School started on Tuesday August 30th.  I have two goals for this trime.  First, I want my students to increase their understanding of how technology can help them learn on their own and how technology can help them create products which will grab other people's attention.  Secondly, I want to learn from my students what best meets their needs.  During the school year I will be blogging about my progress.  

To begin with I made a big purchase in the summer that I have wanted to make for a long time.  I purchased my own domain name.  That means that I no longer have to point my students to long web site addresses that they usually can't remember.  It is now just, www.mraitken.org!  I'll add details about the process as the summer goes along.

What are your goals for this trimester?  List two and describe them.

Yes, my feet are wet!  I am sure you could come up with some very usual reasons why my feet should be wet, after all, it is raining.  It's October in southern California and it is raining.  This in itself is unusual.  It is usually still warm and dry well into the month of November or December.  Still, it is raining in southern California and it is a school day.  

I am not one to go jumping in the puddles any more, though I should be and many of the students have been.  Many of the students have wet feet today.  Some of them because they were jumping in the puddles, some of them because someone next to them was jumping in the puddles, and some of them for a long list of of other reasons.  

Of course, I still have not told you why my feet are wet. Perhaps I should.  My feet are wet because I have holes in my shoes!  I know, you may say that every shoe has at least one hole in it, but that would be a smarty-pants answer.  My shoes have the kinds of holes in them that you don't know you wear them when it is wet outside.  The holes are apparently in the soles of my shoes because it only took about two minutes of walking across the wet playground for the water to seep into my sock and all the way to my feet.  So, my feet are wet.