I have a decision to make. Should I go for a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction? A colleague has been trying to convince me that going for it would be beneficial to both of us. She's eager to start working on a doctorate, and, I assume, it's because she wants the status that goes with the title. Another bonus is the extra money it would create because a teacher with a doctorate would definitely make more money (yearly) than a teacher with only a master's degree. If I decided to go for that doctorate, I would have a classmate I know. I would also have a carpool buddy.

My colleague had tried to get into a doctoral program at the university where she and I had earned our master's degrees, but she was turned down because a cohort of superintendents was chosen instead. The program would have been in Educational Leadership, in which she would have excelled. I consider the decision to not accept her into the program as a great loss to the university because she would have been a great asset to that institution as well as to the institution where we are currently employed.

We have since realized that a doctoral program in Curriculum and Instruction will be offered at another local university. We know two of the professors who will be overseeing the doctoral candidates; they used to teach at the other university. Knowing this little tidbit of information moves me forward, somewhat, to maybe making the decision to go for a doctorate. Dr. Wordeler, that has a nice ring to it.

I have to also consider how much time it will take to obtain a doctorate. I won't achieve that regal status of Doctor until I've gone through the program and graduated. Being in the doctoral program is very time-consuming. Do I have the time to devote to such a task?

I need a question, too. The question should be related to my profession, as well as to curriculum and instruction. The two seem to be redundant because I'm an instructor, and I stick to the department's curriculum, so coming up with a question may be my only difficulty. I have been thinking about questions for about a year now. At first, I was worried because I didn't think I had any questions. Then, I began breaking down my instruction, categorizing the topics I teach. In a sense, I was already researching via observation. I was, and still am, paying close attention to how and how much my students are learning. I have learners on myriad levels, so I've been keeping watch over all the levels - all the learners. What I've observed is that the majority of my students have problems with vocabulary as it is related to parts of speech. That is, they have difficulty putting a vocabulary word into a sentence because they do not know the differences between nouns and verbs and adjectives. My question lies in that aspect of my students' learning.

A mystique seems to surround the doctoral process. I think that that is what's keeping me from really going for the degree. Therefore, to help clear up that mystery, I will do a little online researching on the process of obtaining a doctoral degree.

Maybe I'm rationalizing why I shouldn't go for my doctorate. Maybe I'm not ready to go back to school and engage in such a tedious endeavor. I will pray about this and save my money just in case my colleague succeeds in convincing me to go for my doctorate.

First Blog

This is my first blog, so be patient with me. I am sitting at the computer, trying to come up with a few pithy statements that will wow my readers. However, nothing as yet is coming to mind. I think it's because I feel pressured to write something - anything.

Why am I doing this? What will I get out of this? God-willing, I'll be able to vent when I'm mad, muse when I'm melancholy, and rejoice when I'm ecstatic. I also want to be able to provide some helpful hints to my students regarding the fabulous benefits of reading and writing just for the sheer pleasure of it.

My "son" is mewing at me; apparently, I'm not paying attention to him, and he feels slighted. To appease him, I've allowed him to lay down on my lap, which makes typing somewhat of a challenge.

I love to write, so on some days I'll write rather lengthy diatribes of what's going on in my life. On other occasions, I'll write just a note that I think is important enough for the world to view.

Before deciding to join blogger.com, I brainstormed a list of topics that I thought might make for interesting writing. I guess these are subjects that have been swimming around in my brain for the past few weeks:

Going for a doctorate in curriculum and instruction,
Scrapbooking,
Journaling,
Packrat Confessions,
Praising the virtues of pleasure reading and writing,
Views on housecleaning,
General likes and dislikes,
The art of computering

Those are just a few thoughts I have at the moment.

I suppose I could get into the heavy duty conversation topics, such as politics in the USA or religious debates, but I don't know if I want to delve too deeply into those kinds of musings. I have my opinions on those two topics, and so does everybody else, so I think I'll just stick to typical stuff (for lack of a better word).

I should explain the title of my blog spot: The Wordeling Reader. Many years ago, I had the opportunity to talk with a person who had a profound impact on my life then and now. She helped me realize how important art, reading, and writing are. I love to doodle, read, and write. Doodling is such a general term. I do not just doodle with color. I also doodle with words, so I thought of wordel. I switched the last two letters because they are the first two letters of the person who changed my life: Eldora, so doodling with words became wordeling. Since I'm also a reader, I thought that The Wordeling Reader would be an apt name for my blog spot.

Enjoy the wanderings and wonderings of my pages!

The Joys of Word

I just downloaded the Word add-in, and I thought I'd try it out. I love working with Word because I can do anything in it. Word has allowed me to do the following:
Create a Boy Scout patch
Design invitations (Publisher is too much of a hassle)
Design bookmarks for my reading students
Create tables (I'm Excel-challenged)

[will these different fonts and different colors be evident on my blog page?]

The Boy Scout patch was tricky because I had to incorporate different shapes and insert some clip-art pics. The hardest part was eliminating the picture outside the circle.

Of course, I also use Microsoft Picture It! That has allowed me to create my own PowerPoint backgrounds. I didn't know I had Picture It! until I went online to check out photo editing software (what I had just wasn't enough). I read a review of the already available photo editing software, and I noticed that Microsoft Picture It! was listed as second best. Of course, I could've purchased Adobe's Photoshop, but that costs an exorbitant amount, and why do that when I already had Microsoft's. When I saw the review, I remembered seeing Picture It! in the Program Files of my computer. Huh! I never knew I had it or what I could do with it.

I'm an amateur digital photographer; I merely dabble in it. I took a lot of pictures of mundane objects: wallpaper in my parents' home, my couch cover, the cat tunnel, my own doodling masterpieces, and the like. Then, I applied various techniques to the pictures (after transferring them to my computer): distortion, fading, etc. I saved them into My Pictures, and now I use them for presentations and bookmarks and whatever else I can conjure.

I have to grade now, but I'll return when other thoughts surface.