Good News/Bad News

Here's the good news:
Yesterday I got to meet my great-nephew for the first time. His name is Luke. Isn't he cute? He was a very good baby all day, especially when you take into consideration that he was surrounded by 9 people whom he did not know...and my family can be a bit...exuberant. But I got to see him and hold him and talk to him and it was a really nice day.

Bad news?
2009: The Year of Surgery continues. This time it's Dave. He needs surgery on a herniated disc in his neck. (A piece of good news in the bad news is the surgeon who did his brain surgery during and after his stroke will be doing this surgery!) So I will be out of school for about two weeks because Dave will need someone home with him as he recovers. Someone who can drive and get him things. And that would be me.

However, we are playing around with technology and I will be Skyping into my classes to conduct discussions and check in on my students. I have set up a Skype buddy in each class, and I will be projected on the big screen via the LCD projector. Pretty darn cool, huh? My kids and I are excited about it. Even my principal thinks it's a cool idea. We'll see how it works! I'm looking forward to the experiment, but not the cause.

Student Projects!

My student projects are completed and the kids did even better than I had hoped they would! Some of the pages (like the one above by Cam, Ayla and Alex) are extraordinary. Most kids enjoyed the project and said that it helped them better understand Scarlet Letter. Most also said that they enjoyed learning how to use a new program like ComicLife. However, because of delays in getting our laptops, this unit took longer than I thought it would. I hope to be able to catch up since we have a lot more curriculum to get through!

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

I love Dory (from the Disney/Pixar movie Finding Nemo). She is my role model for this year. I have a poster of her near my desk, reminding me to "just keep swimming." No matter what is going on this year, I just need to keep moving forward.

I have taken on a lot this year: I am department head, I am teaching 6 courses (for the first time in 19 years of teaching), of those courses, three are new, I am continuing my grad school work (which is frustrating because I am having trouble collecting data), and I am trying to still have a personal life and spend time with Dave and my family.

So when I feel overwhelmed (which is pretty much all the time right now), I remind myself of Dory and I "just keep swimming." Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't, but I just keep moving on.

Reading...is it really that hard?

I had my senior writing students read "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe. I read this when I was in 7th or 8th grade. I didn't think twice about it, really, but the kids complained that it was hard to understand. These are all kids who are planning on going to college! I was shocked. Poe is not that difficult, and "Cask," though it does feature an unreliable narrator, is not hard to understand. I have no idea what they would do if I threw "The Yellow Wallpaper" at them, so now I am looking around for some simpler short stories.

Am I wrong though? I am questioning a few things.
First, is the writing of Poe that obtuse? Perhaps I need an objective viewpoint on this.
Secondly, shouldn't I be challenging these kids with more difficult readings, since they will soon be faced with far more trying assignments in college?
I would really love some feedback!

Blogs and Senior Writing

I've just been inspired to have my senior writing students create blogs which would be used much like an online journal. I'll have them use the blogs for free-writes and also for quick write topics that I give them. I'll keep a few "starter topics" on hand for kids who "don't know what to write about." I just have to wait until they all get their computers, but that should be soon. Since I only have 9 kids in that class, it should be easy to keep on top of the blogging. Now I need a blog grading rubric! Anyone know of one?

Today, I love technology!

Finally, success! I have a very small Mythology class (only 5 kids) and three of them were absent today. Fortunately, I had just finished setting up their wikispace (with Amity's help) and I had a project ready to roll. Both of the students in the class had their laptops (hurrah!) and they were able to sign on to the wiki and get to work. And it went great! Both of them were totally engaged with looking up their gods and goddesses and putting information on the wiki. Now, if only my sophomores would get their laptops...

Here's a link to their wiki. Reminder that it's a work in progress!

Tech-frustration

So, I go to show my wordle today to my sophomores and what happens? The applet won't load. I can see other wordles, but I can't show mine. I try to quickly make a new one. Same problem. I use Safari instead of Firefox. Same problem. So, like any good teacher, I had to drop that idea and go quickly to something different. Something non-technology based.

Also, our students don't have their laptops yet and probably won't until October. That's not too far away, but much of what I want to do, I can't do, because I don't have the technology. This also has a bearing on my grad school project, since much of it was developed with using technology in mind.

I know it will get better eventually. My problem is I want eventually to be RIGHT NOW!