New School, New County!

It's summer time! With that being said, it's also the time of year teachers get new contracts and I certainly did. I had been looking to change schools and even counties and had two interviews before the end of the school year. The first resulted in going onto the fingerprinting process of the interview at a job fair, but alas no job openings! The second interview resulted in another interview with the same county. During my last week of school, I received a phone call that I had the job! It was a bittersweet decision, but one that I felt I had to make. So next year I will be a Technology Resource Teacher in a new county and a brand new school!

I am very much looking forward to the challenges that lay ahead of me and I have no doubt there will be some! I've already had a chance to meet my new boss and some of my colleagues and they have been very receptive and encouraging. I've also gotten to meet the principal of the school and get some ideas for the next school year.

One of the great benefits to this new job is that get the chance to work with Macintosh computers again! It's been a couple of years since I last worked with them and as always, technology advances, so I will need to study up on some of the software and tools I will be getting to use this coming school year, but I can't wait! I will be keeping the page updated and look for my new stories!

Neat Little Website

I found this several weeks ago, but just didn't have a chance to post it until now. "Crayons and Computers", was created by Carol Sabbeth, a performer and author of four books, who teaches students and teachers about art through family programs at the Portland Art Museum. Her website has several lessons that can be used to teach students (even adult students, like me!) how to create digital art in programs such as Microsoft Paint. I created cows that actually looked like cows-not stick figures, who knew?

IT'S Over!

This is a few days late, but it's official, my graduate program is over. It's been a very worthwhile two years and the amount I have learned is amazing! I graduate on Saturday at 2 p.m. and can't wait!!

Calling all Technology Integrators...

Want a fast, easy, and cheap way to have an interactive whiteboard in your room? Watch the following video clip (thanks to Mr. Brown and Dad) from TED to find out more. I already sent this link to a couple of ITRT's in the county and they were psyched! (I think psyched is my new word for the week). Anyways, enjoy!

Going Campaigning...

After reading an article entitled “Batter Up” in NEAToday, I’m thinking a little more politically this week. This article was about various NEA members and how they are making a difference in education by campaigning for candidates who they feel will best support their goals for education. The members varied from elementary to high school teachers and political parties. Some teachers were content to work in their communities supporting local candidates, while others were thinking bigger with the presidential candidates.

This article seemed to come along at a perfect time for me. As I’ve been working on a teacher leadership class this past semester, I’ve been wondering how I can make a bigger difference in my chosen profession. Campaigning will be a great summer project for me and will help me feel empowered by making others aware of important educational issues. If these teachers in the article can do it, why can’t I? The only thing the article didn’t tell me was where I can find more information about getting involved in political campaigns. I did visit the NEA website, which has some other activities related to politics, but I still didn’t find what I was for. Locally, I’m not even sure who’s up for re-election in November, so visiting candidate websites is a little pointless. As far as the presidential election goes, I’m pretty sure I know who I want to support, but I’m not positive. However, going in this route seems like the best way to get the word out about educational issues. I’m even considering talking with some of my friends and seeing if they would like to join me. So for now, my goal is to figure out who to completely support this November.

In hopes of narrowing down my candidates, I visited www.glassbooth.org, a website I heard about on a podcast from BBC5. This website allows you to take a quiz about your opinions on various issues and matches your answers to the candidate who most closely resembles the same answers. It’s a great website to inform students about and have them try. However, for me, it wasn’t much help. There was a one percent difference between the two I’m trying to choose between. At least I got the political party right! :)

Although this doesn’t completely go along with this topic, I did find a website this week that I wanted to share. It’s called freerice.com and was created by a parent of a high schooler who wanted to prepare their child for the SAT’s. This vocabulary quiz website will donate 20 grains of rice to the U.N. World Food Program for every correct answer. When I was testing it out for my Website Wednesday newsletter I got up to 220 grains of rice! I was psyched about this website and its generous goals and wanted to make sure the news got out on the web. Visit it for your chance to send rice to people who need it.

How Can We Create Change

Last week, I was at the World Color Guard Championships, which is a whole other part of my life. While there I was trying to find free time to finished up grad school stuff and continue to write reflections for my portfolio (due in two weeks-yikes!). Other than that, I didn't really see how two of the facets of my life; educational technology and color guard relate. However, as I sat watching Marian Catholic High School from Illinois, I realized I was wrong. Their show was all about change and we can be a part of it-changing the way people think, how they treat others, how the treat the environment, changing how we relate to cancer, and more. Maybe I was reading too much into it, but it made me realize how I've changed in this program and how technology has changed me.

I believe that learning about technology and educational reform has made me a better teacher, colleague, learner, and person. Although I sometimes feel overwhelmed by it all and have to stop and catch my breath and "power down", I have found more ways to learn about new things, stay involved, and keep in touch through technology. As I student I didn't have the advantages students today have. I would have loved to show off my talents and my thoughts by using video or a podcast. Even a blog-as I'm doing now. I was pretty creative growing up, but I really think this would doubled my creative energy. However, I do see where I probably would have had a problem with doing everything online, and neglecting everything else. That's why it's important to show students that while technology is great, they also need to go enjoy the sunshine and personal time with a human being outside of instant messenger.

Technology has changed us in other ways too. Just look at television, the writer's strike came out because of the increase in demand of shows and specials being available online. At TVguide.com, actors and actresses, writers, and directors are keeping blogs and answering questions and talking to fans like never before. I also keep up with my favorite shows by listening to podcasts created by fans, who interview the staff and stars. That couldn't be done ten years ago; that wouldn't have been done ten years ago.

And now in color guard, something very near and dear to my heart, the evolution has begun. Instead of using tapes and tape players to record judges' comments, the local circuit here and many others, have started using digital voice recorders. Tape and tape players are so hard to come by now and this process is so much easier. When the comments have been recorded, the comments can be burned onto a CD, copied to a flash drive, or added to your ipod. The way music is used in color guard is also changing, we've been using CD's for some time now, but will the next move be to hook up your ipod or mp3 player? Will there be a need for CD's soon? A very interesting thought.

Way Cool Review Tool

I just found a great site, thanks to Steve Dembo! I was reading his blog this morning, Teach42, and he was talking about MyStudiyo.com, a site that you can create interactive quizzes on that can be put on your website or blog. I checked it out and I'm pretty impressed with the results! What a great way to review curriculum with students. I created my own quiz using some CMS/CFA questions on 6th grade Social Studies. Check it out for yourself below: