Professional Development and Twitter

I am sure that most (if not all) have been involved with professional development using some type of media, but the trend now is Twitter. I love Twitter! I love it for the knowledge that it contains.
Top 10 reasons I love Twitter:
10. I am able to follow what is going on at school through the students using the school's #hashtag
 9. I am able to see work displayed by the teachers and students on my phone! (parents love this as well)
 8.  I get to share my thoughts with everyone that follow me.
 7.  I am able to follow my sports teams in one glance. (scores up-to-date, no box scores)
 6. It makes me really think about what I want to say, because of the people that follow me. (grammar, connotation, tone...) Sometimes I type a tweet only to delete it, but I still feel better! :) (digital footprint and all)
 5. I get to follow what is going on at other schools in our district. Today I was able to read their tweeter feeds and see what they were learning on their campus, very insightful!
 4.  I am able to get news updates, and decide if I need to read the entire article right then or wait for later.
3. I get great articles from people in my profession. Great learning tool (again)
2. I can use it whenever I choose too.  I can join conversations or read them after they have concluded.
1. BOOK STUDIES!!! I participated in a fantastic book study tonight (continued tomorrow- Friday 8-9). I got to see the how teachers in my building teach writing and how they are going to change their teaching style for next year. I really enjoyed it; it motivated me to want to read/write more! :)

If you don't have a professional Twitter account, I suggest you get one and join the Twitter world!

* The #hashtag is located on the left of this page.

Liebster

Liebster (Thanks Mandi!)

Liebster Awards do come with a few guidelines (Mandi doesn't like to call them rules):

1. Link back to the blog that nominated you
2. Answer the questions that the person who nominated you asked
3. Share 11 random facts about yourself
4. Nominate some great blogs with less than 200 followers! (My favorite!)
5. Present 11 questions for your nominees to answer

Questions for My Nominees:

1. If you could go anywhere, where would it be? (This doesn't have to be a real place).                   I want to go to The Keys, it is my favorite place!
2. What's your favorite sport?                                                                                                             My favorite sport to play, soccer and volleyball. My favorite sports to watch is college football
3. What's your guilty pleasure?                                                                                                           Hot bath and a good movie!!
4. What's your favorite word?                                                                                                             My favorite wordis plethora. Once a navy sailor told my mom, sister, aunt, and cousin there was a plethora of restaurants downtown. My sister said, from the back seat, "did he just say there are a but load of restaurants downtown?" I thought that was hilarious!! And I read an article how it is the most overly used word used to sound smart, that makes me laugh too!
5. What's your favorite part of starting the school year?                                                                     The possibilities, it is like Christmas! I love to think about how great the year will be. 
6. What's the worst thing about starting the school year?                                                                   Calling people we didn't hire, so sad.
7. Is the glass half empty or half full?                                                                                                 Half full! :) 
8. What advice would you give to teachers for starting the new school year?                                   Ask questions, listen to your peers (don't let them walk over you, but listen to what they have to say), and stay excited.
9. What's the last book you read? Starring Me By Krista McGee (FANTASTIC)
10. What is your favorite professional book? Middle School Book Clubs
11. What's your favorite flower? Daisy (They are the happiest flower), followed VERY closely by the tulip.                                

11 Random Facts about Me!

1.  I LOVE being a member of a large family! I am the second eldest of 5 kids and I love it!

2. GEAUX TIGERS!! I am a HUGE LSU fan. 

3.  I love TV shows from the 90's (Friends, Full House, Sabrina the Teenage Which...)

4. Love me some Dark Chocholate

5. My husband is a better cook than I am....I bake better.

6. I love the zoo, one of my very favorite places to go.

7. I prefer YA books to adult books.

8. I always said I didn't want to be a teacher (Everyone in my family is, I wanted to do something different.), but when it is your calling...you answer.

9. I don't like road trips; I am getting better. I get antsy.

10. My mother and I have the same job title in different schools.

11. I hate to dust!

Questions for my Nominees: 

1. If you could move anywhere, where would it be? (This doesn't have to be a real place).            
2. Which do you prefer, Professional or College sports?                                                                 
3. What's your guilty pleasure?                                                                                                          
4. What's your favorite word?                                                                                                            
5. What's your favorite part of starting the school year?                                                                    
6. What is your favorite holiday? Why?                                                                 
7. Are you a people person? Kids or Adults, which do you prefer to talk with?                                
8. What advice would you give to teachers for starting the new school year?                                  
9. What's the last book you read?
10. If you could learn a new language, what would it be?
11. What's your favorite city? Why?

