Answered Prayers

Every teacher dreams of having the perfect classroom; all of the students are pleasant, there is enough supplies for all of the students, and there is working technology. Those rose-colored glasses are great but when you work in a county were all of the students get free lunch, you tend to figure that it will never happen. But what if it did? What would you do to bring your students into the 21st century?

Last week was a roller coaster week for me. There were a lot of changes to my current life but I was very excited to receive an email from my superintendent that lifted my spirits and made me excited for the #finalwave (since the school I am teaching in is going to be consolidating and taking on a new name after the next academic school year). We will be going to a 1:1 teaching environment for the next school year. This helped lift my spirits because the reality that I would be entering my final year as a fifth grade teacher had me in complete panic.

Now is the fun part! I have been going through my delicious account reviewing all of my tech tools that I have in my tool kit! I feel like a kid in a candy store because there are so many new tools that I hadn't found before this week. I am very excited to look into tools like Flipgrid and Edpuzzle. The idea of being able to flip my classroom has me feeling like a first year teacher again!

I cannot wait to tell you all about the training that will be taking place in the next few weeks and sharing the success of 1:1 in my classroom. It will be interesting to see how this will work when I know that I will be seeing four different groups of students and teaching all the general education subjects. Every part of me hopes that I will be able to use the technology in a meaningful way but there is a small part that knows that there will be a lot of training to ensure that the students are using the tools to make products that exhibit learning. This might mess with the curriculum maps that I am working one (do not fear, you will get a glimpse of that... in time!)

Until the training, I can just sit here at home, pin my ideas, and share them with my co-workers!

First Time Blogger

This blog is something that I wanted to set up last year, after my boss threw my team a curve ball. We went from being fifth grade teachers that taught two subjects and switched students with one other teacher, to a team of teachers that taught all of the five subjects and seen several different groups of students. We were whisked from our comfort zones and asked to quickly adapt. Needless to say,  my blogging idea took a backseat to learning new curriculum.

Fast-forward to the end of the school year, and now we have landed in summer. I made it through the transition and have started planning for the coming school year. I am beyond overjoyed for the chance to share my classroom with others and give them insight into what it is like to live in my world. I am the type of teacher who tries to push the envelop and make my students live the curriculum. I hope that you come with me on the journey of discovering what year four of teaching fifth grade will bring me.

Thank you!