Mathematical Musings

Fractions and Slope

2010-09-21T13:29:00.003-06:00

I just read a great article in last month's NCTM journal, Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School. It describes how algebra teachers can use the properties of slope to clarify student understanding of fraction operations. If you are an NCTM member, you can access the article here.

The article got me to thinking about several different ideas. First of all, the ability to work with fractions is critical for student success in upper levels of math. High school teachers are constantly providing remediation to students who are having trouble with fractions. I would dare say that fractions are to pre-algebra and above as basic facts are to arithmetic. I hear 5th-8th grade teachers saying, "My students struggle with what I am trying to teach because they don't know their basic facts. " I hear 7th-high school teachers saying, "My students struggle with what I am trying to teach because they don't know how to work with fractions." Each year in math builds on the previous years' work. If students are missing crucial pieces of their mathematical foundation, they cannot build upon that foundation and acquire the new knowledge they need. The longer this is allowed to continue without repair, the more unstable the structure becomes.

I am not saying that we should neglect the required content for a grade and just reteach skills from earlier years. The second thing I want to share from this article is that we should be constantly looking for connections in the content we teach. There are many ways to embed skill practice in grade-level contexts. In fact, the new context may be what certain students need to see in order to master content that has been troubling them. As the author of the article says, making a connection between two math concepts may help "students develop a richer understanding of both (Cheng, 2010)." Where are other places that we can embed fraction understanding?

Reference

Cheng, Ivan. "Fractions: A New Slant on Slope." Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School 16 (August 2010): 34-41.

Look what technology can do!!!

2010-09-21T13:19:00.002-06:00

This is a test of the mobile blogging network. I'm sending this post from my mobile phone. Isn't that cool!!!

I just sent the previous sentence to my blog from my phone. Now I am editing the post from the computer. I can see possibilities for this! I get lots of stray ideas that I would like to blog about when I am away from the computer. Now I can send those ideas to my blog, start the conversation, and edit it later if necessary! Blogging has changed a lot since the old days! (ha!) I am really excited about the possibilities and hopeful that this will encourage me to blog more often!

Cooperative Learning Strategies

2010-09-20T14:18:00.006-06:00

I love going into classrooms and seeing teachers excited about what they are doing that is working well! Last week I visited a 6th grade math and science teacher who is thrilled with the way her new cooperative learning strategies are working in her classroom. She learned these strategies at AMSTI training this summer from a math specialist who refuses to take credit for the ideas. :-) However, they both gave me permission to share, so here goes...

Rules for Super Teams

Works together for common goals
Makes sure that everyone in the group understands the concept
Allows for different opinions in working toward a solution
Is patient with all members
Encourages each member to do their best work
Stays on task
Is eager to share after exploring together
Is careful with manipulatives and tools of math
Leaves team area neat and clean
Brings our math notebook each day
Collects papers when a team member is out
Increases scores on tests and daily work

She groups students randomly and changes the groups regularly. Students are seated in groups of four, and each student has a role in the group. Cards outlining the duties of each role and "sound bites" that might be overheard from someone performing that role properly are at each desk.

Roles for Team Members

Coach/Leader

Makes sure every voice is heard
Focuses team on learning task
Collects handouts for members who are absent
Manages time so that the group gets the task completed

Sound Bites

“Let’s hear from Ben next.”
“That’s interesting, but let’s get back to our task.”
“Let’s settle this by voting or paper/rock/scissors.”
“If we can’t agree, we will have to ask Mrs. Smith to intervene.”
“Here are the handouts you missed and I will ask Mrs. Smith to give you a copy of our Venn diagram from yesterday.”
“We only have 5 minutes left. Let’s see if we can state this in a sentence or two.”
“I think it is time to ask the teacher for help since I am not getting cooperation.”

Gopher

Follow directions regarding materials for the day
Picks up materials when instructed
Makes sure everything is in good shape
Reports to Coach if anything material is broken or not working
Turns in all materials in good condition
Collects all papers to be turned in

Sound Bites

“Coach, this ruler is broken. I will get another for us if you will let Mrs. Smith know.”
“Please hand me your papers with your names on them so that I can turn them in.”
“I see you are still using the calculator, but my instructions are to return them now.”

Reporter

Reports to class what the group has discovered
Makes sure that he/she understands what the group wants to say about a topic
May not always agree with the groups response
Speaks clearly so that everyone in the room can hear
Uses graphic representations when appropriate to help audience understand

Sound Bites

“My group thinks that…”
“We found that….”
“As the graph shows…”
“Although we all did not agree, the majority thinks…”
“The last group was correct, but we also found…”
“We got the same answer, but we did it this way…”

Recorder/Checker

Records what the reporter will say
Completes any written assignment that the team is required to turn in
Reads instructions on any handout to the team
Rechecks figures on answers

Sound Bites

“Here are the instructions for this sheet we are to do and hand in at the end of the exploration.”
“This is what we have decided the reporter should mention.”
“Will you help me because I need to write a summary statement and draw this polygon.”
“Now, let me read this to you and see anyone has anything to add.”
“Well, we can do it that way, but it has to be done this way to hand in.”
“Let’s all write our names on this since it is being turned in.”

The teacher encourages teamwork by giving points for working together, completing homework, improving test scores, etc. She has a collection of green and red craft sticks: green sticks are for positive behaviors that are rewarded with points, and red sticks subtract points for inappropriate behavior and work ethic. Each team turns in a record of points earned at the end of each class period, and the team with the most points is rewarded with a treat at regular intervals. The students are working together to help each other learn, and their teacher is very happy with the results!

So, how is cooperative learning working in your classroom? What strategies are working well for you? What challenges do you face? Let's start a conversation and learn from each other!

What's on my mind

2010-09-03T11:02:00.002-06:00

Lots of new projects to ponder....coaching...formative assessment...differentiated instruction....interactive student notebooks...5E lessons...distance learning...new hire training...sustainability...

Trying to decide where to focus my energy for the moment, but knowing that some mundane details must be taken care of...More to come later...back to work for now!

Here I go again...

2010-08-06T22:29:00.003-06:00

How many times am I going to start then stop blogging before I finally stick with it? I really, really, really want to make blogging part of the way that I communicate with the teachers that I serve. I used to find the time to do this, and I know I can do it again! Of course, that was in the days before Facebook...surely I would find blogging just as rewarding (probably more so) than the mindless minutes (hours?) that I spend there. Of course, blogging is not mindless, so maybe that is why I have avoided it for so long?

I considered starting fresh with a new blog, but I kinda like this old friend. I spent a long time making it look a certain way, and I just don't want to do that again for now. I want to encourage conversation among the teachers I serve through AMSTI, and I invite anyone else who is interested to join in with us. I may end up talking to myself, but I guess that's okay, too.

So...what are we going to talk about? Teaching and learning math, science, and technology. What should students know? How should we teach it to them? How do we know if they have learned it? What should we do when they haven't learned yet? We are going to start off by talking about differentiating instruction, but I will save that conversation for another day. Have a great weekend!

Math Placement Research

2009-04-21T17:12:00.002-06:00

It is that crazy time of year, and I would guess that many of you are dealing with math placement decisions for your students. The following link has an interesting article about the effect that math placement has on certain students.

“More challenging middle-school math classes and increased access to advanced courses in predominantly black urban high schools may be the key to closing the racial academic achievement gap, according to a University of Illinois study. "

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090420121423.htm

Here are a couple of quotes from the article that really made me think.

Students who take more advanced math courses in middle school lengthen their lead over time, and the positive school-related behaviors developed in those advanced courses lead to even higher achievement.

Being in a classroom where the expectations are higher, the course work is more rigorous, and the climate is more academic has huge effects on student effort.

These finding don’t surprise me because I have seen this happen with my students, but it is great to see research that backs up my instincts. So my questions are, “so what?” and “what now?”

What implications does this have for our students?
How can we use this information to help students?
How can we duplicate the positive effect of advanced classes for students who are not advanced?
If we put everyone into "advanced" classes, would they still be "advanced?"
Should we pick promising students to "place" into advanced classes even if they don't "qualify?"

I would also like to see the researchers' definition of "academic climate. " Obviously, this includes more than high expectations and rigorous coursework. I would think the climate would be the most challenging to change. I also think that we might have many different pictures of what a room with an academic climate looks like and sounds like.

What are your thoughts?

Come see my new blog

2009-03-10T20:48:00.001-06:00

I created a new blog for a class I am taking. I will be posting there for the next few weeks, so feel free to come on over and join the conversation!

I have returned!

2009-03-04T00:17:00.002-06:00

After a prolonged absence from the blogging world, I am back.....at least for 8 weeks! I am taking my FINAL master's degree class, and one of this week's assignments is to set up a blog. I will be required to post to it during the course, and I hope that I will be back in the habit by the end of the course. I have so many new ideas that need to be processed...I have some job responsibilities that could be met by blogging...I enjoy it! There is no reason not to jump back into blogging, so here I go!

My children are now 15, 11, and 5. They are eagerly anticipating a driver's license, middle school, and kindergarten!. My husband is STILL on active duty with the Army. He was recently promoted to Lt. Colonel. We are very proud of him. I am in my second year as AMSTI math specialist, and I am loving it. More on that later. Good night for now...I am looking forward to some great conversations on here!

Inspiration for a Rainy Day

2008-04-04T12:54:00.002-06:00

I have been cleaning out my office and working to reduce the clutter in my life. I ran across a piece of paper I saved months ago that has some quotes I want to keep. I couldn't decide where to file them, and then I decided to post them instead of filing them. I believe I can find them here if I need them again! These are from the room of the Reading Coach at Horizon Elementary School in Madison, Alabama.

Meeting Parameters

Time is our most valuable resource.
We are all active participants.
What we plan, we implement.
We talk about things we can control.
Anything said here, stays here.
Turn off anything that rings, dings, or sings.
Take care of yourself
Never lose sight of our goal!

"Don't even think about organizing your time if your space isn't under control."

~ Julie Morganstern

"In the absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia."

~ Jack Canfield

Engineering or Music?

2008-03-26T17:24:00.002-06:00

My older son is planning his schedule for next year. He will be a sophomore in high school, and he surprised me today with his plans. I thought he was going to take Engineering Drawing or Engineering Design, and I was prepared to investigate the difference in the opportunities those two classes provide. He had an exploratory technology class this year, and the Technical Drawing portion of the year was his favorite. He has expressed interest in becoming an engineer, an occupation that I have always thought would suit him.

This afternoon he told me that he doesn't want to take Engineering this year because he wants to take an extra music class. He is already in the marching band, and he is enjoying it much more than he expected. He wants to take Instrumental Music as well so he can improve his skills on his instrument (percussion). After I asked lots of questions, he told me he would like to stay involved in music in college, and then he said that he is considering a career in music! I don't know how I feel about this.

I think my main concern is that he keep his options open for later. He can take private music lessons after school and continue with the engineering classes. I would be okay with him being a music major if he pursued a career that would provide a steady income (like band director), but I don't want him to be a starving artist! However, he is only 14 years old, and I am sure that he will changed his mind about what he wants to do for a living many times in the next few years. His father is 42, and he still hasn't made up his mind!

On the other hand, I think it is really cool that my child is interested in music! I took piano lessons for 10 years, including one year in college. My college teachers kept forgetting that I was not a music major, and I stopped taking lessons because I had reached a level that wasn't relaxing and fun. I also excelled in band in middle school and high school, and I love to sing. It is gratifying to see my child inheriting my strengths instead of my weaknesses for a change!

Valentine's Day Math Activities

2008-02-13T11:37:00.002-06:00

Are you searching for last-minute ideas for Valentine's Day? Here are some suggestions!

Lessons using Conversation Hearts

Fractions
Ratios, graphing
Pie chart, other ideas
Bar graphs (detailed lesson plan with handouts)
Coordinate graphing (Battleship)
Graphing, making predictions
More graphing (detailed lesson plan)
Estimating area

M&M Cookies

Count the number of M&M's in a cookie. Extend to find mean, median, and mode.

Misc.

Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Visual Literacy

2008-01-22T18:43:00.000-06:00

I am reading a great book for a class I am taking. The book is Visual Literacy: Learn to See, See to Learn, by Lynell Burmark. I highly recommend it to anyone (including teachers) who is giving presentations. The book contains many practical suggestions about visually enhancing presentations to make them more effective.

What I was reading tonight concerned charts, graphs, and diagrams. She gives some ideas for incorporating graphs and charts into the content areas. These would be great ideas for interdisciplinary lessons!

Literature
When teaching Macbeth, divide the class into groups and ask each group to decide the percentage of blame for killing Duncan. Create a pie graph and make an oral presentation to the class defending the graph.

