I have not done a great job keeping up with my blog like I said I would in January!  It has been busy to say the least.  I have been meeting with teachers this week.  I truly have a great staff who is dedicated to doing what is right for their students.  I have enjoyed the talks!

We are also far along in our Web 2.0 class.  We have mostly worked on setting up blogs after an overview of the need for Web 2.0 in the classroom.  I love when people step out of their comfort zone to learn something new.  I have gained a lot from our sessions and I hope the teachers feel the same!

 I have been spending time on twitter and would suggest you try it out if you are not already tweeting.  My user name is mwaiksnis.  Hope to see you there!

Down to crunch time in preparing for the Web 2.0 class I will be teaching starting next week.  I have been “messing around” with this stuff for a while now so I know I will have some great things to share.  I am truly excited and many of my teachers are as well.  There are over 20 signed up at this point!  The more the merrier.

 I found a great mind mapping site.  I have never used Inspiration before, but someone told me it is similar to this Web 2.0 software.  Except, I pointed out, that mind meister is free and you can share it with others, they can edit it, etc…..2.0!

mindmeister.com

I have also started a twitter account–mwaiksnis.  Interesting to follow when you can.  I have come across many ideas on twitter.  Like reading blogs, but much more compact!

On a side note, I wonder when Web 2.0 (the term) is going to go out of fashion.  It is hard enough trying to keep up with all of this stuff, I hope someone sends me a warning when to stop using the term.  It is not already too late is it?

Does anyone know of a free online polling service?  I would like to be able to do this during a staff development on lap tops.  We currently have Promethean boards that can do this, but not all of my teachers have the boards.  Any suggestions would be appreciated!

I am about to begin teaching a Web 2.0 class.  No, I did not recently complete my Ph.D. (or start it for that matter) and the teaching job it is not at a fancy college or university.  I am not presenting at a prestigious national conference.  It is much more powerful and important that that.  I am teaching this class to teachers at my school who are interested in learning more about using technology in the classroom.  It is really a professional development series, but a course none the less!

 I have been throwing bits of information out at my teachers about technology during the course of this year.  In my weekly updates I recently sentan article about using blogs and wikis in class.  One of our teachers loved the article and was fired up to learn more.  Her desire to use Web 2.0 really got me excited as well.  We already have several teachers blogging and podcasting, but I knew it was time to try and take it to the next level.

I have about 15 teachers signed on for this course.  The first thing I am going to tell them is that I am not an expert on this stuff!  I have been blogging and podcasting for a while now and I am comfortable with those two technologies.  I also know the need our schools have.  I am a big believer in transforming schools to meet the needs of our digital learners.  However, I have learned almost all of this one my own (with some technical assistance from my colleagues-thanks!).  I have figured it out by messing around and seeing what happens. 

I also entered the 2.0 world as an administrator.  I need to start thinking through the teacher lens.  I have a great course planned–and have the first couple of classes planned.  I think I can effectively make a case for the need for incorporating 2.0 technologies and will then venture into blogging and podcasting.  However, I know I need much more.

 What advice do you have for me for this course?  Do you have any solid examples of teachers using this in the classroom?  I would appreciate any assistance!

Wow, it has been awhile!  As I mentioned in my last post (6 months ago), I was appointed to my first principalship this past summer.  I never intended to abandon my blog, but it has been a bit busy!  I would like to say one of my New Year resolutions was to start posting again, but I just happened to think about while working on my computer tonight!

My first year has been wonderful.  I am truly fortunate to be at a great school.  The students are great and we have a top notch faculty and staff.  I see great things in our classrooms each and every day.  I am excited as we move into the future.

I have not totally ignored web 2.0 since this past summer.  I created a school blog, which I post podcasts to every two weeks or so.  I have found it to be a great way to stay connected to parents.  Of course, not all of our parents have access, but we have to start somewhere!  If you would like to take a look it is located at:

http://sullivanms.edublogs.org/

A few teachers have joined the Web 2.0 community as well.  Our media specialist is truly a MEDIA specialist.  She has a library blog, book talk blog and hosts a weekly podcast with students.  I also have another teacher who produced podcasts with her students and 2 teachers with their own blogs.  Our school also has an I.B. blog as we are an I.B. school. 

The technology integration does not end there as we have classes making videos with movie maker.  We are truly making a great attempt to infuse technology with the ultimate goal of student learning!

I  am sure I lot most of my readers (all 4 or 5 of them!) with this long hiatus, but I plan to begin posting on a regular basis again.  I hope to see you all back!

I left off the most important part of my last post, “First Principalship”.  I am calling out to my fellow educators and asking, “What advice do you have for a new principal”? 

