Student Blogging - Experiment in Public

After I started blogging for real last year, I came to realize what a valuable tool this kind of reflection is.  Each week, I choose some piece of teaching life and really think about what it means to me.  I did this before, but it was hit or miss random thoughts and usually while I was driving.  Now, I try to figure out what I really want to explore through writing.

The fact that other people read my reflections pleases me almost as much as it confuses me.  For example, one day two weeks ago, my number of page views in Portugal jumped from 4 to 54 in one hour.  What happened?  (If you are one of the 50 Portuguese readers, please comment below.)  I love checking the stats, not just for the number but for which posts people are reading and where people are reading.  I like thinking about the fact that my experience as a teacher might lend any kind of insight to other teachers (or even students and parents).

Last year, I decided I wanted my students to have this experience as well.  I want them to reflect on the things they are learning in all of their classes.  I also think it fits well into some of the changes that are happening in education.  If you remember my post called The Poster By My Desk, you know that one of the ways we are rethinking teaching is Talk to Strangers and another is Real Work for Real Audiences.  Student blogging seems like the perfect way to do this.  I believe they will write better if they know it is being read by people out in the cyber universe.  I believe they will reflect well if they are trying to convey it to someone else.

Once per week, my 8th graders will be assigned a blog by one of their teachers.  It won't always be me, but they will be writing about something they are learning, and this makes me happy.  I may be a science teacher, but I know the value of writing and am so happy they will be doing this.

In order to keep all their blogs collated, I have compiled a list of links to their blogs.  If you would like to read the blogs of 8th grade students and encourage them with comments, you may find a list of all their blogs at this blog.  This has all gotten a little too meta for me because I am using this blog to link you to another blog, which is a list of 61 more blogs.  I've never used the word blog this many times in one day - even when I ran a work shop on blogs.

Yearbook Dedication Day - Post 2

As I have mentioned in previous posts, this year marks my 10th year doing the yearbook at GRACE.  We have grown from an 88 page book that was passed out in classrooms with dedication read in a faculty meeting to a 144 page book with a fine arts pep rally style event in which the dedication is revealed in front of our entire student body, faculty, and staff.

Order forms kept arriving right up to the last minute, and some were sold AS we were distributing books.  I survived this one, but it takes a team of people so I can end up.  A sub is assigned to my classroom for all of the day's class time.  There is no way everything could get done if I also had to be in class (although I used to do it that way).  The kids are in final exam review time, so I feel okay leaving them with their study guides and quizlets and notes for the day.

I start about 6:30 moving tables into "the cage" in our cafeteria.  The yearbooks have been sorted during the week into boxes for each grade, so it makes the set up a little faster.  This year, we had an NHS induction in the cafeteria at 7:15, so I stayed for that.  Then I had door duty (which is my favorite, so I didn't want to miss it).  At 8ish, I finished setting up all the middle and high school books and then ran down to our other campus to pick up any last orders from there.  Our two wonderful receptionists then take over by only e-mailing me the name and grade of anyone else who brings in an order (no need for the check at that moment - just get the book in the box).

Loading the boxes of books for the other campus was much easier this year because I traded cars with my mom the night before.  I don't know why it took me 7 years to realize that this would be easier with her SUV than my Buick, but it did.  Lifting the books off of the science department cart into the back of an SUV makes so much more sense the trying to slide them across the back seat of my car.  Getting them out of the SUV is INFINITELY easier than getting them out of the back seat of my car.

While I am doing all of this, my wonderful friend and technology genius, Diane Scro (who I may have mentioned a few other times) is setting up the gym with everything we need for the pep rally.  At one time, this consisted of one microphone and a speaker.  Now, it is a whole production with a theater backdrop, risers for the chorus, seats for the band, and a piano.

About 12:30, we start shipping the kids from the upper school campus to the gym.  We no longer fit in the gym, so it has been suggested that we split this into two events.  I can't do it because I feel that yearbook is a unifying force for our school.  It is one of the things that makes us "one school on two campuses" rather than two separate entities.  However, we do end up with about 800 people in our gym.