History
Graph the factors that might account for South's success in the early part of the Civil War despite having only 30% of all troops.

Math
Students can take a photograph and overlay it with a transparent grid. Transfer to grid paper, copying square by square. Enlarge the drawing to cover a larger surface.

The Colors of Autumn

2007-11-21T07:56:00.001-06:00

I love the beautiful colors of autumn! It seems that this year the leaves have been especially gorgeous. Maybe it just seems that way because I have been traveling more with my new job. I have wanted too stop and take pictures, so thank you to the Decatur Daily for doing it for me!

Help Wanted: Creative Thinkers!

2007-11-20T21:25:00.000-06:00

It is time to unleash your imagination and create the ultimate math classroom! Riverton Middle School, in Huntsville, Alabama, wants to develop a state-of-the-art math lab, and they want your ideas. They are creating a lab for teachers to take their classes for large-group, small-group, and individualized instruction. They want to remediate, challenge, and enrich their students. In the planning phase, the sky is the limit! Once they have a plan in place, they will begin the search for funding through grants, fund-raising, and donations.

The room is large enough to divide into four areas:

Presentation area - smart board, projector, narrow tables, responders
Small group tables
Large tables for whole-class group work
Fifteen computers

The room has an office with windows, a sink, and great storage areas. There is also video recording equipment available.

They are looking for recommendations for the best software, manipulatives, and other materials for sixth through eighth graders. What would you include in The Ultimate Math Classroom?

Turkey Talk

2007-11-14T23:15:00.001-06:00

While I was visiting Chapman Middle School today, Nancy Gregson shared with me a neat activity that she will be doing with her 7^th graders for Thanksgiving. She took an idea from Summer Institute and made it her own. Her students are going to trace the outline of their hand onto graph paper. They will then identify coordinates of points that are on the outline of their hand. Those points can be graphed in graphing calculators using the LIST feature. Finally, Nancy will upload the graphs to her computer and print the screenshots from the student calculators. They will color their printed graph to look like a turkey. I plan to share pictures when they are finished.

So many tools, so little time!

2007-11-13T15:23:00.000-06:00

I love to write for my blog. You can't tell that by looking at my archives because I have not posted in a very long time. I started off with a bang; but real life interfered and decided to shift my priorities. During the week I am both mother and father to three precious children...a 14 year old, a 10 year old, and a 4 year old. My husband comes home on the weekends (most of the time), so that's not the time to be blogging, either!

But I think it is time to try again. I have a new job in which I need to reach out and encourage people to use technology. I am working on my Master's degree in Integrating Classroom Technology, and it wouldn't take much effort to tweak some of my assignments and turn them into blog posts. And then, there is this wonderful opportunity to be part of Alabama's 21st Century Learning community. These are exciting times, and I want to do it all!

I have found that the new tools are so fascinating to me that they can take over my life. The hours fly by as I surf the web, set up a wiki, write a blog post, read through my bloglines account, or follow a rabbit trail through delicious. Twitter scares me a little because it sounds like something I could become addicted to! I was a Tapped In maniac, and Ning seems to have even more potential for grabbing my attention and taking my precious time.

I need a little more efficiency in my life. I have an iPod that I can use to learn on the road. I spend quite a bit of time driving between my 25 schools. I could be listening to podcasts with just a minimum of effort to download them at night. I am reading a book on becoming more efficient called Getting Things Done, by David Allen. He promises to change my life, so it's worth a try! With the time I am planning to save by being more productive, I should have time to blog!

How do the rest of you manage your time? How do you limit your time on the computer so it doesn't take over your life? What tips or tricks do you have for becoming more productive?

I love my job!!!

2007-08-31T23:20:00.000-06:00

My new job began one month ago, and it is so much fun that I do not feel as if I am working! I am a math specialist for the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative, also known as AMSTI. I am responsible for visiting approximately 25 schools and 75 teachers to support their use of AMSTI ideas and materials. They have already attended at least two weeks of summer training, so I am there for follow-up support for the teachers.

I have completed my first class towards my Master's Degree. I am working on a degree in Integrating Classroom Technology from Walden University. It is a lot of work, but I am learning some wonderful things.

I hope that this blog can become a place to share pedagogical ideas. My classroom blog will remain available, and I think I will continue to post classroom activities, links, etc., that might be useful to students or teachers. I am also planning to expand my wiki to include 5th through 8th grades. It is receiving quite a bit of traffic that I hope will continue.

Great days are ahead! I pray that God will use me in this new job to bring glory to Him as I go about North Alabama. Best wishes for a wonderful school year!

I'm Moving On...

2007-05-26T23:20:00.000-06:00

A chapter of my life has ended, and a new one has begun. Yesterday I packed up my classroom for (possibly) the final time, and I am looking forward to beginning a new phase of my career. This fall I will begin working for the Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative as a math specialist. I will have an office at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, and I will travel around North Alabama working with AMSTI-trained teachers. I spent a year (several years ago) doing this job, and it is exciting to be returning to such a wonderful place!

I have requested a leave of absence for a year so that I may return to my school system if this job is not what I expected it to be. A lot has changed in the five years since I worked with AMSTI, and I am a little nervous about going back. I absolutely loved the job before! Most days I did not feel as if I were even working. I was able to enjoy most of the wonderful parts of teaching and leave out many of the negatives (grading papers, parent conferences, discipline issues, etc.). However, I have been really sad this week about leaving the classroom. I am going to miss my students. I love having a group of students to call my own. I love watching their confidence in mathematics grow throughout the year. I love getting them to discuss their thinking about their work. I love getting to know them! Seventh graders are so very interesting! I am also sad because I haven't done everything I wanted to do as a teacher. I never got a collaborative project off the ground like our Alatoba project from this year. My students didn't use the online tools the way I wanted them to. I could do a better job of teaching several concepts. I still have so much to learn about being a good teacher.

Someone told me that my reluctance to leave the classroom was a sign of a good teacher. I hope that is what it is. I feel very much like I did at high school and college graduation...I know it is time to move on, but I have liked what I have been doing and I am a little unsure about what comes next. I have been in the classroom for 17 of the past 18 years. I am looking forward to having a life outside of work! However, I am beginning to work on my Master's Degree, so any extra time I have will be taken up by that.

I would love to hear from people who have left the classroom. Did you have mixed feelings about leaving? The beginning of the school year will be strange! I am looking forward to less stress. Any wise words would be much appreciated!

P.S. Busy summer ahead. My family is leaving for Disney World Tuesday. We will be gone for two weeks! The week after we return, AMSTI Summer Institute begins. That also lasts two weeks. July is filled with camp and Vacation Bible School, and then August will be here before we know it. I keep looking for a chance to relax, but I don't think it is going to happen! Have a great summer!

Priorities

2007-03-24T14:09:00.000-06:00

Spring Break is nearly at an end. It has been a good week in many ways, and a very eye-opening week in others. My priorities are very much out of order. I have become so fascinated with the possibilities that abound for education through Web 2.0 that I have neglected other responsibilities...mainly my roles as a wife and a mother. I have become so attached to the computer that I think the keyboard might be growing out of my fingers. And to be honest, not all of my computer-related pursuits have been educational...there are so many diversions to be found on the internet that I can hardly pull myself away. Once I start working on a Griddlers puzzle, time has no meaning to me. There are many good things coming my way through the internet, but until I get my family life back into a meaningful routine I must put this part of my life aside. I don't know how long it will take, but I am going to do my best to do school work at school (including online work) and devote my home time to family. If I seem to drop off the face of the earth, don't think I have disappeared. I am just reading a story to a child, sitting down for a family meal, teaching my daughter how to ride a bike, helping someone with homework, exercising, spending time with God's Word, or possibly getting a good night's sleep. I'll be back when I figure out how to keep this part of my life from stealing from the most important things in my life. God bless you all.

Controversy

2007-02-08T21:56:00.000-06:00

I have started a controversy among people who are my superiors at work. It has to do with filtering issues, and I hate being involved in controversy. Some people crave controversy. I run from it, but here I am right in the middle. I didn't really start it, but I brought the issue out into the open, and brought it to the attention of some people who have strong feelings on both sides. I didn't mean to request special treatment, I just wanted to be able to complete a worthwhile project I started with my students. I also wanted to fulfill my obligations to a state-wide program that I have commited to.

I feel such a disconnect between what I believe to be good teaching practices and what is practical this year. I am hearing a lot of mixed messages (not only about technology), and I am not sure if the message is mixed or just my perception is mixed-up. I feel the need to have some long conversations with several different people to clear up some things, but I am so afraid of making things worse. I want to say, "Here is what I am trying to do with my students. How can I accomplish this and still stay within the parameters that are important to you?" I am afraid I will hear, "Don't do it at all."

I am being intentionally vague here because I don't want to create more problems. I am very frustrated. I know the other people involved are simply trying to do their jobs to the best of their ability, but so am I. We all want what is best for the students. We just have different philosophies about how to accomplish this. And everyone is too busy to sit down and talk about it, including me.

Free Falling Blog Club - Epilogue

2007-01-07T21:24:00.000-06:00

What an amazing afternoon! I have been rethinking everything that occurred, and it has taken 24 hours for me to finally process enough to write about the January meeting of the Free Falling Blog Club.

The Joys of Skype
We got off to a bit of a rocky start. I have had microphone issues with my computer, so I decided to have the Skypecast running on my laptop and Tapped In running on the pc. I think the wireless laptop connection might make the Skype connection unreliable (I just checked and found another port on the broadband hub that I might plug the laptop into for next time...gotta find the correct connection cable). When I got into the Skypecast room, there were already people there ready to go. There was a bit of confusion about the beginning time. I intended to officially begin at 4pm CST, but I wanted to open up the room at 3pm so I could play around with Skype before we actually started. The Skypecast page said it began at 3, and the wiki said it began at 4. Factor in that people from all over the world were attending and you get some confusion! I'm sure there is a way to explain that more fully in the Skypecast details, but I didn't think about that ahead of time.

I think I figured out what happened next...I opened up the Skypecast on my PC and tried the sound just in case. I could hear, but I couldn't be heard (not surprising, but I thought it was worth a try). Then I joined the Skypecast from my laptop. I think that is when the big problems began. I could be heard for a little bit, but then things started getting crazy. I switched my microphones around, rebooted the laptop (which is incredibly slow...it seemed to take forever...maybe 5 or 10 minutes), and I couldn't get back into the room. I finally got around to reading Skype's FAQ today, and saw that the moderator can't leave. Logging into it twice was probably a big mistake. No one else had moderator privileges, so we were stuck for a moment. I could hear people talking, I was IM'ing some folks, and desperately hoping that Chris would show up to save the day! I had no idea what to do next, and I was panicking!!! Thankfully, BJ Berquist from Tapped In was there to keep the talking going while I tried to get my problems fixed. Chris quickly created a back-up room, we notified everyone of the switch through the Tapped In chat and the wiki, and then officially began only 2 minutes late! Chris ran the technical end of the Skypecast and I began the discussion.

And what an awesome discussion it turned out to be! When I blogged six hours before we began, there were 12 participants signed up on the wiki. There ended up being 20 people who participated through the TI room and in Skype that we know are educators interested in Web 2.0, but there were dozens of others who were in and out of Skype that were listening! Chris had his hands full pulling the strings behind the curtain to make sure that everyone could hear and that everyone who had a relevant comment could speak. He did a wonderful job in spite of his own computer woes!

Podcasting
It seemed like the topic of podcasting drew several people to the conversation. After we introduced ourselves, Jen, Paul, John, and Allanah shared what they are doing with podcasting. It was great to have Silvia join us to hear all the ideas that her K12 Online presentation generated among us! She did a great job, and I hope our conversation was evidence of that to her! Several people were looking for podcasting tutorials, and Jen did a great job of grabbing links from somewhere and putting them in the chat window. I have put them all in one spot on the wiki. It would be great to have those links reviewed on the wiki to make it easier for people to find what they are looking for (There goes another thing on my to-do list!) There were a few other questions about podcasting that I have posted to the wiki, and then there were lots of suggestions for cool tools to use (yes, those are on the wiki as well). It would also be great to have that information in our K12 Online Tapped In room.

The Urgency of Web 2.0
This discussion took us right through the first hour of the conversation, and then we turned our thoughts to Graham Wegner's presentation on “No Teacher Left Behind - The Urgency Of Web 2.0.″ Graham was with us as well, and I appreciate all that he contributed to the discussion.
We talked about how we became interested in Web 2.0, and we discussed ways of spreading the word to other teachers. Graham's phrase "Innovation in Isolation" really struck a chord with many of us as we are trudging along in our schools, juggling many responsibilities in addition to trying to learn all we can about better ways to reach students. Again, there were lots of suggestions and links shared that have all been put into the wiki. Thanks especially to Terry Freedman for joining in with lots of great insights, including tips for becoming an award-winning blogger and inside information about the latest edition of Coming of Age!

