And She's Ready to Go!

I've finally got everything organized, on the walls, and ready to go. I have 30 desks arranged into groups of 5, and two huge white boards I probably won't even utilize. My school has a 20% coverage rule, so that was tough as the teacher who has TONS of decor.

My "wall" of photos I took in Spain

Looking at the front of the room

Looking at the side of the room

Looking at the back white board

My Spain/book nook

I have decided as of TODAY that I will be starting skills-based grading this year, and created matrices for the first 2 six weeks of school. Grades have always bummed me out because they seem so unfair (they are), and skills based grading completely eliminates this. It is based on what the student is able to accomplish at the end of each unit, not what grades they can make on a test.

Anyway, very excited. Finally have my teacher fire back and I WISH the kids were going to be here Monday but I have a whole other week to wait!

New Year, New Job, New District

This year will begin my first true journey into public education.

I spent the past two years in a charter that has been around for about 4 years, and grew too quickly for its britches.  My very FIRST year of teaching I taught Spanish 1, Spanish 2, Spanish 3, and an elective 7th grade class.

Did I mention I was hired 10 days before school started?

And that it was a flipped model?

With a Learning Management System (LMS)?

It was a nightmare, and I had the worst anxiety/agoraphobia of my life. But I survived. For two whole years.

I have been at new-to-district training this week for my new job in Leander ISD (north of Austin, Texas) as the 8th grade Spanish 1 teacher at Henry Middle School. How easy is that!?

The district is so organized and forward thinking that I can't even believe my luck.  As much as I hate professional development, seeing the district encourage experimentation and student ownership of learning is pretty cool. The superintendent said he doesn't want to focus on our state scores, because with what we are doing, we don't have to.

Ramble ramble ramble! Looking forward to meeting the rest of my co-workers next week!

Sleepy.

I'm too sleepy to write a post today so here is a picture of me in a Google pod.

 PS: Thanks Google for my new HD Flip Cam!

Diplomas, Degrees, Mehhhh

Skull printed on a 3D printer in the MakerSpace lounge. So cool, but my brain doesn't get it!

Day 2 of SXSWedu is winding down for me. Between the 4 sessions, tasty lunch with a friend, and 3 social events post-conference, I might be a little tired today. 

Unfortunately today I only found two sessions to be truly inspiring to me as an educator. I saw a few filled with good information but no new information or ideas were provided to me. Maybe I am jaded/lucky to be teaching in such a forward thinking school? Not sure.

I was privileged enough to catch Gil Garcia's (@giltron) group of kiddos who work with PBS News Hour again this year. I met Gil there last year and was very impressed with the level of work the kids create, as well as the mature insights they develop based on their communication in the community. This year was no different; Gil returned with three more students who shared their experiences and inspirations with the room. By the way, this panel was one of few featuring actual students, and it was severely under-attended. Leah Clapman, who actually coordinates the work between PBS and the schools, gave advice and insight into the program and it seemed to really inspire those who were in the room. I was just glad to see an educator friend showing off his students!

The other conversation I really enjoyed was led by Ryan Porter (@lunch_buddy) who has both written a book and started an online company, and he is young. Or has aged well. (I can't find his age online anywhere, but I swear he has accomplished a lot at a young age). His website RaiseYourFlag was created to help guide students who don't see college as being in their life-path. As a teacher at a charter school that is oriented completely towards college prep, I wanted to hear about his differing views and ideas. We all assume that yes, kids need to go to college. But as Ryan expressed, high school should really be about putting together a portfolio of experiences, and should be a time of exposing kids to new and different experiences so they can be inspired, as so many of us as educators were by teachers of our own.

The best food for thought I took away today was an anecdote Ryan shared with us about a girl he spoke with after one of his presentations. (Did I mention he is also a motivational speaker? What doesn't think guy do?) She thanked him for being so inspiring because she had a problem. Her problem was that she had straight A's, was president of Student Council, captain of the volleyball team, but wanted to be a baker. Ryan asked the girl why this was such a problem, baking is a great career choice. The girl responded that her school guidance counselor has asked what she wanted to do with her life, and when she replied "baker", the counselor responded with "What a waste".

I felt some conviction in that story. While the guidance counselor meant well with her statement, she perpetuated the weird sense of success that we hold in America. Success needs to be fostered in whatever way possible, regardless of intelligence or skill. We can't discourage kids, even the ones that could be the next great engineer or mathematician, just because they want a career path that doesn't involve college. 

YouTube Rocks

So the highlight of my first day at SXSWedu was the panel called "Meet the Educational Stars of YouTube" featuring YouTube EDU's Angela Lin, TED Ed's Logan Smalley, Smart Girls' Meredith Walker, and the ever funny genius/writer of Crash Course, John Green.

I was familiar with John Greene purely from Tumblr experiences (yes I am 24 years old and am active in the Tumblr community and have been for about 8 years), but had no real knowledge of any of the other panelists.

