New Year, New Perspective, Off and Running

First, I apologize for the long break in my writing. I had hope over the holidays to begin to post but I have been processing a lot of information and struggling with where we are and where we are going to the point of feeling overwhelmed. I did not even read any blogs because I did not want to get excited over another idea that I might not be able to implement.

Finally though I have regained a perspective and I am ready to look toward the future.

We have reviewed our growth over the last 4 months and there is much to celebrate. We have said that we are on a journey from 0 to 60 in 6 months. While my vision may have included “lassoing the moon” ( thus my frustration) the faculty and staff have accomplished truly great things . I invite those who might visit here to celebrate with us our journey. It is a long journey and every so often we need to look back to see how far we have come. Any comments or encouragement will be passed on to the teachers!

July of 2006

4 members of the staff attend NECC and the ISTE Institute

August 2006

Faculty in service-

What does it mean to teach and learn in the 21^st century- Is it fundamentally any different than in the 20^th century?

Watched Thomas Friedman’s MIT lecture on The World is Flat

Reorganized our K-8 school into learning academies

Primary Learning Academy

Intermediate Preparatory Academy

Junior High Information Technology Preparatory Academy

Sept. 2006 to present ( some of what we have done)

• Computer lab reconfigured to a classroom layout
• We disposed of our Pentium Computers with either 32 or 64 megs of ram and 3 gig hardrives were replaced with industry cast offs that are Pentium 3 800 meghertz with 10 gig hardrives and 256 ram—These at least are adequate for our needs----
• Went from computers gathering dust to a full utilization of the lab by classroom teachers (tech support but no lab teacher)
• Purchased to LCD projectors and two lap top computers which are in constant use by teachers and now students. Who are learning the ins and outs of good presentations.
• Introduced open source software- specifically Open office
• All teachers have read educational blogs and left some comments on student work from around the world
• All teachers have been introduced to RSS and have written at least one blog entry
• A classroom has signed up for e-pals
• Grades 5 to 8 have worked on internet literacy and talked about the validity of web sites
• 6 to 8 are beginning scribe activities
• Students in Grade 7 have tried their hand at creating a wiki
• Grades 6- 8 have been given online access to their grades and homework through personal passwords
• Grades 6- 8 each student has a blog and they are just beginning to see some action as of this writing
• Teachers in 6-8 have designed a cross curricular unit based on Romeo and Juliet which will encourage blog activity across the subjects
• We established a Moodle site and we are beginning to build content..
• 5 Teachers attending California CUE conference in March