The summer is always a difficult time for me. I love having the break from teaching and being able to do other things. I get to go on vacations. I get to help my in-laws with their farm work. I get to relax and sleep in! I also take online classes, which sometimes can make the summer not so fun.
This summer, however, the courses all started coming together. I was learning practical things that fit my situation. As I have mentioned, we were going to be receiving Chromebooks, so I felt like I could do much more with technology.
I recently had a webinar on our new grading/communication system called Renweb. This also got me excited as it was something new and had a lot of features that we didn't have before. After the webinar, I was able to talk with our tech guy. He showed me what we can do with the Chromebooks, and he gave me my teacher one to take home! He also showed me the new tech lab in our high school and said that our elementary one would mirror it. Rather than having individual computers, we have monitors with something (I don't remember what he called it) attached to them that sends the data to the server, making them much faster with little technical problems.
I also had to screen a new 6th grade student. This student was transferring to our school, so I needed to see that she was prepared for 6th grade and advise her on what she could work on. She was such a sweet girl and very outgoing. This made me even more excited for school to start!
I love kids! I love the kids around this age as well. I remember this was a weird stage in my life, so it is fun to see what they are going through and how I could relate to that. They are thinkers! They are opinionated! They are humorous!
I can't wait to see what this year brings. I am looking forward to going back and trying all of the things I want to do. Oh, I just can't contain it!
Summer is a good time to get all of those little chores done that normally go unattended during the school year. You are fortunate to be receiving Chromebooks this year. I am sure your students are going to be all over the new technology! Just think, now you can teach them to blog. Great post!
ReplyDeleteIt is always great when you can take what you learn and immediately implement it. I have learned several things, whether through Boise State classes or even my B.A. classes, that I couldn't implement immediately. It's sad to say, but that knowledge is mostly lost!
DeleteNathan, you sound energized and that is so great! Your Chromebooks are going to be magnificent tools! It is great to meet students coming into your class and I am sure the young lady is more excited now that she's met you too! Grade 6 is a pretty great year :)
ReplyDeleteThank you, Angela. I have loved teaching 6th grade and hope to keep doing it for a while!
DeleteNathan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your energy and enthusiasm. I posted my goals for the coming school year on my blog. One of them is to laugh more, which is my contribution to the positive. I think if we can approach the profession of teaching with enthusiasm, that resonates with most of our students to create energy in the class as well.