"Technology" Teacher

Week 2 of school…I am finally getting into the groove. I am still at work until 5 or 5:30 at night, but each day gets easier and easier.

I am thrilled to be able to start teaching the curriculum I learned at Project Lead the Way this summer. The kids are psyched about anything that has to do with engineering/projects. I even convinced them to write in their best “engineering” handwriting while they took notes on various procedures.

I showed up at school last week and I was greeted by a sign on my door. Under my name it read, “Technologist.” Ummmm…our district did away with technologists due to budget cuts. In no way do I want people to think I know anything about technology...because I absolutely do not. I probably put more technology work orders in than anyone else in the district.

Thankfully, I still know more about technology and computers than my students. Windows 2007 is a complete mystery to them, as is copying and pasting information.

My principal calls me the “STEM” teacher, which makes me feel really important. I even put it in my email signature line.

Nevertheless, I am glad that STEM is becoming more and more of a buzz word on our campus and in our district.

I even convinced my language arts husband to write a paper on STEM education for his grad school class.

I am sharing this link and then I need to put in some more work orders for my classroom computers.

It is from the U.S. News—it has news, opinions and STEM information.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/stem-education

6th graders--please don't change!

Day 3 of school. I had to call a parent because her son was acting up…you know throwing paper across my room, then he was looking up guns on the internet, and then he started arguing with me when I told him to go sit down away from the computer. Really? It’s day 3! I thought the kids saved the “good stuff” for later in the school year.

I always get nervous when I have to call parents. You never know if they are going to argue with your or believe what you have to say. Thankfully she seemed pretty supportive. She said she would talk to him, and I told her I would move his seat.

I have a handful of kids that are challenging. I seriously think they knew I was new to the school and they were sizing me up to decide if they were going to act up, or if they would behave. The first few days of school are hard though because you aren’t teaching them anything but rules and expectations. I know it is boring to sit and listen to a teacher droning on and on about boring stuff.

Sometimes I wish I could be mean. Seriously. I don’t have a mean bone in my body. I really like kids and I find it hard to yell at them. I don’t usually have problems in my classroom. I have only made one boy cry in my whole 6 years of teaching. He still hates me to this day. I don’t know where I went wrong with him. (I know, get over it.)

Anyway, this year I teach all grades, six through eight. I absolutely adore my sixth graders. There is a world of difference between 6th to 8th graders. I kind of wish I had more 6th graders. They are so innocent and they still seem to like school. I guess when you get to a certain point in your life, like 7th grade—then you decide to hate school?

90% of the time I can tell if a kid is a 6th grader, but I have a really hard time telling the difference between 7th and 8th graders.

I hope my precious 6th graders--stay 6th graders all year and that they don’t get corrupted by the big kids!

Anyway, that is all for today. Thanks for reading my rambles.

Education cuts in Texas..UGH!

It is the start of another school year here in Texas. For me, I am starting my sixth year at a middle school outside of Austin.

My district is set to lose $7 million dollars in state funding this year, and $10.7 million dollars in the 2012-2013 school year. But at the same time, our district is one of, if not the fastest growing in the state. It doesn’t make sense, right?

You can tell there have been cuts. The biggest loss we have felt is the lack of campus technologists. They were part of a reduction in force (elimination) of non classroom teachers. Our librarians have taken on a small part of the extra workload, but they are not trained to be technologists. This means we have to put in a work order for everything = waiting time to get things done. In fact, on Friday, a technologist from our district came over, moved one of my printers (that I really NEED for my technology class) and didn’t check it to make sure it was working properly before he left. I did all the troubleshooting I could, and so did my librarian, but we couldn’t get things working again. The real question will be; how long will it take to get him to come back? I can only imagine in a district with 22 schools, I am not high on the list of priorities.

We also have larger class sizes. Granted my class is technically considered an elective, which usually means the administration will put as many kids in as they possibly can. I have 29 computers—and 32 kids in most of my classes. It will surely require some creativity on my part—but I will make it work.

Truly, I am not saying that I am the only one with huge classes. It is everyone at my school and across the district. My heart goes out to the content teachers whose classrooms are full to the brim AND they have to get their kids to pass a state standardized test (or several tests). We are facing great challenges and the kids have not even walked in the door.

It will be weeks/months until we truly can find out how the cuts will really affect our kids. Maybe they won’t at all? I know we have a ton of fantastic teachers in our district and even more awesome students. We will do our best to make sure the kids have everything they need, even if it comes out of our own pockets.

Yep, I have spent about $100 on stuff for my classroom and I know that my sister (who is also a teacher in the district) has spent about $200.

Anyway, we will see how things go.

Do you think that technologist works weekends and he came by to fix my printer?

I will give you an update on Monday…when I get to meet all 177 (and counting) of my new students.

