Summer - almost a thing of the past

Summer is slipping away. July, my self-proclaimed favorite month is gone. The three weeks of Summer School, aka Critter Camp, are over. I always feel when I get to this part of the summer that I haven't accomplished a whole lot, except I've read a lot of books. Let me reflect back on what I did actually do this summer. I did spent quite a bit of time of the computer. My daily routine started, in fact, with checking various social networking sites I belong to, looking at links that I thought might help me in the upcoming school year, checking email, and so on. My favorite teacher site is Plurk which is fabulous! I have gotten so many tips and sites from others on Plurk, and I appreciate all of the expertise I've found there. I save sites of interest on my Diigo page for later reference. I do have a Google+ page, too, but I'm not finding it as useful. I've read a couple of books for my professional health, Brain Rules, and What Great Teachers Do Differently: 14 Things that Matter Most. Brain Rules is fascinating, and I highly recommend it; What Great Teachers Do... was good, but seemed to be more practical, and perhaps geared toward teachers with less experience. I also attended a training session for three days with my colleague Sue. We spent three days at the Empowering Rural Educators training session, put on by the Educational Service District 113 in Tumwater, Washington, just a stone's-throw away from the state capital, and the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The training was good - don't get me wrong - but the amount of information jammed into the three days was overwhelming, and the tech-not-so-savvy had that deer in headlights look. Lots of sites were shown, but there wasn't always time to play with them. We did get two "gifts", however - a headset & mic, and a smartpen - the Echo, from Livescribe.com. That alone was worth it! We also visited Tumwater Falls Park, in the shadow of the former Olympia Brewing Company.

Not a bad way to spend three days, for certain. Again this year, I somehow got talked into teaching summer school. Under the supervision of my late administrator, it was called Jump Start, and ran for three weeks in August. The goal was to provide students, especially those who qualify for Title I services, a time before school starts to practice some basic literacy skills. When I first started doing summer school about twelve years ago, it seemed it was mostly crafts, and I hated that. Kids could go to summer camp for that! Our current administrator does support the literacy angle, and so this year, with the assistance of a co-teacher, we had Critter Camp. Working with a younger crowd, the emphasis was on research, and after an introduction to habitats, and brainstorming the animals that lived in those places, the kids selected an animal, and did some very basic research. In the middle of the second week, we took a field trip to the Olympic Game Farm, located in Sequim, Washington, where we saw lions and tigers and bears - oh, my! Also peacocks, llamas, yaks, a white rhino, prairie dogs, a couple of varieties of deer, and buffalo that circled our school bus as the kids threw bread out the window at them! It was a very successful field trip, and the kids loved it! The culmination of the research was the creation of paper cubes, each side with a fact family on it, and oral presentations by all. I also introduced the kids to math timings, and they put their best efforts into that, too! I think we had a very successful three weeks. Finally, the three iPads I purchased arrived. I'm a bit frustrated with them, mostly because I don't want to spend my own money on apps, and the free apps look too young for what I have in mind. I'm not devoting much space to them on this blog today, but I will later. I will be curious to see how I use them in my classes, but I know that I will. We start school on September 1, with two days of in-service before that. I am taking off for vacation, but the trusty laptop is going with me, because I have Moodle pages to create, and lessons to plan. Summer is over.

The Power of Professional Learning Networks

I'm a self-proclaimed hermit. I've never minded (too much) being by myself, and during the summer, that is what I become. The last few years, though, I've ventured out into a more virtual world, and have found that I gravitate to a couple of places; Plurk , for a professional learning community, and Facebook, where I find out what's going on with people I know. I also follow bloggers using Google Reader, and get email updates from a group on Diigo, Diigo in Education. The more I read from Plurk and Diigo postings, the more I realize how much I don't know. On the other hand, I certainly appreciate what I've picked up from all of the generous sharing from people I don't even know! It's hard to be a virtual hermit.

What is the power of a professional learning network or community? First, the vast array of resources that are out there, free for the picking, is amazing. I love to see how people are using resources with their students. The creativity of people gets me thinking, "How can I utilize that?" with my teaching. A PLN provides a support group, although it depends how much you want to tap into that. Just getting glimpses into the lives of other people is fun. For example, many of the Plurkies I'm friends with were able to attend ISTE in Philadelphia last week. Their excitement about what they were learning was very cool to read about, and as always, they shared their insights and resources freely with the rest of the community. It used to be in teaching that life was rather isolated - the classroom was the teacher's world, and that world shut down just a little when the door was closed. Now it's the other way around - the world is the classroom, and that door is wide open.

I'm not much of a regular blogger. I need to do it more. Today I'm going to step outside of my hermit-hood, and even share this post. Whew!

1/1/11 Daily Agenda

January 1, 2011
1/1/11
Learning Target: planning for 2011

* to not live at school, but leave at a reasonable time so I have time to myself before W gets home
* pack my own lunches.
* keep track of my cycling on a calendar. The bike doesn't have an odometer, but I can track time
* participate in the photography challenges of Shuttercal and 365 Project. I started Shuttercal last year, and made it to March or April, with infrequent uploads for the remainder of the year

Assignment: be kind to myself, but frequently remind myself that health and balance are the overall goals for the year. Due date: December 31, 2011.

Summer is on it's way out....

I head out to school tomorrow for something official - setting up summer school. I'm only going to be working for the first week, so I'm a little surprised that I'm actually going to working. The theme is Learning Around the World - emphasis on geography. This is a great way for me to really start thinking about my NEW high school class, renamed Modern Geography (the original title, Social Studies Through Technology, was too long to fit into the computerized system we use.) Just thinking about summer school gave me some new direction for my high school class - call it clarification. I have a better idea where I'm going with it, since I teach without a textbook and mostly paperless.

