And Again!

Welp. I tried this year. But yet again, I got sucked into the chaos of the end of the year and let the blog go silent for a while. I think next year, I'll just post a scheduled hiatus mid-May, since this seems to be an annual event! Better to be prepared than be bummed after the fact!

Anyway, the end of the school year felt normal for the first time in two years, which meant the normal amount of intense business and exuberant fun. Excitingly, we collected all student devices, as usual, and as long as the order comes in on time, all of our lower school students will be getting new iPads in the fall! The ones we collected just completed their 6th year of classroom use... yep, time for a retirement party.

End of the year highlights include...

• 3rd Grade Fairy Tale Ball
• 4th Grade Michigan Celebration
• 6th Grade Fashion Show in Hebrew
• 8th Grade Graduation
• 2nd Grade Robot Days
• 1st Grade Boddle Baddles
• 7th Grade CoSpacesEDU project
• and so much more!

Now we're in close down mode and readying for the coming school year. All the plexiglass in the building is coming down, the Chromebooks in need of repair have been registered and sent in, and we're updating the technology handbook for the fall.

And I'm chomping at the bit because in a few short days, I head out to my first ISTE!

I hope everyone's school-year has wrapped with more positive notes than otherwise!

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2021: The Good Stuff

Yeah, this year has been rather h-e-double-hockey-sticks in so many ways, but there have been some good things peppered throughout the last 365 days, too!

Here's the highlights:

• 
  The most exciting part of this year is when I became a part of Jennifer Gonzalez's Cult of Pedagogy team! It has been an honor to work with Jenn, and a group of amazing women, on the Teacher's Guide to Tech. I'm looking forward to spending years to come growing in tech with this team! (It's coming out in early January - look for it here.)
  
  
• Friday webinars with Leslie Fisher capped off chaotic weeks, and showed so many fun and engaging tools - tech and otherwise - that I've enjoyed exploring!
  
  
• My school was on campus for the whole 20-21 school year, and while I kinda liked teaching with my pup on my lap, it was nice to get back in the building in April when I returned to in-person after being remote for the year. 
  
  
• Despite the pandemic, I met some incredible educators and experienced fantastic PD via the Clubhouse app.  If you're not on it, I encourage you to check it out. It's social audio at it's best, and is an amazing place to explore so many different topics.
  
  
• 
  Presenting at CUE, my first virtual presentation for a big conference like that, was a blast!  I loved the sessions I saw, and got great feedback on the sessions in which I presented!
  
  
• Reading month is always a favorite, and this year was exceptionally good. Despite being home, I taught from a different book each week. We also created a virtual book shopping experience on CoSpaces for the winners of the Middle School weekly reading raffle!
  
  
• On a personal note, I got a swimming pool in my backyard! It has been a lifelong dream to have my own pool, and I lived it up with my family all summer long. It became my favorite reading spot, too! So many of the 60+ books I read this year were enjoyed in the pool.
  
  

I am excited to see what good stuff 2022 brings. Yeah, there will still be lots of yuck, but if we try to make notice of the goods, things will be a lot nicer!

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And That's a Wrap!

The end of the school year.

What. A. School. Year.

I don't think I've ever had one where I was *that* busy!

At any rate, I have returned to the normal breakneck pace of every day life, and look forward to resuming regular posts again.

And to all my fellow educators... 

WE MADE IT!

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#ScratchWeek

With all the end-of-year chaos happening, and the additional cause-of-covid add-ons (think: zoom programs, recordings, editing, sharing, etc) it's been a chaotic week and a half in my world.

But I couldn't let this week pass without mentioning Scratch because this week is #ScratchWeek!

And it's quite timely, too, as our fourth graders are finishing up the video games they designed on Scratch.  I am rather impressed with how they're turning out, too!  The kids have seen their games from design to near-completion, and are currently in the testing phase.  A part of me thinks the testing phase is their favorite, as they're playing each others games and providing feedback to make them even better.

Because of the way the unit was scaffolded, the kids are practicing using their sources.  The directions for each of the three different games we created together have been posted in Google Classroom.  We've tasked the kids with comparing what they need in their game (for example, a sprite that is controlled by arrow keys) and then finding the directions in one of the games we already created.  

I am super excited to see the finished games - I promise to post them when they're completed!

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