Smelly Teenagers or Professional Development

If you are a teacher, and you have a week of Professional Development the week before school starts, you understand my pain.

These last two days have been brutal. I am at a new school and I am trying to get caught up on new acronyms and procedures—it really is a lot.

I told my dad today, I would rather have to teach a group of 100 smelly teenagers in no air conditioning than be subjected to another hour of PD torture.

Nonetheless, as I was suffering from brain overload, our principal decided we had had enough for today. So we got 30 minutes in our classrooms! PTL! I will take any time I can get.

Here is where I am at now:

-Those 19 computers that were in my classroom last week, well I got 10 more to join them. So, now I will have enough computers for my students!

-I am teaching two new technology classes. One is Project Lead the Way’s Gateway to Technology and the other class is a Game Design class. I am by no means a gamer, but I know that this is a very popular class…with 12 year old boys.

I am good to go on the PLTW class, but I was not exactly sure where to start with Game Design. Lucky for me, the other two technology teachers have both taught this class before, and they shared all their stuff with me! I am talking lesson plans, handouts, PowerPoints, everything.

This is a huge relief. I am used to working by myself and not having anyone to share the workload, or, I have also been the one that does mostly everything and then other people take my stuff. It is nice to have the "shoe on the other foot!"

-And, I called my sister during lunch today and she invited me to come to a new Tex-Mex Restaurant in town. I met up with her and her co-workers. One of her co-workers bought everyone’s lunch at the table. That was so nice! When I thanked him and asked him why he bought lunch he replied, “to be blessed you need to bless others.”

So true.

Yep, it is getting better. Tomorrow, we might even get more than 30 minutes in our rooms! Score.

Darn you football!

Pity party—table for one. Today was our last day off before going back to work for another school year. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching and I can’t wait to get back. Seriously.

What I am dreading are the Friday nights and Saturdays alone. My husband is a coach—a football coach in Texas. He is actually a middle school coach (football, basketball, and soccer/track/tennis), but he has responsibilities to the high school on Fridays and Saturdays during football season. During the week he has his own middle school games and practices and then the weekends are full of his high school duties.

He is off on Sundays, but he has grad school work to complete. (Truly, I don’t mind this due to the fact that he is working toward a Master’s degree in Administration.) He is actually a really busy guy. Aside from grad school, he is a department head, a team leader for his grade level, coaches the 3-4 sports I mentioned above, he is part of the leadership team at school-- I could go on and on.

But, today, we hung out! We filled our new car up with gas and we headed to the San Antonio area. We went out to eat—which never happens during football season, we went shopping, I even convinced him to head into Home Goods--and we looked around. In my book, it was an awesome day.

So, as I mentioned, I was a little saddened because I know that today is the last day that I will really see my husband until the end of football season which is November 5th—if they don’t make the playoffs. I guess if I didn’t like hanging out with him so much, it wouldn’t bother me.

In the past, I would go to the Friday night games. This year they raised the prices and I don’t really want to pay $8 to go to a game where my husband is sitting in the press box writing down stats for the high school team. Coaches’ wives don’t get a discount! (Nor do teachers who work in the district.) Ah well.

So, I hope to make some friends at my new school that want to hang out on Friday nights. I might even paint the downstairs of my house. And, I will also begin the countdown to when I get to see my husband again….13 more weekends to be exact.

Then, my pity party will be over, hopefully. Maybe, just maybe, he will be able to get out of coaching next year?

A facebook tutorial with my mother

My mom has facebook. Watch out world.

I am obsessed with facebook. Yes, I am one of those annoying people who check it about 20+ times a day—which I believe actually puts me in the facebook addiction disorder category. I think there really is such a category.

Anyway, so my dad friends my mom and I see she has taken the plunge and signed up for a facebook account. She had been trying to decide if she needed it for quite some time. One of her friends who is really technologically advanced Skype’s with her grandson, and this same friend convinced her she needs facebook.

So, I friend my mom. Then, I get that message from facebook that says I need to suggest friends for her.

I proceed to suggest every family member that we have on facebook to friend my mom, along with several of her friends from work and our hometown.

