Tag Archives: Carmel-Clay Schools

It’s About to Get Real!

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Ok, today was the teacher workday and the ice cream social for Carmel Elementary School (and, apparently, every other elementary school in the district – I mean, everyone had a workday, but ice cream socials were also apparently rampant).

Tomorrow… the students come FOR REAL.

I am both excited and nervous. I kept asking kids tonight, “Are you excited about tomorrow?” and they would hang their heads and say quietly, “Well, excited and kinda nervous.” “ME TOO,” I would say.

I am not really ready. I have not scripted what I am going to say. I have told five different people eight different things that I am doing tomorrow for my classes, and I have written down none of them, so the odds are very good I’ll get halfway through the day and think, “Well, shoot.”

I was less prepared last year, but I don’t remember being this nervous. I must have been, though, because let’s face it, I can get nervous about going to the ice cream shop, if there are too many variables involved.

Tomorrow is class, class, class, class, class, prep.

Oh, I was so happy to see the kids today, though. And plenty of them liked my room. And the computer worked AND the projector – I mean, what are the odds?

Good luck to anyone else starting this week! May the odds be always in our favor.

Google Educator, Leader in Me, and C4 Conference: Being a Techie

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Whew! What a week! I’ve spent a lot of it hunkered down at the computer trying to become a Google Educator, Level 1. Monday, I went to a Leader in Me meeting? conference? at my school, which was great – three hours and we discussed what to do next in Year 2 of our Leader in Me culture. Great to see everyone, met the new teachers, and managed to get in a couple of plugs for what the computer lab could do for everyone.

Yesterday, worked on Google Educator modules, interspersed with cleaning – I can’t do too many of the modules in a row or my eyes cross. I have one. more. module. left. And then the test. Crossed fingers – hoping to finish it this week.

Today, C4! E green screenHoneycutt school

The first picture is a bummer – it had a REALLY cool Van Gogh background that apparently doesn’t show here – but don’t I look excited and happy to be at C4? ‘Cause I was!

The second is a slide from our speaker, Kevin Honeycutt. He was AMAZING. Totally a Robin Williams character, with a lot of energy and humor but deep feelings underneath – and not all that far underneath. He got choked up a couple of times, talking about his family, and I got choked up, and I just felt lucky to be there in that place.

Kevin Honeycutt

This is his website if you want to go take a look:

www.kevinhoneycutt.org

So the slide refers to a project his son started – he had to do a project to graduate from high school, and he asked his dad if he knew of any schools who needed anything, and his dad said that there was this teacher in Nepal who was teaching in a place without any government services and they had 20 books in the library. So his son organized to help this man, and they figured out how to get him the money to go buy two laptops, and then the school was torn down and … well, it’s not my story to tell, but his son worked out how to help on a BIG SCALE and just so inspiring a story. There’s a link on Kevin’s webpage, and the site is on the pic above.

This is one of his talks – you should DEFINITELY click on this to hear it (yes, there’s an ad, sorry).

The Angels of My Education

C4 was amazing overall. I went to five different sessions, plus keynote and EdCamp. The first was Your First Graders Do WHAT?!?! – Technology for Your Little Learners. The woman who presented is a first grade teacher at Smoky Row Elementary, Kristen Cannady, and she has got her kids reading QR codes to find out what to do in stations, tweeting for her (she is the only one who can push “Post” – also, no kids’ names are used), and creating their digital portfolios with SeeSaw. She also regularly sends videos home for the kids to watch as their homework. It’s just very impressive what those kids can do.

Second was Computer Coding Clubs, presented by Hanna Rumschlag, who’s the media specialist at Mohawk Trails Elementary – she has been doing a club for two years, and I want to start one this year. She’s very thorough so that was super helpful.

Third was the presentation about the technology plan at Carmel Clay Schools, which is super-exciting for this coming year. I don’t think I’m allowed to say anything about it yet, but it’s going to be fun.

Fourth was Helping Kids Help Themselves, PACKED with apps for literacy and for math. The always-awesome Tracy Hastings presented those, along with Betsy Howard. So. Many. I’ve taken notes but need to go through them and see how they actually work. Not sure how many we can use in the computer lab, but helpful for the future when I have a classroom and, God willing, more devices.

The last session was the Going Deeper with Trends, Tools, and Tactics for 21st Century Learning, which was led by Kevin Honeycutt, and it was great. He talked about his website and options and had several stories about his being able to really push to the limits his programs in order to keep his kids engaged and learning.

Then EdCamps, during which we talked about Canvas and our concerns about devices.

The whole thing was just helpful and inspirational and all of the good things. We even got lunch, and that always counts for a lot for teachers, you know? And door prizes – I won an iTunes gift card! I am so lucky I got to go.

This post is too long already, but a couple of quotes from Kevin’s speech:

“We’re dying of humble.” (gotta tweet/blog more about awesome stories)

We need to be “tradigital” teachers (see what he did there?).

“A good teacher is like a good quarterback – he throws the ball where the receiver isn’t yet.”

Oh, and “Teaching is non-invasive brain surgery.” !!!