Lunch hour… in any other profession I’ve been involved in this meant that I left the premises (or at least moved to a cafeteria/staff room), ran personal errands up town, went to the gym, relaxed and enjoyed my food, etc. Lunch hour… in the teaching profession, however, is a somewhat less-structured continuation of the rest of your day. As soon as that 12:00pm bell rings you are:– Supervising extra-curricular activities– Providing extra support for students who need to catch up– Meeting with colleagues or admin– Holding meetings with students– Making phone calls home– Photo-copying – Preparing for your… Read More
Barbara Coloroso: Kids Are Worth It
Today was our first day back at school full-time for teachers! Although students don’t officially start until Thursday, teachers are back attending meetings for today and tomorrow. Today all of the teachers and support staff in “T-Division” had the opportunity to attend an PD session with Barbara Coloroso, an educator, mother, and author. To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about this session going into it because I couldn’t find a very strong online presence for Barbara and I wasn’t exactly sure what specific topics our session was going to address. I must admit, however, that I was pleasantly… Read More
Professional Growth Plan
During our New Teacher Orientation we were asked to start thinking about our Professional Growth Plans as we will be meeting with our individual principal’s this week. As part of this, we were provided with forms to help us guide our goals (both personal and divisional). As a new teacher, most of the times when I think of the school year my hopes are to simply survive through it! Student teaching is just a taste of what full-time teaching is like and I hope to just make it through the year while trying to balance lessons, differentiating instruction,… Read More
New Teacher Orientation
Yesterday was New Teacher Orientation in “T-Division”! My husband, myself, and four other new teachers met at our Division Office to get prepared for the new year and learn the ropes of the division. As you can probably tell from the fact that there are only 6 new employees, our division is quite small and our orientation was very laid back and welcoming. In general, the information was a little bland but necessary. We discussed:– Our provincial union, Manitoba Teachers’ Society (MTS)– Salaries– Life Insurance– Health Insurance– Divisional Calendar– Divisional Policies– Professional Development & Growth, etc A… Read More
Summer #EdTech To-Do List Revisited
At the beginning of the summer (oh geez, was that already 2 months ago!?) I shared my Summer #EdTech To-Do List inspired by a blog post by Anthony Vonbank. For the last five summers I have always worked two jobs to pay for the upcoming year’s school tuition, so I always considered myself very busy. This is my first summer since Grade 8 that I haven’t worked at all during the summer! I thought that this would mean that I wouldn’t be busy and was actually worried that I might be bored! HAHA! With the wedding, honeymoon, and planning for… Read More
Summer #EdTech To-Do List
I recently read a post by Anthony VonBank over at his blog, Clouducation, in which he shared some of his #EdTech suggestions for summer. Since I am an #EdTech lover, my Twitter-Tried-It Challenge is still going on, and I’m now on the ManACE Board, I thought it was a perfect fit for me to create my own #EdTech To-Do List too! (Big thanks to Anthony for the inspiration!) Technology is a given. (2013). Uploaded by Scott McLeod to Flickr. Available online at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcleod/8399337241/ While most of us can think of countless things we would like to try/work on/update/etc,… Read More
Twitter-Tried-It Challenge Update 2!
The Twitter-Tried-It Challenge, that I introduced on June 6th, has been in place for a little over two weeks now and I’ve been trying so many awesome idea… have you? In my first Twitter-Tried-In Update I featured Ms Duemm who was the FIRST participant in the challenge. Since then, she has shared her experience on her blog as well. I definitely recommend that you head over there and check it out because it seems like a really neat project 🙂 I’ve also had Ms Banks, an elementary school Vice-Principal from Manitoba, join up with multiple implementations! She has… Read More
Resources To Start Off Your Week 68
The Twitter-Tried-It Challenge has been in place for over a week now and while I haven’t gotten a big participation level on the blog, I am hoping that a lot of people are individually participating in their own ways. Right before the weeked I shared the great resources by the mRLC and tweeted it out so hopefully that inspires a few people to try it out! I know that a lot of my American followers are officially on their summer holidays (lucky ducks) so I wanted to share another resource that is perfect for the holidays and could… Read More
Twitter-Tried-It Challenge Update!
The Twitter-Tried-It Challenge that I introduced on Thursday is in full swing and I’m happy to announce that, after just 1 day, I had my first challenge participant! Way to go, Ms Duemm! Iris is a Grade 3 teacher in Ontario, Canada and I am so happy to have her as my first Twitter-Tried-It participant. If you want to learn more about the Genius Hour strategy that she implemented, check out the Twitter hashtag #GeniusHour (there is a Twitter chat the first Wednesday of each month) or the Genius Hour Website! __________________________________________________ If you would like to participate in the… Read More
Twitter-Tried-It Challenge!
A while back, I was browsing through Twitter and I came across this tweet by David Moroz: Simple and straightforward… right? Then I did a quick check through my Twitter feed and reviewed some of the many, MANY, ideas I had retweeted over the past few weeks and realized just how few of those ideas I have actually implemented. I know that you can’t do everything at one time, butI am challenging myself and my followers to pick at least ONE THING that they’ve retweeted on Twitter and actually implement in their lives! It can be a… Read More