Tyson.