Summer Means Both Fun and Worry

As excited as I am for summer and the time I will have to learn new things at ISTE in Atlanta and at the Alice training I am attending at Duke University, I'm also worried about my students at school.  Summer for them can be a time of uncertainty.  Many of the kids I work with live in poverty and the meals they know will be there for them at breakfast and lunch at school are not necessarily easily received in the summer.  Yes, my school hosts a summer feeding program; but that's no guarantee that the parents of my students will be able to get the kids to the cafeteria each day for the meals that will be offered.  I also worry about the academic backslide these kids will encounter when they are not in the rich learning environment that school provides.  So many of their parents juggle multiple jobs and deal with the stresses of living in poverty and as a result lack the time or energy to just talk with and read with their kids.  At a workshop I attended last week, we heard the data about how so many of our kids in the high poverty schools come in and make large gains and then they go home for the summer and the data collected shows that over the summer these kids can lose 4-6 months of growth during their summer backslide.  So, as we go into the last weeks of school, I know that we have to use every minute we have to grow our students as much as possible because the more they grow the better.

Best Practices With Digital Resources

Graphic I created during a DPI
training session I attended
in the winter of 2012.

For my EDTC 6070 class,  I was asked to blog about the best practices in use of digital resources in the classroom.  As a technology teacher in a high poverty school, I see students and teachers on a daily basis who struggle with using technology as an educational tool.  In terms of best practices, I think the key is that the curriculum has to drive the activity and the technology has to be a tool.  All too often, I see teachers who use technology as the means to keep students occupied through games so they can assess or work with small groups and they fail to see technology as a tool that can foster student learning through project based learning activities where technology is a tool used to build knowledge. 

I think we are failing our teachers in providing the support they need to start using technology as an instructional tool as part of the T-PACK Model.   Content standards should drive instruction and teachers need to have knowledge of how to effectively integrate technology tools with the instruction they will be offering.  Pedagogy is moving towards the teacher serving more as a facilitator with students rather than lecture style instruction.   In order to support that shift in pedagogy, schools need strong instructional technologist coaching our teachers with how to best utilize technology tools as part of their instruction.  Project based learning is one of the best ways for having students use technology as a learning tool.  In my school, I have been collaborating with our Science specialist on a project with fifth graders.   In her classes, groups of students have been inventing their own brand of sneakers.  With me, students are working in collaborative groups to develop a commercial using iMovie or Animoto to sell their product much as an inventor would to profit from his or her invention.  The focus of the commercial project is to develop persuasive writing skills.  This is an example of how to use technology as a tool with students to reach that “Sweet Spot” where engagement and learning are maximized.

Sorting the Professional and the Personal in My Blog

Well, I've blogged off and on in spurts for years.  Going back to college as spurred me to return to the world of blogging and for my classes, I'm creating labels in my blog...one for those personal observations I make on life from time to time and one for my professional life, which revolves around my job as an elementary technology teacher.  Click on the labels at the right to see the blogs that interest you.

Lucy Moment of the Week

Well, today is definitely comical but that comedy is going to cause drama in the house.  My passed down to me from my parents 15 year old wicker furniture that is in the den is the source of the comedy and drama in the world today.  I sat down on the sofa prepared to fire up the laptop and get the blog I need to do for my online summer school class finished when I hear a crack and started sinking towards the floor - yes, this is where you picture the comical scramble to pull myself up before sinking to rock bottom.  I quickly pulled the cushions up to see the back side of the frame has separated from the support pieces for the seat.  After the exasperated sigh, I admit I couldn't be too surprised since the same thing happened with the chair to this set a few months back when Dwayne sat down in it.  Both times, I pulled out my handy Black & Decker drill and some super long wood screws and went to work.  The chair has held a few months, but I must say we really don't trust it.  Now, the sofa is in the same shape.

As to where the drama comes in, that is going to be the disorder my house is going to fall into the first chance I can gather some helpers to do the great furniture shuffle.  The shuffle has been considered for months in order to create Dwayne an office for his job since he works from home.  The living room furniture is making way to the den...the living room is being converted to the dining room and what was the dining room is becoming a home office.  The uproar this will cause in my normally organized house is not going to be fun and I hate to see what Noelle is going to do.  She's been trained that she's allowed on the den furniture but not allowed on the living room furniture.  I have a feeling we're going to have one confused dog...and an upset one too since the wicker love seat that is her main napping spot will have to become history with the chair and sofa that it matches.  Oh well, it could be worse...at least I'm handy with the tools and was able to make a temporary fix.  I knew better than to ask Dwayne since, to quote his 10 year old daughter, "Daddy just isn't handy!"  A remark she made just a couple of weeks ago when she called me to help her fix the broken towel bar in the bathroom instead of yelling for her Daddy.  I love you, Dwayne...but I definitely have better fix-it skills than you do!

Oh, and anyone reading this...I'm looking for a free desk if any of my friends have one that needs to find a new home.  I'll be glad to get it out of your way and off your hands.  Now, enough procrastinating...on to my homework!

Noelle

The picture at the left is my dog Noelle.  Noelle found her home on Christmas Eve 2010 when she came up in my yard while we were having a family Christmas gathering at my house.   She came up to my brother, Mark, and he could see her ribs sticking out and the fact that she did not have a tag or collar.  Soon, Noelle was sharing in our Christmas ham and making herself at home in my house.  I quickly realized that Noelle was already house broken and soon spread flyers in the neighborhood and place a "Found Dog" ad on Craigslist seeking to find her owner.  Noelle was never claimed and soon had a permanent home with me.  She is part hound and part lab, which means she is a very vocal and energetic dog and is spoiled rotten.  That said, Noelle has provided some challenging and entertaining days...multiple fence climbing fiascoes followed by being chased through the neighborhood, then there was the day she ate my prescription glasses, the underwear she drug out her dog door and scattered in the backyard and her latest love of bringing cardinals from the backyard into the den through the dog door.  Despite those crazy moments, nothing is better than coming home to a loving dog who is thrilled to see you at home.  Noelle may have found me, but I think maybe Santa dropped her as a special gift right at my front door!

Back to Blogging Again

Well, I have once again come back to the blog that I do in spurts and then get busy and allow to fall by the wayside because I'm busy with that thing called life.  This week, I am spurred on by the fact I am going back to college to finish up an Instructional Technology add on licensure for my teaching license that I started several years ago but never finished because I got side-tracked dealing with those things life throws your way - family illnesses, increasing job responsibilities, home ownership...the list goes on and on.  My first class back in school has a blogging component, so I'm back.  I'm sure for a while my blog will be a combination of things related to that class with a few of my observations on life.  Looking forward to getting back into the blogging world.