Connecting
I feel as if we all have taken another step toward connecting globally with like-minded educators. I have new people to add to bloglines, new contacts in Skype, new folks to look for in Tapped In. I think I found another teacher or two to work with Chris and me on our proportions project, and I have lots to share with the teachers on my school's 21st Century Team and the teachers across Alabama in the 21st Century Schools Project.

Next Steps
Chris has suggested (and I agree), that it would be a good idea for someone in the Southern Hemisphere to host the next blog club meeting. If this is a global adventure, it should sometimes occur at times that are convenient for other parts of the world. The more people that are involved in planning the meetings, the more global the focus can become. I am more than willing to help someone (I'm really itching for another chance to do the Skypecast correctly), but this was such a learning experience that I want to share the opportunity.

I am planning to show some initiative in our Tapped In room and try to generate more conversation there. As Sue said today in an email, Tapped In is truly the ultimate Web 2.o community. As I looked in the About Us room, I saw that several people from yesterday's chat had visited the room without joining the discussion. I added some discussion prompts, and I plan to add more. Anyone can add topics and reply to other posts. This is a wonderful place for us to ask and answer questions from each other. It is a place where we don't have to coordinate time zones, we don't have to be unmuted to speak, we don't have to worry about flashers (that's for you, Terry!), and each person can steer the conversation in any direction they choose!

I have at least one other "next step" I want to take. I want to practice making a skypecast on a much smaller scale before I try it again with a large group. Judging by all of our visitors today, I could just create the skypecast and the world would join in. I would rather attempt a conversation about some aspect of education with 4 or 5 people so I could practice all the different features of Skype that I read about a day too late! (I don't think they would have made sense to me before I actually experienced it for the first time. I have to actually do something before I understand it.) Would anyone be interested in having a conversation anytime soon? This definitely would not be a three hour marathon, just a half hour or so. Let me know if you are interested and I will set up a time. Next Monday would be good for me (Jan. 15) because it is a school holiday and my husband will be home to take care of the kids. Later in the evening would work for me as well because I am a night owl.

I would love feedback (positive and constructive) about yesterday's event. There were many opportunities for improvement, but overall I felt really excited about it. Thanks again to everyone who let this newbie ask my questions and step into this new world that we are creating together! For more information about the Free Falling Blog Club, check out the wiki!

Free Falling Blog Club

2007-01-06T09:32:00.000-06:00

Today I take another step into the unknown...I am hosting my first Skypecast! This is the second meeting of the Free Falling Blog Club that is a continuation of the discussion about the K12 Online Conference. We will discuss iPods in Education and Sharing Web 2.0 with other teachers. At this point there are 12 participants signed up. I think that is a really good number. There will be lots of voices in the discussion, but everyone should have the opportunity to participate. I am a little nervous, but very excited! I hope my children behave...this would be the weekend that my husband doesn't come home! I hope my minor health issue doesn't act up. I hope the microphone works on my computer. I hope everyone enjoys the skypecast. Any prayers sent my way would be most welcome!

Five Things About Me

2007-01-02T02:28:00.000-06:00

Thanks, Chris for tagging me! I have taken a break from blogging and reading blogs during the holidays, so I may be a little late to the party. Here goes....(I'll edit to add links later)....

1. I am a Christian. This is something I don't talk about as much as I should. I love how Vicki Davis is always sharing her faith through her blog. My relationship with God is very precious and personal to me, but I keep it more private than I should. I have always believed in God and Jesus as my parents are very wonderful role models. I met my husband at David Lipscomb University, a Christian college in Nashville, Tennesse. I also made friendships there that will last a lifetime even though we don't live near each other any more. (I doubt that any of them read my blog, but I'm sorry about not sending Christmas cards this year. It's still on my to-do list, but this is more fun!) My oldest son became a Christian last summer, and seeing his baptism has to be the proudest moment of my life, so far!

2. I am an only child. This is something I talk about even less! I have a very vivid memory of Mrs. Ford, my eighth grade English teacher discovering I was an only child. In all seriousness she exclaimed very loudly in front of the whole class, "Jeanne!!! I had no idea you were an only child!!! You are so normal!!!!" I was mortified! I always wanted an older brother and a younger sister, but it never happened. My best friend and her brother fought all the time. It hurt me to see them do this because I felt that if they knew how lonely I was, they would appreciate each other more. I vowed that my own children would love each other and be nice to each other all the time. Reality has definitely hit me in the face with that one! It still surprises me how much they enjoy aggravating each other. Of course, the smaller one always gets hurt, and the bigger one always ends up mad.

3. I guess you could say that I am a musician. I took piano lessons from 3rd grade through my freshman year in college. I was pretty good. I played for three major college productions and accompanied a voice major for her junior recital. However, I really wanted to be the singer. I was in chorus for two years in college, and I loved it. I have done some singing in weddings, I was a member of a Barbershop singing group (like Sweet Adelines), and I would really like to join the Decatur Civic Chorus. If my husband ever gets to the place where he is home regularly in the evenings, that's the first thing I am going to sign up to do! I love to sing to my children, and I would love to play the piano still, but everytime I sit down to play, someone wants to sit in my lap or play with me. By the way, I also played the clarinet in high school.

4. In my former life as a mother of two, I was an avid scrapbooker. I have completed over a dozen scrapbooks, but that came to a screeching halt the year I worked for AMSTI and then found out I was expecting my third child. I know that life will slow down eventually, so I keep packing stuff away and hoping I will get back to cropping someday.

5. I think I will brag a little for my 5th item....I used to be really smart! I was a National Merit Scholar, I received a full-tuition academic scholarship for college, and I made a perfect score (32) on the math portion of the ACT. Life's a little rough when you hit your peak at 18!

Now I have to tag 5 other people. I'm late in the game, so I may not know anyone who hasn't been tagged yet. Let's try Sheryl, April, Brandi, Mei Flower, and Sharon.

Happy New Year!

I want to be part of a 21st Century School!

2006-11-26T13:52:00.000-06:00

I've been rather busy lately, and I have also been trying to balance my personal and professional life, so my blogging has been neglected in favor of cooking and cleaning and spending time with loved ones. Even though I haven't been writing much, I have kept up with some of my reading, and something I read today has motivated me to write again!

My Canadian friend Chris wrote an interesting post yesterday in which he ponders how he can be part of a 21st Century School like this school featured in a K12 Online presentation. Here is part of what he said.

One idea that popped into my head was to create a space, wiki, blog, whatever where all of us island could go and find tools to help our students acquire the skill they need to become more web savvy. Darren and I are creating a How to wiki where our students will create screencasts to help future bloggers with their projects. It will be amazing when there is a screencast for all these new tools (never ending list) made by kids instructing kids on how to use them.

I know there are sites out there that help teachers link with teachers. Chris Lehmann runs a school where all the faculty and students embrace the new reality of information. They are a 21st C school. He made a presentation for the k12online conference. I will be holding a Blog Club to talk about this movie.

Here is what has been going on in my head since I saw the movie. Chris has a school where everyone is onboard using the new tools that our out there. He practices what he preaches. We as educators are probably alone in our building practicing what Chris is talking about. How do we network our kids to see that they are not alone out there. This is the question I am struggling to answer. Our students need to see other students out there in the world doing similar learning. Once they have this audience they will start to participate more and put more effort into their learning.

When I worked with Jeanne the synergy was fantastic. We worked harder on the project because we could work as a team. We were Skyping and chatting all the time while we were editing the wiki. These collaberative projects are needed. Kids need to skype each other during the school day and feel this synergy. More powerful than this would be kids working together on a homework project that involved students from around the world.

I am proposing that we create a Virtual 21st Century school. Where we have classes of every discipline from all over the globe. We communicate to each other and have group projects. Students see that there is an audience for their work and make new friendships and learn about students from all over the world. I am not the person to create this space. Chris Lehmann said that he and his staff worked for 7 months online to create the Science Learning Academy. Hmmm 7 months from now a new school year dawns. Wouldn't it be cool to have a virtual 21st century school where the world took part in great learning experiences.

A dream is only a dream until you wake up and make it reality. I just might wake up soon :-)

Anyone else willing to wakeup with me?

What a great idea! I want to be a part of making this happen! Count me in! Who else wants to be a part of this?

CTAP IV Middle School Math Project

2006-11-13T22:29:00.000-06:00

Run, don't walk, to this website!!! It is the best collection of online math resources I have ever seen!!!!! Explore all the differect categories. I especially like the matrices that list all of the California middle school objectives and resources for each one. Their objectives are not identical to ours, but there are enough similarities that I can find all kinds of resources that I can use. I also like Unpackings, which gives instructions for using various resources. There is also a section on differentiating instruction in mathematics. Thank you so much to Anne Bubnic for sharing this with me! This is the vision I had for my wiki, and now I have a new resource to add to it!

Black Bears are Blogging!

2006-10-22T14:33:00.000-06:00

Well, I finally did it! After having my blogging policy blogged about from here to Canada and lots of places in between, I finally passed it out to my students and let them begin to blog! Here is the post from my class blog describing what we did.

Third period Pre-Algebra went to the computer lab on Friday and entered the world of Web 2.0 at school! They behaved beautifully, they stayed on-task, and they were enthusiastic about what we were doing. They followed the instructions in the post below and introduced themselves, played a brainteaser, and tried Equation Blasters to practice solving equations. Mrs. Wright’s students were also blogging that day, and she has already posted some more puzzles for us to solve. Students do not have to wait until we return to the computer lab to reply to the new posts. You can access the blog from home, and students who are not in 3rd period are welcome to participate as well. We have exciting things planned for the future, so stayed tuned!

I want to thank Crystal Wright, an AMSTI buddy of mine from years ago, for creating The Math Challenger Blog and inviting my students to participate. We teach in different school systems about 30 miles apart, and my students are really excited about interacting with her students.

At this point the students are simply commenting to her posts. She is approving all comments before they are posted to the web. I want to have my students begin scribing for my classes because I don't have time to keep up with it. I think what we are doing now is a good introduction to writing actual posts in the near future. I would love to hear suggestions from anyone who has tried something like this. I would like to offer some type of credit for leaving comments in a way that will encourage my students to become involved without inflating their grade disproportionately. Any ideas?

"The Essence of Expert Teaching"

2006-10-18T21:52:00.000-06:00

I just read the most amazing thing. I am reading Integrating Differentiated Instructions and Understanding by Design by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe for a book study at my school. A passage jumped out at me tonight, and I had to get my thoughts out of my head and onto "paper" before I could continue reading. Here is what I read (emphasis mine)...

There is no such thing as the perfect lesson, the perfect day in school, or the perfect teacher. For teachers and students alike, the goal is not perfection but persistence in the pursuit of understanding important things.

I am such a perfectionist. When I look at all the mistakes I made just today, I feel like such a failure. I have said several times lately, "I am doing the best I can, and it is just not good enough." But I have the wrong goal, the wrong standard for success. I truly believe that I am doing the best I can, and it will have to be good enough, because I can't do any better today.

But wait, there's more...

Differentiated or responsive teaching really stems from and affirmative answer to three questions - and dogged determination to live out the answer in our classrooms a little better today than we did yesterday.

I think I might do better tomorrow. I am going to go to bed earlier tonight, and I know that will help. Here are the three questions:

1. Do we have the will and skill to accept responsibility for the diverse individuals we teach?
To develop positive ties with students to encourage their growth
To see their dreams and uncertainties
To study and respond to their cultures
To work with students to build positive learning communities
2. Do we have a vision of the power of high-quality learning to help young people build lives?
To know what really matters in a discipline
To ensure student understanding of what matters most
To discover what's relevant and compelling to individuals
To build student engagement in learning
3. Are we willing to do the work of building bridges of possibility between what we teach and the diverse learners we teach?
To seek out students' strengths and deficiencies
To create learning options for varied needs
To coach for success
To monitor individual growth against goals
That is the essence of expert teaching. It dignifies our work and our profession - even as it dignifies the students we teach.

Wait a minute...this wasn't what I was worrying about! I was feeling guilty because I was behind on writing students up for tardies, and I missed responding to a few emails, and I keep forgetting where I put things, and I forgot to put a date on my calendar, and I was a minute late to my duty station, and you can't hear a pin drop in my classroom most of the time, and I always lose my keys, and my students make noise coming back from lunch, and I have a lot of papers to grade, and my classroom is a mess. The little details are the hard things for me. The three questions...well, they are the reason I am teacher...they are who I am...they are my big rocks...according to the three questions...