The pep rally involves performances and the announcement of awards, but it culminates with the presentation of the dedication.  This year, we finally dedicated it to someone I have been wanting to honor for a long time.  In a nearly unanimous decision, we decided to honor Zane Smitley, an incredible teacher and one of my best friends.  I can't believe we managed to keep it a secret.  Between kids on the staff knowing all year, his wife and children knowing since June, and him being right across the hall from me, it is kind of a miracle.  He even came into the lounge while I was sorting them and asked if he could look at one.  I thought I might have tipped him off when I told him he couldn't.

This was an emotional day because we have several people leaving our school that the arts department wanted to honor.  We bought some special engraved gifts and wrote letters to them.  We honored this awesome man.  We saw the last day of some of our seniors.  It is just a lot of emotion for one day.

After the yearbooks are distributed, the signing begins.  Several students asked me to sign theirs and I told them I would be happy to sign it tomorrow as I had no mental or emotional energy left.  I had to summon some emotional energy after clean up though because the first e-mail I received at the end of this day was from a parent who was "horribly disappointed" in the way her child's senior photo printed.  After addressing that, I came home and collapsed.  I was asleep when my mom called.  We traded our cars back.  Everything is back to normal for now.  Tomorrow will involve exam review, more signing, more errors being pointed out to me, and field day.  That is back to normal, which is what makes teaching kind of an adventure.

Yearbook Dedication Day - Post 1 - Anticipation

I am going to post twice this week - once in anticipation of the yearbook dedication and one after.  The after one may not happen until the day after because I usually go home and collapse into a puddle of incoherent jelly on the day of the dedication.

The feeling of this time is hard to describe.  It is both thrilling and terrifying at the same time.  I know there are mistakes because the job is too big for there not to be.  I don't know, however, how serious some of them are.  One year, there was a fifth grader left entirely out of the yearbook.  I didn't know it until her very upset mother called the day after her daughter brought it home.  That was six years ago, and I still can't figure out how it happened.  We do things differently now, so it shouldn't happen again; but I didn't expect it the first time.  Did I order enough yearbooks or way too many?  I won't know until next week.

I've made my first boneheaded mistake of the week.  On Sunday, I sent e-mails to everyone who has not yet ordered.  At least, that's what I thought I did.  It turns out I sent e-mails to the ENTIRE sophomore class, informing them that they had not ordered.  Of course, that was not true, so I spent a good part of Sunday evening replying to frantic e-mails from people who had indeed ordered.  There's no better start to your week than one big incompetent move.  Fortunately, I'm not also in charge of the education of kids this week. (Oh, wait - exams are next week, so . . . I am - Yikes!)

We dedicate our yearbook and keep it a secret until the day of distribution.  Somehow, we have managed to keep it a secret every year (at least, as far as I know).  This is not easy when you consider there are 15-20 teenagers every year who know the secret, and I have to enlist the help of the spouse or children or siblings of this person to get the pictures and information I need.  I get it from them during first semester.  With the dedication in May, that is a long time for that person to keep a secret.  I hope this year's dedicatee doesn't know, but he or she probably won't tell me if they do.  It is a big moment for me because our entire school is on its feet to honor one deserving person.  It is one of my favorite moments of the year, reminding me every time that one of the purposes of this book is to unify the student body, faculty, and staff.  There are very few things that do that, and I am happy to be part of one of them.

I have great student staffers, who are incredibly helpful on the day of distribution.  They make sure everyone receives their book before enjoying the signing time for themselves.  It keeps me from having to be in the room at the beginning, but it also makes me nervous because I am not in the room at the beginning.  (I apparently have some control issues.)  My school is called GRACE, and because of that, we often don't get people's yearbook orders until the last possible moment.  Yes, I do blame it on the name of the school; I really believe this would not happen if we were called JUSTICE Christian School or Get Your Paperwork In On Time Christian School.  This was made even more evident today when I went to the office to pick up the orders that came in Friday and Monday morning and was given an envelope that weighs 2 pounds.

