So after a LOOOOONG hiatus from blogging, I have returned, with a newfound goal of streamlining my life in all of it's facets....
I'm going to focus this blog exclusively on my teaching as our school goes through some MAJOR curriculum and organizational changes. I found myself in a 'funk' this past year, and honestly, I'm not sure if it was from personal reasons or professional reasons... but I am going to use this next school year to focus on my professional self and making some MAJOR changes to both my practice and my organizational methods.
Beginning Monday, I'll be able to use a prototype of my INTERACTIVE NOTEBOOK that I'm using this fall. I'm using my 5-6 and 7-8 summer school students as guinea pigs for my experimen. They have no idea what's in store for them... (insert evil laugh here). I'm planning on posting some of what we complete on this blog, and then modify it for the school year. We'll see how things go...
I hope to find some motivation and encouragement on this blog - coupled with what I hope is some profitable documents on TeachersPayTeachers.com I have found a TON of useful resources on this site, from FOLDABLES to LESSON PLANS to COMMON CORE CHECKLISTS and I hope that I can share some of my own resources to the teaching population.
Finally, I will mention my own TEACHER ORGANIZATION methods. I have been teaching for (gasp) 18 years and you might hope I know what I'm doing... but admittedly, I am always finding new and improved ways of doing things. My most recent endeavor is the online lesson plan book. There are definitely pros and cons to this. This past year, based on my course load, I went back to the 'traditional' method, but I'm hoping to use the electronics to my advantage this year. I also am super psyched about hyperlinks and PDFs as a method of using technology to save not only paper, but also communicate to parents and students alike. However, training the kids and equal access continues to be a challenge. Sometimes I wonder if 'traditional' paper and pencil should continue rather than the modern electronic education.
Still, I would LOVE to podcast and vidcast and 'flip the classroom' but I know I can only bite off small chunks (I tend to take on LOTS and not always get the results I should...). Picking a goal and taking the small steps to meet it will be my new endeavor. And I hope to share it with you.
