Setting Goals

Setting goals!  I set goals for my students and I am much better at setting them for students and getting them to work toward those goals then I am setting and achieving them for myself.  One goal I set for myself for Quarter 2 is to blog more (at least once a week).  I am starting today and going to try to reflect the progress of my class and my experiences.

Being back in the classroom has been great but not perfect.  Working with different personalities brings about issues that we cannot control.  That being said the teams have not made the progress I had hoped at this point.  It also didn't help that we missed over a week of school because of Hurricane Sandy.

On a positive note the team games are good and they are making progress.  After the first reviews I worked with the students to make changes where needed and they have done a great job of making improvements to the game play and concept.  Teams are presently working the the game demo.

I look forward to their demos and I look forward to achieving a goal I have set for myself.

I just watched a training session on Adobe Connect.   WOW!  I need to change several things about how I teach so I can record my sessions and then have available for students who are absent or need to review.  Education is going to move more and more to online learning and this is a place for me to practice my teaching strategies for that environment. 

I have been back in the classroom for four days and my head hurts with all the things I need to learn.  For all the technology educators in the world, we need training, learning and planning days just to keep up with last year's developments.

I love technology:)

Adobe Educator Awards  Educators!  I know many of you can win this competition.  Please submit entries and good luck.

Start of West Virginia Training

Today kicks off the first day of training for new Globaloria educators.  So far so good.  Exciting group who are super sharp.  It is nice to see super teachers in my own state!

Reflecting

I have just returned from training in Austin, TX and many thoughts are running through my mind.  The trip was awesome and the people were so great but it is such a joy to be home.  I love to travel and meet new people but there is always this wonderful joy for me when returning to the mountains of West Virginia.  This is truly the place I belong.

Thinking about that feeling explains the real reason I am returning to the classroom.  It is that I have a connection with this place.  I grew up a poor kid in rural Randolph County.  I was in 5 or 6 grade when our family added a "real" bathroom to the house.  My father died when I was 15 and my mother had never held a full time job.  Our family could have qualified for food stamps and none of us kids would let our mom get them.  We had too much pride!

As early was 5 or 6 grade I knew I wanted to be a teacher.  This is my way of giving another "young West Virginia" encouragement and knowledge "to go out into the world" away from West Virginia.  My hope is they will return to build businesses and homes.  To gain knowledge to improve our way of life here.  No we do not have the tourist attractions of big cities that I have had an opportunity to visit but we have non-man-made wonders.  So I want these students to bring back the best of the best so they can continue to work here and live and travel and be happy.

During the last 2 years, working for Globaloria, I have learned so much about so many things.  Maybe the greatest thing I have gained is the confidence I now have in myself.  After living here for so many years I guess I just needed a time to spread my wings to learn more about the rest of the world.  I feel refreshed and ready to spread this new knowledge to my students.  Going back to the classroom is my choice and not something I feel I have to do.  So few teachers get that opportunity and I am SO fortunate to have had it. 

So with a sad heart I think about not working full time will all the Globaloria staff because they are so awesome but with excitement I think about I am going to do this and this with my classes.  A state of mixed emotions.  The one thing I have learned is that it is important to learn from our experiences and I have. 

The poor girl from rural Randolph County has been given may opportunities.  I just hope that I can give back in equal or greater amounts what has been given to me.

 Teachers taking training in Austin, Texas.  They are awesome!  They are working really hard and understanding how this can be used in their classrooms.

We need more educators who take the time to learn and teach something new.  The world changes so should education.  These educators are willing to change education for their students.   May we all learn to change for the betterment of our students.

Join the Community

I encourage my students in West Virginia not to refer to themselves as hillbillies.  We joke about it frequently but should be our private jokes.  Not an image we project to the public because it reinforces the stereotype of West Virginians.

My students are bright, creative and motivated.  They deserve to be know as that and not as a hillbilly.

Recovering

The trip to California was awesome!  But it is so great to be home! 

The training went well and I am looking forward to working with the educators there in the coming year.  So exciting to see the Globaloria program grow from east to west.

 Globaloria Training in California--WOW!  Educators are learning the Globaloria program to integrate into their curriculum or school next year.  All trainees created Hidden Object Learning games using Adobe Flash.  They also learned the wiki and blog features that are incorporated.

Trainees include:  English, math, science, and social students--high school and middle school. 
I love it when educators are willing to learn new things that students need.  They has been blood, sweat and tears.  Well, no blood, it just seemed like it.

I am so looking forward to watching these educators progress throughout the year and seeing what their students produce.

This is my most recent idea using Adobe Acrobat Pro.  I am going to build a portfolio for Digital Imaging and Web Page Publishing.  I am going to create a folder for each major set of skill sets for those course.  In each folder will be a list of the skill sets and free online curriculum from the web to teach each of the skill sets.  Adobe TV and Adobe Education has loads of free tutorials.  Hope the idea turns into reality.

There two boys are not part of the Globaloria program but they could be.  What a project to do just for the fun of it. 

http://htwins.net/scale2/scale2.swf?bordercolor=white 

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/page/scale-universe-cary-michael-huang-california-high-school-15573968 

It is so amazing what students can do.  We need to prepare our students, so that more of them have the opportunity to do projects like this just for the fun of it.

Wow!  Blogger has changed.  One educator has an issue logging into their accounts.  Did any of your students have issues?

Wow!  Blogger has changed.  I am not sure when but Christina says 2-3 weeks ago.  I think I need to be here more often.  One educator said that her students had problems logging in.  Did anyone else have issues?

Spring Break

If schools haven't, they soon will take a spring break. Do you every wonder why schools need a spring break? Who needs it, the students or the teachers? Or both? Does a brain need a break from learning?

In all my years of teaching I never thought to ask students to record anything educational they did over spring break like read a book or traveled. I just never thought of it till now. Our brains really don't want to stop learning. The brain just wants to learn something that interests us. These options are endless.

So if you haven't had spring break yet, record what you do and see if you learn anything new.

Time flies

I haven't posted to this blog forever because I have been posting to a page for Facebook.  It is amazing how time passes.  We wake up and think, "How did I get to this place in my life?  I have been part of the Globaloria program for 5 years and it is amazing how much the program has developed in that time period.  The educators I have meet have inspired me so much.

One thing that I do wonder is how I how and when I actually learned what I know about Flash and the wiki.  There were lessons and tutorials but they don't cover even a tenth of what Flash and the wiki can do.  I knew NOTHING the first year I started and I recently passed the Adobe Certified Associate Rich Media Communication using Adobe Flash CS5.  Where did I learn this stuff?  

I learned some through Globaloria's training.  I learned some from teaching it.  I learned some from self-learning.  I learned some from my students.  There was no one class that taught me everything I can do now. 

We need to continue to make education that way.  Students wake up one day and realize that they know something!  That they learned it from training, teaching, self-learning and from each other.  Please let the time continue to fly for Globaloria and other classes in the school system.