My science students are taking a test right now.  I'm actually giving tests all day today.  It is their last one of the year other than their exam, so that gives me time to deal with the orders as I sit at my desk today.  It does mean I will have to grade them, but thank the Lord for Scantron.  I also have door duty this week as well as teacher devotions on Wednesday (oh, I need to get someone to cover the door that day).  We have a town  hall meeting tonight and field day on Friday.  Fortunately, I will be doing exam review with all of my students the rest of this week, so that will take on thing off the list. 

Believe it or not, I love this insane time.  It's when I know I am in an active, vibrant, place of learning and not a stodgy, dry institution.  I wouldn't trade it.

Reflections on Four Years of Teaching With Technology - Lessons

This is the last post of a four part series on the one to one MacBook program my school has.  This post can stand alone, but if you are interested in more detail, read my other posts.

After four years of doing this, I do feel that there are some pieces of advice I could offer and lessons I've learned.  This is purely from a classroom teacher's point of view.  I'm sure administrators and tech people could offer different perspective, and I hope they will comment.

Don't Try to Learn Everything at Once - If you try to make every lesson filled with nothing but technology, you will lose your mind.  Sit down with your objectives and pick the ones that are either the easiest or the most important to incorporate your technology.  We committed to have one "golden nugget" per quarter.  That could be a project the kids could do or a lesson that we would have them collaborate with or a lesson we could flip.  If you do that each year (and it gets easier to think of them, so you increase your pace), you build your tech repertoire.

Don't Try to Reinvent the Wheel - Google is your friend.  If you search for lesson plans using technology on any topic, you will find many tools or kernels of ideas to use.  YouTube is your best friend.  Pick a topic - any topic - and you will find animations, dramatizations, examples.  There is a ton in science, but there are plenty for every other topic as well - even Latin.  I have been amazed by the clarity a video provides.  It takes me 15 minutes to explain the Doppler Effect, but when I show a 20 second video of stick figures and waves, I hear half the class go "Ohhhh."

Get an LMS - If there was one thing we were missing in our first year, it was a learning management system.  Not having a consistent way for students to turn in digital assignments leads to chaos.  Some students want to e-mail it to you (That'll fill your inbox) while others want to put it on a jump drive.  Some want to share it with you in a google doc.  This is a sure way to lose your mind.  We found drop box, hoping that would be a good method, but it is a mess when students forget to include their name (It's not like you can tell from their handwriting), or you have 45 assignments titled "science homework."  The first couple of months with an LMS are difficult because it adds to the learning curve, but it is worth it.  After the first year, every student knows exactly what to do when we say "Go to the Talon discussion board."

Cheer Each Other On - This was the best part of our endeavor.  Every teacher was in the same boat, all trying to row in the same direction.  We shared ideas, successes, failures, suggestions, encouragements, and prayers.  If you have some cynical people, share your successes with them.  Show them one super easy tool that you found.  Most people will come around with just a little encouragement.  If you are trying to do this on your own and it isn't a school wide thing, find another teacher that you can try it with.  If you can't even find that, go online.  There are twitter groups and teacher websites completely devoted to cheering you on in this adventure.  This is worth it.

Be Flexible and Have Backup Plans - The first time you use a new tool, something will happen.  You will have at least one kid who can't log on no matter what they do.  The video might not play on someone's computer even though it does on everyone else's.  There may be a student who tried to submit their assignment and it didn't go through for whatever reason.  You CANNOT anticipate all these problems, so be flexible.  For those issues you can anticipate, have a backup plan.  I have ended my instructions many times with "If that doesn't work, do this."  You will teach a little less content your first year because you will spend a fair amount of time troubleshooting.  That's okay; it gets better.  Trust me that you will never stop needing backup plans.