Great Blogs to Follow!

 shortandsassyteacher.blogspot.com

Texas Middle School Teacher Connection

Special Education Love

Middle School Stories

Science Teaching Junkie

Book study on Twitter

I will be participating in a book study over Aimee Buckner's book Notebook Know-How .  I am very excited about this book; I have read it before, but it was before my understanding of workshop. I am excited to see others thoughts on this book. I am participating with Mandi, http://lifewithmiddleschooler.blogspot.com/. We will be tweeting on Tuesday nights at 8pm #hashtag #ladeptread. Please see  http://lifewithmiddleschooler.blogspot.com/ for more information.
Hope to see you there!

Picture obtained from Amazon.com

This week...

This week has been such a great week! I have gotten so much done! Many people, including my husband, ask, " What do you do in the summer? There aren't teachers or kids." This is an excellent question! We get ready for the teachers and kids.
     Monday we had new teacher training at one of our high schools; while we were there we were expected to go to media update, which released us early (!!). Then we had a working lunch to review the STAAR data, where they told us that they don't have all the information, because the state hasn't released it all yet... We were released out of there early (!!) as well. We then went back to campus and conducted interviews for teachers that we still need to hire, worked on the locker situation, and helped with registration. It was a busy day.
     Tuesday we had new teacher training on our campus, 6th grade schedule pick up, more interviews, lunch with the new teachers,

                                              (the state marker across the street from lunch)
 registration, finish our professional development plan, late registration, and I had an appointment with our AMAZING ELA department chair. "What was the best part of the day?" you ask. Another great question! My meeting with Mandi, the department chair. I love talking about Language Arts! I love that she comes to the table with questions and solutions to these questions. I am so excited about this year I can't stand it!
   Wednesday (today) we work on our campus, we were moving furniture, cleaning out rooms, more interviews, and making anchor charts for our PLC room. It was a great day!

I hope your week is as eventful as mine!

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Innovation

        What do you think of when you think of innovation? Smart phones, GPS, or maybe your iPad. I watch my 3 year old play and see that he is naturally creative. Everything can be a gun or a sword. He sees things that I don't. What happens to us as we grow up? At what point do we stop seeing what can be and go with what everyone else is doing?
 Think about innovation within education, what does it look like? Why is there so little innovation in our classrooms? Our teachers are brilliant people, amazing teachers, what prevents them from teaching outside of their comfort zone? Mandi, from http://lifewithmiddleschooler.blogspot.com/ , is innovative, but why don't we have more teachers that try new things consistently. We have a few teachers that will try new ideas, but it is sparatic, we need it constantly.
    This year my goal is to support the teachers on my campus to be innovative, try new ideas. Will they all be perfect and great? No, but we will strive to make our ideas successful. We will model for our students that  to be innovative there is some trail and error, but planning and collaboration is the key to being successful. Show our students that problem solving is an important skill for all jobs.


Conceptual Teaching on the Brain!!
(I have my own ideas to the questions I posed, but I would love to hear you ideas.)

It all starts with a Tweet!

It all starts with a tweet!

A few days ago a former principal of mine tweeted out, "Wondering why we teach math "conceptually" but teach "reading strategies?" What if we taught reading conceptually?" I haven't been able to stop thinking about this. I went from defensive to mad to sad. I wanted to defend my colleagues and myself, "We do teach conceptually! Students have choice in their text. Students choose the "strategies" they want to use to answer guiding questions. Students work with and through each other. But then I realized, not everyone does this. The more instructional leadership responsibilities I get, the more important I see how collaborative teaching really is. We can’t just get mad and say, “It would be great if we could do that.” We need to get out of our comfort zone and teach our students to think on their own- to not need us.

Part of this page will be dedicated to my thinking out of how I am going to help our teachers to teach more conceptually in our reading classes.

I will be starting at <a title="Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction" href="http://www.cori.umd.edu" target="_blank">Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction .</a>

Please share any resources you might have. Thank you in advance! :)

Amy 

The pitfall of working with great people...

This summer in our district we have had a lot of changes, from teachers to nurses to administration.  Change makes people uneasy, even if it was their plan. I am happy to see so many friends/colleagues able to pursue their dream path. The bittersweet feelings are over taken by the joy they show with either getting the position they have been working so hard for or by being able to stay at home with their children.

As you all know, the problem with working with great people is you don't get to keep them. We have lost several great teachers this summer, but today we lost a department head and an assistant principal. I am SO happy for them, they both work hard and deserve the new positions; however I am selfish and want them to stay and be great with me!! :)

But on a serious note, this is the point of the year when you are finishing the hiring for the new year and you have such high hopes for the campus. And I am so there!! I am so exited about our new staff and how they are going to make our current staff even better! I feel like it is Christmas; the anticipation of what we are going to do has me on pins and needles. I am getting emails, text, tweets, and phone calls from treachers about the great ideas they have for next year. I get so excited when colleagues get excited about their classrooms. It is going to be a great year!

It is a fantastic time to be an educator and I am bless to be at such an amazing school!!