...I'm not perfect, but I am doing alright.

Searching for Peace and Balance

2006-10-11T21:15:00.000-06:00

St. Theresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

I received the prayer above in an email from a good friend today, and it really spoke to some frustrations I have been experiencing as I try to juggle all of my responsibilities at home and at school. I am not feeling peaceful nor content at the moment. I know that I am where God intended for me to be this year. I know that the students in my classroom are there for a reason. I have had job options other than the classroom recently, and I know that I am where I am supposed to be, but I don't like it very much at the moment.

Don't get me wrong... I love my students as individuals. I like talking to them between classes. I like listening to their conversations and finding out what is going on in their lives. This is the first group of students that I've taught that are younger than my oldest child, so I feel very motherly towards them. A couple of girls even call me "Momma" all the time. I get hugs all day long. I am seeing improvement in behavior and in learning. At progress report time I had 23 failing grades. Now I just have around 12, and that may improve by the end of the week. This is still quite a lot of F's for me compared to other years, but I think cutting the number of F's in half is a big step in the right direction.

What I don't like is this constant feeling that I am not doing enough. Enough for my students, enough for my family, enough for my church, enough for myself. Whenever I focus my efforts in one direction, something else equally important goes undone. I am tired of spending 10 hours a day at school; grabbing fast food on the way to some evening activity; overseeing homework, chores, baths, and bedtime at way too late an hour for little ones; and then starting on my undone projects like grading papers, responding to parent emails, talking on the phone to my husband, paying bills, laundry, reading (not for pleasure), straightening the house, lesson planning, etc. My relaxation is reading my email and bloglines and looking at the statcounter for my blog. I occasionally post something, but not very often.

I guess I am a classic over-achiever. I cannot do something halfway and feel okay with that. At the moment I feel like I am doing everything halfway (at best!), and it is stressing me out. I know that some of the goals I set for myself are very unreasonable. Part of the problem lies in the fact that the things I enjoy the most and the things I think are most important are some of the extras that I could actually give up. The things that I don't enjoy and that I would like to give up are the things that other people are expecting me to do. And worst of all, the things that nobody insists that I do and that I do manage to leave out (Bible study, exercise, reading with my older children, fixing nutritious meals, relaxing with my family) are the most important of all!

This was all on my mind the other night and I couldn't sleep. So I got up and tried to put my responsibilities down on paper. I first tried drawing a mind map. It was pretty confusing (even with color-coding), so next I tried a list. I had one full page of school-related responsibilities, and another full page of home responsibilities. The list made a little more sense to me, and I would like to share it here. My next step may be to put it in a spreadsheet because several of these items overlap. However, I will save that project for my next sleepless night.

* Source of stress
* Source of help

Alabama Course of Study

Teach all content objectives for mastery. Students will demonstrate mastery on the Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test in April. Our goal for this year is to have 90% of our regular ed. students perform at the proficient level.
Follow our school system's pacing guide. We will have progress monitoring tests (district-wide common assessments) each month.

International Baccalaurate Program
We are being considered for admission into this program. We will have a site visit this spring to determine if we are on the right path for implementation. If not, lots of money has been wasted!

Oversee Technology Integration in 7th grade. Each student must complete at least 50 hours of technology (that follows the IB MYP Design Cycle). In 7th grade this will be embedded in the core classes. I think I have to organize and document this. I need to find out what documentation is required and exactly what counts as technology and following the Design Cycle.
Plan and teach one (or two?) interdisciplinary unit(s) this year.
Incorporate the Areas of Interaction in as many lessons as possible. I need to put these words on my wall and teach them to my students.

Alabama Math, Science, and Technology Initiative
This one is not a source of stress for me. It helps me fulfilling other responsibilities.

Teach the three 7th grade units: Stretching and Shrinking, Data Around Us (interdisciplinary, writing and reading in math), and What Do You Expect (great probability unit that helps students prepare for the ARMT)
Use technology provided with the kit (graphing calculators, calculator based rangers-no problem...lots of fun, but I don't think they meet the requirements for the Design Cycle).

21st Century Schools Program - Fellow and School Team Member
Great source of ideas and inspiration!
A huge commitment of time!

Mentor two new beginning schools. This includes online work and one site visit per school.
Decide on a team project. I am thinking of an interdisciplinary, technology-based service project. The one I have in mind will take lots of work!
Lead the team project.
Grow as a leader through the Key Leaders Network and Powerful Conversations Meetings.
Participate in Tapped In.

Expectation for Teachers at My School
We are considered to be an excellent school, and there is tremendous pride in our work. We are constantly striving to be better, and personal growth is encouraged and expected.
We are considered to be an excellent school, and there is tremendous pressure to maintain high standards.

Participate fully in all of the above.
Differentiate instruction.
Remediate failing students.
Intervention based on last year's ARMT and this year's ThinkLink scores.
Contact parents frequently.
Keep behavior in check without involving the office unnecessarily. I have never had students like these before. They are challenging everything I know about being a good teacher. I am not sure that I can be myself and be effective with three of my classes. It is exhausting to try to be someone you are not. Before I can teach them very much mathematics, they are going to have to learn the following behaviors:

Enter the classroom calmly and immediately begin working
Listen to and follow directions
Cooperative learning in small groups
Participation in whole group discussions
Follow classroom procedures

Help prepare students for the 7th grade Writing Assessment by writing across the curriculum.
Integrate reading strategies across the curriculum.
Integrate technology as much as possible.
Document all of this activiy on lesson plans.

What can I give up? What is most important? What gives me the best sense of fulfilling my purpose in life?

I cannot work any harder than I do right now. I can truly say that I am giving everything my best. My best is not good enough. I pray that God uses my weaknesses to show His strength. He will do His part. What is my part? How can I work smarter?

Books I am currently trying to read....

2006-10-07T23:15:00.000-06:00

I was thinking about all of the books I am in the processing of reading at this time, and it is a little overwhelming! As a child I was an avid reader. My mother went to the beauty shop once a week to have her hair done, and I would walk across the street to the library while I waited. Each week I checked out three books, and I almost always finished them before the following hair appointment. I would not have imagined reading more than one book at a time or failing to finish a book I started, even if I didn't like it! Oh, how times have changed! Here, in no particular order, are the books I am currently reading:

The Power of a Praying Wife, by Stormie Omartian
With my husband away on active duty with the Army, I wanted an extra measure of help sent our way.

The Power of a Praying Parent, by Stormie Omartian
Raising children is the most difficult thing I have ever attempted.

Raising a G-Rated Family in an X-Rated World by Brent & Phelecia Hatch
I found this one tonight. It contains report cards in the back for kids to use to grade their parents.

Tools for Teaching, by Fred Jones
This book is incredible! I want to read it in one sitting, but there are so many great ideas that I need to read a little and try something before going on to something else. The things I want to work on now are making my instruction much more visual and creating opportunities for structured practice in my lessons. I think this book is even better than Harry Wong's The First Days of School, which is also an incredible book! I am having a very challenging year, and I need all the help with discipline and instruction that I can get!

I found Tools for Teaching when I did a search for Fred Jones' Postitive Classroom Discipline. This was recommended to me by Lonnie Jones. Positive Classroom Discipline is intended to be a college textbook, and Tools for Teaching is a revision written for teachers. Tools for Teachers is much easier reading. I may never even attempt to finish Positive Classroom Discipline because I like the other one so much better!

I am part of the Key Leaders Network of the Alabama Best Practices Center. We are meeting to discuss Learning By Doing, by Rick DuFour et al. It is a handbook for professional learning communities at work, and we have assigned chapters to read throughout the year.

My school is having a book study on Integrating Differentiating Instruction and Understanding by Design by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay McTighe. There is a website to accompany Understanding by Design that sounds great, but it costs $89 to login. Does anyone know if it is worth it?

I think I might possibly be the last teacher in the United States to read The Essential 55, by Ron Clark. I will have to admit that I finally broke down and bought it after seeing the movie starring Matthew Perry. The movie was one of the best teacher movies I have ever seen! I am enjoying reading the book, but it is also one that is best read a little at a time. I am almost done with it!

I have actually finished reading Reluctant Disciplinarian by Gary Rubenstein. It was enjoyable, but it wasn't life-changing. Basically it says to Be Consistent and Be Yourself. What if I am inherently inconsistent? I prefer to think of myself as flexible and adaptable!

The Fred Factor is a great little book by Mark Sanborn that talks about having passion for what you do. I don't know why I haven't finished it, because it is easy reading and very short!

I have two devotional books started. My Wednesday night Bible class is studying Lord, I Want to Know You, by Kay Arthur. We are looking at the different names for God that are found in the Bible. I really like the way it is set up. The other book, Beloved Disciple, by Beth Moore, is being studied by a group of teachers. I can't go to the meetings because I don't have anyone to keep my kids, but I wanted to study the book anyway. I thought about begging them to have it at my house, but I can't do that until soccer season is over.

I am eager to get started exploring The New Inductive Study Bible that I recently bought. I love all the charts just waiting to be filled out. However, I want to do it the "right" way, and I am hesitant to start writing in it.

Finally, when I want to relax, I pull out O'ekaki: Paint by Sudoku. These puzzles are hard to find, and I was thrilled to find an entire book of them!

I need to read something for pleasure soon. The problem with that is that I often can't put a good fiction book down! I think I should reward myself when I finish one of these books by reading something for fun!

What can you do with a School Pad?

2006-09-14T21:26:00.000-06:00

I am enjoying learning how to use my new Interwrite School Pad. I bought mine with my National Board money, but now my school system is planning to purchase one school pad and a projector for each school. Teachers that are interested have been asked to apply for a grant. I have had four teachers ask me for ideas for their grant application, so I thought I would take this opportunity to brainstorm ways to use this cool tool in the classroom. Any comments and suggestions are welcome! Here goes...

You can run a PowerPoint from anywhere in the classroom. The great thing about this is that you are not tied to the front of the room. I guess this would be an expensive replacement for the little remote control that came with the projector, so it's good that there are other ways to use this!
You can write on your PowerPoint as you are making a presentation. The students think this is so cool. You can highlight, underline, annotate, illustrate, and otherwise embellish your presentation on the spot.
The annotations you make do not change the PowerPoint presentation, but they are saved as another type of file that can be accessed later if needed.
The SchoolPad comes with software that contains hundreds of images that are educational. My current favorites are gridlines and the coordinate plane.
I project onto my whiteboard, so I can draw on the board on top of what I project. I keep forgetting that I can also draw with the SchoolPad.
You can write on a blank page from anywhere in the classroom and save for later. It reminds me of when I had an overhead projector that had a roll of transparency film that I advanced as I used. If I did a particularly good job on the transparency from one class, I could roll it back and use it again.
This is also a high-tech way of using two transparencies...I used to write a long problem on one transparency and then lay another on it to solve it so I wouldn't have to rewrite the problem for every class. Now I can put the problem on my computer and solve it with the SchoolPad. My work can be saved, but I can also start fresh.
I don't have to clean transparencies any more!!!!!
My hands are clean at the end of the day!! No more colorful hands and fingertips from overhead markers! (I used to be embarassed to go anywhere after school because my hands were always so dirty. Not anymore! I'm sure this would NOT be impressive on a grant application!!! )
You can hand the pad to a student and let them write on it from their seat. Variety is the spice of life! My students love to write on it. It takes some practice and coordination.
It turns an ordinary whiteboard into an interactive board for a fraction of the cost, and you don't have to be standing at the board to use it. It is portable, so I could take it to another classroom.
Wouldn't it be fun to have two in one room! Students could compete to solve problems.

Does anyone out there have ideas to add to the list? I have noticed that I have had several visitors to my blog who are searching for Interwrite and/or SchoolPad information. Share what you know with me because I am definitely a beginner with this.

OVERWHELMED!!!!!!!

2006-09-11T18:39:00.000-06:00

I cannot get it all done! I am doing nothing well!!!! I have spread myself too thin!!! I need to rest!!! I don't go to bed at a decent hour because I am trying to get it all done!!!!

The clickers take a lot of setup and prep time that I feel like I should be spending teaching my students how to listen. The technology has not engaged them in the manner I was expecting. They just want to play, even though I gave them a little time for free exploration at the very beginning. My grades are horrible because they are not doing their homework. Progress reports go out tomorrow, and then the endless round of conferences begin. The behavior in my classes is worse this year than it has ever been. There are a few children with serious behavior issues that have given this group of students a bad reputation. The non-troublemakers have become whisperers...they are not disruptive, but they do not pay attention as they should. Then they don't learn, and then they become "helpless handraisers" who would prefer to grab my attention one-on-one than listen when I am explaining to the group. I am so tired!