Keep the Reasons in Mind - You have decided to do this for a reason.  When things get a little nutty, remind yourself that this is important.  You are investing in your students' future.  You are teaching them life skills and modeling life long learning.  You are going to have some tough days, and the kids will see how you respond to them.

Reflections on Four Years of Teaching With Technology - Plateau and Progress

This is part three of a series on my school's one to one MacBook program.  It can be read on its own, but if you want to know the history, read the other two.

As always happens, the first year of a program is when people are the most excited and, therefore, the most invested in doing new things.  The increase you see from year zero to year one cannot be the level of increase you expect every year.  In order to keep increasing at all, there must be continued cheerleading, support, and training to keep the ideas new.  Most of us were really happy with how the first year went, but we didn't bring that same level of enthusiasm to the second year (maybe because we were just tired).  We also implemented a much needed Learning Management System that year, which was frustrating at first because there were some glitches in it.  Because of these issues, the second year was a plateau for us as far as using the technology as more than a replacement for what we had done previously.

Our wonderful tech team had read articles about schools that gave up on one to one programs after one or two years due to lack of real growth and were determined not to let that happen here.  Around the same time, we also hired a new media specialist, Laura (the wonderful) Warmke.  She is not only highly versed in what seems like every book ever written; she is also super with technology tools and driven to help you find out how to use them in your class.

Laura and Diane developed a great program for teacher to use as professional development.  It is called Level Up, and it is awesome.  Diane and Laura write "missions" for us to accomplish.  Some of them are as simple as watch a TED talk about education and comment on it in our discussion board.  Others are as complex as classroom flipping, instituting a badge system in your class, or having a skype session.  All the missions are counted as done when you have responded on a discussion board. 

Let me tell you some of the reasons this program is awesome:
1.  You can choose your own professional development.   We aren't all sitting in the same room learning the same tool.  We look at the available missions and choose the ones that will work best for our style and our classroom.  It enables people to be developed at their point of comfort with where they currently are.
2.  You are being cheered on rather than put upon.  The tech team gives you a badge in the teacher's lounge for every mission you complete.  They love talking to you about your missions.  You get great ideas from reading other people's uses on the discussion board, which allows you to incorporate the same tools in your class in more than one way.
3.  It is modeling.  They aren't just telling us to use something.  They are using it to deliver the message.  It makes me want to have missions in my own classes (next year perhaps).
4.  There are prizes.  Prizes are always motivating, no matter how old you get.  At the end of the quarter, we have drawing for gift cards.  The more missions you have done, the more times you name is in the hat.
5.  It introduces you to tools you had never heard of before.  One mission we had this year was to use a tool called Canva - a very cool graphic design tool.  I've had kids use it for projects, and I will never make another bulletin board without it.  I would never have heard of it without this program.
6.  It encourages teacher input.  Many times during the year, a teacher will stumble upon a new tool and say, "Hey, you should have a mission for that.

This program has gotten us off our year two flatline graph and put us back on the upward slope.  Another thing Laura does is meet with every teacher every quarter to discuss how she can help you take your tech integration to the next level.  Because of these discussions, my 8th graders have begun creating a website (which future 8th graders will finish), and next year, my 8th graders will be blogging for the world to see.

I've said it before.  I couldn't go back to teaching the old way.  Now that I see what kids are capable of doing with the world of knowledge at their fingertips, I would never again feel like I was doing my job as a teacher if I didn't give them that opportunity.  Every new tool we teach them i just another way they can be academically and spiritually equipped, challenged, and inspired to impact their world for Christ (which is our school's mission statement).

There will be one more post in this series - what I wish I had known when this all started.

Reflections on Four Years of Teaching With Technology - The First Year

My last post was about the lead up to GRACE Christian School's implementation of E4 - our one to on MacBook program.  Now, I want to tell you about our first year with it because that is obviously where our learning curve was the steepest.

