The Final 4
For educators this is the final 4. Those last weeks of school before the children have vacation. If we are lucky we may get a few weeks off as well. More than likely, most of us will be “in school” ourselves, attending webinars, and classes. The ending of one school year does afford one an opportunity to look back, reflect, take stock, and do a little self reflection.
This past year was a mixed bag of both personal and professional challenges. One of the goals I set for myself this past school year was to set up a personal learning network, and find out what other educators were doing around the country and the world. This past year I was happy to be team leader for the MI Champions project in my school. I was honored to have a student article and a profile published in the MACUlL journal. I was thrilled to be able to present at the MACUL conference in Detroit, and got to meet in person several people I knew through MACUL SPACE. I had several articles published in England through Ictopus, and kept a professional blog on Edublog and Macul Space. I enjoyed meeting with Mark R in early August and he allowed me to use a great new tool called Curriculum Crafter. I managed to get a simple webpage on the GRPS website so the Shared Time Program has a presence there. I won the MEMIC grant and was able to buy two GPS devices for geo caching. I even sat on the unions executive board, since we are 2 years without a contract. My classroom wiki at http://computerkiddoswiki.pbworks.com grew as a resource and at last count had over 30,000 guests and was viewed from more countries than I care to count.. This past year I blogged, I twittered, kept a group calendar on Learnport, and have even attended professional development in Second Life.
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One of the most exciting developments was meeting Prof Nyhoff from Calvin College. He visited my school and yesterday I had the opportunity to take my 7th graders to Calvin. The kids got to see how computers were used at the college level, play in VR, meet the professor who wrote the book on Learning Alice Programming, saw a “Super Computer”, meet with the Art department to see Digital Photography, and Set design. Hats off to Prof Nyhoff who is working to reform education, increase students interest in Computer Programming and is building bridges from the college environment to the K-12 world.
This past school year my 2nd grade students created a collaborative wiki using a virtual Flat Stanley, my 7th graders created a Treasure Island wiki, and my 8th graders began blogging. We build virtual bridges and then models using gumdrops and tooth picks. Students at various grade levels programmed in Squeak, Scratch, Alice, Logo, and HTML. We created animated features, used the computer in digital photograph, drew in Google Sketch up and Anim8or, created podcasts, photostories, scrapblogds, and voice threads . We researched, we collaborated, and we published. I spent way to many after school hours donating time to create “the yearbook” In giving the students zero hours before school and giving up my lunch hours for study hall, left me drained at the end of the day. Teaching 8-9 classes of 45 minutes each is likely enough. Finding balance is a new goal yet to be achieved. I would like to try using a green screen next and would like a Bluetooth tablet or interactive whitebard. However I remain determined to not let the lack of resources limit the opportunities for my students. It is such a wonder to have so many free web based tools. 
The challenges in my personal life were equal to that in my professional one. My husband finally got a job he loved and was plagued by headaches so severe he missed a lot of work and was let go after 6th months. The doctors are still trying to find the source of the headaches and mood swings, and continue to try different medications. My daughter totaled her car, but was fortunate to have only minor injuries. I am still dealing with a root canal, just need to get fitted for the cap. All way to expensive for words. Y car needed a new transmission and still needs more work done. My hopes of returning the school for a PhD are on hold once again. With so many jobless in the state I am happy to have a job. Grand Rapids Pubis now the record for the lowest paid teachers in the KISD. We are also plagued by a group from Muskegon called the EAG who is not shy about their desire to “break” the union. I moved my youngest ADD child to a private school with smaller class size.. We have 2-3 hours of homework each night, and the finding the money for the tuition is difficult-but the school has been working with us. I never lost the weight I wanted too, and there were many days I needed more time, or spent too much time at work and too little time at home. The one constant in the world of technology is that there is always someone who needs help with something. My hair dresser has given up on me-too many cancelled appointments as I ended up dealing with one crisis after another at school. . Right now the dreaded m.exe virus is haunting the systems and so far nothing I have tried as worked. Help arrives on Monday.
So overall I did the best I could at both home and school with the resources I was given. There is much more to look forward to next school year. Maybe I will even lose the weight I want to.