Today, I talk to my mom about her facebook account. This is how our conversation went:

Mom: If I want to get to facebook, do I have to google the word “facebook?”
Me: No, Mom. You can go to facebook.com and log in that way.
Mom: What, you mean I don’t have to google “facebook”
Me: Nope, you just type in facebook in your browser.
Mom: The browser?
Me: Yes, the search button at the top of the webpage.
Mom: Oh. Guess what, when I woke up this morning I had 17 messages on the email about people that wanted to friend me on facebook.”
Me: I know, Mom, I suggested that those people friend you. They are all people you know and love.
Mom: Yeah, even my sister and her daughter friended me.
Me: Yep, I told them to.
Mom: Also, how do you make a comment on someone’s page? Do you just click the comment box?
Me: Yes, click and type what you want to say. Then you hit enter.
Mom: Oh. Did you know that your aunt is a fan of Rush Limbaugh? That is the first thing on her page. I think you can tell a lot about a person by what you see on their facebook page.
Me: Yep.
Mom: Thanks for the new picture you put on my facebook page.
Me: No problem. I couldn’t stand to look at that picture you had up. I looked like I was on drugs and that was before I did Weight Watchers. In fact, I looked like a blimp on drugs. Why did you choose that picture anyway? We only have taken thousands of pictures of us over time.
Mom: Well, your dad sent me that picture on the email.
Me: Ok, well I will send you more pictures. Facebook makes it easy to put new pictures on your page. I just have to tag them.
Mom: What?
Me: Don’t worry. I will find you more pictures.

That was the end of our facebook tutorial. Trust me, it was plenty for one day.

And, mom if you are reading this, you are really getting good at facebook, because the link to my blog is at the bottom of my page. Sorry in advance, but that conversation happened. I just had to blog about it!

First Impressions of my new classroom

Today, I decided to drop off the bug infested boxes that have been hanging out in my garage since the end of the school year. I took them to my “new” classroom at my new school. And, really there were just bugs around them—I didn’t find anything in them.

Thankfully the office had a cart that I used instead of having to carry everything in box by box. I have done that before and while it is a good workout, it is not the best idea when it is 100+ and you are trying to make a good first impression on your new coworkers. Take it from me, I don’t sweat pretty.

So, I head down the hall to my room. I open the door and I see computers and desks. Perfect since I will be teaching a combination of technology and engineering classes! I am across the hall from the library and not far from the office. A perfect location in my opinion!

I start looking around...I only have 19 computers and I should have about 27 kids in each class. I will make it work. I figure if I have to split the class in two and have one group working on the computers and the other group working on some sort of project I can do that. Luckily, the computers are new for that lab. (I think we got them from one of our high schools, but they are new to my class.) One teacher told me to be glad I had newer desktops, the old ones took about 10 minutes to load up. Yikes.

One other negative, I also have no storage space. I don’t have a closet, shelves, or even a cabinet—but I do have those ugly boxes. I am debating between a few things. I could take the easy way out and buy a nice table cloth to put on top of a table, and then hide my boxes underneath. Or, I could buy some shelves and put the stuff in the boxes on the shelves.

I guess I could throw the stuff in the boxes away, but what if I need it one day?
Man, was I spoiled as a science teacher; I had tons of lab tables and a nice science storage area. Even last year as an elementary school teacher, I had more cabinets than I knew what to do with. I could just shove the stuff in the cabinets and I never had to look at it again.

But, I am excited to be back in middle school. I worked on de-manning my room today. It looked very boyish. I put some fabric up on the makeshift bulletin boards. Some of the little girls whose parents work at the school came by; they introduced themselves and told me they liked the fabric! Score.

I will get there. Hopefully I will figure out my storage dilemma. If you have any better ideas, let me know.

Google yourself! Or not.

Have you ever googled yourself? You know, just to see what comes up?

Well, since I have been teaching STEM over the last year, our program gets a little recognition from time to time. Rightly so, as the kids do some awesome stuff throughout the year. On one occasion in particular, our kids participated in a spelling bee at our school versus the school on the “other” side of the highway, and I, along with the other teachers in our program, was named.

Yesterday as I put my lesson planning aside, I decided to google myself. I was surprised to see a write up in the paper in regards to the training I just returned from in Tyler. My name was there, along with the other folks that will be teaching this new class across our district.

I don’t teach because I want to be famous. I teach because I seriously love what I do. But, it is cool to see your name in print.

So, I forwarded the article to my parents. They usually like to know what I am up to, especially since they live many states away.

My mom sent me an article back—it was an editorial that was written to that same local paper about how our district is rushing into STEM programs.

You could tell that this guy really didn’t know much about our district. All he knew was that our superintendents’ wife is in charge of the STEM programs.

He doesn’t know that this “woman” is absolutely brilliant. I got to work with her firsthand this year. She has her Ph.D. and has experience as a teacher and a professor. She would push us as her teachers, and in turn, we pushed our kids. She provided us with the tools and the resources and we were able to produce some amazing results. (As a matter of fact, in the four fifth grade classes at both schools—100% of our kids passed the math, the reading and the science TAKS test!)

That wasn’t in the guy’s opinion piece. He also didn't know that our district has been doing STEM "stuff" for at least four years.

I guess the moral of the story is, when you google yourself, you need to be prepared. You might find something nice, or you might find something that is not true.

Darn you internet.