And then I come home to three children (ages 13, 8, and 3)who need their mother to be both mother and father during the week. I never cook, the house and van are a mess, homework is not done well, teeth are never brushed, and my youngest will probably still be in diapers when he starts kindergarten!

Today I feel as if teaching is sucking the life out of me. I'm sure I will feel better soon, but it is going to be a long week...or month...or year.

Midnight update.....
I spent the better part of the evening calling parents of students who are failing. Surprisingly, that made me feel better! All the parents I talked to were really nice and supportive. I took a closer look at my grades, and I have more A's and B's than D's and F's. In fact, I have almost as many A's as I have D's and F's. That should be encouraging to me. I can do this!!! (I think I can...I think I can...I think I can....I think I can...I think I can...I think I can....)

An Introduction to Clickers

2006-08-30T22:05:00.000-06:00

This morning we spent three hours administering the Think Link test. The rest of the day's schedule was unusual; we skipped two classes and the others met for about 30 minutes each, except for the classes that meet during lunch time. Not a great day for introducing important material...the kids were brain dead after three hours of testing, and so was I! However, it was the perfect day to introduce my clickers!

My students were fascinated.
"What is this?"
"Does it text-message?"
"Can these get on myspace?"
"It's not doing anything!"
"Is it a calculator?"

I explained that these were part of a Personal Response System that I am going to begin using in class on a regular basis. I bought them this year with my National Board money, and today was the first time I tried them out with a classroom full of students. If you are not familiar with this new technology, it is a lot like polling the audience on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I can ask my students short answer, multiple choice, or true-false questions. They enter their answer into the clicker, and it transmits to my computer. At the end of each question a chart appears showing how many answered correctly. This can be used to quickly assess student understanding at any time during a lesson or for quizzes and tests.

The hardest part for me is getting the class started. You must push several buttons on the clicker to "join the class." If this is not done correctly, there is much confusion! Seventh graders are not known for their ability to listen and follow directions, especially when holding an object covered with buttons waiting to be pushed! It took a good 15-20 minutes in each class to get almost everyone to the point that they were able to transmit answers. In one class I had time to have them turn them off and start all over again. Everything went a little smoother the second time they tried it.

Using technology in the classroom always involves making trade-offs with time. For me to be able to use this great tool that I spent about $2000 to buy, I am going to have to spend quite a bit of class time training the students how to use it. They were so excited by it that I think it will take a while for the new to wear off enough that they can concentrate on the math questions I am asking them to answer.

I asked very easy questions today just to practice using the clickers. In case you are interested, here is what I asked:

2 + 2 = ?
10.2 + 8.1 = ?
True or False: Math is the best subject.
Which is your favorite middle school?

a. Brookhaven
b. Oak Park
c. Cedar Ridge
d. None of the above

5. Who has the best football team?

1. Alabama
2. Auburn
3. Tennessee
4. Florida
5. Other

The students became so excited when they saw the results! They thought it was hilarious that most people said number 3 was false! Several students entered wrong answers on purpose to see what would happen (I have noticed my son making mistakes on purpose when he plays video games. I believe that this is one way this generation learns.).

I can't wait to fully integrate this powerful tool into my teaching. I have read about studies that show this type of technology increases student engagement and attention. How can it not!

Thank you!

2006-08-29T21:53:00.000-06:00

What a nice surprise to open my email and find a comment by Vicki Davis on my blog post about safety guidelines.

Great job! I have linked to you! wow! If Darren Kuropatwa is linking to you, that is something else! You're definitely cool cat teacher endorsed too! Great job!

She has written a post about me and linked to my website. When I checked the statcounter for my blog, the traffic had increased tremendously due to her recommendation! Wow! I love to read what she writes. My bloglines account is filled with posts of hers that I have saved to mull over later. She is writing a book, and I can't wait to read it.

In my initial excitement over Vicki's comment, I almost overlooked some other comments. And then I found where some more teachers have linked to that post recently! Thank you for all of the encouraging words. Please come back to see me again. Good luck with your blogging!

It's time to take a breath!

2006-08-29T21:08:00.000-06:00

I haven't been blogging in a while. I need to get the negative post off the top of my site because I have had an increase in traffic which I will discuss in the next post. Just in case you are interested, here is why I haven't been blogging lately...

Every once-in-a-while a class comes through with a reputation for being really awful. I was in that class when I was in school. It really bothered me that a few people could cause an entire group to be labelled in such a negative manner, but it happened in the eighties and it is still happening today. My students this year are in another group like that. All last year we heard how terrible they were. I was hoping to find out that was an exaggeration. I must say that they are quite a challenge. To learn to manage them better, I have been busy reading my recent purchases from amazon.com:

I am also keeping Harry Wong's The First Days of School within reach at all times. I watched The Ron Clark Story on television the other night, and I was inspired. The other teachers on my team and I try to pray together every day for our students, but some days are just too crazy! There are so many great kids in my classes, and I am not going to let a handful of students keep everyone else from learning. I have never been pushed to be the best disciplinarian I can be, but I believe this is the year! I am going to keep a positive attitude!!!! (Yes, I am in the middle of some positive self-talk!)

Home life is busy as usual. My oldest is in the eighth grade and is playing football for the first time ever. He loves it, but he is at school every day until 5:30 or 6:00 and then there is homework to be done. My third grader has soccer practice 3 times a week, and she begins piano lessons and gymnastics next week. Soccer games begin soon...goodbye lazy Saturday mornings! My baby (who will be 3 on Sunday) has no extra-curricular activities, but he is still at that age where he needs lots of supervision and attention. My husband is begining his second year of active duty with the Army. He is able to come home on weekends now, but I am single mom during the week. I stay late after school trying to get things done so I don't have to bring them home, and then I stay up late after the kids go to bed trying to tie up loose ends and do the things I didn't have time to finish after school! We have found a routine that works for us, and most of the time things run rather smoothly (all things considered!).

Today was a great day! I had an appointment to have my hair cut immediately after school. I walked out the door at 3:15 with nothing but my planner and my purse. That's the first time this has happened in a long time! I finished in time to make it to the post office before it closed so I could mail a package that has been in the back of my car for weeks after it sat in the kitchen for weeks. (It is a baby gift for a baby born in June...I bought her an outfit for next summer because I know how I am about mailing things.) I still had time to run by Java Jaay's to get a skinny (lowfat, no sugar) Milky Way freeze (chocolate, caramel, and mocha...my new favorite drink), pick up the kids from day care, go home and open my package from Amazon, and get to the football cookout on time with the dessert I had time to go by the grocery store to buy. And then, my daughter didn't have to miss soccer practice after all to go to the cookout because it rained enough this afternoon to water my yard and cancel soccer practice! It was still early enough to talk on the phone to my mother, my mother-in-law, and my husband when I got home; try to call two parents; and check my email/statcounter/bloglines to find that Vicki Davis linked to me and I now have several new comments on my blog. It just doesn't get much better than this in my little world! Now I am going to thank the nice people who commented today. I hope your day was just as good!

I just need to vent a little...

2006-08-01T20:52:00.000-06:00

I normally stick to topics about teaching on this blog, but I need to vent just a little bit tonight. Actually this is related to teaching in a roundabout way....

I have three children, ages 13, 8, and 2. My husband is away on active duty with the Army, so I am halfway through my two-year stint as a single mom. It is not as bad as it could be because he is only a couple of hours away from us. We get to see him on a pretty regular basis, and he is not doing anything dangerous.

This week my two older children went away to church camp. The oldest left Saturday, and we took the middle one down Sunday afternoon. My husband went back to Birmingham Monday morning, and that left me with one other person in the house instead of four others! I must say I was looking forward to the peace and quiet. No arguing, no aggravating, no fussing over what music to listen to in the car or what television show to watch or whose turn it is to sit by mom or pick where we eat. Just me and the toddler...

I have to go back to work on Friday. Now I always need more workdays than they give us, so I really wanted to get in my classroom and get some things done. I had somewhat major surgery three weeks ago, and the doctor has cleared me for almost all activities. I ended up going to a workshop all last week, so I couldn't work in my classroom then. So here I have four whole days stretching before me...I can send my youngest child to day care (I have to pay for it all week because he has to go Friday); my oldest two are at camp, so I can work in peace and quiet; my husband is not here to find projects around the house for me to do. I have been looking forward to this week all summer! I can go to school, piddle to my heart's content, and be ready to start on time without stressing out!

Well...my husband thinks this would be a perfect time to bring the little one and come stay in his apartment (remember - he is on active duty with the Army). We are not going to be able to see each other for the next three weeks, we can shop for furniture, he's going to cook dinner, the baby and I can swim while he is at work, we won't be trying to crowd five people into a two-bedroom apartment.

I check my calendar... I have to get a cavity filled. I can't postpone it because I cancelled once already when my oldest fell ice skating and I had to take him to the doctor to have his head glued together. I'll never have time to go once school starts, and my tooth hurts when I eat something sweet. I have a checkup with my allergy doctor on Thursday, and I don't need to miss it either. I reschedule for Tuesday, tell my husband I'll be there Tuesday afternoon, stay Wednesday, and leave first thing Thursday morning. That gives me Monday and Thursday to work in my classroom, and maybe an hour or so Tuesday. I still have two whole days to myself! This will work.

I went to school yesterday. I didn't get a whole lot done. I straightened furniture, pulled things that I had put up so the floors could be waxed, and put myself in the right frame of mind for school. I stayed up late last night working on lesson plans. It was a good day...not stressful...I still had Thursday to accomplish a lot.

At 7:10 this morning, the telephone rings. It's the camp nurse. He has my daughter with him, and he thinks she has pink eye! He says he can take her to the emergency room to get medicine and she can stay at camp, or I can come get her. When I ask him what she wants to do, he puts her on the phone and she cries, "I want to come home!" Wait! This wasn't part of my plan! It's going to take an hour and a half to get there, so she is going to have to wait for me. I decide to keep my dental appointment, and I tell the nurse I will be there around lunch time.

I spend the morning being tortured by the dentist, then I head off to the middle of nowhere to get my daughter. I keep thinking of the time I was called by the school nurse because she thought this same child had chicken pox. It turned out to be flea bites, and she was able to go back to school. Maybe this will be a similar story! Nope! When I finally get there, she looks like she has been in a fight. Her eye is swollen, and it is red all the way up to her eyebrow and down to her cheek. She also managed to trip over a tree root this morning and skin her knee pretty badly. She definitely needs to go to her doctor and spend the night at home. A good bath wouldn't hurt, either. The camp director seems to think she might be able to come back, so I decide to leave her things there. If she doesn't come, we can get them when we pick up her brother on Saturday. Or the youth director from church can bring them home.

We head to the doctor with 15 minutes to spare. (By the way, I hate to drive!) It's the end of the day, so we have to wait a while at the doctor's office. Now, we have been using this pediatrician for twelve years. With three children, we see them a lot. I wasn't really worried about my daughter until I saw the doctor's reaction. She is normally very unflappable (I can't really find the word I want), but she seemed concerned, surprised, worried...She put my daughter on antibiotic eye drops three times a day and an oral antibiotic that has to be refrigerated. Doesn't sound like that will be easy to administer at camp. Then she says she can't go back to camp until at least Friday! Uh, oh! I knew my dream week was too good to be true!

She has been a little trooper. In spite of seeing the nurse four times in two days at camp, she is neither whining nor complaining. At one point on the drive home she says, "It may seem like I feel fine, but it really hurts." I tell her she is very brave (she is only 8, but she sounds like she is 30). I rethink my week. There is no way I am packing and then driving two more hours this evening, so I ask my husband if he wants to risk being around pink eye. Apparently love conquers germs, and he reminds me that it will be three weeks before we can see each other again, and he thought we would go furniture shopping. I guess I am still going to Birmingham.

I will still have Thursday to get my classroom ready, but now I will will have a contagious chatterbox with me who likes to make a mess and who doesn't like to help! I can't take her back to camp on Friday like the doctor suggested because it is a teacher workday. I guess we will go Saturday morning so she can see the awards ceremony and get her things.

This is my life! My mother gets frustrated with me because I don't like to make plans too far in advance. This is why! Something always comes up with my kids, and they rate pretty high on my list of priorities.

Thanks for listening. I feel better now. I didn't need advice...I just needed to vent a little.

Blocked?

2006-08-01T07:13:00.000-06:00

I returned to school yesterday to begin preparing my classroom. While taking a break I sat down at the computer and tried to access the Blogger sign in page. It is now blocked. I can read blogs at school, but I cannot post to my own blog.

