Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Changes, Changes, Changes

As I keep saying, this summer I discovered Twitter and the incredible people learning and sharing with one another.  So much has changed for me in such a short period of time and I'm super excited about all the changes.  I've always loved what I do for a living, but I feel like my enthusiasm for my job is just growing and growing.  There is so much I want to do with my class this year.

On August 2nd I set the following goals for myself after attending  RSCON3.  So far I'd say I'm heading in the right direction.

I will set up a class blog with my grade one class this year. I hope to have a blog that the parents of my students can go to see what we are doing in class, and that the rest of the world can check out too.  DONE!  My class blog is up and running.  Today we wrote a blog together as a class.  There are still so many more things that I want to do with the blog, but I don't want to over whelm anyone - including myself.  I've also taken this goal one step further by creating individual blogs for my students.  We are writing on them even though nothing has been published to the world yet.

I will take the time to learn as many Web 2.0 tools as I can that can either benefit my teaching, my students learning, this blog, or my class blog. I've learned a ton of new tools which I hope to use either for myself or with my class.  I've also shared my knowledge at two professional development days with my staff.  

I will continue to differentiate my teaching because I believe so strongly about it, but I will look even more closely at how I go about differentiating. This isn't new for me, but I'm going to look for even more ways to differentiate.  

I will provide more opportunities for my grade one students to show me what they know in the manner that they are most comfortable with. Still working on this one, but I know it will come.  So much of my time at the beginning of the year is focussed on setting a proper tone for the rest of the year. I'm really pleased with the tone that we are setting together.

I will book the “free” lab time more often as well as bring the laptops into my classroom much earlier than term three. Each week I'm looking at when the free blocks in the lab are.  Obviously with a large school I have to be fair with the extra blogs but so far even adding one extra block in the lab makes a difference.  Today it was for a math lesson, next week, if the time is available it will be for a big buddy lesson- can't wait to get our big buddies to help us explore Voki. As for laptops, I've managed to get a small set of the older laptops into my classroom.  These laptops are at the end of their life span, but they are good enough for us at the moment. It's so exciting to see my students so excited to get on them.  Of course, I still have the laptop carts that I can book, which once I feel like our programs are really up and going, I will book them - perhaps next week during our math block?  Using technology in my first grade classroom does not scare me.

I will look for grants to get more technology into my classroom, and into my school. I haven't been able to get anything permanent into my school however I have been in contact with the "right" people in my district.  At the moment my school has a class set of ipod touches on loan and we are scheduled to receive  ipads into our school for a few weeks too.  While these are just temporary additions of technology (three week visits), they are (or hopefully will) help my staff realize how amazing these tools can be for teaching and learning.

I will read as many blogs as I can, and comment as often as possible. I have been and will continue to read other professional blogs. I'm making a real effort to write comments too.  I love what I'm learning from others and how it questions what I'm already doing.  I also love reading other people's "Ah Ha" moments.

I will be willing to help anyone that can use my help. I still stand by this one and I have helped out a few people in the process.  I'm hoping I can help out more but even if they don't ask for help, I'm hoping that by sharing what I'm doing I'll maybe help them take a second look at what they could be doing.  I really want to bring down the fear factor for as many as I can.

I will have my class fully participate in the Post Card Project. I love this project but I still haven't written a post card despite receiving three. But I will, or at least my class will, write postcards soon.

I will try my best to instill in my students that they can feel, imagine, do and share. This is and will be an on going process which I will not give up on.

I will be a change agent.


I'm really eager to see what the next couple of months have in store for me.  It's going to be an exciting ride.

3 comments:

  1. Wow! What a fantastic post. I love how transparent you're being here. You're doing what I think all of us need to continue to do: share what we're doing and share how we still need to change and what we still need to do. You've set great goals here, and it's clear that you're well on your way to achieving all of them ... and it's only October. I can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings!

    Aviva

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  2. I love your goal setting and update of attaining those goals! I am never thhat organized with my own goals. I agree 100 % that Twitter is the best thing I've ever been introduced to for professional development. I'm going to think about some of your goals to see how they coincide with my own wishes for the year.

    I teach first grade, too, and would love to have to che@k out my blog.
    *heather

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  3. Thanks Aviva and Heather. I'm really pleased with the steps I've taken these last couple of months but there are still so many more steps I want to take. I need to remind myself that I can't do it all in a day. That isn't an easy thing for me though but I know it's the right thing. Thankfully with support from others I know I will get to where I want to be - and then I'm sure I'll find a new direction to go in. As I've often said, I rarely sit still.

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