Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Last year I completed one online book study; this year I have signed up for two!

On the English Companion Ning (have you joined this Ning yet?), Kelly Gallager is leading a discussion of his book Readicide.  The study starts this week.  Membership is growing!  I was member 70+ to join.  Now have 104 members involved in this online study!

Thanks to Jim Burke (click here for his blog and here for the Ning) for creating this opportunity for us this summer.  This is the Ning’s second book study (just finished a study of Maja Wilson’s Rethinking Rubrics on the English Companion NIng).

Within our 21 CLC team, we are reading Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind.  On day two of our summer group meeting, Daniel Pink will meet with us online.  Exciting!   (Prior to this, we will complete and discuss the novel via our 21 CLC wiki.) Thanks to peer and project director Lisa Huff for her energy and initiative in creating this professional growth for us.

I encourage group book studies.  Much like reading the Bible, one reader gets one concept, while another grasps another.  Through sharing, though, we highlight the many nuggets contained within that literary work.

Interested in being a part of such a group?  Please check out the Ning (for many valuable insights and resources)!

Thanks to  T. Seale and Tom Barrett for introducing me to the latest WAVE by Google.  According to the link provided by T. Seale,

Waveis a web-based application that marries multiple forms of communication and collaboration, including chat, mail and wikis, into a unified interface. Everything inside Wave happens in real time: You can even see a comment being made as the person is typing it, character-by-character.

Thanks for links…and the online professional development that was…did I mention?…free!

• T. Seale:  On Twitter, she provided this link:  Google Waves Goodbye to E-Mail, Welcomes Real-Time Communication
• Tom Barrett - On Twitter he provided this link:  Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009

Do you Twitter?  I have discovered that Twitter is the quickest “link” to what many in our field are reading…I like it!  In a way, Twitter allows one to pick the minds of those who are being true professionals:  they are sincerely interested in everyone knowing what they know.

Then as you Twitter, you will begin to learn about all the other Twitter applications and uses.  Yes,  another instance of realizing that the more we know…the more there is to learn!

Mrs. Gillmore’s Theme for English 10

                                    ….as of May 25, 2009

I am.

I am a woman, a wife, a mother, a daughter, a friend.

Family ~ important, vital, centered.

Am blessed to have what I have…

            A husband who loves me for me as I am.

                        Even, at times, despite who I am.

            A daughter who says she is not going away to college. 

                        Online classes.

                        Why?

                        To be with you, mom.

                        Ahhh…will that change?

            Two steps…a son and a daughter.

                        We have grown, together.

                        Aren’t I too young, though, for a 21?

            A mom who knows me often not.

            Two sisters, who are older, but wiser?

                        Shhh…some facts are best left silent!

            A brother who is distant and not just in miles.

I am a crafter, a reader, a gardener, a canner, a photographer, a sometimes seamstress.

These hobbies are mine.

They define who I am and who I am not,

For the more I read, the more I know I have to read.

            My interests have expanded.

            From romance and suspense, to fantasy and first-person.

The more I learn, the more I know I have to learn.

            Besides salsa and tomato ketchup,

            I now can squash relish and pickles,

            Jams and jellies,

            Then I freeze fruits and beans…but not together.

                        Of course.

I am a teacher, a learner, a collaborator.

Am blessed to have what I have…

            This career chose me in 1985, my senior year.

            Had dreamed of being a bank teller.

            Then reality took hold.  College, a reality.

            Three schools, eighteen years, hundreds of students.

            Memories, tears, tests, scores, food, smiles, laughter.

            Stacks and stacks and stacks of papers graded.

                        Recorded first in book, then digitally.

            Did I mention memories?

            The first two schools are no longer.

            BHS, you really want me to stay!

            To teach is to impact; therefore, I teach. 

Therefore, I impact?

I am a techie-want-to-be. 

            Again, the more I learn, the more I know I need to learn.

            The possibilities, endless.

            Goal:  to utilize the laptops my class will receive.

            To train, to practice, to implement…did I mention learn?

            A blogger of treasures and classes.

                        An online journal of me.

                        My growth, my learning experience.

                        My thoughts.  My disbeliefs.  My beliefs.

                        Me.  Who I am.

            A creator of wikis.  Easy as peanut butter and jelly.

                        I think not!

                        Vital, though, to our success in English 10 (and 11).

I am the wife of a farmer, a chemical operator, a mule logger.

            The man I wish I had met twenty-five years ago.

            My life, different, better, loved. Me.

            Free to be me.  Free because of who he encourages me to be.

This is who I am…

            A wife.

            A mother.

            A step-mother.

            A sister.

            A teacher.

This is my theme for English 10:  I am who I am.

Assigned to my English 10 and modeled (somewhat) after Langston Hughes’ “Theme for English B.”

Did you know that in 2012 “tech literacy” will be added to the Nation’s Report Card?

eSchool News has an interesting article “Get an ’A’ on Your Report Card:  Maximize Your Tech Investment” with several articles embedded.

Questions I am pondering…

• What is your district planning in preparation for The Test?
• Does testing the use of technology take some of the fun and excitement out of these tools?
• Is technology a tool?  Or a curriculum?

