The Sign-Up Day

The second day of school is always a day of great learning for me.

I have found that I have learned a great deal by watching the sophomores, as I have throughout my career,on this day the beginnings of the "pretenders to wisdom" appear.  They have seen themselves through the "back to the routine" drudgery that often accompanies the first day, and are now in the mood to be entertained.  The entertainment that I have provided them with over the past few years is to have them sign up for the various web sites that we will use during the year.  The list has become longer over those years, and now includes iCivics.org and diigo.com as sites for them to explore, but the basic premise of the day has remained the same.

As yesterday, there seemed to be a certain degree of shock that went along with their web registrations today, but there seemed to be more of a sense of confidence that I was not putting them on, as many of them believed when we had discussed BYOD the day before.  This group seemed to be genuinely excited about the tools that I was showing to them, but still guarded about the number of sites they felt they would have to "remember."  Only time will tell if I allayed their fears at all with "Don't worry.  I will tell you when you need to use each one."

The excitement for me, however, truly begins tomorrow as Day One of BYOD officially kicks off.  I have both a bell-ringer and a "ticket-to-leave" activity on the docket, in which the students will get to use their devices.  It will be interesting to see where it goes.