Summers almost done!

Where does the time go?!?!  Since my last post there has been tons of stuff happening.  First and foremost would be my receiving my Bachelor of Education degree with distinction, the last part there was not expected at all!  I have applied for various teaching positions but have always been the second choice.  Well not always, my first interview I was offered the position and really had to debate hard on it.  It was a temporary position, Sept to Dec and mainly high school classes which is out of my target area of Kindergarten to grade 5...almost exactly opposite of it in fact!  I really like the school and had a great feeling while there but the grade range of the position was the deciding factor.  The board was very understanding when after my given 3 days to decide I turned it down and they were very adamant that they wanted me on their sub list.  I sometimes wonder if I should have just taken that position since it would have meant a for sure job for the fall and not just sub listing but many times teachers in my classes would advise not to jump on the first job offer in front of you just to have a job, make sure it is something you want to do.  I am holding to those words and having faith that my teaching position is out there...

aaaaaaand thats a wrap!

So as this week ends, or in my case ended yesterday, one of my classes came to an end.  This blog post is suggested to focus on my reflecting on my e-portfolio and I will get to that in a minute.  I want to start off by thanking my teacher for the ETAD class that just ended, Heather Ross, for making a class that I was hoping to be interesting into a class that I look forward to every Tuesday and Thursday and lamented greatly on days I was not able to be there for it.  This particular subject holds a huge interest for me and Heather seemed to recognize that and really gave me some great insight and advice that has probably had the most impact on my teacher identity this term.  So for all this I want to thank her very much!

Onto the reflection part.  I had the meat and potatoes, the nuts and bolts and the popcorn and butter of this e-portfolio written and put together  easily a month and a half ago.  I had already been studying e-portfolios via some of the people in my learning network that use and/or teach them so I was already putting the ideas of mine together.  Similar to this blog since I was already gathering ideas for it during internship just had not had the chance to start it until this term.  This was a blessing as well as a very vile curse.  I discovered as I made it, then remade it and then scrapped it and put it together yet again that I was very picky about how I was doing this.  I already have 2 more revisions ready to go in the next couple weeks after I finish some other assignments.  I almost submitted the link to it the week before it was due and then torn it completely apart again and rebuilt it from the ground up.  After seeing my classmates portfolios I know a few things I may incorporate into mine and am glad that I accept the fact that this is an ever changing thing so I can tinker in it continuously.  I have already had feedback from potential employers who have seen it and are impressed by what it is which makes me feel better about my neurotics in creating it.  I am slightly frustrated by some of the limitations of doing it in blogger but it is only a temporary home for it so I rest a bit easier in that knowledge.

So with the end of the class does not bring about the end of the blog, it just might end up being updated on a different timetable now.  I have a small list(pages) of things I want to blog about here so it is not going away lol!

Pin it

So I am sure that many of you have heard of the current web craze that is Pinterest.  If you are not on it I am sure you know someone who is  It is a bit less personal then Facebook but still a great way to share ideas in my opinion.  I don't have an account on it, yet, but have found lots of great lesson ideas and even full on plans even!  Here is a great article I read about teachers using Pinterest that I got from a tweet by Alec Couros @courosa. Be sure to check it out and see how much you can find there!

Write and re-write

As I am plugging away on my e-portfolio I seem to have run into a bit of a roadblock.  At first it seemed more of a speed bump but for some reason it seems to be frustrating me and holding up my progress on the project.

My bump turned wall is the teaching philosophy.  I have written one before but was re-tooling it a bit for this since I have grown since writing it.  The catch has been how much is too much?  What points are the most important and which ones are just filler?  Every new draft of it seem to get too long and rambley and I am having an issue thinning it out.  Anyone out there want to share theirs or give me some of the tips they used when writing theirs?

The Proposal

For the final project in ETAD 470 we had the choice between doing a web quest or an e-portfolio.  I have chosen to do an e-portfolio.

Why have you chosen to complete an e-portfolio?

While I had thought about making a web quest, it really seems more useful to me to make an e-portfolio.  Several of the blogs I was already reading before this class were already set up as an e-portfolio and I had been thinking about/tinkering with making a similar idea.  While the idea of using Dreamweaver to create the website is a sound idea and I have experience with it from an art class I took, since I don’t have the full program on my network at home I am going to set it up on Blogger for now.  Down the road once I am able to purchase Dreamweaver or a new Adobe suite to upgrade my Photoshop as well then I can create the portfolio via Dreamweaver and enhance things from there.

What professional uses does an e-portfolio have for you?

By creating an e-portfolio I feel it gives me the ability to get my information out to potential employers electronically and easily.  It gives me a space where I can reflect upon my role as a teacher and the ideas I have for that.  I like the idea of having my information nice and neat in one area and it gives me the ability to have more examples and samples of my work available for potential employers without having to bring boxes of it with me to interviews.  My physical portfolio can become a more streamlined version, highlighting what I feel are the best pieces of work from the e-portfolio.

What content do you plan to include?

I will embed any documents using a site called Scribd.  Here viewers and future employers can see a preview of my documents and then if they wish to print off a hard copy or download the document all they have to do is hit full screen or download and the document is there easier to read and ready to be printed.

What graphic design considerations have you taken into account for the look of the e-portfolio.

As for the graphic design look I will be sticking with my current look of my blog for now.  I took a lot of time in selecting this design from the template and am happy with it.  In the future I would possibly modify this with my own images. I want to keep a fairly basic and user friendly feel to this since not everyone coming to it will be of the same technological mind set.