My principal has called the technology coordinator to ask about this, but I would be surprised if it is unblocked. So now I have a couple of quandaries. First of all, I am giving a workshop Tuesday on 21st Century Skills. The plan was to have everyone set up their own blogs. I was going to use Blogger because I like it. I have found it very easy to use. I am not as comfortable with the other blogging sites. Edublogs is not blocked, so I guess I will try it.

My second quandary is what to do about my other blog. I usually post to it either during my planning period or right after school. If I wait until I get home, it is 7 or 8 o'clock, and someone will usually make a comment about needing the homework. I have a site set up on Edublogs, but I don't like it. I guess I will have to use it.

I'm not really happy about this.

Putting a Show Together

2006-07-23T14:24:00.000-06:00

"There is nothing you can do to make it easy that also won't make it bad."

I read this quote yesterday and immediately thought about my work as a teacher. This was said by Aaron Sorkin, a writer for television about the grueling schedule involved in making a weekly series. I have often thought that the only profession that might remotely feel like teaching is acting live on stage. There are major differences...stage actors do not perform all day long, and they are not responsible for controlling the behavior of their audience! They also do not have new material to prepare and present every day to the same audience. I realize that I have the freedom to re-do my lines if I mess them up, and I am allowed to use notes. I am a one-woman show, so I do not have to rehearse my part with anyone else. If I change the script, it doesn't disturb the flow of the show. But...

Teaching is not easy! I have struggled with this concept for years. I see other teachers who make it all look easier than it feels to me. They are (for the most part) good teachers. I have often wondered if the difficulty of teaching for me is an indication that I would be better suited for another profession. I'm one of those teachers who stays late and still takes home a backbreaking load of work every night. I finally bought a rolling cart to carry my school stuff, and I pack it full just about every night. Once I get my kids to bed, I am working on schoolwork until way past my bedtime. I still return papers to students later than I would like. No matter how organized I try to be, my classroom is a mess, I'm making copies and turning in lesson plans at the last minute, and I appear stressed out all the time. Then someone out of the blue reminds me that teaching is not supposed to be easy. Nothing worthwhile ever is easy.

Sometimes I think it would be great to have a job where I spend most of the day working quietly in an office. I would have a telephone at my fingertips, a door I could shut when I am busy, and there wouldn't be 30 new people coming in every hour to mess things up. I actually had an office one year, and it was great! I was only there one day a week, and I loved those days. The rest of the time I was out in schools working with students and teachers. But do you know what? I missed having "my kids." I missed that relationship with the students. I missed seeing their progress over the course of the year. I missed the excitement of lightbulbs going off in students' brains and hearing them say, "Oh, I get it!"

Everyone is saying, "Summer's almost over. Are you ready to go back to school?" I am! I love back-to-school time. I can identify with this quote from the movie, You've Got Mail:

Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.

I love to buy school supplies and back-to-school clothes. I get just as excited about seeing my class lists as I did when I was a student. I love getting a fresh start every year...a chance to do things better than last year. I love going to football games and hearing the band and cheering for my team. I wish it were getting cooler, but that will come soon enough!

Teaching is not easy. But it is exciting, rewarding, fun, and worth every minute of extra work I put into it!

I hope you have had a great summer. Enjoy your school year!

Late Work

2006-07-18T22:39:00.000-06:00

I was catching up on my blog reading tonight and ran across several blogs I had not read before. The Daily Grind intrigued me enough that I left an extremely long comment on late work that I decided to post here as well.

I have been teaching math for 17 years. Math homework is assigned practically every night, and it is a monumental task to grade. I accepted late work the first few years of teaching, and I found myself getting further and further behind. At the end of my third year, I spent about 6 hours one day grading only late assignments. I promised myself I would never do that again. It is much easier to grade 30 of the same paper than 30 different papers.

The following year I went to a no-late-work policy. I was surprised to see that my homework grades went up! When I accepted late work, the students would procrastinate and leave more than they could finish by the end of the grading period. When I didn't accept late work, students would move into high gear once they knew they had a couple of zeroes and do all of the rest of their work.

This past year I changed my policy slightly to match the other 7th grade math teacher at my school. Students began procrastinating again, and I was once again overwhelmed by late work. Their test scores were also affected when they waited until after the test to do the accompanying work. I switched back to my old policy at the end of the year, and I will never change it again!

I do have one exception...If there is some type of emergency or illness that prevents a child from having time to do their work, I will accept late work if accompanied by a note from a parent. I probably get 3 or 4 of these notes per year. I save the notes and warn the children I will thank their parents for writing the notes if I ever have a conference with them. I will also call to see if there is any way the school can help if there has been a rash of deaths in the family. This has eliminated forgeries. When I explain this policy to parents, they seem to appreciate the opportunity for their child to learn to meet deadlines and do their work when it is most beneficial to their learning.

If I were teaching a subject in which I did not make 40 assignments per grading period, I would probably have a different philosophy. One zero in my class will not hurt a child's grade much at all. All of my assignment are weighted equally. I am planning to assign projects each grading period this year, and I will probably accept them late.

Brainstorming

2006-07-13T21:52:00.000-06:00

I officially go back to work three weeks from tomorrow. I will be going back to the classroom, and I am looking forward to it! I did go ahead and apply for the technology coaching job, but someone else was chosen. I am okay with that. I prayed a lot about it, and I believe my place must still be in the classroom for at least a little while longer.

I am excited about using all of my new cool tools in the classroom this year. I have my very own digital projector to connect to my laptop. I have an Interwrite School Pad to run the laptop and write on the board wirelessly from anywhere in the room. I write the entire time I am teaching. I am no longer tethered to the front of the room!

I have a Personal Response System that includes "clickers" for every student to respond to questions. It will grade quizzes and tests for me. Oh...I just had a great idea! I can give tests with the clickers and not have to grade them manually! Hmm...I just realized this! The tests can be multiple choice or short-answer. They can enter numbers (including decimals). I don't think there are any other symbols like fractions or negatives. Timed multiplication drills! The time I save giving tests and quizzes with the clickers can be spent grading open-ended questions.

I want to plan some major technology integration this year worthy of IB's standards. Maybe one per quarter? I also want to do some more interdisciplinary activities. I know that the other teachers on my team will be willing to work together on this.

I would like to differentiate instruction using technology. I can pretest with the clickers and get immediate feedback. I want to set up learning centers with hands-on activities.

I have a new custom-made bookshelf. I was really sad about having to leave it behind, and now I don't! I also have a new filing cabinet, and I want to streamline my files and filing system so I can find things when I need them. I have a wealth of resources at my fingertips that are buried under mountains of paperwork.

Can I be ready in three weeks? I am recovering from surgery that I had day before yesterday, and I can't lift anything heavy for a couple of weeks. However, I can do the online planning with my wiki that I have been intending to do all summer. Both of my big kids are going to camp the week before I go to work. I will send the little one to daycare and start working on my classroom a week early. Surely that should be enough time, and I should be fully recovered by then, according to the doctor!

Before school starts I also want to read all the blogging and listen to all the podcasts coming from NECC. There is so much information from NECC on the web, that I feel like I can almost experience being there!

Tomorrow I need to finish up my part of a presentation that my principal and I are giving Monday at the Samford Summer Institute for Teaching Excellence. I worked a lot on it today and was pleased with what I accomplished.

If I am going to get this all done, I need a good night's rest!

AMSTI begins today!

2006-06-19T05:21:00.000-06:00

I should be waking up my kids and getting them ready for daycare, but I want to enjoy a few more minutes of peace and quiet before the whining begins. We haven't gotten up this early all summer, but today is a special day...AMSTI Summer Institute begins today! This is my fourth year as a trainer and my fifth year to participate. It's almost like the excitement I feel on the first day of school! I will have another group of teachers this year, and I know that I will enjoy them as much as I have all my other groups! I am planning to talk to them about blogging, wikis, and other 21st Century tools later in the week. I am hoping to get them to participate in my wiki. It's going to be a fun two weeks, and I am ready to begin!

The job posting for technology coach went up Friday. The official title is "Technology Integration Specialist." They are only hiring one this year and maybe adding another one (or two) later. I thought about waiting until later to apply (this job is so much bigger than one person), but I decided to go for it this year. The job description was rather interesting. It is going to be re-posted Monday, but I was able to grab a copy of the original. I was surprised to see that I was expected to be familiar with the Nova Scotia Public Schools Program curricula, the Information Economy Initiative, and the Vision For the Integration of Information Technologies document. I will research these on the Internet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them disappear from the job description and see them replaced with documents related to the Alabama Course of Study!

Quiet time is over...time to rouse the children! It's going to be a wonderful day!

It's Time to Open Our Eyes!

2006-06-14T15:10:00.000-06:00

I read an article in TechLearning that speaks to the heart of the problem of integrating technology into the classroom. Eyes Closed Tight is written by Gordon Freeman, and I really like what he has to say. Here are a few snippets with my thoughts mixed in.

A decade ago, education leaders raced to get computers into schools. Macs squared off with PCs. Cisco faced off against Novell. The Internet came to life. Why is it, then, that educators who wouldn't dream of buying their airline tickets or banking anyplace but online have not been able to transform education with technology? What happened?

I graduated from college in 1989 with a minor in computer science. I learned how to write computer programs in BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and PASCAL. I couldn't write a computer program today to save my life! We worked on terminals that were connected to a mainframe computer that was huge. It had its own special room that I was never allowed to enter. There was one printer in the lab, and I remember waiting my turn for my programs to print. I spent hours there, but what I learned did not transform my teaching.

My first teaching job was in a middle school in Northwest Georgia. There were computers in the building, but technology was not a major part of my classroom. I did have the privilege of serving on the committee that decided how the money we were going to receive from the first payout of the Georgia Lottery would be spent. The money was earmarked for technology, and we had to create a five-year plan. I don't remember the dollar amounts that were in our budget, but it seemed enormous at the time! I had to learn about these crazy new things called CD-ROMS, and servers, and towers. It didn't sound like anything I had learned about four years earlier in college! They were even telling me that you could link all the computers in the building together on some kind of network. I thought it was amazing!

As life would have it, I never enjoyed the fruits of my labor on that committee because my husband was transferred that spring to Alabama. I then spent a few years in a small private school that had computers...12 in my classroom! It was a wonderful learning opportunity. I had ten different kinds of computers, and I had great visual aids for teaching computer history because I almost had a complete set of all of the old "mini-computers" pictured in a textbook from my college computer science minor! My teaching was not transformed, but I learned a great deal.
Eventually I was hired by Decatur City Schools, and I was excited to learn that there was a computer lab across the hall from my classroom especially for the math classes to use! I was eager to take advantage of this great resource. To my surprise, hardly anyone was using it! I found out that there was no software for math on the computers. One teacher took her students in there to work with spreadsheets, but that was about it. I started looking around for software and decided that The Geometer's Sketchpad was worth a try. I wrote and received a mini-grant for the software, and my teaching was transformed!

Maybe educators should take a hint from their students, who are inquisitive and not afraid to take risks.

My students and I learned together how to use the software. At first I was afraid of making mistakes in front of them, but I pushed those fears aside and kept on going. Through a series of very fortunate events I was given the opportunity to attend a week-long Summer Institute on The Geometer's Sketchpad that was truly a career-altering experience. I gained much-needed confidence in my teaching philosophy and skills, and I came back ready to immerse myself and my students in hands-on learning.

Typically the technology and instructional departments do not sit down at the same table and ask, how can we work together to improve school performance with technology or help students learn? And too often, administrators don't encourage either group to explore innovative solutions.

There were some logistical issues I had to work around. I did not receive any help or encouragement from my system's IT department. No one prevented me from doing what I needed to do, but I felt as if I were floundering on my own. It seems to me that the IT department focused their attention on maintaining the hardware, and there was no one to help the teachers actually use it.

If a school's IT department isn't working alongside those who develop curriculum, maybe it's time to establish a position that serves as a bridge between the two. The person in this role (called an "assistant superintendent" or "principal" for performance and accountability) works to ensure the development of joint strategies for higher student performance and better-trained teachers.

This is what I want to do. I don't want to be an assistant superintendent or principal. I want to be a technolgy coach. I want to help teachers look at their teaching objectives and see where technology could be integrated with their existing curriculum, and then I want to help them figure out how to get it done! Integrate (as defined by Dictionary.com) means to to make into a whole by bringing all parts together. Technology is not an end in itself; it is a part of the picture. It is a tool for engaging, clarifying, exploring, and sharing the ideas that students are learning.

I have been told that the technology coach position will be posted "in the near future." I'm not sure what that means. Is it next week, next month, next year, or just sometime this decade? I almost wish it were next year so I could spend a year trying out my new Interwrite School Pad and Personal Response System. I'm sure I could find a way to use them as technology coach. I don't want to miss this opportunity because it may not come around again!

