Work Summary

Normally I turn in a weekly summary to my boss documenting what I have done and worked with teachers on throughout the week. Since August and the beginning of the year has been crazy busy, I decided to do it in narrative form for the month. Just thought I would post it here in my blog!

Narrative TIS Summary for August 2009
Susan Jenkins

The beginning of the new school year, 2009 – 2010, started with us “hitting the ground running.” New construction, new teachers, and new technology have made for a month of putting things together and a whirlwind of teacher training.

Out of all of the construction the two newest building are on my schedule, so assisting with computer set up, Activ Board Training, etc. were all a huge part of my TIS duties during the month of August. The month began with a week of professional development holding all day “Technology Refreshers” and/or Activ Board trainings for Pleasant Grove, Roby, Mt. Washington Elementary, and Overdale. This week also consisted of the annual New Educator Orientation where the new teachers in the district are trained on our Acceptable Use Policies and accounts created for them.

The week of August 10th brought the opening day and students’ first day of school. I met with many teachers to begin helping them get set up to use the technology available in their buildings. During this week I met with teachers at Eastside Middle School to discuss SMART Board and Voice Thread, Old Mill to train on the use of the projector, and Brooks Elementary to discuss various technology skills. I also attended the Instructional Coach meeting to get up to date on what is going on with the Student Learning Department in preparation for MAP testing. This week also consisted of a meeting with our SuccessMaker representative, Joshua Brown, to discuss getting the program ready for student and staff use.

The week of August 17th was spent with more technology setup and software installs for the ActivBoards at the new elementary schools. I was also able to meet with Kindergarten classes at Mt. Washington Elementary to model the integration of the new ActivBoards in that building. The rest of this week consisted of meeting with various teachers to set up SuccessMaker, Study Island, Teacher Websites, etc.

During the week of August 24th, I worked with a teacher from Eastside Middle School on two different days in going over various possible ways of integrating the CPS clickers into her Math instruction. I also worked with various grade level teams at Roby on training them in the ActivInspire software. On the 26th my co-worker and I attended the Region 4 TRT/TIS meeting in Henry County and listened to a presentation by John Halligan, who had lost his son in 2003 due to cyberbullying.

The school year has gotten off to a busy but smooth start and I am excited about the possibility of the teachers in our district this year.

Susan Jenkins

New School Year--- 2009-2010

Excitement, nerves, stress, unknown....Those are just a few of the emotions on the roller coaster of staff, students, and parents this past Tuesday as we all began a new school year in Bullitt County, Kentucky. Construction is the huge thing on the radar in our district and y es, it is an inconvenience to everyone involved. Many staff and students are going to be in the midst of it for the majority of the year or more. However, to see the faces of the students on Tuesday in our two newest buildings (Overdale and Roby Elementary Schools) was priceless. I visited both on that first day and asked students what they thought, especially about the modern technology tools in their new classrooms. Some comments I received were "Good!!" with a huge excitement level in the pronunciation. One parent friend on my Faceboook said that her daughter thought Overdale was "as big as a hospital and looked like a mall in some places!"

Yes, there is still on going construction happening at six of our schools. Yes, parents are frustrated and were all over the news concerned about safety of their kiddos. Yes, teacher have minimal tools at the moment in a few schools. Two more new schools are process to open next school year. However, after we all suffer through this temporary inconvenience I am looking forward to the day in the VERY near future that Bullitt County Public Schools is a leader in technology, making us a top leader in student learning!

Here's to making it smoothly through our first week back!

Susan

Pocketing the Planet

I am linking you, today, to a guest blog post that I did on the Promethean Planet website. For those who may not know, Promethean Planet is the site that teachers are able to access in order to find lessons and resources for their Promethean ActivBoard.

Follow the link to see my posting: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/blog/?p=1386

Enjoy!!
Susan

Some Resources I Have Recently Discovered

These are some resources that have been shared with me by various colleagues on my Twitter PLN. Great resources that I will definitely find a use for this coming new school year!

• Promethean - su09training

  Promethean ActivStudio and ActiveInspire Training flip charts.

  tags: Promethean, ActivStudio, ActivInspire

• FREE -- Teaching Resources and Lesson Plans from the Federal Government

  More than 1600 federal teaching and learning resources organized by subject: art, history, language arts, math, science, and others -- from FREE, the website that makes federal teaching and learning resources easy to find.

  tags: resources, Education, curriculum, science, teaching, resource, School

• Nings « changED

  This is a list of Ning Sites for collaboration in various content areas.

  tags: Ning, collaboration, web 2.0, technology integration

• Top 50 iPhone Apps for Educators OEDb

  Top 50 iPhone Apps for Educators

  tags: iPod Touch, apps, Education, iPod, itouch

• Bullitt Co. Public Schools Technology TIPS

  Training and Reference information for Bullitt County Teachers.

  tags: educational, technology

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Tech Integration: From a Child's Point of View

I am home from my wonderful trip to Washington, DC and had a great time. I met many great people of which I will speak about in various upcoming posts. I want to start with one of the sessions that stood out the most to me that I hope when I take it back to my colleagues they will feel the same way!

At NECC this past week I had the awesome opportunity meet an eleven year old teacher. Yes, I said eleven year old. Her name is Adora Svitak and she is a very talented writer at this young age. Yes, she is gifted in this area, but she has been totally encouraged by her parents and tutors to pursue this interest and grow in her passion. As I sat and listened to Adora speak about writing and integrating technology, her vocabulary blew me away. Not like some "nerdy" kid trying to show off with big words, but just like listening to another colleague speaking to me in a PD or PLC meeting. Adora travels the country conducting writing workshops for teachers and students. What could be more motivating to kids than hearing it straight from someone their own age?