But I'm not ready for school to start! I still have things to knit and sew, before I get caught up in all of the things that happen once school starts. We have a trip to southern Utah to visit our son; I'm not sure I'm reading for the heat, but I am ready to see him!

So, I'll set the alarm, and get myself going. I just won't dress up...

1 more week!

It has to be almost spring vacation. I have not been enjoying the last couple of weeks, for a couple of reasons. I am mentally tired, which makes me sluggish. I am concerned about the upcoming math assessment, so am doing what I've never wanted to do - teaching to the test. I guess I need to get off my high horse and face reality; my students need specific and focused instruction on the targeted standards. I will admit, though, that I am concerned about them meeting the standard. I feel as though I can't leave anything to chance, yet I am nervous about how the kids will approach the test. Finally, the behavior of the kids has been just enough off to make things not-so-fun, and I hate the way they are treating my teaching partner. On the positive side, my high school class is making me happy to be a teacher, and I'm excited to be working with a distance-learning student using Moodle and Google Docs. That will be fun. I am participating in the Go Paperless on Earth Day challenge, and am figuring out how I can do that will all the students I work with. Still, I can't help but think I am not doing enough, and my attitude needs a revision. Head down, keep moving - right now that's all I can do.

Thinking about retirement

I probably shouldn't jump the gun, but too often thoughts of retirement are clogging up the brain. I spent yesterday at the Sewing Expo, in Puyallup, immersed in something other than school, and it was a breath of fresh air. Yes, it was crowded, and yes, it was noisy, but there was all the stuff I used to love to do; wonderful fabrics, cool patterns, lovely yarn, and tons of creativity. I split up from my traveling companions pretty early, and met up with a Facebook friend, and then I just wandered. My usual approach to the Sewing Expo is to take a quick walk around the buildings, and then head back to the booths I am most interested in. I didn't buy things just because I could; I bought them because they were things I will work with - once I get my creativity back! I bought two packs of kimono pieces and a cool button from Ah! Kimono, hand-painted silk and a scarf pattern from sweaterkits.com, three smaller pieces of fabric, a knit for a tee-shirt, a sheer for an shirt, and some plaid in a cotton for a vest from a shop called Billie's Designer Fabric in Chehalis, WA, and an Indygo Junction pattern called Floribunda - floral brooches in wools, which I just happen to have in my stash. What didn't I buy? No Park Bench Patterns, because even though I love them, I have yet to make one of the probably ten I own, no Petite Plus Patterns, because I have probably the same number of patterns, but I have sewn with those (even though I'll probably end up buying the jean jacket pattern from the website), and although I really wanted to buy the Sewing Workshop bag with the pattern and the delicious-looking fabric in the nifty zippered clear-plastic bag, I resisted. Oh, and no rayon batik because I have yards of it, all just waiting to be sewn.

I was totally beat when we left after 6+ hours, but it was the kind of tired that is not-so-bad. I mean, nobody argued with me, I had no problems whatsoever reading handwriting or text, and I didn't have to pick up kleenex, pencils, paper (insert other stuff that somehow always ends up on the floor when the children have vacated the place) - in other words, I had a great day with like-minded friends. Yes, the Moodle posts still have to be read and scored, and with mid-term on Monday, the comments will have to be made for my two classes. But, I have things to create, and a sewing room that needs to be hung out in every day, because retirement will be here in 200 workdays or so after this year is over on June 12 (no surprises that I know the last day of the year! Oh, and I know the rest of the holidays as well as the dates of the days I will be gone to meetings or whatever.)

Will I go to the Sewing Expo next year? Yes, I will. I might even take a personal day, and go on Friday, to get back into the groove of attending seminars the way I used to. Spend the night in a decent hotel, and go again on Saturday to spend the day shopping, fashion show-ing, and eating strawberry shortcake. Hang out with friends, or just the crowd of sewing folks - and know that in 2012, I won't have to worry about grading papers.

Vacation is over

Two weeks have gone by with little thought to school. Oh, I had a school dream about a week ago, this one about Vocabulary Development. I think it was about my Title I classes. I had no desire to head out to the place, not even to water my two plants. So, I didn't. Today I honestly figured I'd be scrambling most of the evening with math planning, but much to my amazement I was done with that by mid-afternoon. And the DVD I found that accompanies my math series actually goes with the 2010 edition that we are using, so I ran off a couple of worksheets, just because I could. Weird.

5th period - now that is a different ball game. I headed to my class Moodle page, added the 'Merry Christmas' and 'Happy New Year' greetings to the last two weeks, and even got the topic started: the wiki, or more specifically, creating a class wiki. Of course, once I started thinking about it, I stalled. Do I really want the kids to create a Civil Disobedience wiki for Mr. B.? Should we use the wiki link on the Moodle page? Google Docs? Wikispaces? Do *I* know how to create a wiki? What kind of lame teacher am I, anyway? Should I let the kids learn-as-they-go, in a constructivist-sort of fashion? I believe they need to learn how to collaborate (especially a couple of them), and I truly believe a wiki is a good place to start. So knowing that I have a bit of time before 5th period on Monday, I'm just going to let this simmer for awhile, and see what happens. I'm even thinking, let the kids pick the research topic, and then let's see what they can do. Learning target = collaboration in a controlled space.

5.5 months to go......10 school days 'til the next day off.....Vacation is definitely over.