My Plans…

1. To keep learning…often self-teaching myself.
2. Train for use of a class set of laptops and with my peers in our project entitled Classroom Redesign 21.
3. Actively participate in the Professional Learning Network entitled 21 CLC within my school.
4. Learn more about how technology will be tested on the NAEP, including the following from this article:

The National Assessment Governing Board has awarded a $1.86 million contract to WestEd—a nonprofit educational research, development, and service agency based in San Francisco—to develop the 2012 NAEP Technological Literacy Framework.
 
Under this new contract, awarded through a competitive bidding process, WestEd will recommend the framework and specifications for the 2012 NAEP Technological Literacy Assessment. Ultimately, WestEd’s work will lead to ways to define and measure students’ knowledge and skills in understanding important technological tools, the Governing Board said. Board members then will decide which grade level—fourth, eighth, or 12th—will be tested in 2012…

The Governing Board is slated to review and approve the technological literacy framework in late 2009.

So much to learn!

I hope that this weekend was special for you.  It was for me.

Yesterday, I spent several hours with my mother, whose Alzheimer’s is quickly advancing.  Yesterday, she knew me, and that is the memory I will treasure, for I know at times, I am no longer in her memory.  This is truly a sad disease. 

Today, I spent time with my daughter…going to church, eating with my husband’s family, shopping, where she bought me Australia, one of my very favorite movies.  Now we are all watching the movie…yes, spending more time together.

All in all?  A great weekend.

Yes, the greatest Mother’s Day gift a mother can receive is time…time spent with your mother…or daughter.

What did you do with your “time” on this Mother’s Day?

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

A note to the teachers I appreciate for helping me become the teacher I am today:

• My fifth grade teacher Mr. Estes:  He said, “I know you can do it.”  And I did.  I graduated as co-valedictorian…also the first in my family to graduate high school.
• Mrs. King, my sixth grade teacher…one of the nicest…truly always nice…ladies I know.
• Mrs. Smith:  the reason I am an English teacher today.  From the “old” school, she is the reason I stay grounded as a “tweener” (my term for those of us who attempt to merge the quality of the old with the best of the new). 
• Dr. Wray:  the first professor to ask me to leave my comfortable writing zone, and I am a better writer and teacher for it.
• Dr. Tebbetts:  The first professor I ever saw stand on a desk and dramatically portray the character of the day.  His energy (and knowledge) is so motivating.
• Peers Lisa Huff and Carla James, both gifted in their fields, both striving to instill in their own ways in their students the necessary skills to achieve in this 21st Century.

So many others could be listed here:  all my elementary and high school teachers from Mammoth Spring, my professors from Lyon College (yes, still Arkansas College to some of us!) and Arkansas State University, and to my peers from Cord-Charlotte High School, Sulphur Rock High School, and Batesville High School.

To these…and to each of you reading this:  Happy Teacher’s Day…you are appreciated!

If teaching the Holocaust, this is an inspiring poem to use.  American forces liberated poet Judy (Weissenberg) Cohen on this date in 1945.

My students were impressed to be reading this reflection on the date of Ms. Cohen’s liberating anniversary.

Thanks to Mr. Ben at Teach Eng, I will soon own a copy of The Poisonwood Bible, this one for my classroom.

His post gives this link from Harper Academic to a survey, which upon completing asks you to select a book from a list of five or six.  For one minute of your time, you may earn a free book!  Cool!

Thanks, Mr. Ben and Harper Academic!

My mentee, English teacher Ms. Insell, received her results from her Praxis III…she passed with wonderful scores!  Time to celebrate!

Here in Arkansas, while in college, pre-teachers must pass the Praxis I (measures basic academic skills) and Praxis II (measures general and subject-specific knowledge and teaching skills) and then be assessed (usually) during their first year of teacher with an in-class assessment, the Praxis III.

If you are a mentor and teach in Arkansas, then I would highly recommend your applying for and becoming a Praxis III assessor, for, of course, these two programs simply go hand-in-hand, resulting in a much more supportive mentor.

Threaded into press releases concerning Obama and Duncan’s thoughts on education is the repetition of establishing more mentoring programs for new teachers…nice to live in Arkansas and be on the forefront of an educational topic!

REMINDER Ms. Insell:  Dinner on Monday to celebrate!

This week I noticed a copy of Learning & Leading with Technology  lying in very plain sight in another teacher’s mailbox in the teacher’s lounge.  This magazine caught my attention for a couple of reasons:

1. I’m nosey (…but not to the point that I would snoop!  Seriously!  It really was in plain sight!).
2. I am very interested in learning the latest of the latest in technology…not that I will use it all!  Just do not want to have the deer-in-the-headlights look when my students mention tech tools/jargon of which I have never heard!
3. Did I mention I like to learn?

Later that day, I Googled the title, and I just have to share what I discovered!  Every educator interested in technology should check out this magazine/site!  Published by the International Sociey for Technology in Education, this magazine is published eight times a year, costs $7.75 per issue, and includes very interesting articles, articles that can be accessed for free!

Please check this out…what do you think?  Do you agree with me?  If you do, then please share this…best kept secrets should not be allowed in the land of education!

Now if summer would just hurry and get here so that I can spend time reading some past issues!