Gone, But Not Forgotten...

I have been absent from blogging for quite a while as I have tried to get acclimated to a new classroom, in a new school, in a new district! I am in the process of creating modules that use a modified version of PARCC's 4th Grade ELA Model Content Framework. Wish me luck!

One of the themes I am using is Nature's Fury (Extreme Weather). To support this theme, I will be using Eye of the Storm: Chasing Storms with Warren Faidley by Stephen Kramer. I have checked out the eBook from Open Library. I am embedding the mini-book player here and hopefully it will work (just in case the website is blocked by this district's strict web filters).

A Change Is Gonna Come

Soon I will leave my position as District Instructional Technologist to return to a 4th classroom teaching reading, language arts, and social studies. Most people are astounded when I tell them this and wonder why I would ever return to a classroom. I honestly never thought I'd be anywhere but the classroom; although, this position has been a nice change of pace - I have grown in my leadership capacity; had opportunities to see education from a different perspective; and made/helped make decisions that would affect teaching and learning in our district. Despite all of this, I am headed back to the classroom.

The reason for the change has nothing to do with discontent with my current role. I quite enjoyed the challenge; but, over a year ago, I moved out of state (112 miles from my current district) creating a 4-hour, round-trip commute. Most wondered how long I could sustain in that fashion. I lasted a full school year, plus a couple of months at the end of one and the beginning of this one. Commuting proved to be expensive and physically taxing. So after much prayer and consideration, I began to look for positions closer to home. Ironically, the new school is 66 miles away from home - exactly half of my current commute. It's not as close as I wanted to be, but hopefully, this will be a good fit and an easy transition.

I am not without anxieties. The shifts in content (CCSS and new state frameworks) and grade level will be huge for me. I will also be entering nearly two months after the beginning of the school year which presents its own set of challenges.

During the 2005-2006 school year, I taught in a self-contained 4th grade classroom; however, the standards I used were our old benchmarks. In school year 2006-2007, I taught reading only - still under the old state benchmarks. Since then, the standards for reading and language arts were merged and repackaged as a combined ELA framework. The social studies standards have also changed. Now the Common Core State Standards have been implemented. I spent the following years teaching 6th and 7th grade math and pre-AP pre-algebra and then as District Instructional Technologist since May 2011.

Pray for me as I return to the classroom and continue my travels on a shorter (thankfully) commuting!

Teaching like it's 1983.

We got our first computer in the home around the Christmas of 1983, when I was at the ripe old age of 3. I had learned to read on the eve of my 2nd birthday and my dad decided the next challenge would be to teach me a new skill and language - programming in a computer language called BASIC. 

My father did not order disks with pre-programmed games, or type the lines of code and save the games for me. Instead, he allowed me to identify the games I wanted to play from the monthly digest of computer programs that was delivered to our house, and taught me to type the hundreds of required lines of code, save them to 5 1/4" floppy disks, compile and troubleshoot the code before being able to play these games. 

I enjoyed the process; I learned patience and delayed gratification at an early age - however that's not all I learned. Since we were the only family in the neighborhood with a computer, I discovered that I could make the other neighborhood children, most of whom were years older play school with me, but I would always be the teacher, even though I was younger because I owned the computer. =^}

I was a voracious reader and loved learning, so my mother would buy textbooks and workbooks from the state textbook depot to keep me busy. I made copies for my "students" that came to play on the computer. 

For Christmas 1984, my favorite gift was a chalkboard with multi-colored chalk. This upped my "play school" game to a whole new level!!! I felt very authentic!

Here I am tht Christmas Morning in 1984 - probably in the middle of planning a fantastic lesson!

Now, I am a real teacher, just like I knew I would be. It strikes me that I used technology as a method to reach and engage students 30 years ago at the tender and ripe, old age of 3.

~TF

 P.S. During our most recent Bible study series, we took an inventory revealing our Spiritual gifts. My top gift - teaching. I was predestined to be a teacher - by design!