Summer Resolutions

2006-05-27T22:41:00.000-06:00

Updated 8-1-06 to make me feel bad about what I haven't done!

I like to make lists. I love a bright clean page of paper in a pretty notebook that is waiting to be filled with a list. I like to cross things off lists. When I wasn't such a busy person, I would sometimes make a list of things I had accomplished during the day and then cross them off just for the feeling it gave me of completing something. Now I have unfinished lists everywhere. When a list gets longer than a page, I start over on a new page, leaving off the items I have completed. My lists are always too long. I have a list of things to do at home and another of things to do at school. I have a list of errands I need to run, and a list of websites to visit. I have a list of topics I want to blog about, and several lists of thank-you notes I never wrote. I have a mental list of projects to do around the house, and I have an actual list of things my kids want to do this summer.

I also like to make resolutions. I make them at New Year's, I make them at the beginning of each school year, and I make resolutions each summer. Here are my Summer Resolutions for 2006...

Read the Bible every day. Getting better...not like I should.
Go to the gym at least 4 times a week. Only one time this summer.
Drink more water. Nope
Drink less Cokes. Maybe...I've found some diet drinks I like.
Eat less junk food. Nope
Eat more fruits and vegetables. Nope
Read for fun. Yea! I have accomplished the least important of this section!
Spend special time with my children. Yes
Potty train my 2 year old. He is not interested.
Begin scrapbooking again. I can't stand the mess it will make.
Print out all the pictures I have taken with the digital camera. The printer is so filled with dust that I'm going to have to clean it first.
Clean out the attic. Yes! This one is done!!!!
Keep my house looking presentable. I think it's getting better.
Plan menus and grocery lists to make life easier during the school year. www.savingdinner.com
Have a yard sale. Let's wait until it is cooler.
Paint my bedroom. I need to pick fabric to recover a chair first.
Reorganize my classroom. What did I mean by this?
Plan a technology activity for each main objective I teach. In progress...
Plan a writing activity for each main objective I teach. In progress...
Plan a hands-on activity for each objective I teach. In progress...
Incorporate the IB Areas of Interaction into my lesson plans. In progress...
Go through all my resource books and put descriptions of great activities on my wiki. In progress...
Host a summer review program on my classroom blog. No one was interested... I can't believe it !
Learn how to use my Interwrite School Pad. Done!

My life has a little more balance than I thought it did. I divided my resolutions into four areas: personal, family, house, school. I know I won't accomplish everything on my list, but I also realize that I won't accomplish the things that I don't put on my list. (I know there is a better way to say what I am thinking, but it is late and I am dreading picking up the vermicelli that my 2 year old spilled all over the kitchen floor.)

8-1-06: I have completed 5 out of 24 goals, and I am making progress toward another 8. There were 5 that I either postponed or decided to eliminate. That leave 6 things that I should have done that I didn't do. Not too bad considering all that has gone on this summer!

So...do you make summer resolutions? If so, would you mind sharing them with me?

Keeping up with the Bloggers

2006-05-23T19:43:00.000-06:00

Creating your own blog and beginning to post is only one part of the exciting world of blogging. The next step (or a different first step), that you are already taking, is joining the conversation by reading other people's blogs. At first it may seem easy to check one or two blogs regularly to see if they have been updated. However, if you begin reading several blogs, or if a blog you like is updated infrequently, or if a blog you like is updated too frequently, or if you already have too many sites bookmarked to find what you are looking for, it is time to take another step. Welcome to the world of RSS feeds or news aggregators. My favorite is Bloglines, and you are welcome to look at my feeds. As I find a new blog I like, I add it to my account using the "Sub with Bloglines" button. You can access this button by scrolling to the bottom of the left frame and clicking on Easy Subscribe Bookmarklet. There are instructions for adding this button to your browser's toolbar.

Another step is to join the conversation by commenting on posts. I will have to admit that I am not very diligent about doing this. Most of the time I am reading blogs while singing to my two year old to try to get him to sleep. I prefer to type with two hands rather than one, and I hardly ever get around to commenting after I put him to bed (I'm too busy overseeing my 13 year old's homework and trying to make up for ignoring my eight year old while dealing with her high-maintenance brothers!). Of course, I also have to allow time to talk to my husband on the telephone in the evenings because he is currently on active duty with the Army Reserve. Have I mentioned that my life is crazy! The conversation is what can make a blog different from an ordinary web page. Find some student blogs and leave an encouraging word. Find an expert and ask them for advice. Find a kindred spirit and make a new friend.

Technology Coaching

2006-05-21T20:51:00.000-06:00

I am about to pursue a new opportunity that is a little scary to me. Our system is going to hire two technology coaches for next school year. The positions have not been posted yet, but I am seriously considering applying. This is my dream job. Several years ago I spent some time thinking about my career goals, and technology coach is what I decided I wanted to do. Since then I have been exploring options for becoming qualified to do this. I do not have my master's degree, and I am afraid that will keep me from getting the job. I have continued to let other things get in the way of going to graduate school, but at the same time I have been getting a lot of practical experience. I think I would be very good as a technology coach, and I could have my master's degree completed within a couple of years if I set my mind to it.

On the other hand, I am not sure that I am ready to leave the classroom. I have had a wonderful year this year, and I am looking forward to experiencing this again. I sometimes feel like I am on the brink of becoming the teacher I always intended to be. I have a pretty light summer ahead of me (at least compared to the last few years), and I was planning to spend quite a bit of time reorganizing my classroom and preparing learning centers, warmups, and sponge activities for next year. I am also in the process of receiving the equipment I purchased with my National Board money. The items I bought may have to stay at the school, and I would hate to not get the opportunity to make use of the great technology I purchased.

I do feel confident that God knows what is best and that he will guide the people making the decision about whom to hire. I just have to talk through my feelings from time to time and remind myself that He is in control. I had no idea that the school system would hire a technology coach (much less two) any time soon. This position was terminated a few years ago, and I thought the money was not there to open it back up. I thought I had a little more time to get my degree.

The system desperately needs someone to assist teachers with technology. We are so innundated with paperwork and meetings that there is little time to plan exciting new lessons. If someone could plan lessons and then model the lessons for teachers, exciting things would begin to happen. Someone needs to convince many teachers that integrating technology is worth the extra effort; that in the long run it will make their jobs easier and more enjoyable. Lots of teachers still need help with navigating our new email and gradebook programs. The technology people we have working for the system are not educators...their job is to fix the machines, not teach the teachers.

I am very passionate about this position. I woke up this morning thinking about what I would say in an interview, and I ending up writing a page and a half of notes. I need to update my resume, and I would like to create a curriculum vitae. I need dig through the attic to get my notebook that has all my workshop presentations written down from the year I worked as AMSTI Math Specialist. I think this job would include almost all the things I loved about being a math specialist, and it would not involve as much travel during the day and overnight. There would be fewer schools to work with, but many more teachers. I think there would be more of a chance to build relationships with the students because I would be at each school a little more often than with AMSTI.

The things I have learned through being a Fellow with the 21st Century Schools Project will be invaluable. The contacts I have made through 21st Century and through AMSTI are extensive. The training I have had might be the equivalent of what could be learned through a graduate program.

Do you have any suggestions for me as I approach this bend in the road? Teachers and principals, what would you like for a technology coach to do for you? Tech people, what advice do you have to offer and what graduate program prepares you for this type of job? Those who have left the classroom for good, how do you know when it is time to go?

Please leave a comment for me!

It's Wiki Time!

2006-05-13T22:42:00.000-06:00

Several weeks ago I created a wiki, but I wasn't really sure what to do with it. I thought it would be a neat way to foster collaboration among teachers, but it seemed difficult to build. Last week I started playing around with it and it finally made sense! I emailed an invitation to some teachers I know asking them to add their ideas. No one has taken me up on it yet, but I am hopeful that I can generate some interest this summer when I am training AMSTI.

If anyone would like to add their ideas to the wiki it is very easy to do. I have actually created three of them, but only one has anything on it! I made them for seventh grade math, pre-algebra, and math team. The seventh grade and pre-algebra wikis are organized by the Alabama Course of Study Objectives. You can click on the objective on the home page and see the resources for that topic. To add an idea, simply click on the edit button at the top of the page. Be sure to save when you are done. If you are a math teacher, please share an idea that has worked for you. I am planning to spend some time this summer putting all of my "tricks of the trade" on the wiki, so check back and see if you can find something useful to you!

It's time to start counting the days!

2006-05-09T21:34:00.000-06:00

Everyone asks me how many days of school are left, and I honestly tell them I do not know! I could take a minute and figure it out, but I don't want to start counting. I have had such a good year that I don't want it to be over! Sure, I would like a break, but then I would be ready to continue on with these students again. From time to time in years past I might have one or two students that would bring great joy to my life with their absence from school. I would count the days until they were mine no more and eagerly anticipate a fresh start with a new group of students. I don't feel that way at all this year! I love this group so much that I am sad to see them leave. It may be because I knew many of them before the year began. You see, my son is a seventh grader this year, so I am teaching his friends. In fact, I am teaching him! (That is definitely a subject for another time...I may need to amend that "not counting the days" statement!) Some years I have dreaded the end of the school year because I need more time to teach my material. The timing is working out perfectly this year, so that is reducing my stress level. It has been a special year...not perfect...but very special!

It feels like Christmas in Room 365 (that's mine)...I received $5000 to spend on my classroom this year. This money is given by the state to teachers who have become National Board Certified. I have been spending my money on technology, and it is just about all spent. I already had a laptop computer, but I bought a projector, an Interwrite School Pad, a site license for The Geometer's Sketchpad, GSP supplemental materials, and a filing cabinet. I am still waiting to receive a multi-media cart, and the Interwrite Personal Response System (Don't know what this is? Here's a video about it). I am looking forward to using the School Pad and PRS in the AMSTI Summer Institute I am teaching this summer. This will be a great opportunity to learn how to use it!

One thing I have not done this year is get my students posting on my blog. My life outside of school has been a little crazy, and I just never managed to make the copies to send the information home with my students. I created guidelines and a policy, so it seems that making copies of it would not be an insurmountable obstacle. I guess it is a part of the same condition that manifests itself by the thank you notes sitting on my kitchen counter that I wrote two months ago but never addressed, stamped, or took to the mailbox. I also have Christmas cards and Easter eggs decorating my living room. I have been doing other things like creating a wiki for seventh grade math teachers. I can always take down out-of-season decorations this summer.

Hello, New Friends

2006-02-19T09:15:00.000-06:00

I followed Darren's advice and added a stat counter to my blogs. I did this just in time to see the effect of the blurb John Norton put on the Middle Web site about my blog. I am amazed at the number of people who have taken a look at this!

I wanted to let you know that this is not the blog I use the most (at the moment). I am keeping a blog for my classroom as well. I try to update it every day. I post assignments and other information for parents and students. I am hoping to let my students begin posting soon. Life has been a little crazy recently, and I just haven't gotten my ducks in a row yet.

Mathematical Musings is intended to be more for other teachers. It contains my thoughts on blogging and other technologies and my philosophy of education in general. We are out of school for President's Day on Monday, so maybe I can spend some time here updating links, etc. I also have saved lots of good posts from other blogs that I want to share and comment on.

If you haven't heard of Bloglines, I highly recommend it for keeping track of blogs. I add blogs that I read to my Bloglines account. There is a nifty little button that you can add to your toolbar that makes it easy to add to your account. I check my Bloglines every day, and it shows which blog have been updated. You are welcome to see what I read and make suggestions for great blogs to add to the list.

Please leave me a comment and let me know how you are using blogging in your classroom. A wise lady I know always says, "None of us is as good as all of us!"

Experts to students: Watch what you post

2006-02-19T08:05:00.000-06:00

I recently read an interesting article in eSchool News online that gives advice to students about their online behavior. I would like to include some excerpts here.

With the rise in social networking sites such as MySpace.com, experts are warning that students need to exercise more discretion in what they post about themselves online. Besides the obvious danger of posting personally identifying information, they say, the potential exists for embarrassing information to come back to bite students later in life when they apply for college or a job.

We talked about this in some classes Friday, but I wanted to share the source to prove to the students I wasn't just making this up!

Seven Lincoln, Neb., high school students were suspended for two weeks when a school staff member found a MySpace.com posting that mentioned the students drinking alcohol.

"This is a new arena for us," said Wendy Henrichs, athletic director for Lincoln East High School, where the seven suspended students were all varsity and junior varsity basketball players. "In the '70s or '80s ... people would say those things. Today, they write them."

She added, "The difference is putting it in print, basically documented proof of what's been said. I don't know if kids understand that."