Adora's grasp of technology use both in her day to day writing and in her presentation skills was also amazing to watch. She was brought to NECC this year by Promethean, one of the premiere Interactive White Board manufacturers. Just watching her use the ActivBoard and student response system in her presentation to us again blew me away. I hope her message from the child's point of view can be heard by teachers and administrators. She talked about the wonderful engagement and defferentiating opportunities that are available through the use of these interactive tools.

Her goal in life is to inspire kids to love reading as much as she does, and to let them know it is the basis for whatever they may be interested in. Through her writing workshops kids and teachers alike are able to hear from a child's perspective the importance of engaging instruction.

Take a look at Adora's books that are listed on her website http://www.adorasvitak.com/ when you get a chance. If you have not seen or heard her speak search YouTube for Adora Svitak.

I've included an interview that was done this week with Adora by one of the local DC TV stations. Toward the end of the interview she references that she will be speaking to a group of teachers at 3:45 that day. I was fortunate enough to be in that session and was given a copy of one of Adora's books and got to meet her briefly!

More NECC posts to come soon!
Susan

Packed and Ready to Go!

Well as I sit here on Saturday afternoon I think I am packed and have remembered everything for my big trip to Washington, DC for NECC (National Education Computing Conference). This is a great opportunity to meet colleagues (educators and other technology users) from across the country to talk and share what is going on in other school districts. I am looking forward to bringing back some new knowledge to my co-workers and the the teachers I work with here in Bullitt County.

My goal is to try to blog my experiences each day either in the afternoon/evening or during a particular session I may be attending. I'll do my very best to update as much as possible. However, if I don't get a chance to blog I will defintely be "tweeting" my experience on Twitter. You can follow me there: @ssjenk6. My Twitter updates are also synced to my Facebook at www.facebook.com/ssjenk6!

Everyone enjoy the weekend!

Susan

KYSTE Wrap-Up

Okay, I got a little lazy last night. Seeing as how I didn't get home until almost 11 p.m. after a night at the Louisville Bats game with the KYSTE group, I hope I will be excused from updating my postings for KYSTE Day 2!

Another wonderful KYSTE conference is in the books. As I have said over and over: What a pleasure it was to be able to host it here in Bullitt County. A lot of work but a pleasure to host! It was eye opening seeing the behind the scenes action and duties that go into planning a conference such as this and Kudos goes out to the KYSTE Board for their hard work. It was a pleasure meeting and working with all of these great Technology Educators.

I attended several great sessions. One, in particular, that I enjoyed was one on on collaborative tools, especially Twitter. Many of you know, and some have their great fun with it, that I have become quite addicted to Twitter. What a wonderful way to share resources in a professional learning network format. @ujdmc, @techyomy, and @sburton along with @jdscio via Skype presented this session and what a wonderful job they did. Each of them spoke about how they have incorporated Twitter into their day to day job duties as CIO's and tech administrators, etc. These guys also showed the organizational benefits of Google Reader which I didn't know a great deal about. Many other collaborative tools were presented also.

I also had the opportunity to sit in a newly formed user group meeting with some people from Meade County and Madison County to talk about and share ideas about the V-Brick Ethernet TV system that we have recently installed and plan to get more fully off the ground with teachers this August. More about this in another post.

There is so much I could write about here and will probably end up taking each topic one by one and doing a separate post about it throughout the next several days. Much easier that way. So, readers, keep an eye out for future posts on some new resources I have from KYSTE including the collaborative tools, V-Brick Information, and some Microsoft Teacher Resources.

I am looking forward to another week off upcoming and then Sunday the 28th I am off to our Nation's Capital to NECC!

More to come soon!
Susan

KYSTE Day 1

The Kentucky Society for Technology in Education Conference (KYSTE) is in full swing! We are so fortunate to have the opportunity to host this gathering here in Bullitt County this year. Monday and Tuesday consisted of a lot of room set up and preparing and it all came together today at 11:00 when everyone started rolling in, visiting the vendor floor, and having lunch. The first activity of the day consisted of lunch and a Keynote Address by a representative from the Kentucky Secreatary of State's Office. He reminded us of what is out there that our students face online each and everyday. Teaching them to be responsible citizens online is just as important as teaching them to be responsible citizens in all aspects of life. Trey Grayson's office is willing to come into schools in Kentucky and conduct assemblies for students on the Prevention of Cyberbullying.

After the lunch and the keynote, the sessions began. My co-worker and I presented our presentation on the use of the eInstruction clickers in various formats. I talked about this in a post a few days ago. The session went wonderfully with good participation and discussion of the uses of these in various aspects in different schools and districts. Our Kentucky eInstruction reps, Keith Frank and Matt Wheeler supported our session so for the last session of the day we went to support their presentation. Click Here for a PDF version of our presentation. We used this PPT to guide us through the various sites as we demonstrated the various uses of the clickers.

In the last session for today Matt and Keith stepped out of salesman mode and just conducted a wonderful discussion with group about the basic aspects of equipping a room to connect students and teachers to the outside world to enhance instruction and learning. Great job to these guys.

We ended the day with a luau in spite of the storm. The food had to be moved outside but the skies finally cleared and we were able to go outside and enjoy some music and karaoke.

Looking forward to Day 2 tomorrow!

Have a great evening!

Susan

Wordle

Yesterday I talked about our upcoming state KYSTE conference (www.kyste.org/conference) and shared the description of the session that my co-worker and I are presenting on the use of the eInstruction clickers for day to day instruction.