What concerns do you have about the process?  How do you plan to address these concerns?

My main concern with creating this e-portfolio is the same concern I have with my love of technology and staying current with it; how do I find/make the time to keep it up to date and keep myself current with how busy my life is.  I am currently finding my life to be very busy and my time to projects ratios to be very unbalanced.  I am looking new ways to doing things and possibly breaking up my calendar into ways that I really am not fond of doing; for example making my work time more specific – certain days are for certain projects.  The down side with that is that you can’t always predict or force the creative juices and drive so if on said day I am supposed to work on photography or poetry but don’t feel the creative flow I can’t force that otherwise the work will not be my best.  In all reality just a minor bump that will require adjusting all the time as things and situations change and evolve.  My only other concern is if I want to include my photo on the site.  I am leaning towards yes since it makes sense to have it available, but have not made up my mind completely just yet.

Emotional Climate

So while I was thinking about which of my many topics to discuss here I came across the newest post on George Couros's blog; The Principal of Change, and it struck a chord with me.

What George talks about in the post is a very really thing.  More and more in work places the employees are just that, a means to the end for the company and they are just numbers on a spreadsheet not real people with thoughts, ideas and emotions.  How is anyone expected to work to their best when the environment they work in is a hostile or desolate one?

This also works well in the school and classroom environment.  Teachers can't teach effectively if they are not feeling secure in every avenue of their person including emotionally.  Your students can key into your feelings and if your not at your best they can pick up on that so there needs to be a good environment within the school.  I experienced this first hand during my internship.  One of my daughters have an nonmalignant tumor above one of her kidneys.  It was discovered by accident and we spent a tortuous summer finding out what it was and what could be done ending in the results that it was not growing and not affecting her at all.  She still is monitored by her oncologist and the results are that it is not doing anything at all, which in 99% of the cases is what happens with this particular childhood cancer.  Well towards the end of my internship her oncologist phones because apparently on her last visit the results had changed and she needed to come in right away for more tests to see if this was the case for sure.  So the meat and potatoes is that I am committed to helping my school host the provincial volleyball tournament which starts the next day but now am taking her to the hospital to have tests run again.  After a talk with the principal she assured me that they were in complete understanding of what was going on.  I talked to the teacher that was in charge of the event and had it all cleared away; she even emailed me the next day and apologized if she sounded short with me (which she didn't at all).  It felt really good to know that they were all there for me, even calling me to see how it went afterwards, despite I was only a temporary part of their staff.  I can only hope that my next teaching position is in a school with a staff as amazing as that!

In the classroom students also need to have that feeling of community otherwise they cannot perform to their utmost potential.  As teachers we need to be in tune with our students even on the most basic emotional level.  If they had a bad night at home, or are having a bad day they will likely not be academically on the ball either.  Being able to see that and have a way to allow them to still work and feel successful will help pay off in the long run for the student, the class and anyone else involved!

Being a good parent and teacher

      So this week in my Exceptional Learners class I was part of a group that presented on the chapter in the textbook on gifted students.  My portion of the presentation dealt with how the classroom needs to be an inclusive setting for the gifted student just as it is for students with other exceptionalities or learning disabilities.  As part of my presentations I conducted a mini interview with my son Kye.  Kye is a smart kid, not to seem like I am bragging or saying my son is gifted, but he just is a smart kid.  Before he started grade 3 this year he had already taught himself how to multiply; not just by memorizing a chart but by figuring out how to multiply using groups to figure it out and has since grown comfortable with it.  In fact he is so comfortable with it that a couple weeks ago started asking how division works since he knows how multiplication works.  In his math class at school they are doing 3 number subtraction currently, which he finds incredibly easy.  Now this is only a small sampling of what he is like...he loves school and learning and would love to be in school more and is sad when there are days off that he feels are not needed or too many days off in a row.  Summer holidays can drag for him if he does not have enough learning activities mixed into it.  So right around the time I am reading this chapter he comes home and is all serious in the fact he feels his teacher is holding him back - his words exactly.  This isn't the first time he has had issues with teachers who don't seem to want to allow him to work to his potential.  His home room teacher finds it funny that he likes to work so fast and that he loves to read and will actually make him sit and wait while she is explaining worksheets to the class when he already understands what needs to be done and just wants to work.  During the 3-way parent/teacher/student conferences his teacher says he needs to work on his reading which dumbfounded my wife and when she questioned it his teacher just laughed and said that they just put that down for everyone.  Kye reads extremely well, over last summer he read the entire Harry Potter series and can answer pretty much any question from any of the books; I don't even have that sort of retention ability with what I read!  His reading level, without being formally tested, appears to be in the grade 6-8 level and we have managed to get the teacher librarian to allow him to take books from the young adult section of the library so that they are to his ability level.
     I feel like I have rambled on about this a lot already but my point is that this morning I talked tot he principal while walking the girls to school and just gave him a heads up that I am cc-ing him in an email to Kyes teacher in which I want to know what can be done in the classroom and school to help keep Kye interested in being there and learning.  He has made mention more than once that he would like to be home schooled so that he can be learning at his level and to his full potential - again these are the words coming from his 9 year old brain not mine.  There are many things done to help the students that are on the lower end of the academic scales but why is it that the students at the upper end often get left out in the cold?  As a teacher I understand the challenges especially when you can have such a varied range of student abilities in a single classroom and the instruction time is not enough to intensively cater to the all but just as supports are put in place for the disadvantaged so must challenges be placed to support the advantaged student as well.