Our tech team and administrators were the most amazing cheerleaders through this process.  When we originally talked about accountability in the committee, it had been suggested that we require a certain percentage of the lesson be tech related.  I am SOOOOO glad we did not go that route.  Instead of presenting this as a required duty, it was presented as an exciting opportunity.  Sean, Diane, Mandy, and Kathie (our principals) were so ready to help in any way you needed that it was unbelievable.  If you had an idea, you could go to one of them, and they would help you figure it out.  We were trained in big groups about some things, but if there were things that only applied to one department or teacher or lesson, one of them stopped by our room to chat about the tool or e-mailed us a link.

In some ways it was like being a first year teacher all over again.  We weren't exactly relearning how to teach, but in some ways we were.  When writing lesson plans, we were constantly thinking of ways we could do the same differently with technology. (Keep in mind, this was our first year; so we were on level one of the SAMR model.  We are reaching for higher levels now).  One of the best things we did was have story time at faculty meetings.  We shared projects the kids had done and tools we had found.  We shared frustrations as well and tried to problem solve together.  I'll post more about that later.

Our students immediately took on a new paradigm.  They began e-mailing teachers all the time.  They could have sent us e-mail from home before, but they hadn't very much.  Suddenly, we were getting e-mail from them at all times of day.  I got e-mail questions from shy kids who would never ask them in class.  I got kids sharing links with me if there was something they thought would be cool class.  I had kids sending science memes.  Our volleyball team went to the state finals that year.  A small group of kids, our basketball game announcer, and Sean traveled down with them and streamed the game with commentary.  We got to watch it during lunch and had a watch party for the final game in the evening.  Our students began making videos for chapel.  All of this was in addition to the "on purpose" things we were giving them to do for class.  On Grandparents' Day, we had a family skype their Grandparents into class from England.  We stream the Grandparents' Day performance as well.

I think my favorite story from that year was the streaming of the conference basketball tournament.  Whenever we stream a game, we send the link to the athletic director of the opposing team, so their families can watch too.  For one game of this tournament, we were playing a team out of Fayetteville, a school with a large number of military families.  Because of the stream, some of their dads were able to watch them play even though those dads were in Iraq and Afghanistan.   I didn't even mind that we lost that game because those dads got to watch their boys win.

We all learned a lot that year.  We learned from each other.  We learned from every resource we could find.  It was difficult and crazy and amazing all at the same time.

In my next post, I will talk about the three years since.  We hit a plateau, which our awesome tech team helped us overcome.  More on that in a few days.

Reflections on Four Years of Teaching With Technology - The History

GRACE Christian School is wrapping up its fourth year in a one to one laptop program, so I thought it was time for a bit of reflection. 

It all about this time started five years ago.  At that point, we had a lot of teachers who were incorporating technology with their own devices and buying projectors as we could.  We had about twelve SMART boards in our school, which we were using to the best of our ability (although we didn’t really know the best way to use them). 

I was asked to serve on a technology planning committee, where I found out that we were seriously considering changing everything.  We discussed device options, budgeting, vision statements for the program, and what kind of accountability should be involved.  My role was mostly to insist on training.  The board members on our committee rightly felt that the SMART boards had not been used as well as they could have been in the classroom and didn’t want to make this investment to have it fail.  I reminded them that the teachers who had SMART boards had been given one day of training on the function of the boards and none on how to incorporate them into our lesson plans.  When we talked about devices, I said, “Without training, it might as well be a stone and chisel.”  When we discussed the budget, I said, “There has to be budget set aside for training.”  When we talked about the vision statement, I reminded them that none of that vision could be accomplished if teachers were told HOW to carry it out.  When we discussed accountability, I reminded them that they couldn’t be expected to use it well without training.  I’m sure they got tired of hearing the word training from me, but I felt it was my role as the representative of the teachers. 

