Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The New School Year

A new school year is about to start and despite my good intentions of doing so much planning this summer, I find myself in the same position I do every year...where to start. Perhaps I'm not being fair to myself. I'm much better at being given a specific task to overcome than I am at planning from nowhere. I'm sure once the school year starts there will be more than enough to do but right now I feel a little...lost. Maybe lost isn't the right word. Maybe "unfocused." We will be getting a new Principal, Assistant Principal and several new staff members this year and that's always a challenge. Sort of like starting over again. Maybe I just feel this way because my birthday is the 22nd and I'm taking stock of what I have done and what I still have to do. You would think things get easier with time but when you are constantly evaluating, innovating and evolving what you do it's just not like that. I guess I set the bar high with what I expect from myself and right now I need to get a little further back to get a good running start. Wish me luck!
In other news...I found a little tool I like to help teachers collect all those sites i give them in one place. It's called Symbaloo and it is a neat little way to customize a desktop with shortcuts to important websites. You can even e-mail it and then update it. Hopefully I will be able to demonstrate some apps and them give them a way to store them easily so they can call them up whenever they need to. Check it out!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am amazed! I was doing some pre- preparation for the up coming school year and typed in "Rocks and Minerals" at Teacher-tube and here came "Rocks don't Roll. The science of rocks and minerals." AMAZING! If you or Karen can offer any advice for a fairly new teacher trying to incorporate technology into her class please do! I also have several questions I would like to ask if that is o.k. I want to thank both of you for the time and energy that you are both putting into your classes, it truly is an inspiration. Have a great day. -Miranda-

Doctor Loopy's House of Fun said...

Thanks so much for your nice comments! Karen and I both try and do what is best for our kids and if it means extra work, so be it! Karen also teaches 3rd grade and she can probably answer some specific things for you. Please feel free to e-mail me at dvalentine@melissaisd.org and I'll answer any questions I can.
Doug