Angela Lin moderated the conversation and has some part (can't remember!) within YouTube's education department which provides a channel purely for educational content. My school has actually just recently made Youtube.com/edu the ONLY YouTube option that we have.

Logan Smalley works to coordinate and produce educational videos in conjunction with TED-Ed, of TED Talks that we are all familiar with. What he does is unique in that he has created a community of educators who help them to create and innovate their content.

Meredith Walker was awesome because she is Amy Poehler's best friend and Amy Poehler is like, my hero/ spirit animal/ whatever. No but seriously, Meredith produces all of the videos that are a part of Smart Girls. This is a channel created by Amy Poehler and friends to empower young girls and make it okay to be smart, educated, and an all around good person.

John Green is a man of many hats and has written books that most of your students are probably obsessed with: The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska, Paper Towns, and An Abundance of Katherines. He also produces CrashCourse with his brother Hank where they teach mini-lessons over different AP level curriculum (GET SOME ONE WHO SPEAKS SPANISH!!!).

The panel had amazing things to say and were hands down the most inspiring group I had seen all day, beating out the nation's 2012 Teacher of the Year even. As a teacher at a school where we incorporate and rely on technology in our classrooms, much of what was said really impacted me.

Mr. Green commented amidst a great discussion that educational videos are NOT meant to replace teaching, but are made to supplement learning. He also mentioned that he believes that we NEED teachers and physical classrooms now more than ever, and that sites like Coursera will ultimately not be successful.

This is something that I only wish I could convey to the parents who become enraged with videos that we are posting on our online classroom portals. We constantly are being told that we are "not teaching anymore" and that we need to start "lecturing more in class". WHAT?! Parents are nuts, but we already all know that.

Anyway, please check out these three channels. I have spent my night perusing all three (it is 1 am) and now am inspired to create my own videos, especially since Spanish videos that don't suck are not easy to find.

As far as starting to create your own videos, the panel agreed that you need an idea for a channel, not just one video. You want students to go down into a rabbit hole of knowledge, rather than watch one video and forget about it. Mr. Green's example was Gangnam Style and that he "doesn't care what Psy does next". A perfect example.

SXSWedu: Take Two

Hey there, hi there, ho there!

It is I! 

I just remembered that I had created this blog at the end of SXSWedu last March because I felt SO inspired by everything I heard, and learned, and everyone I met. But let's face it, teachers are busy mofos and god knows I only have time to keep up with my 5 social media platforms as it is (Insert @YoSoyCaitlin/@ATXMusicExmnr Twitter plug here).

Now here I am; a whole 1 year and 7 months of teaching under my belt. I am very lucky to work at a school who supports me in my professional development and who have allowed me to attend SXSWedu again this year*. 

That being said, it is my goal to post ALL of the great things I take home from this conference. Most of the conference has seemed to drift towards the EdTech industry and promoting start ups, but there are gems that apply to real teachers throughout the week. I hope I do reach a few teachers out there who are not in attendance, or maybe missed a panel or two. Please share anything you find helpful or interesting with your teams and co-workers.

I really hope I can find even more resources and encounter even more fabulous people this year. I have already seen a lot of negativity on Twitter today and can only HOPE that you complainers can put on your big boy/girl pants and learn something, dammit!

*Disclaimer: I am REALLY thrilled to be off work for the week, and to pretend like I work in downtown Austin, and to eat lunch outside at a real restaurant, and to maybe even get to drink a beer at like 4:30 because I got a drink coupon!

Resource: Quick (Free) Puzzle Makers

That frantic minute or so when you realize you either A. Completely forgot to prepare a lesson for a class or B. Need to fill about 5 minutes of time at the beginning of end of the next class.

As a new teacher, this is coming up more and more often (both scenarios unfortunately), but I've developed a small arsenal of websites that quickly and easily generate simple word puzzles.

One disclaimer: The free versions are not always that beautiful and I will often screen shot, copy, paste, adjust these puzzles once they are made in a Word Doc to fit my needs.

Crossword Puzzle Generators
http://www.armoredpenguin.com/crossword/- A very detailed crossword page, you can adjust nearly every aspect of the puzzle.

http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/- This site is pretty basic, choose to the free HTML version and you can either print it as is, or like I said, crop it off the webpage and adjust as you need


Word Search Generators
http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordsearch/- Again, you are able control many aspects of your puzzle with this tool

http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/WordSearchSetupForm.asp- Very basic and quick set-up


Other Word Puzzles
Matching- http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordmatch/- Beta form, uses words and matches them with their definitions

Scramble- http://www.armoredpenguin.com/wordscramble/- The quickest and best scramble maker out there!

BINGO- http://print-bingo.com/print-bingo-cards.php- Create quick custom BINGO cards. It says it can only generate 5 at a time for free, but if you go back and reload the page, it will generate fresh cards every time.