The members of the committee were sworn to silence until the plan was unveiled.  In the mean time, projectors and MacBook Pros were purchased for every teacher.  They were made ready by our wonderful tech team (which at that time only consisted of Sean and Diane) in an empty classroom that had new locks and paper over the windows.  You practically needed a secret password to enter that room.  As the day of the unveiling approached, we all got a little excited and nervous.  Diane was going to be chaperoning our 8th grade DC field trip, so Sean would be on his own that day for training.  He was nervous about whether or not people would like the idea.  Including myself, there were about three faculty meetings that were long term Mac users; so we were asked to help people during the training.  All the teachers knew when they came in that morning was that the day would be about technology and that Sean would be leading it.  Sean talked about the importance of increasing our technology usage in 21st century education, showed a prezi about the importance of changing education from the industrial model, and talked about how critical it was that we lead in this area.  Then, I was scripted to ask, “So, how do we do this if we don’t all have the tools?”  Sean announced that everyone would be getting a projector, which was met with minor enthusiasm.  Then, he said, “You may be asking what good a projector will do if you don’t have your own laptop.  Well . . .”  The laptops were hidden in a closet, and I got to help roll them out.  It was super exciting.

We spent that entire day of training, learning how the Mac works, looking at each type of application, and brainstorming ideas.  We got a video message from Diane since she couldn’t get to us from DC.  We obviously had teachers with a wide range of experience and comfort with the tool (one person asked me what it meant to click), but everyone was super on board and willing to learn.  At the end of the day, I hugged Sean and told him how well he did and how excited everyone was.  We knew we were at the beginning of something awesome.

Since that day, we have learned so much.  Our kids have done so much.  Our tech team has supported us so much.  It is too much to put in this post, which is already long.  Read all about our first year with tech in my next post.

Teachers Never Stop Learning

My last post was about how great it is that teaching is new every year.  As I sit here, typing on a computer, I'm reminded about just how new.

I began teaching 16 years ago.  E-mail had been around for only about five years and was just increasing in popularity as a way for teachers to contact parents.  I was practically considered a rock star because I sent out a weekly e-mail to parents, letting them know what we would be up to the following week.

Google had been invented just that year, so looking something up when a student had a question wasn't really something teachers thought of yet.  YouTube was still a long way off, and no one had heard the terms social media, Google doc, meme, or selfie.  The school I was teaching in at that time (Jenks Freshman Academy - go Trojans!) was at the height of tech because they had a computer lab with desktop iMacs.  We could sign up and take our students to do research for papers.  The library even had three of them!  This was huge.  A student taught me how to use iMovie (thanks, Rick - I still use it), and he was considered incredibly tech savvy..

Sixteen years later, I am sitting at the MacBook Pro that every teacher in my current school (GRACE Christian - go Eagles!) issues to every teacher.  I have written on the board that my 8th grade students should go to page 29 in their digital textbook because each of them has a school issued MacBook Air.  I wrote that book using iBooks Author, and it includes videos that will and links to websites, taking advantage of how their brains are wired in a sort of hyperlink way mine never was.  My physics students have just completed making music videos about free fall in which they took YouTube clips of Felix Baumgartner, Star Trek Into Darkness, and disturbing video of gold eagles dropping goats from cliffs.  Their textbook was purchase from iTunes and include interactive illustrations.

All that description is to make these points.

1.  Great teachers never stop learning.  I was a good teacher in the first years of my career.  I'm convinced of that and have students who stay in contact to confirm it.    However, if I still did only the things I did then, I wouldn't even rate as mediocre today.  The methods of sixteen years ago would bore my students and me.  Students, some of you think your learning will be done when you graduate from high school or college.  This is not true.  As long as people keep inventing new things (and that doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon), you will continue to learn.

2.  Great teachers don't learn alone.  My school adopted a one to one MacBook program four academic years ago.  We were all a little nervous and didn't quite know what we were in for, but it was exciting because we did it together.  Yes, we stumbled a bit along the way and plateaued a little in our second year.  It has taken concerted effort to keep improving our use of tech.  We don't just want to use it; we want to use it well.  In that light, there are a few people I would like to thank.

- Sean Blesh and Diane Scro - You started this.  I know there have been times when you wished you hadn't, but it has made us all better.  You have made us better teachers, and I have no higher compliment than that.

- Sean Blesh and Diane Scro - Yes, I'm thanking them twice.  They didn't just start this and walk away.  They have maintained over 100 staff computers and over 500 student computers with very few hiccups.  They have suffered through filter conundrums, black screens of death, password keychain nonsense, wind knocking out servers, the implementation of a new MLS, customizing the filters for different groups, dealing with blackouts at Time Warner, and the cranky-ness of teachers.  They have done all of that in the same 24 hour days the rest of us have.

- Laura Warmke and Diane Scro - Level Up was one of the most important things you have ever implemented.  There are things I would never have even heard of without it.  Making professional development fun is no easy task.  Thanks for continuously introducing us to new tools.

- The GRACE board and administration - If you hadn't risked saying yes to this, we wouldn't be where we are today.  It was a big financial commitment, and we know it wasn't easy.

- My Fellow Teachers - We've been in the trenches of this together.  You are never selfish with your knowledge or skills.  You share with other teachers, and you do it enthusiastically.  It has been fun being on this journey with you, and it won't end.

- My Fellow Students - I call you fellow students because, as I mentioned in point 1, I am still learning.  You have acted as guinea pigs for some crazy things.  Some of it has worked and some of it hasn't.  Some of it only works now because you showed me how to make it work.  Many of you have shared things with me that I now use in my classroom.  Thanks for the memes, the photos, the links, and the youtube channels that have now become part of my curriculum.  They are awesome.  Keep them coming.

Using a Discussion Board

Our school is encouraging the use of discussion boards, so I modified one of the things I usually do.

Every year, we have an in class debate in chemistry over the use of nuclear power.  I assign them to the pro or con side without regard to the opinion they actually hold because it is so early in the year.  This year, I made a discussion board for them to participate in for a week after the debate.  It enabled the "more advanced" class to keep the arguments they had been making in class going.  It enabled everyone to argue from their real opinion rather than the one I had assigned them.  

I read the forum this morning, and for the most part, it was great.  Just like always, you have a few who do as little as possible; but the ones who got into it really made some good points.  Two kids who had to be cajoled to speak during the in class debate contributed to the discussion board rather intellegently twice.  I'm considering if there are other current events or controversial scientific topics that I can use this with.  

The one other time I have used this feature is to respond to videos we watch in class.

Beginning the Blog

This whole blog thing is new for me.  I'm never sure if what I have to say will be valuable to anyone else, hence the name Random Ramblings.  I'm in a school with a one to one MacBook program, and we have been encouraged to share new ideas, so I'm giving it a try.

Let's start with a little about me.  This is my 15th year teaching.  I started in public school, teaching the same subject 7 times a day to freshmen.  Now, I am in a Christian school, where I teach 8th Grade Physical Science, Chemistry, Physics, and Yearbook.  Over the eleven years I have been here, I have also taught Algebra I, 9th Grade Health, 7th Grade Health, and Photography.  I like to think of myself as well rounded, so this has been fun.

Two years ago, we took on the challenge of the one to one MacBook program.  I will refer to this as E4 from now on because it is easier.  E4 stands for "Embrace technology to Engage and Empower students to Excel as lifelong learners."  I was on the committee that wrote that sentence.  It took an hour, so enjoy it.  Because other school are now taking on similar programs, I want to use this blog to share resources, ideas, lesson plans, or games.  Some of them will be more tech based than others because I do believe something still work better old school (yes, the pun was intended).

I do not intend to post daily.  I was never good at keeping a diary.  I will post when I feel I have something valuable to contribute to the blogosphere.