Today I am playing around with a cool site called Wordle (www.wordle.net). Wordle allows you to take a passage of text and arrange the words randomly with the keywords being highlighted. A wordle is a nice introduction to a lesson or an ending to a lesson in order to summarize key points. Very visually engaging for students.

Here is the Wordle I created for my KYSTE presentation: (Click on the small image to see larger version.)



Give Wordle a try for something that you might be planning whether it be a lesson for your students or a presentation for your peers.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Susan

Week off Ending; KYSTE Coming

Well my first week of summer break is about to come to an end. It has been a good one and I've gotten caught up on cleaning and some other chores. We are working next week, but it won't be too much work really. We get to host our state tech conference here in Bullitt County. The KYSTE (Kentucky Society for Technology in Education) Conference is coming to North Bullitt High School next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the 17th, 18th, and 19th.

More information about the conference including session offerings, accomodations, etc. can be found by visiting the KYSTE website at www.kyste.org/conference.

I am looking forward to the presentation my colleague and I are doing entitled "Why Raise Your Hand When you Can Click a Button." Here is the description that I included in my presentation proposal:

This session will cover the versatile uses of student response systems. Using the eInstruction CPS "clickers", the presenters will show how to go beyond manually typing questions into the CPS software by using questions from various places to check student understanding of concepts. CPS clickers can be used within Study Island, ThinkLink (Discovery Education), History Alive, any other document or website that has questions already created, or even a question right off the tip of your tongue. These are wonderful opportunities to engage your students with bell ringer activities and common assessments and gets you out of grading papers all evening. Other uses of the CPS software will also be shown including attaching KET Encyclomedia/United Streaming clips within a question as well as the use of Examview.

I'm sure it will be a wonderful conference as always! If you are an educator join us if you can! Then after KYSTE comes the trip to DC for NECC..Can't wait for that!

Susan

M.I.A.

I've been a little MIA (Missing In Action) on this blog lately! I see that my last post was at the end of March. Since then we had Spring Break and then the whirlwind started with testing and the end of the school year. I kept in touch through Twitter, so if you follow me there or on Facebook you know that it's been a busy ending to the school year.

Taking care of seven schools with Technology Integration is no small task. I do love my job and wouldn't have it any other way. The highlight of the month of May was helping several teachers with slide shows to present to their class, end of year programs, etc. I am proud of all of those who I helped and some who did much on their own. The pride I see in a teacher's face when they learn a new way to use technology is golden! Many teachers "graduated" from the old inserting pictures in PowerPoint and fighting to make the music work to the easier MS Photostory program. Some even tried using Windows Movie Maker. Not only did some teachers try to attempt making Photostories themselves, some even collaborated with my co-worker and I came up with projects for the students to work on. What a perfet project for students to help keep them focused after testing is over.

I am now enjoying my first day off for the summer. I am off this week and then will work next week for our state Tech Conference (KYSTE).

I hope to blog a little more often now that summer is here. I definitely plan to blog when I take my trip to Washington, DC at the end of this month for NECC (National Education Computing Conference)!

Happy Summer Break!
Susan

Spring Break & Breathing Earth

Well, I am enjoying a week off for Spring Break. The past few weeks at work have been crazy busy, but in a good way.

For today's blog post I wanted to share a website that I found interesting on twitter post I saw earlier today. It is called "Breathing Earth." I am linking you to a blog post that describes the site and you can visit the site from there. It is a great source for research in geographical studies for students. Check it out here: http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2009/03/breathing-earth-interactive-map.html.

Those who are on spring break..enjoy your week off!!

Susan

Do You Tweet?

Some of you reading this post are going to know exactly what I'm talking about and have been tweeting for a long time. However, some of you are going..tweeting?? Has she gone Cuckoo? A few posts back, I spoke of Web 2.0 tools and Twitter is one of those tools (www.twitter.com).

Twitter is another social networking site. Basically all it is--

is status updates, called "Tweets". I've seen a lot of people "Tweet" when they are on a trip or at a conference for their job or whatever. If you sign up on Twitter.com you can then download the Twitter application on Facebook and when you update through Twitter it updates your Twitter status as well as your Facebook status. I also just recently discovered Twitter for the Blackberry (Twitterberry). This way if I get an urge when I'm out and about at work I can now post a "Tweet."

Twitter is an excellent way for educators to share ideas and resources in a safe forum. Twitter is more of a professional social network, but people in all areas of work and entertainment use twitter to follow their favorite updaters! With Twitter, you sign up for an account and create a profile. You then find people to follow and people to follow you and share ideas through "tweets" or @replies!

Take a look and check it out!

Have a great evening!

Susan

Pictures from KidsFest

You read about the KidsFest adventures demonstrating the Wii and Wii Fit. Here are the infamous pictures!

Christie and Me playing baseball.

Tennis

Bowling

And now for the Hula Hooping



More Hula Hooping

KidsFest

On Saturday Bullitt County held its annual KidsFest. I had been there once before a few years ago and walked around with my nieces and nephews. This year I had the opportunity to work in our booth for Bullitt County Public Schools. We featured our technology department this year which I am always proud to "show off!" Ha, ha!! Am I a little biased there, sure!!

Anyway, I was so proud of all of our schools who participated whether by being there to present student technology projects or by sending in videos of student technology work to display. We had one elementary school who had an interactive presentation on Digital Citizenship. The STLP (Student Technology Leadership Program) from Cedar Grove had forumlated questions and visitors to the booth were able to correctly answer them to win a Hershey bar. This got our word on Digital Citizenship out to the parents and kids of our community.

