I am at the end of my first week of Summer vacation and I really haven't done squat. Maybe that's what I was supposed to do because I'm ready to start working. My first item of business is to get this Blog going. As I said in the last post I will be going through lots of tools this summer to see what I might want to use in the coming school year. In addition to the list I gave you then, here are my Delicious Bookmarks to see all of the things that I have "collected" during the school year - lots for me to take a look at!
I thought I'd share what my Summer plans look like before you start complaining that I didn't get enough done on my ToDo List.
First off I will be writing curriculum for our school district. I'll be working with my fellow MNTHS teacher, Tara Craig, and we will be concentrating on the combined Algebra 1/Geometry class that we will be team teaching this year (and next). The alignment of state standards will be tricky but not impossible to complete.
Next up I go to Harvard. Sounds impressive but actually I'm the DH(designated hitter) for our school. We have been asked to participate at the Achievement Gap Initiative under schools that "Focus Effectively on Technology." I'll attend the two-day conference but I'm a back-up should our Principal or Master Teacher be unable to be on their panel.
I then get almost two weeks off before I attend the Conference for the Advancement of Mathematics Teaching (CAMT) in Houston.
That ends on Friday, July 17th and on July 18th I drive to San Antonio for the set up of a week at the PBL T-STEM Summer Institute. There, I become a trainer and I will be one of only a handful of PBL high school teachers in attendance.
When that concludes, I get to have almost 48 hours off before I leave on Sunday, 26th to go to our New Technology Foundation All Schools Conference in Grand Rapids, MI. At this conference I will be both attending and presenting. Many, if not all, of the teachers at MNTHS present at this conference because, well, we're awesome like that. Actually our Principal is very supportive of our work and he encourages us all to submit a proposal because HE thinks we're awesome. It really is an incredible conference for all of us New Tech folks.
That ends on the 31st and on Monday or Tuesday I attend a TAP summer training for 3 days ( at our school, thank God). Then I get a week or so off before teachers are Back To School!
We've been finding more and more teachers embracing online technologies to help them communicate and post content more seamlessly. We offer a virtual binder on the web - like a 3-ring binder that lets you combine online content with uploaded documents. Here is an example of one of the most popular binders we have on education:
ReplyDelete3rd grade math word problems - http://livebinders.com/play/play?id=1619
I know you are busy this summer, but if you could take a look and see if this is something you could use, we'd appreciate your feedback.