Tinkerings

It just hit me that the long, leisurely mornings at Starbucks are coming to a close.  This past summer I have spent an average of 2 or 3 hours at Starbucks just sipping coffee, surfing the web, writing blogs, listening to music, and people watching.  It has been an escape from an empty house, but it has also been a reflection of where my heart and mind has been these past couple of months: downtime.

(I’ll let you in on a little secret here: I don’t even like Starbucks coffee.  I like the thought of Starbucks coffee….and wifi).

Next week kids come back to our classes.  I have two classrooms with sixth graders and four with seventh graders.  They will be bubbling over with excitement.  They had a much different summer than my own.  Theirs has been spent running and jumping and playing and being loud and crazy.  (Ah, I vaguely remember those days).  They will be adjusting to the need for sitting and order and sitting and quiet and sitting….

I am going to try my hand at the Y at 5 AM again starting on Monday.  An hour of sweat and work and heart rate elevations before the caffeine rush I’ve become used to each day may help me.  Thank God for my Keurig coffee maker.  Maybe I can hit the classroom awake and full of energy.

After all, it will be much easier to raise my own energy level than it will be to calm those of my students.  That’s classroom management rule #1.

We have had a full week of professional development so far in Bradley County, and the rest of the week is looking very similar.  A lot has been put before us.  But so far, the teachers at our school really haven’t spent any time there.  Today is our first full day on campus.  And a full day it will be.

We have a trainer coming to work with our teachers on Promethean software.  This is really important training for us.  We just installed an Interactive White Board in every classroom last year.  Teachers spent the year just sort of playing around and trying to get comfortable with it in their classroom.  Now it is time to crank it up a notch and begin to use it the way it was intended: interactively with students.

I worked with nearly 200 teachers this week myself going over the basics of DE Streaming and how it can be integrated into other sites like Wordle, Voicethread, Glogster, and more.  We touched on editable clips and the possibility of using green screen or recording a new narrative to replace the original.  I discovered at least 30 teachers that had never created a log-in.  Some of those are new to the system, of course.  Others work in our system, but had not been told they were able to use the program.  I think we changed that perception.  And many teachers want even more training later.

For me, today will be spent getting the rest of my 150 computers set up, re-imaged, replaced if necessary, and dusted.  I am expecting a great day of exercise climbing over tables, crawling under them, and engaging my core as I lean way over them to get the backs of computers.

We will top off the day with 6th grade orientation this evening from 5:30 to 7:30.

All in all this has been really good week.  Naturally, not every professional development session hit a home run.  But the effort put forth by our district team was monumental.  This was a first for our schools.  And, at the end of the day, I think the week has been hugely successful.

Let’s hope our first week with kids goes as well starting on Monday…