Second Grade Cafe

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Dogfooding

In my last post, I shared how I tend to get distracted with my summer to-do list because I'm browsing blogs, social media, and podcasts. Even though I get distracted from my to-do list, I always learn something new! I hope to use this blog as way to share with other teachers what I learn. I'm sure there will be times that I share something that you already know a lot about, but it will be new to me. And that's okay, maybe you can add what you know in a comment.

So, here's something new to me: Dogfooding. Yes, I typed that correctly, even though my spell check disagrees. Are you familiar with this term? I had never heard of it until I listened to a podcast by Jennifer Gonzalez on The Cult of Pedagogy. Dogfooding is a term companies use to show confidence in their product by actually using their own product. Jennifer describes how teachers can use dogfooding before we present a lesson to our class by actually performing the task ourselves. This would help us to see any changes that need to be made before we present it to our students. I don't know about you, but I really dislike when students, or even worse, parents find mistakes in my lesson or task that I require my students to perform. Dogfooding would eliminate that. Below is the link to the podcast. Check it out!

Dogfooding: How Often Do You Do Your Own Assignments?

Dogfooding-03

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Summer To-Do Lists

Do you have a summer to-do list? Every summer I plan to develop detailed lessons for every subject. I imagine a file folder with not only the activities and resources, but also a description of what to do on each day. After eighteen years of teaching, this hasn't happened as of yet! I find myself reading blogs, listening to podcasts, and scrolling through Twitter and Pinterest instead. Now that I'm half-way through summer break, I think I will trash my to-do list, curl up with a good book, and enjoy summer! Here's what I'm reading: