C4T: Russ Goerend

I was assigned to Russ Goerend's blog. A 6th Grade Language Arts teacher from Waukee, Iowa. After many attempts I was unable to pull up his blog, "Learning is Life". I did notice that he was on Twitter, so I decided to start following him on Twitter. While reading some of his Tweets, I noticed that a lot of the teachers that we have read about, followed and interacted with in this class also either followed him or visa verse. His and his followers Tweets lead me to #pencilchat, where I kind of got lost. I started reading the debate on "pencils", and decided to summarize it instead. I was amazed at the amount of teachers who do not agree with the use of pencils in the classroom.
One comment was, "The more students rely on pencils the less able they will be to draw their own conclusions." - David Wallace
And "Pencils are irrelevant in today's world teachers should educate students in the basics of hunting and gathering survival skills". - Joram Hutchins
Of course this one disturbs me, "If we give all students pencils they'll b free to write, draw, create, + communicate. Better to limit their use - only 3 per class". - Paul Aitkin
This seems to also be an issue, "I don't trust kids with pencils, they end up doing sketchy things when I'm not looking." - John T. Spencer
The comments continue some teachers are trying to start a BYOP (bring your own pencil program) within their schools. Others don't see how this can work, with some children not owning pencils, and others not allowed to bring pencils from home. Some teachers suggest that students should not be able to use pencils until they have mastered the material with out them. They feel that the use of pencils should be a privilege rather that the normal way of doing things. Other teachers know that they are having issues with plagiarism, and they are not sure how to keep this from happening.
Some are totally opposed to the idea of pencils in the classroom- Shelley Setler states, "There is too much content to teach to fit in pencil training with students. We'll stick to chisel and stone thank you very much." This is a very interesting debate with many valid points from both sides. I have really enjoyed reading these tweets and have gotten more familiar with Twitter while doing so. Very interesting..