Closer 2 Home

Interpretation of words...  When I was in high school, my best friend and I painted a huge mural.  We created our visualization of Robert Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. Check out this Poem Flow of the words.  Sometimes I wonder what path I've chosen?  Totally different word now - learning.  What is learning?  As an educator, I've usually interpreted it as exploring new tools, strategies, or methods and applying them in my classroom.  Yet, this year not only has my definition changed, but my outlook has been considerably altered.  One day I realized I hadn't been learning anything new or was I?  What I was learning had changed.  Now, I am learning more about working with others in an attempt to create positive change.

Impacting at school....  I think my curriculum coordinator once said it that the district likes to see "Teachers as leaders" or something to that effect.  I guess I just don't view myself as a leader, but am realizing I have the potential, if I'm willing to accept it.  One of my favorite Dove dark quotes says, "Believe in yourself and everyone will do the same." - Doris West End, NC   Sometime last year, I'd tweeted something asking, "How do you impact others at your school?"  Chris Hyde's response was so simple, yet profound.  He'd said something like, I just help them with what they need.  Lately, I've been asked such a variety of questions, by such a variety of individuals, I'll admit I'm adjusting to this new role.  But, I'm glad that I can help and that teachers are interested in trying new things! 

Interested in new staff development... This year our school started PLC teams, Professional Learning Communities.  Thanks to the research of our administrative team, we were able to try out this newer and promising format.  One focus of ours is utilizing Skype to connect "beyond" our classroom.  Last year, my class had so much success with video conferencing through Skype, I can't wait to see the ideas that we come up with to share among our PLC.  Our collaborative blog, RCS: Teaching4Tomorrow, is off to a good start. We have a wonderful team who share a similar vision for their classrooms.  I was encouraged when a member said they like how we are incorporating elements of good practice into our meetings.  In our first set of meetings, we used the technology that we were going to explore further during the school year, explored new tools in a hands-on format, used Step-Up to Writing to organize our thoughts for the collaborative blog post, and were using Skype for our virtual meetings.  We are excited and open about sharing with each other our questions, concerns, and inquiries.  The accountability aspect has become a support network.  I look forward to see where this year takes us both as a PLC and virtually with our webcams!

Influencing with Go Glueless with GlogsterEDU...
What should the day look like?  Time to create....Hands-on....Comfortable....Idea sharing....Organized....Focused....Immediate implementation....Extra examples....Practice project....Inspiring....User friendly....Practical....Other options
Where to begin? Created a wiki called Go Glueless to keep everything centrally organized
How did it go? Wonderful... but a workshop is only effective if it creates change.  Teachers have started jumping in.  Some have collaborated across the grade level, others have had their students get started on the SMARTboard, and some have had their students start creating glogs individually with their student accounts.  I look forward to seeing where GlogsterEDU takes their students this year.
Where to go from here? There is a fine line between overwhelming support and effective support.  I think I'm still searching for that happy mix between excitement and encourgement.

Initiating change in others... Rick Weinberg, a technology integrator from our local BOCES, asked me to present at the Technology Coordinators and Integrator's Forum later this month.  I'll have a brief time to share with administrators, tech coordinators and integrators, as well as other educators.  I hope that this time will give some hope on what student's can really learn, accomplish, and produce when given the opportunity, tools, and resources needed. 

Inspired at home... As a teacher, we never are "off the clock," as our brains are constantly thinking about our students, curriculum, school, lesson plans, and more.  Well, I have the advantage of being married to a teacher.  Rob Griffith helps me to not only develop ideas, keep my cool, but also retain my focus.  One example of how our conversations are so beneficial, was when I was reflecting on incoporating Kidblogs.  This blogging format allows teachers to set up their own class set of blogs, each student with their own individual blog.  I'd been inspired by some teachers use of Kidblogs with their students in the spring and I couldn't wait to try them out.  Well, it just wasn't fitting.  My students loved the idea and concept of having their own blog.  But, I had a decision to make.  Well, Rob was reading this book and he'd briefly given me a synopsis and said, what's your objective?  Read 30 seconds....for more details.  It helped me answer my own questions.  So, Kidblogs is on the back burner.  More in my next post about my objective...  But, some questions for you. 

How do you interpret learning?

What path have you chosen?