Welcome to the Blog!

Greetings fellow Internet surfers! My name is Tommy Kauffmann, and I will be your guide on this grand adventure we call learning.

I started this blog for a few different reasons:

1) I want to start building my Personal Learning Network. So far I've been using Twitter and reddit to follow other educators; now I am branching out into the blogosphere. (Shameless plug: follow me on Twitter, @kauffmannt. I don't tweet often, but I do follow a number a excellent educators.)

2) As I've been reading about various educational issues on these social networks, while also experiencing the classroom - I just finished up a stint as a student-teacher - I am looking to contribute my own thoughts and philosophies on education.

3) As I build my PLN, I am looking to contribute to the body of knowledge on education. The Internet was designed for sharing knowledge, after all, and that is exactly the purpose of this blog.

The content of this blog will essentially range over two broad categories. On the one hand, it will serve as a place for me to comment on my educational philosophy with regards to current events in the education world. This category is pretty wide in scope, and my goal is to share my thoughts and opinions on educational practices.

On the other hand, this blog will also be place for me to share resources and teaching techniques specific to my content area, the Social Studies. So far, my experience has been limited, having only one semester of student-teaching and two semesters of classroom observations. Limited classroom experience aside, I would like this blog to serve as a central place for me to house different pedagogical techniques. And maybe, if people actually read this, it could also serve as a place to bounce different ideas around.

It is my philosophy that education - and learning - should be both informative and fun. Often it seems that we focus extensively on the former and leave out the latter. Hopefully this will be place that brings those two qualities together.

And with that, let me just say willkommen, bienvenida, and happy blogging!