Maryville Elementary school had some wonderful Windows Movie Maker projects where the kids took on the character of an American Historical figure and told about their life and times. Mt. Washington Middle School and Nichols Elementary also sent in some wonderful videos of their morning broadcast programs as well as other STLP projects in their buildings.

The highlight of the day, though, I think was the presentation by our PE teacher from Bullitt Lick Middle school that highlighted her use of the Wii and Wii fit in her PE classes. Ms. "Y" as she is known has read all the research and has made the Wii and Wii fit a wonderful asset to her teaching. With FMD students it has been a wonderful way to help teach motor skills and eye hand coordination. It has also been a wonderful incentive for the regular ed students for attendance and academic performance.

I even was able to get in on the action with the Wii. Since we were protecting the equipment we did not allow the general public to play with the Wii we were using so my co-workers and I became the demonstrators yesterday. If you end up seeing pictures or video of me on the Wii fit board hula hooping, please don't laugh. Chalk it up as an "educational demonstration!" And hey, I got my workout in!

It was a nice day! Looking forward to getting together with my sister and cousins today.

Have a wonderful evening!

Susan

Web 2.0

On Monday's post I used the term Web 2.0 and said I would further explain what I mean by that. Well, let's start by saying that if you are here on Blog Spot reading this you are participating in web 2.0!

By definition, Web 2.0 is a term that refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis, blogs, Nings, Message and Discussion Boards, podcasting, vodcasting, photo sharing/tagging etc. The list is almost endless. Another website that I visited recently explained it this way: Web 1.0 was mainly read only. People got on the web and read articles, found information they needed and that was about it. As the web has transitioned over the past few years in has gone into 2.0 which more collaborative. People not only read, but they interact with others. Even ones they may not know.

Teenagers, of course, have web 2.0 tools down to a right arm science. It is as if they have always had these tools at their finger tips and many of our younger ones actually have. We refer to these students as digital natives. They have never known life without web 2.0 tools such as social networking (MySpace, Face, Xanaga, Twitter).

As educators and even parents it is important to understand how your kids learn. They are learning in a very different way than we are used to. It is so important that teachers try their best to move with the transition and work toward teaching students to be good digital citizens in the Web 2.0 world. As the teachers guide their students to be good digital citizens, incorporating these tools into their instruction will definitely raise the interest level and learning outcomes of their students.

Have a wonderful evening!

Susan

Grants, Grants, and More Grants

It's that time of the school year. Budget time and everyone scrambling to apply for the many grants that are out on the horizon. The one part of my job that I am weakest at as I assist, advise, and train teachers to integrate technology into instruction is that of grant writing. There are two grants that I have been in the midst of in the recent weeks. One is for my actual job position itself and the other is for one of our elementary schools to obtain some money to equip their classrooms with projectors and interactive white boards.

As I said, grant writing or writing in general is not my strong suit. I guess that's why I'm a technology teacher and not an English teacher, huh? As you read my blog postings I'm sure you can see that my writing skills are not of the polished sort! Anyway it has been a neat experience to be involved in this grant writing experience. The one we are writing to keep our job position funded is a federal grant called Enhancing Education Through Technology. A fraction of our salary is paid through these funds. I helped write it two years ago and my 2 colleagues and myself are applying again for a renewal. With all the budget cuts looming these are much needed funds for our school district.

The process of writing these grants is tedious as you have to word things just so answer many questions that often seem redundant. We submitted the small grant for the elementary school I mention this afternoon. That was a nice feeling of accomplishment.

In our jobs we all have our weak points. I definitely do admit that my writing skills are that for me. What are your weak areas in your job/career/life?

Have a wonderful evening!

Susan

21st Century Skills

Hello everyone! I wanted to write about something today that is an everyday, bottom line task of my job. I wrote on my Facebook status one morning this week the following statement: "Susan is heading to work...teaching Excel to 4th graders and PPT to 3rd graders today!" I got lots of comments on that one that were both surprised and excited and saying how much things had changed. Yes, things have definitely changed. We have an entire new generation of students of whom third grade and below have completely been born and raised in the 21st century. Even those who were born in the 90's have almost been in a world that is completely automated, web based, or connected in some way or the other.

In the educational technology world, we refer to this as teaching students "21st Century Skills." Those who read my status message the other day saw that I was teaching 4th graders how to make data graphs in Excel for science fair projects and 3rd graders were working on a PowerPoint to present as a study guide for their science unit on magnets.

It is so important that we begin teaching these technology skills including keyboarding, multimedia skills, research, etc. in the elementary grades. There are so many other technology and 21st century skills opportunities out there that if they get the basic technology skills at the elementary level they can cover so many other skills in the higher grades such as web design, and incorporate so many other "Web 2.0" tools. (I'll explain that one in a post for another day!)

Keep in mind that the normal subjects such as reading, spelling, math, science, history, etc. are taught from the very beginning from Kindergarten all the way up so why not incorporate those 21st century skills of technology to prepare our students for the work force they will encounter when they go out into this digital world!

Have a great Saturday!

Susan

Whew!! Whirlwind!

Wow, it's been ten days since I've blogged, and I was doing so well at keeping up. February was another busy month as I'm sure it was for all of you readers out there. I am glad to be back here on the blog to catch up a bit.

At work we have been busy working on the renewal of our grant that funds a part of our salary. That is due toward the middle of March. Other things at work have been good, but just very busy working with teachers and students as I train them on technology. We even made a video in February to present to the Board of Education. I hope to have a copy of that to post here in the future. Yesterday I moderated quick recall matches for one of our district Governor's Cup meets.

I hope to get back on my exercise plan soon as that has, unfortunately, de-railed with the busy-ness of work. My goal, also, is to get back into keeping this blog up to date!

