Reflecting on the Fall

Wow its been a while since I have sat down and thought about what I have done or what I am doing. We just started another new semester this week and ended the fall semester last Friday. I feel a little beat up and tired. Just another two days til the weekend and about another 3 weeks until we have a three day weekend!

I had the opportunity to present some neat websites on our November 8th inservice here at school. I ran two sessions, the first was some what filled which was nice because I was able to get a feel for the group and what they were interested in. The second session was pretty full. We had some network connection problems....it was intermittent not good a thing when you have a classroom full of teachers! I spent at least ten hours prior setting up a webpage for the session, sorting out what sites to show, preparing handouts for each session and making sure the room would be ready.



MaryJo and Jennifer,

I just wanted to let you know what a WONDERFUL job Kristina Hurley did yesterday! Her presentation was well organized and applicable to a wide range of teachers. The session was useful to teachers of any subject and was user friendly for the novice while it still benefitted the experienced technology buff.

I was fortunate to attend this session!

Cathy

Hi,
I'm sorry I keep forgetting to Thank You for Tuesday, it was a great help to us that you returned the projector, and had the mobile lab at the door ready to go.
Thank You,
Mary-Anne and AJ

I was pleased and I got a lot of positive feedback. While I really enjoyed showing the teachers sites that they got excited about I was also glad when it was over...it was work...normally when I go to an Inservice I am usually the one sitting and watching! (10hours)

I have recently gotten hooked to the the newletter "Connected Classroom" which Sandi our school Librarian introduced me to. In one week I sat down and read 2 or 3 months of newletters and used the links (the newsletters are loaded with them) to check out tons of sites and then added the ones I thought were worth remembering to my portaportal.com (guest login:kmshurley). I have also started reading T.H.E. Journal. I have found some really good articles and ideas that I have started using in the classroom. My students are now blogging! My students both in my math classes and web design classes are leaning through interactive web sites that connect directly to the curriculum. They have taught me a few things along the way!

Like today two sophmores showed me how to write something on the Smartboard and then turn it into text! I am sure I was shown that before but it was still really cool to see it again! And the fact that the kids weren't afraid to play with the Smartboard and show me a few new things was pretty cool!

Having spent the time surfing and finding some really cool interactive websites, I was able to share some cool science links to a science teacher who I share a room with. At first what I showed her she said would really be for middle school science. So I did some more searching and found very good interactive Biology websites that she said she would use AND she shared them with another science teacher who copied them from my portal into her own portal....how cool is that!! Yes I feel that I have made a very worthy contribution to the technology integration here at Strath Haven;)

I think I would like to run some more sessions with the teachers but I would like to work with one subject at a time. Like with English I think they might appreicate Landmark Citations Machine. But maybe they already know. I just spoke to one English teacher who didn't but that just might be one teacher. (8 hours)

I have been invited to a Texas Instruments certification workshop this summer. There are nine classes altogether. The first five will be June 26-30, 2 days in August, 21-22. The last five will be later in the fall.

Texas Instruments position is that participants that complete the TLC program will receive enough training so that they can return to their districts and lead training for their or neighboring districts. Texas Instruments does not designate instructors, the local districts/organizations designate the participants that will lead training sessions in their district.

I hope that I have the opportunity to do some training here in the area. I am sure here at the high school I will be able to do something.

I have contacted Joe our SD's TI guy. I asked him if I could work with him for my Internship. He said yes. He included me in an email to a group of individuals about a Technology Committee. This will be my first official Tech mtg here at school! I hope its a productive meeting and productive committee. (1.5 hours)

One last event...I heard about a special ed teacher and math teacher teaming up to teach a low level sophmore class. The speical ed teacher and I are going to take a look at some technology lesson ideas to integrate into the math class. I am going to share my jeopardy ppt reviews. The portaportal with the lists of interactive sites. Ways to maybe use the Smart Board to lead group discussions. We are going to meet next week. (1.5 hours)