April 26 Final Pause and Ponder

Thanks, Bill, for sharing all of your knowledge of the internet with us.

Sign up for the next class!!

If you are reading this blog and need a class for recertification or just need to take a graduate class, I highly recommend "Writing in the Digital Classroom." To be honest the best time to take this class would be in the summer when you have plenty of time to really explore the websites and the tools that you are exposed to during the class. But that is about the only negative I have to say about the class. If you are lucky enough to have Bill Gaskins for the instructor then you are already one-up. The tools that you learn are awesome and well worth the time you spend in class.

Discussion on Voicethread about Troy Hick's book

Voicethread

This tutorial for Voicethread takes you from the very beginning and walks you through the steps of using and embedding pictures as well. It was created by Radford University.

Break Closing and New Insights

Spring break is coming to a close and it will be so hard to go back to school and be confined indoors. Over this spring break I have realized that once retirement comes, I will enjoy it to the fullest. It will be so much fun to travel to visit our daughter, son-in-law ( who is really son #3), and our sprouting grandson whenever we would like instead of school dictated holidays. I will enjoy working around the house and even working in the yard. I will be able to play grandmom to our new grandchild when he/she arrives in October. This spring break has seen my youngest attend his first prom with a lovely young lady and even allow mom to go along on a lunch date with the two of them ( it helps when you pick up the tab). I have watched him take on the responsibility of pulling up all the holly bushes that lined the front porch and with his horticulture background from Mr. Ricketts, to decide what he would like to plant in the place of the bushes. He is growing up quickly and can be very responsible if we only loosen the apronstrings and allow him to take on the challenges. As much as I am not looking forward to going back to school, I know that the rest of this year will fly by, and with P.T. being a senior next year, next school year will go even faster. Thank goodness for the spring weather finally and all the new insights it brings!

Spring has Sprung

What a wonderful day today has been. The weather has been so lovely that there was no way I could stay inside and drug my husband to Brookgreen to enjoy the afternoon. The gardens weren't in full color but the daffodils, Japanese maples and the magnificant oaks were letting the crowds know that spring is finally here. We weren't the only one visiting the gardens. The parking lot was full with cars from SC along with friend from the north enjoying the sunshine and cool breeze. I can't wait until spring break!!

My Hometown

This is the next step in our class's adventure into the computer world. This is a short photo story that was created in class using photo story and the infamous youtube. Hopefully the next creation you will be viewing will be narrated.

http://www.symbaloo.com/us/share/47821da5056d5da5494f96cb80a39849

Online Publications

Sitting in an all afternoon session in Columbia about creating online publications, I am glad that some of the information that is shared today is the same as our instructor has shared with us in our digital writing class. Yes, I got lost for some of it but to give myself a little credit, it was because the computer I was using was not cooperating not only with me but the publications "guru" as well. Apparently USC computer labs have the same problems as the high schools. Some of the information was helpful for what we are all attempting in the digital class also. Mmmmm...think this digital stuff is catching on???? :)

Common Cold

Why is it that the simple common cold can make you feel so miserable? I have made it through flu season, the stomach bug, mono, strep throat, and bronchitis that all of my students have been battling all year to be attacked by the common cold. At least with the predicted weather being wet and cold, I planned ahead (for once) and have homemade soup waiting in the crockpot at home and have found a Paula Deen recipe for bacon and pimiento cheese muffins that I am going to try. We may not get snow, and that is okay with me, but the wet and cold is when you need to call in the reinforcements.

Erma's Words Still Ring True

Since all of us are parents or prospective parents, I found this from Forever, Erma by Erma Bombeck. For those of you young'uns, she was a nationally syndicated columnist in the '60s-'90s and known for her downhome humor. Most of us will have no problem relating.

Get on the WORDLE bandwagon

If nothing else but to have a little fun try out WORDLE.

We are SO like our students

This weekend is going by a little more uneventful, thank goodness. This week has been full to say the least. Upon first meeting Sara Kadjer, it was nice to hear that not only does she teach at VT and write technology books, but she also is still active in the regular classroom. This adds so much credibilty to what she has to say in my eyes because she is actually using her information in the classroom not in some idealistic world somewhere. To give her credit, she did warn us beforehand that she was going to bombard us with websites and technology "wonders" and it was up to us to take in as much as possible and leave what we couldn't comprehend at the moment. Thank you, Sara, for being realistic with teachers as well!!