Enjoy and have a great Sunday afternoon!

Susan

Personal Catch Up & Random Rambling

I've spent the last few posts talking about different aspects and tools of my job and we will get back to that soon. I just wanted to take the opportunity to catch up on what is going on in other areas!

Things have calmed down since the ice storm and the high winds that came through the week after. All my family members finally got power. Remember my sister and her husband way out in the Caneyville, Kentucky woods? They only got their power back last Thursday, Feb. 12th. Keep in mind that the ice came on like January 27th.

I enjoyed visiting with some friends from my former church tonight. It's always nice to see my "second set of parents!" They remind me a lot of my parents and are always very nice and fun to be around. I am, though, settling into and enjoying attending the new church I've been going to. I've been attending Little Flock in Shepherdsville since last April. I enjoy the upbeat music and nice people I have met there!

I'm also staying busy with work as you can see in my other posts. It's the time of year when we start looking ahead to and planning for the new year. Regarding the budget cut issue, we are hoping it will not affect us as we work on renewing our grant and anticipate money for the school district from the state will not be in jeopardy.

I just realized and remembered that my niece Chelsea will turn 6 next week. She was born not quite a year after I moved back here after my marriage separation and ended up in Bullitt County. It doesn't seem like I've been here that long and it definitely doesn't seem like little "Chelsea bug" should SIX!!

February is always a busy month with work and we are slowly but surely making it through. I am definitely ready for spring weather.

Have a great Evening!

Susan

Technology and Learning

As I enjoy the day off today I just thought I would share our website that we use to help support the teachers in our district.

This is what we like to call out Technology TIPS site (www.bullittschools.org/tis). On this site we have several pieces of information for teachers regarding integrating technology into instruction. Our Training Materials section contains "cheat sheets" and step by step instructional guides for various things that we use here in our district. The Technology and Learning section contains pictures of students and teachers using our various tech tools. You will also find other helpful educational links.

If you are a classroom teacher, technology teacher anywhere please feel free to make use of the site. There is even a section for parents that has information about cyber safety.

Check it out and enjoy!

Susan

Click, Click, Click

In the world of educational technology, one of the most popular interactive devices as of recently is the clicker. Clicker is a generic term for any student response system. These Student Response Systems are yet another "tool of my trade."

The one we use the most here in Bullitt County is the clicker system from eInstruction called the Classroom Performance System (CPS). Any of the clicker systems allow all students in a class to be involved in a lesson by voting for their response as a teacher asks a question either previously entered into the software, a verbal question, a question on a pre-made test or from another website, or right inside of the Study Island program which I told you about a few days ago.

Teachers love the clickers because of the instant feedback given by the program in order to help them customize their instruction for the whole class. Students love the clickers because it is anonymous and the entire class can be involved at one time.The CPS system that I use most often allows, not only for teacher led/whole group instruction and review, but also student paced test taking by using the response pad as a sort of answer sheet much like the old time Scantron forms.

If you are a teacher, a parent, or a student check and see if your schools owns some clicker sets and find out how they can be used to enhance the education of our children. To find out more about clickers visit www.einstruction.com.

Have a wonderful evening!

Susan

Budget Cuts

As most have heard, Kentucky has found itself in a budgetary crisis along with the rest of the country. Unfortunately education keeps being mentioned as a place where some of the cuts may take place. Unfortunately, again, that may entail my current job position.

If you have read my blog before or know me personally, you may know that I work as a technology integration specialist for our school district. My job is to train and be a support for teachers as they use various technology initiatives in their day to day instruction. I am hoping for the best as we work to keep our job position from being cut. We have to apply for renewal of our grant that supplies part of our salary, as well as hope that the state legislature intervenes and does not cut the budgets of local school districts.

If money is cut for local school districts that could be detrimental to our students. Technology would be one of those things that may be cut and, therefore, leaving some of our students behind not. We have come so far in our district and our teachers and students are so excited it would be a shame to have to take this technology support system away from them. In addition to that, our district will be opening two new school buildings in the new school year that will be fully equipped with "Intelligent Classrooms" which means state of the art technology equipment for teaching. If we are not there to train the teachers, that equipment may sit and not get used to its fullest potential.

I am hoping for the best and trying not worry about it, but it does loom on the horizon. If you are a Kentuckian reading this, whether an educator, parent, or private citizen contact your legislators and encourage them to keep education funded by supporting the higher cigarette tax, alcohol tax, or whatever it takes.

We need to be able to educate our students to the best of our ability and that takes money in order to give them the best education possible.

Have a wonderful evening and here's to hoping the winds will stay calm!

Susan

Kid Friendly Video Sharing

As I was watching the news this morning I saw, featured, a new video sharing site. There are many sites coming out from the whole YouTube craze in order to meet the interests of various groups of people. We have TeacherTube and SchoolTube for those of us in education. There is also GodTube for religious type video sharing. The one I saw featured on this morning's news was KidsTube (www.kidstube.com).

It works along the same lines as YouTube and all the others, but it is geared for kids who are younger, but still want a way to share their talents and abilities without them or their parents having to worry about them accidentally running in to something inappropriate. Here is what I copied from their About Us Section:

Monitored Video Sharing for Kids: KidsTube.com was created with the purpose of providing a Safe and Fun environment for people of all ages to upload, share, discuss, and encourage each others creativity. With that simple goal and these guidelines, we hope you enjoy the site and help us to promote its success by becoming a part of the community today!

History: Kidstube.com began as a small group of concerned grandparents, parents, and young adults living in and around Webb City, Missouri, USA. We want to encourage like-minded grandparents, parents, and their children, to become part of our community, participate, visit often and promote our success, but most of all, start recording and submitting your own original home videos to help us make online video viewing better and worthwhile.