I would love to hear from other administrators, teachers, parents, students and anyone else who comes across this post.  I look forward to hearing your insight!

First Principalship!

I am very excited to announce I have been named to my first principalship!  I have actually been on the job officially for 3 weeks.  Before the end of the school year I was working with the leadership team to begin preparations for the upcoming school year.  So while I am still new, I have been on the job for a couple of months.

To say the least, I am very excited for the upcoming school year.  The faculty and staff at my new school are wonderful.  I have had the chance to meet with about 50 teachers individually.  I enjoy spending time with them and getting to know them. 

We are having our first annual Summer Bar-B-Que in a few weeks and we are all looking forward to that as well.  It will be another opportunity for all of us to get together and continue getting to know one another.  It will be fun as all employees and their families are invited.

I will keep you posted as the year progresses!

Our school district has an annual summer conference.  It is called the Student Engagement conference and it is taking place today and tomorrow.  There is a ton of exciting sessions.  We heard Marc Pensky speak this morning.  He is a talented speaker with many great ideas.  This quote from him sums it all up.  I am paraphrasing from his keynote this morning.

We used to teach kids how to tell time by looking at the sun.  Now we have a machine (clock) that makes it much, much easier.  Now when teaching kids to tell time, we teach them how to read a watch. 

I thought this was a wonderful point.  Many educators are hesitant to embrace new technologies for the fear of abandoning the traditional way.  I do not think we can afford to block new technologies as this is what our kids will be expected to know in the future.  We did it with watches, so we can do it now!   I am off to a session on teacher conferencing.

Our state testing is officially over today!  Well, not including make up administration but one can dream.  Tomorrow we are having a special event at our school.  It is in conjunction with The American Cancer Society.

Our school has been involved with The Relay For Life for the past three years.  At my previous school we had been involved for the past 6 or 7 years.  I am a true believer in teaching children the importance of giving back to those in need.  It is just the right thing to do. I also have a personal buy in to fighting cancer.  My wonderful mom lost her long battle against this horroible disease this Feburary. 

Our school is holding our Mini-Relay tomorrow afternoon.  It is a scaled down version of the actual Relay.  We participate in that one as well, but this gives all of our kids to participate.  We want them to experience it as well.  Each child is required to get at least $5 in donations to be able to attend.  This may sound like a lot from every kid, but we work with them and give them plenty of time to gather the donations.  Many teachers help support thier students and everyone who wants to attend is allowed. 

We decorate our track with purple Relay balloons, informative signs from the ACS and anything else we can find.  We have food and drink tents (we give each child a soda and an ACS cup filled with popcorn (all donated).  This year we will have a dunking booth, snow cone machine and face painting.  We will charge $1 for these.  And yes, I WILL be in the dunking booth!!  Hey, its to fight cancer!

I encourage any school to look into this type of event.  It teaches kids to give back and care about others in their community.  It helps them grow.  It helps your community.  You will even probably get a nice article in the paper!  It shows your community that your school cares and does wonderful things.  In addition to all of this, it provides donations for a worthy cause.  If this is something you might be interested in, I encourage you to email me or contact the ACS at ww. cancer.org. 

It has been a bit since I posted as we are all feeling the rush of the end of the school year happenings!  We received our numerous boxes of our state assessment materials today.  Our students will have the chance to show what they learned this year.  Our teachers have done a wonderful job this year in preparing our students.  We have focused on the data, although we will continue to refine this process in the future.  I previously posted on using data and I encourage you to check it out if you have not had a chance to read it.

At this point I just try to boost the kid’s confidence.  I remind them daily of how much they have grown academically this year and now they will have the chance to prove it on paper.  I know most of my teachers will be reviewing the standards over the next few days, but it is impossible to cram at this point.  I think the reviews are a good idea but at this point I think a healthy dose of encouragement and confidence building are more effective.

Here are some of my specific strategies:

Talk up the upcoming test with the students, but be careful not to stress them out!  You can often hear me in the hallways reminding the kids and telling them how ready they are!

Meet with kids individually or in small groups.  This takes some time but it can be done formally or simply by pulling them aside on the way to lunch.  I use this time to talk about their year and how they feel about their academic performance. 

At my school we are going to use incentives for attendance.  I know there is a tremendous amount of debate on the merits of incentives, but it works for us at our school.

Make sure the teachers are preparing the students for the testing “conditions”.  We actually do this all year as we feel the more experience they have in testing environments the more comfortable they will be on the big day!

Here are a few of the strategies I use for last minute preparation.  What are you doing at your school?