I Found My Teaching Home

I just spent four days with seventeen other people.  We are all teachers, writers and women.  The days were long, twelve hours minimum, but the bonding was once again amazing.  I don’t know what the magic is–shared experience, writing about yourself, the type of people who choose to come or a combination of all of those.  We will be spending three more weeks togehter writing, discussing, researching and demonstrating.  We will learn more about teaching, writing, each other and most importantly to most ourselves.  I am happy to once again be on this journey called Summer Institute.  No one who has never participated can truly understand the life changing experience of this workshop.  Every year it’s a little different, but every year I see countless rewards for myself and for those who come to participate for the first time.

It is time for our third day of technology training at FSU.  This year I have a team of people helping to put it together and to facilitate.  We, the tech team, are in our infancy stage having only met for the first time in April.  We spent the last two days working together to finalize the plans for today and to begin defining ourselves as a team.  We also did exploration in areas of individual interest.  We found time to explore JingProject, Blabberize, and few othe new fun things.  We will continue our work together over the near (and hopefully far) future to support each other and our fellow teachers.

Thank you all for particpating in Technology Day.  Let us know what you need, how we can help and what you thought of our presentations.  As part of the Crossroads Writing Project our “mission is to promote exemplary instruction of writing by impowering teachers as writers, reseachers and leaders.”  We hope we have been helpful.

Today we began our first (annual) Advanced Institute for Technology at CWP.   It is an exciting day for me, because the idea was spawned in July last year at Technology Matters, an NWP event.  We, Sonja and I, flew to California for this fabulous training.  While there we were coached, challenged and supported.  I found out that what we at CWP had been working on was indeed cutting edge.  Our inservice offerings, our Tech Day and many of the applications we were exploring were all cutting edge.  We were truly leading the way…not trailing behind. 

At this event I began to realize that it wasn’t that we were behind (because as I just said we were definitely not), but that I couldn’t do it all myself.  I realized the problem was that one person can not be expected to  lead, support and troubleshoot for an entire Writing Project Site.  It takes a team of people to do all of those things. So…I started to brainstorm with Sonja about how we could make this team come to life.  We decided that an advanced institute would be a good way to start.  

Jenny, or someone with similar humor, has tagged our workshop, “Got Technology.”  We are all discovering what technology we’ve got (want), etc.  It is amazing what you can find when you begin to “surf” blogs or the web in general.  We have definitely “got” technology, but now we need to know how we can best use this to teach our students.  I think the possibilities are endless.

 Hope you all are finding things that are new and useful.

So, I have not done a spectacular job of keeping this blog current or particularily interesting.  It is amazing what a schedule that is too full will do to ones creative powers.  

 That is what has happened (or at least that is my excuse).  I thought I had learned the word NO, but it is apparent that once again I probably said “Yes, I can do that!” a few too many times.  I am doing what I said I would (all of it as far as I know), but I am not sure how well some of it is getting done.

 The seniors in my high school classes are complaining about all they have to do before they graduate and I think to myself, “if you only knew.”  They are also part of the reason that I don’t have enough time.  With 30+ essays a week to read, planning lessons in hopes of engaging 18 year olds who already know everything of value and then keeping tabs on them when they are in the building is sapping most of my energy.  We are on the last few yards of the mad dash to the finish.

Soon, I will dedicate myself to keeping this blog current and maybe even interesting or enlightenting.

I was happy with the turnout and response from the attendees.  Some requested copies of the handout and PowerPoint slideshow…however I was unable to upload at Cobo despite repeated attempts.  In early April (when I am on vaction) I will attempt it again.

 It worked.  Blogging PowerPoint MRA   It is now available.

Hello, it’s been a while.  I cannot believe how time flies.  As always I have been so busy that I don’t even have time for the things I know are important and that feed my soul (aka writing and reading for fun).  So…this blogs sits here neglected and alone. 

 Sonja and I are presenting at the MRA this weekend.  If you were one of the people who attended our session I hope it sparked an interest in including Blogs in your classroom.  The recently added feature of, what I am calling, “sub-blogs” should make classroom use even easier and more safe as well.  Let me know what you thought of the information and/or pose questions by commenting on my post.  If a response is not readily found, drop me an email (it’s on the packet).  Thanks for coming to check out our presentation and my pitiful (so neglected) blog.

Hello, if you attended the technology day at FSU on June 20th you may have been waiting for this post.  After checking the site a few times over the days that followed our meeting I got discouraged and then too busy. But now I am here and the site is working.  I am nearly ecstatic.  I hope that despite the glitches you learned something useful and that you will consider incorporating blogs and/or wikis in your teaching practice.  I appreciated our discussion and am trying to address you questions in my future inserve planning.

 I realized after you all were gone that I didn’t address the classroom management question from our morning session at the end of that day as I had promised.  If someone is interested in that discussion and or description, please comment and I’ll respond.

The presentation is available now.  Enjoy and don’t forget to continue asking questions if you have them (and tell me about your successes )

Well, as you may know from talking to me or reading my other blog this has been an incredibly busy school year for me.  So, this is the first entry since last August.  It isn’t that I don’t like to blog…it just never happened.  Kind of like reading for pleasure, except on vacations.

 So, this is an entry to test out any changes and to just say that it is worth the effort, but blogging is new to most of us and is indeed an effort.

Week one was short, only four days, but I was more tired than I have been in over a month.  When I attended the Advanced Summer Institute on the heels of Andrea’s wedding I was tired, but…well how tired I was and/or am is irrelevant, really.  Blogging and online writing are not an option in school yet, since we have no laptops, yet.  There are several working computers in the media center, but not nearly enough for a class of 30.

I think that it will be a good year for me and a memorable one.  I have all but one of my seniors twice a day and almost a third of them three times.  I am sure that we will be very close by the end of the year.  It will be a difficult graduation for me; saying goodbye to so many. 

Carpe Diem is the phrase I am hoping they will live. Their locker signs (which I made) have that phrase on them with the guts of a grandfather clock as the background (thanks to my principal’s clock and my colleague’s help in brainstorming a symbolic photo).  I want them to have a good senior year (and I wouldn’t mind having a good year either).

My goals for the year are still vague.  Today’s primary goal is to flesh out my year plans.  What do I want to accomplish with the new challenge (English IV)?  What changes will be needed in my math classes in light of the new state “course expectations?”  How will I change the psychology class to accomadate 26 students, which would be too many mentors for our little elementary?  How will the new website program work as a class project?  That’s a LOT of planning.  There are so many changes that I feel overwhelmed and like a new teacher.  So, one day at a time and luckily I am not a new teacher.  I have the discipline, the reputation, and the rapport already established.  I can do this…carpe diem.