Check it out and share your thoughts! Enjoy!

Have a wonderful Sunday.

Susan

Ahhh, Sun and Heat and the Weekend!

It is Friday after a 4 day school week since returning to work from the ice storm. Life is gradually getting back to normal here in this part of Kentucky. There are still a few people without electricity including my sister and her husband. I do hope all of these people get turned on very soon, hopefully before the end of the weekend.

It has been nice to get back to work this week after missing 5 days. It's been what we call, though, a long short week. These long short weeks end up feeling longer than a typical 5 day week. It's a psychological thing I guess!

I enjoyed a trip to Target this afternoon to buy a baby shower gift. I am looking forward to being able to see and get together with some old friends at a baby shower tomorrow. Being single I welcome these opportunities to gather with friends; unfortunately they don't happen often enough for various reasons. Time being the culprit for us all, I'm sure.

Enjoy this warm weekend and take some time to relax!

Susan

Students on the Island...Study Island

Good evening! We finally made it back to school today here in snowy Bullitt County, Kentucky. This gives me a good opportunity to talk about another "Tool of my Trade!"

For the last year and a half our school district has subscribed to a web based program called Study Island (www.studyisland.com). Study Island is built from state standards for each individual state and is made to be used as a tool for instruction, review, assessment practice, etc. The activities within Study Island are very versatile using various presentation techniques including test modes and game modes to help motivate and engage students. Teachers have the ability to set up their own class roster and make specific assignments for their classes using it just like they would a worksheet or page out of a book. Activities in Study Island be done either at school or at home if the student has Internet access.

One of the coolest things that our teachers love about Study Island is the fact that it can be used for whole group review and flashbacks using the eInstruction Classroom Response Systems or generically referred to as "clickers." Study Island and eInstruction have partnered together to make the use of the "clickers" user friendly for teachers and giving them the ability to quickly review concepts with students and allowing them to gain instant feedback.

So, if you are a teacher or school employee take a look at the site. If you are a parent or know someone with kids ask their school about it!

Enjoy and have a great evening.

Susan

Ready to go Back to the Routine!

Well I'm in the evening of our 5th school day off from the ice storm. We were off Tuesday-Friday of last week and now here on Monday. We are being told we are going back tomorrow, but on the other hand the meteorologists are telling us that there is a chance of snow. We will hope and pray that snow stays away. We aren't even completely rid of what we had. Like I said previously I was all about the snow last Tuesday but not ICE and 5 days out of school.

Oh well, things happen and it will be nice to finally be back to the routine. Yes, we'll all be ready for a day off again soon, but we need to get back in school and get the routine and consistency going again for ourselves as well as the students.

I was productive today. I got my taxes done on Turbo Tax online and that turned out nicely with good little refund coming.

As we return to work, I hope to have some more exciting things to add to the blog. After being home for so long, I'm running out of things to write about.

Hope your Monday evening is great!

Susan

25 Things

This has been going around for a few weeks now on Facebook. It has been really fun reading all my friends lists. I thought since my blog is still pretty new that my list that I posted on Facebook a couple weeks ago would be appropriate to put here in my blog. So here goes:

25 Things About Susan:

1. I am the baby of my family. I have a sister who is 12 years older than me.
2. I am single.
3. I have always loved TV.
4. I love classic TV re-runs.
5. I like playing games (board games, trivia games, etc.)
6. My first job was at Hardee's in Leitchfield.
7. I was married for almost 2 years.
8. My ex-husband was in the Army.
9. When I was married we lived in Oklahoma where he was stationed.
10. I'm almost finished with my Rank I, which means I'm almost done "going to school" for now.
11. I have several "great" nieces and nephews meaning my niece has children.
12. I enjoy doing laundry.
13. I hate cleaning house.
14. I can play piano a little.. by note on the right hand and following the chords written above the staff on the left hand.
15. I'm not a huge movie fan. More TV!
16. I love the sport of gymnastics.
17. I worked at JC Penney at the end of college while I was looking for teaching jobs.
18. When I worked at JC Penney I worked in the Home department. I sold curtains and bedding and bath towels. Imagine me advising you on color combinations!! LOL
19. In college, I worked in the department office of Industrial Technology at WKU.
20. My interest in technology kind of developed by chance. My ex-husband worked in it in the Army and then I ended up getting the library job here and learned a lot really, really fast!
21. My favorite color is Yellow.
22. I'm going to Washington, D.C. this summer for a conference.
23. I went to San Antonio last summer for a conference.
24. Yes, I've been a librarian and I do love to read, but I'm not a fiction fan.
25. Some of my favorite types of TV show are biographical shows and documentaries.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

Susan

Catching up on DVD's

I continue to be thankful that I have my electricity which means I have HEAT! I am also thankful to have my Internet up and running after being pretty sporadic yesterday. However, the only thing I still do not have is cable. Therefore, I've been catching up on watching DVD's.

I've mentioned before that I'm not much of a movie fan, but I do have 2 seasons of one of my favorite shows on DVD. I have always been a huge fan of The Waltons. Many who know me know that I am more of a fan of the older TV shows and I love The Waltons and their family dynamic and how they lived. I miss my DVR capability that I have with my cable from Insight. How did we ever live a few years ago when we only had recording capabilities with a VHS tape and having to program a VCR!!

Just another example of how far technology has come and how we have grown to rely on it!




Keep safe and warm!
Susan

I've Rejoined Society..mostly...