Even if you delete your page, someone else may have the page (or portions of it) saved on their site. There is a service called Furl that will do this. It is great for research, but it can hurt you if you post something in a moment of carelessness that you later decide to delete.

A recent Harris Interactive poll showed that 23 percent of people search the names of business associates or colleagues on the internet before meeting them--which probably means many employers are doing the same with job applicants, said Andrea Kay, a career consultant and author of "Interview Strategies That Will Get You the Job You Want."

"It's a wake--up call: You better be careful what you say and do, because it is your reputation. You're developing it early on," Kay said. ...

Given the relative ease of investigating someone online and the rate of technology's penetration into the college admissions process, it's conceivable that college admissions officers, too, could soon be Googling prospective students.

College admissions officers who spoke with eSchool News said it wasn't part of their typical practice yet--but if the trend of employers Googling applicants spreads to education, that could change.

I have read recently that Googling your name is the latest trend in self-absorption. However, I think it is wise for us to check from time to time to see what is out there about us (a little like checking your credit rating!).

I spent a little time on MySpace this week, and I was really surprised at some of the things I saw. Anybody can look at this. Students remember when you are posting and commenting that anyone can read it. Think ahead five years. Would you want a college scholarship committee, a prospective employer, or the "love of your life's" parents to see what you have written today?

Some may say that the dangers of blogging are reason enough to keep it out of schools. I disagree. I think that schools can be the place where students can learn to blog responsibly. I heard someone compare this to driving. Just because driving can be a dangerous activity that some students will abuse, schools offer driver education in order to teach them to drive responsibly. Teenagers are going to use the internet whether we encourage the practice in schools or not. We have the opportuntiy to guide them into safe arenas for internet use. I truly believe that a large amount of dangerous behavior on the part of teenagers is a reaction to boredom. Maybe if we offer alternatives to unsafe behavior early enough, they will choose the safe path because it is even more fulfilling than the unsafe path!

Safe Blogging

2006-01-28T08:17:00.000-06:00

I have been blogging for a little more than a month, and I have found it to be a very exciting project!  I have received quite a bit of positive feedback from parents and students.  I am now ready to take the next step and invite students to contribute to my blog.  I am asking for email addresses in class, and I will set up a blog for their class to discuss what we are doing in math.  They will take turns being the “scribe” for the day.  The scribe will post a summary of what happened in that day’s class.  This will include the homework assignment and an explanation of what was learned.  There are links to other math blogs in the sidebar of the blog that students can use for inspiration.

We will be blogging on a site I created using Blogger.  I do not endorse any blog found through this service except mine.  This is a free service that is very easy to use.  Students can set up a personal blog through this site, but it is not necessary to have your own site to participate in my blog.  Many students have blogs created through other sites like Xanga or MySpace.  I would recommend monitoring your child’s use of these sites very carefully.  You are supposed to be at least 18 to join these, but I found that several of my students have created “spaces” there.  I have found several articles discussing students’ use of these sites that you might find interesting.

Pew Report on Teenage Blogging

Helping Your Kids Blog Safely

A Difference
A wonderful discussion about how to handle the dangers of blogging

How Can Children Stay Safe Using Blogs?
Australian government site offers tips for any kind of Internet activity

Blog Safety
Where teens, parents, teachers and adult bloggers can learn about the benefits of safe blogging.

********************************************************************************
I will monitor the content of my blog on a daily basis, and I will deal with any inappropriate posting as if it occurred in my classroom.  The students are very excited about this, and I expect that they will treat this as a privilege.  I will be distributing a blogging policy in class for students to sign before participating on the blog.  I have borrowed ideas from Darren Kuropatwa, Bud The Teacher, East Side Community High School, Vicki Davis, and Anne Davis.

Blogging Guidelines
Blogging is a very public activity. Anything that gets posted on the internet stays there. Forever. Deleting a post simply removes it from the blog it was posted to. Copies of the post may exist scattered all over the internet. That is why we are being so careful to respect your privacy and using first names only. We do not use pictures of ourselves. If you really want a graphic image associated with your posting use an avatar -- a picture of something that represents you but IS NOT of you.

Students using blogs are expected to treat blogspaces as classroom spaces. Speech that is inappropriate for class is not appropriate for our blog. While we encourage you to engage in debate and conversation with other bloggers, we also expect that you will conduct yourself in a manner reflective of a representative of this school.

Never EVER EVER give out or record personal information on our blog. Our blog exists as a public space on the Internet. Don’t share anything that you don’t want the world to know. For your safety, be careful what you say, too. Don’t give out your phone number or home address. This is particularly important to remember if you have a personal online journal or blog elsewhere.

Again, your blog is a public space. And if you put it on the Internet, odds are really good that it will stay on the Internet. Always. That means ten years from now when you are looking for a job, it might be possible for an employer to discover some really hateful and immature things you said when you were younger and more prone to foolish things. Be sure that anything you write you are proud of. It can come back to haunt you if you don’t.

Never link to something you haven’t read. While it isn’t your job to police the Internet, when you link to something, you should make sure it is something that you really want to be associated with. If a link contains material that might be creepy or make some people uncomfortable, you should probably try a different source.

Freedom of speech comes with personal responsibility.  Everything you post represents you.  You shouldn’t post anything you wouldn't be comfortable with anyone, from your parents to potential employers, viewing.

Mrs. Simpson’s Blogging Policy
To use the CRMS school blogs, you must agree to the following statements.

I will not use any curse words or inappropriate language.

I will not use fighting words or provoke anyone.

I will avoid the use of chat language.

I will try to spell everything correctly.

I will only give constructive criticism.

I will only use my first name.

I will not post pictures of myself.

I will not give out any personal information about myself or anyone else.

I am responsible for anything posted in my name.

I will not plagiarize.

I will use common sense.

I recognize that breaking any of these rules could lead to any of the following consequences depending on severity and repetition:

warning

deletion of some or all of the post

temporary loss of blogging privileges

permanent loss of blogging privileges

I further recognize that the blog is considered a virtual extension of our classroom, and therefore all CRMS, Decatur City Schools, AL Department of Education, and US federal Rules and Regulations apply. I am aware that violation of any of these rules may be referred to the School Administration.
(Print Name) __________________________________________

(Student Signature) ______________________________________

(Parent Signature) _______________________________________

(date)_______________

Making Sense of RSS

2006-01-08T21:50:00.000-06:00

So now that I am into this blogging thing full speed, I have decided that I need to learn something about RSS feeds. I found an article (through Darren) that explains it better than anything I have seen so far.

I understand that RSS makes blogging more powerful. I know that I want the readers of my blog to have access to it through RSS, and I think I have set it up properly. I also know that I can subscribe(?) to the RSS feeds of other blogs and be notified when they are updated. I have done this through Bloglines in some cases, but I'm not sure how to add a blog to Bloglines if it doesn't have the Bloglines button. I can also track blogs through my Yahoo home page, but I want them all in the same place.

What I don't know is how to explain this to parents and the other teachers at my school so that they can make the most of this 21st Century Tool! I am expecting the Fellows' Elluminate session on Tuesday to enlighten me. :-)

Here's another thing... I would like to link back to Darren's mention of the article in his blog, but I don't know where I found it! I have not found an efficient way to browse and post to my blog at the same time. I would think that RSS could somehow make that work for me, but I'm not sure how. I have begun using the "link to this post" button and saving it as a draft until I can get around to blogging about what I find. I guess that would be when I could copy and paste a quote to accompany the link? I feel my thinking beginning to clarify as I type. Oh, the power of expressing one's thoughts in words!

Making progress...

2006-01-06T20:56:00.000-06:00

Two teachers at my school told me today that they have started blogs for their classes. I am excited that blogging is catching on so quickly at my school! My principal and I are planning to set up the official school blog on Monday with links to the teachers' blogs. I need to decide (or have the facts ready for my principal to decide) which blog service would work best for us.

I need to work on blogging this weekend. I have mentioned blogs to one of my classes, but I have not started a blog for them. I am going to start one for all of my classes on which I post general information. After parents have had a chance to see what my blog is like and what it can do, I think will begin blogging with one class.

Happy New Year!

2006-01-03T19:09:00.000-06:00

I was excited that several teachers expressed an interest in blogging after my presentation today. I didn't expect a very positive reaction given that I spoke at the end of a day full of sitting and listening! I'm really glad that I was able to show the Will Richardson video. I think it is very powerful to hear the students speak about their blogs.

I hope that the teachers at my school can work together to get our blogs up and running. I always accomplish more when I am working with a partner or a group. We might be able to work together in the computer lab one day after school. If anyone is interested, please let me know.

One of the things I really like about blogs is that I can finish a post in a short amount of time if necessary. I can spend five minutes if that is all the time I have.

Blogging Handout

2005-12-28T10:42:00.000-06:00

Blogging

What is a “blog”?

Short for “web-log”
Keeping and posting a personal journal online
A special type of web page that can be created and easily updated using a web browser

How can teachers use blogs?

As a personal journal
To post class information (assignments, upcoming projects and tests, copies of handouts, information for parents
Generate discussion among students

Link to Will Richardson video

Examples of blogs
Science blog
Social studies blog - Middle school
Social studies - High school
Language arts
The Secret Life of Bees
Darren's Pre-Calculus class
GCHS Math
Verity7Math
S1Math

Other information about blogging
http://budtheteacher.blogspot.com/
A great discussion of blogging in the classroom. Bud teaches writing.

http://www.budtheteacher.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
Lots of information about blogging: acceptable use policy, parent letter, student blogging handbook

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/blogboard/
Teacher Magazine's look at what's new and noteworthy in educator blogs.

http://ripmixlearn.blogspot.com/
A workshop (“blogshop”) on blogging by Darren Kuropatwa

http://anne.teachesme.com/
Another teacher’s thoughts on blogging. Lots of links to other blogs.

http://freevlog.org/#step1
Tutorials on lots of cool things (blogging, putting video on your computer

http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech217.shtml
Article on blogging with links to blogging software and examples of blogs.

Lost in Cyberspace

2005-12-26T23:16:00.000-06:00

It's late, and I couldn't remember the URL for my blog. I thought I would google it to find it, and I guess I don't exist. I put in my name and found very little about me and nothing about my blog. The title of my blog didn't show up in a search either! No wonder no one has commented! I have now written the URL in a safe place so at least I can find it!

I want to begin blogging with my students. I think that I will start with my math team. I have heard several of them talking about using AIM and MySpace, so I think there are some very tech-savvy kids in the bunch. I'm not really sure how I want to set up the blog. I like Darren's idea of having a scribe for class each day summarize what was learned. I want to know how he introduced the idea to the students. It seems as if it were really simple to get the students excited about using a blog.

My principal has asked me to talk to the faculty about blogging. I am trying to gather my thoughts as I prepare. I should be posting the links I need on this site. That will be my next step, but for now it is time to go to bed!

Am I ready for the 21st Century?

2005-12-13T17:30:00.000-06:00

I spent today with nine other teachers from across the state of Alabama in a meeting of the 21st Century Fellows. I feel so behind the times, but I am eager to catch up! I want to begin a blog for my classroom and encourage my students to write about their mathematical thinking. I was so impressed by Darren's blog and the thinking that his students were writing about. Aimee will be a good resource person and encourager as well. I know I can do this! There are enough hours in the day. I am looking forward to getting to know all of the other fellows better and learning from them.

2005-11-27T20:01:00.000-06:00

It's Sunday night, and Thanksgiving break is coming to an end. I had great plans to grade a few papers everyday during my week off, but I decided to spend time with my family, prepare the Thanksgiving meal, and unpack from our recent move. So now it is Sunday night and I have 2 or 3 hours worth of papers left to grade. I already spent over 3 hours grading papers this afternoon, and I haven't done my lesson plans. I am going to get it all done tonight, even if I have to stay up all night! This is my hurdle that makes it so hard for me to teach with technology the way I want to. The endless paperwork overwhelms me, and I leave the planning until last. I know I should re-order my priorities: plan first, then do paperwork. It sounds so simple, but want to finish the paperwork so that I can clear my mind of the clutter. It's time to get back to work. Happy Thanksgiving!

The first bite...

2005-11-25T21:42:00.000-06:00

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I am taking my first bite tonight of the world of blogging. I see before me an elephant that seems more enormous than one person can handle. I have just been named a fellow for Alabama's 21st Century Schools program. I thought I knew quite a bit about using technology in the classroom, but as I begin a new phase of my teaching career, I am discovering that I have fallen behind the times. I have a lot to learn and put into practice in my classroom before I am ready to share any knowledge with other teachers.

I think this blog will be a wonderful place to keep track of the new ideas I am discovering. Maybe I can share with my students and their parents, maybe with other teachers, or maybe this will be a private record of my thoughts. Let's see what happens!