Well, the meetings have started and we are officially back in the swing of things. We came back to the usually faculty meetings, where we announce the news of the summer, go over the summer reading articles and books, and find out all the fun that we will be embarking on this year. It is always bitter sweet getting up that first day for meetings, wishing we were still in bed and staying home with pets and family.
This year had a new feel for me. We came to school to see all the new SMARTboards hanging in the classrooms and I was excited to feel the energy. As a member the faculty that had a board last year, it was fun to teach tech to my colleagues and get them excited for the moment they had their own boards in place. I felt honored and excited to be taking on a role as a facilitator and teacher among my peers. I'm sure this year will be full of fun and also a million questions from friends who need help with their new technology! :)
We also had the privilege of hearing Will Richardson speak to the school about technology usage in the 21st century classroom. Of course, compared to some of my colleagues, I was sitting at the edge of my seat, ready to hear what he had to say. His talk was full of many facts and figures, to which I found myself nodding my head in agreement. It wasn't what he said to me that stuck with me, but the way the conference was held. He encouraged laptop usage as well as using Todaysmeet.com to facilitate our own discussion while he was talking. It was amazing how some of us could multitask and hold our own discussion, while listening to Will speak. He talked about Twitter, Delicious, Evernote, and many other 2.0 apps that I have experimented with. The one that I hadn't done much of is blogging. So here I am, blogging about my new found excitement. I guess that was the point of the lecture and Will did his job. We'll see where this takes me.
Happy school year and happy blogging.
Anna, I am looking forward to following your blog. My church for 3 years does an after school bible club in an Elementary School nearby. We meet with 2 - 5th graders and have a VBS style club meeting with games, stories, team competitions, scripture memorization, snacks, and lots of energizing songs. We are getting organized to start the week after Labor Day. In the first year, we saw the smartboard as a wonderful very large whiteboard and began to keep score of a game on it....the kids freaked out and yelled NOOOOOOO!!!! They showed us the special spray to erase what we had written and we have learned from our mistake! Ha, fun times!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to be your second blog follower. I think this upcoming year is going to be a great one--lots of good energy at school. Thanks for being such a wonderful peer teacher/Smartboard facilitator last year, Anna.
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