Hello everyone! What a winter weather mess we have had here in Kentucky. We got hit hard here in Bullitt County and all parts throughout! My family in Grayson County is still in the dark with no phone service.

I lived without power from sometime in the middle of the night Tuesday until about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday evening. Needless to say I was getting quite cold! I think that's the longest stretch I've ever had to go without power. God bless everyone who is still without. After the electricity was back on, my Internet was down all day today and I still have no cable. But at least I have HEAT!! I got caught up on my house cleaning and laundry today without the TV and internet to distract me.

Keep all the families in your prayers that are here in the Louisville area as well as the Leitchfield and Grayson County area and all over Kentucky who are still waiting for their electric to be restored.

On Monday night all of my work friends and I were waiting eagerly for ONE snow day or maybe even 2, but not 4!! Hopefully this icy mess gets cleaned up soon and temperatures will be on the rise. The picture below is the view outside of the window of my condo on Wednesay.

I'm ready for spring!

Susan

Time for Some Snow

Are you ready for this? Well the forecast has talked about it for a few days now. A winter storm warning is supposed to be going into effect for this area around 10 p.m. tonight. The hype has commenced and I am now "officially" hyped up for at least one and maybe 2 days off from work.

I'm not normally one for a lot of snow days so that we don't have to make a lot up at the end, but I'm ready for these days off. January sure does turn into a long month. So, if that snow doesn't come I know a lot of teachers, including this one, who will be very disappointed!! Probably even more disappointed than the students. We've got the day off mindset and the snow better start falling.

Have a good week, and thanks for joining in my snow prayer!

Susan

A Trip to the Movies

I had an awesome time last night getting together with a few old friends to go and see a movie. I'm not a huge movie fan as I am more into TV shows. Maybe my attention span is not long enough for a marathon of movies like some people can do! At least when I sit and catch up on TV shows, I have somewhat of a variety and commercial breaks to get up and stretch. I do have some favorite movies of which Forrest Gump and Titanic top the list. A couple other favorites of mine are The Bucket List, Music & Lyrics, and The Holiday.





Anyway, my friends and I did get out to the movies last night and saw Last Chance Harvey starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. I enjoyed it greatly. It is a nice love story and making you think about remembering the important things in life and not letting your priorities get out of order.





I would recommend this one, especially to any of you "chick flick" fans out there. So what is your favorite movie? Feel free to comment and share!





Enjoy the day and the rest of the weekend!



Susan

Pilates

Good evening readers! As you know, I've been trying to stay up with my exercising. I haven't been to Curves in over a week...Shame on me, I know. Work has been a little crazy busy. I've been trying to do some at home in the evening, though.


I was at one of the schools today, that I go to pretty often to do technology lessons and trainings, and they have a twice a week or so exercise group of a few teachers and staff. I decided to join them after school today and they were going through a Pilates tape and using the huge, bouncy balls. Boy, am I sore in the tummy, not to mention the bottom!! LOL. If I feel like this now, what is it going to be like when I try to roll out of bed in the morning? I needed the good workout, though, as I have never tried much of the Pilates stuff before. I have mostly been a step aerobics or Curves girl.

My goal is to get back into Curves next week, but will visit my Pilates pals when I can also!

Have a wonderful evening!

Susan

PhotoStory

Good evening! It's time for another tool of my trade! Today I want to talk about PhotoStory which is a free download from Microsoft. This is a great way to get students involved in Digital Storytelling.


I just spent today at one of our district elementary schools with two 3rd grade classes creating a PhotoStory video that went with their study of Martin Luther King, Jr. Students had drawn pictures that showed various aspects of the Civil Rights Movement and various scenes of freedom. One class had a Reader's Theater and another class had a poem. I let each class record their performance of their play or poem using Audacity. With PhotoStory, the user is able to Import the pictures in and make transitions, record narration, etc. At the end, the user can attach music or sound files. We attached the student recitations along with a short clip of the ending of King's "I Have a Dream" speech. The students were so proud.


Another use of this program has been used from a group of 7th grade students I worked with last year. They had written a memoir piece for their writing portfolio. We had them bring in photographs and put them in PhotoStory and narrate the story using the writings from the memoir.


At the end of the PhotoStory once the pictures and sound files are attached, the project can be saved as a Windows Media File. Photostory is a great alternative or next step up from PowerPoint.

Enjoy the Evening!

Susan

Cooking

Something else I have been trying to work on throughout the last several months is learning to cook. Being single, I've mainly taken the easy way out and stuck with something from a frozen box and pop it into the oven or zoom through the drive through on the way home from work. Unfortunately that is where many of those unwanted pounds I mentioned a few posts ago came from!

I have been on the look out for some easy recipes that do not take long to prepare or are easy to throw into a crock pot. I've slowly mastered a few things over the past few months thanks to the advice of my Mom and my Sister (they got the cooking talent in the family), and a few other friends. One thing that I've mastered pretty well is barbecue. I put the pork roast into the crock pot and let it cook and then pull it apart and add bbq sauce and there we go...Barbecue! I've also mastered Tortilla Soup with a great, easy recipe I found online. I've tried my mom's meat loaf a couple of times, which is an easy recipe but am still working on making it not fall apart. I've also been working on chili which is coming along. Today I cooked a chicken in the crock pot overnight and just ate it and it turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. I had some instant mashed potatoes and canned green beans and I really look like I cooked something!! Ha!

It does feel good when I try something new, that I always watch other people make, and it turns out somewhat edible for me! Please feel free to comment and share any easy recipes that a single girl like me could handle trying!

Have a wonderful day!

