Great Week Together

I'm so excited to have finished all the staff development activities we have been involved in this week. Last year we were so misplaced and, then, rushed and harried that we missed out on this valuable time together. We have spent several days this week and last learning together.
Here are some bits of what we have done...Alan November, Bill Daggett, Bloom's Taxonomy, Rigor/Relevance/Relationships, TECHNOLOGY!!!!

We are inspired to make a difference this year in the life of each child at Meadow Wood Elementary.

TMB Panyee Short Film

I Can Teach Math!

This is how I feel after I attending a wonderful 2 day math training with 7 of my teachers. We all left energized and excited about teaching math!

I'm also SO excited about our new 5th grade mathematics teacher, Kim McCormick. She is D.Y.N.A.M.I.T.E!!!!

So..what do you do all day??

I'm counting down the days to 3 very important events:

1. moving into the transition campus

2. the teachers coming back

3. the kids coming back

And...what do you do all day when there is no one there & you are waiting for these important things to happen - I've been asked a thousand times so here goes -

clean out my email (took 3 days!), reorganize my email folders to get ready for another busy year, clean out yearly correspondence/organize it for storage/get the folders ready for the new stuff, plan inservice to begin the new year, answer the phone, find qualified applicants for open positions/contact them for screening/arrange interviews/have interviews/hire someone, read email, make the yearlong calendar, write a brand new emergency operation plan for the transition campus, go to construction meetings/answer emails about construction/think about it when I can't sleep/try to figure out where we are going to do all the things we do/send emails with my questions about construction, read blogs of teachers and other educators to get ideas as I'm planning for staff development, go to trainings for Skyward/roadmapping/love and logic/CIP entry, enter our campus improvement plan into the system, order things for the year, arrange the after school programs with the vendors, oh - did I say read email? Those are the highlights of my days. There's more but most of it is not worth mentioning!

Now - you can see why I can't wait for the teachers and kids to come back. I LOVE being in their classrooms, talking to teachers about their celebrations and their challenges, talking to kids all day long and just keeping busy with the learning world!! Can't wait!!

Reflections on 11 Tools Assignments

For your final 11 Tools post, answer these questions:

1. What are your favorite tools you now have in your personal technology toolbox? Briefly describe a particular activity that you will plan for your students using at least one of these new tools.

I'm not sure there is one favorite as they are so different. I liked Google docs as I think it will prevent us from using countless back and forth emails in planning and scheduling. I LOVE the Jing thing that makes it so easy to embed pictures/videos into communications. The Google reader is probably the thing I've already used the most. I can see that, later when I have time, I can use it to organize the blogs I read on different topics to keep current with literature and research.

I have already used Google docs with several teams to plan a meeting for this week and next week. I am thinking about how I can use it for meeting agendas for team leaders and the campus improvement team.

2. How have you transfomed your thinking about the learning that will take place in your classroom?

I'm overwhelmed with thinking about how this can transform what happens in the classroom - and I don't have to implement it in a classroom!! I hope that teachers will take it slowly, choose one or two new things to learn well and get control of those in a productive way before moving on. My fear is that we will just wily nily begin to use things without purpose and intent. We will be discussing this as a faculty.

3. Were there any unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you?

Yes - everything I said in #2 - how this could so easily take over with little purpose but lots of time used up by students and teachers.

This has been a very interesting and new way of learning for me. I miss the social aspects of a class as opposed to being at home working in isolation. I'm hoping for follow up with face to face so I can learn from others.