Susan

Rank I

Here's another facet of my busy life. I am working on finishing my Rank I degree. Those who may not be familiar with that term, Rank I in the world of Kentucky Teaching Certification is the next pay rank above the Master's Degree. When a teacher in Kentucky has just a bachelor's he/she is considered Rank III, then with a Master's Rank II. A Rank I is the next level which requires some form of continuing education through 30 more college hours or obtaining National Board Certification. I decided to go ahead and go the route of the college hours, which I will finish this coming May through Western Kentucky University, and finally reach the next pay level. My Rank I will be in... I bet you can't guess.... Educational Technology, what else? This semester, I am actually completing a practicum. However, this practicum for me is my normal every day job thankfully so it should not be too bad.


I will be happy to finally be finished with classes for a while.


I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend if you get the day off tomorrow.

Susan

Cold Weather and Other Thoughts

I'm sure you are well aware of the cold weather snap we have had here in Kentucky. It was actually 1 below 0 this morning when I left for work at 7:20 a.m.! My thoughts were that I don't even have enough layers to put on without having to roll out the door in the bulky winter coat! So I proudly put on a long sleeve t-shirt with an oversize pull over sweater over, a pair of thick socks and warm pants and I was good to go. I then wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck and zipped up the bulky brown coat and was out the door to let the car warm up. I just can't imagine how people who live up north deal with those temperatures that way or below on a daily basis!! God bless their hearts. I'm ready for spring!!


What a miracle that happened yesterday with plane that had to land in the Hudson River. Even though I hate to hear of accidents such as this, it is nice to hear the stories of the passenger assisting each other and, for the most part, keeping calm through it all. They were definitely protected! Thank God they are okay!


It's a 3 day weekend and I am ready for the rest! Did I mention I'm ready for spring?


Have a great evening,
Susan

Active Learning with the Activ Board

I've blogged a couple of times about some of the "tools of my trade." I had a picture in a previous post of the document camera which, if you remember, was red and looked like a space ship or something. If you look in the picture above you can see the document camera image projected on the left side. My co-worker and I were doing a model/demonstration lesson for a 2nd grade teacher at one of our district elementary schools using counting money and making change as the topic. As you can see the document camera allows us to put real money underneath it and project it, in clear detail, up on the board.

Now to the image on the right where you see the student and me standing. That is what I really what to point out today. That is called an Activ Board. It is manufactured by a company called Promethean. You may have also heard of a SMART Board which does the same thing just a different manufacturing company. Whichever one you are using, Activ or SMART, these boards allow you to interact with the projected image from your computer. With the Activ board the teacher or student takes a pen in hand and is able to mouse click, write digitally on the board, and manipulate a huge resource library of graphics and interactive images. There is also a wonderful website with lesson resources for teachers that they can download lessons that are already pre-made into "flipchart" format.

Students that I have interviewed after using this say it makes learning more real and interesting for them. Teachers have indicated that after years in the profession it makes them enjoy teaching again because they can see that students are much more engaged in the lesson being presented.

For more information and pictures of the Activ Board go to the following websites: www.prometheanplanet.com or www.prometheanworld.com.

Hope you have had a great day!

Susan

American Idol

I guess I haven't covered this yet in any of my blogs, but for those of you who do not know me well will soon find out that I am a huge American Idol Fan. I don't watch many current TV shows, I'm more of a classic TV sitcom person, but I tune in as faithfully as possible to American Idol!

So tonight was the premiere of Season 8 and they were doing auditions in Phoenix. My favorites of the night were the last 2 shown. The one guy's name was Alex. He had a nice voice but was kind of geeky looking, but hey so was Clay Aiken. The last guy's name was Scott McIntyre and he was almost 100% blind. He mentioned he had a bit of tunnel vision which could be compared to looking through a straw. However, he has made the most out of his life by learning piano, ball room dancing, and entering college at 14 and finishing soon thereafter! I would love to see him go far in the competition.

So here we go, American Idol Season 8, and they even came to Louisville for auditions this year!!

Have a great evening!

Susan

Looks Like a Pizza Night Tonight

Well the technology lover in me is loving being able to order Papa Johns right online. Get on Papa John's website and build your pizza and you don't even have to worry about looking up the phone number or picking up the phone. You can even save your favorite orders and they are right there ready for next time! They will send you an email letting you know the status and it is on its way.

Dominoe's has online ordering too. You can even track your order from prep to the oven to it's journey down the road of delivery.

Yes, random thoughts tonight... Gimmie a break it's Monday!!

Have a good week everyone!

Susan

ZAC Browser

Those of you who have small children, grandchildren, or are teachers may be interested in this website I have to share with you today. A colleague at one of the schools I travel to introduced me to this as she and her husband use it with their children at home. Take a look at ZAC Browser (www.zacbrowser.com). ZAC Browser was designed by a computer engineer after his grandson was showing signs of autism. He wanted an interactive site that would engage his autistic grandson while helping him learn, so the idea for ZAC Browser was born.

ZAC browser, though, is wonderful for all children whether they are on track developmentally or have special needs. ZAC Browser is either downloaded to your computer or just run straight from the site and provides a safe environment for children to play online. When it loads you get an overlay type screen which is essentially a new desktop screen that can only be exited by pressing CTRL-L on your keyboard. This is indicated on the bottom right of the screen. Most young children are not going to figure this out and therefore will be safe and not accidentally clicking and exiting into random websites and bunches of ads.

ZAC browser provides many engaging activities for kids to enjoy such as games, music, stories, and even TV/video clips of modern and classic children's shows. I even found some neat clips that you people my age would enjoy seeing!! Take a look at the You Tube clip below to hear more about ZAC Browser.

Have a blessed Sunday!

Susan