Hearts and Valentines??

This weekend my youngest, who is now a high school junior, decided he would go on the church ski trip for the first time. All was going well until we received a phone call on Valentine's Day afternoon with word that he had fallen and hit his head. Cleared by the ski patrol, the nurse on the trip was making sure he was okay and kept checking on him every 15 minutes or so. So mom and dad breathed a sigh of relief to know that his head was in working order but then within 30 minutes of each other he and the other two guys sharing a room had all come down with a bug with not real pretty consequences. My heart goes out to him and the other two boys. What is worse for a boy than not being able to ski or snowboard AND being sick AND away from home!? When I checked just a little while ago, they were doing better and had been able to drink something. I am keeping my fingers crossed that it is only a 24 hour bug and they will all feel better tomorrow to travel back home. ( and that the bug doesn't come home with him)

High School is NEVER Dull

This week has gone by pretty fast. My sophomores are really great and my seniors...are seniors. If it hadn't been for meetings and outside commitments, it would have been a relatively quiet week. Today there were several fights at school and it was so amazing how quickly students can create their own take on things. Suddenly the assumption of the day was, "I heard if there were four fights in one day, we would be dismissed." Ummm...wrong! Technology helped this fairy tale spread so quickly that the principal had to announce that it wasn't exactly true...there would be no food fight at lunch and if things didn't get back on track that break would be a distance priviledge. Things cooled off and hopefully everyone will all play nice to make Friday a happy day for everyone. The joys of high school drama...you have to agree, it ain't dull!!

Hit the Ground Running

After enjoying a great Thursday-Saturday at Kiawah Island with 10 other collegues from Socastee at the SCCTE Conference, I have come home to hit the ground running. With a little trepidation, we have our first SKYPE conference tonight and I am not quite sure if I have all of this technology down yet. If all goes well, it should be a good discussion of all that we have read over the past several weeks. Then I have one meeting after another this week...between IEPs and 504s and even more staff development at the end of the week, it should go by quickly. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with all the activity.

Ideas Come to Light

The readings of Sara Kadjer bring home the idea that a student's reading may not be what is considered classical literature but at the same time it is important to recognize that they all are reading in some form or other. Gaming rules and instructions, manuals for everything from cars to Ipods to DVRs, etc. all are print material and often very technical material. We, as teachers, must find our students reading interests and be willing to start from there. We are losing too many of them because we don't acknowlege that they really are reading.

Long Weekend

Exams are over and graded and the new semester will soon begin. After teaching 27 years, I still try to figure out what needs to be changed, what needs to be continued, and what can I do to make the material more useful to the students. I guess it would be so easy to sit back and just continue with things done the same way as forever. But I guess I enjoy change (whether or not I actually want to admit it) for the sake of freshness in the classroom. Yes, some things end up being the same over and over again, but I am always open to new things. Maybe that is why I ended up with a video production class years ago with no training, and then 10 years ago became a publications adviser. Of course, I have learned and studied as hard or harder than the students but I thoroughly have enjoyed the journey. I hope that it continues.

End of the Semester

There is always a mixture of feelings at the end of each semester...sadness when you are losing students who have made you, as a teacher, enjoy the profession that you have chosen and gladness when you are gaining new faces that you have never seen or talked with in hopes that they will teach you while you are teaching them. The real negative side of changing semesters is the "paperwork" that has to be completed in a matter of a couple of days in order to start the new classes. It gets done but at the time when you are in the middle of the process you wonder if you will have enough time to get everything changed over. Then first half of the school year has flown by and I imagine that the second half will go equally as fast. Having a child who is also a student also makes the year go by even faster. Where does the time go?

First Day of Class

Excitement at realizing the things that can be done in the educational community on top of the classroom was almost overwhelming. Because of the nature of the computer lab, the educators also came to realize that just about all labs run into the same problems that we run into in elementary and secondary settings. On one hand this is a little comforting...on the other a little disconcerting. Because each student in the class was at different points in the instruction, some time thae material came at a fast pace and I am not sure that it all sunk in. All I can do is keep my fingers crossed, follow the instructions as I understood them, and pray that what I didn't get just right will not hinder my process.

The Real Me

Cheraw is a small town about 90 miles northwest of Myrtle Beach. It is the hometown of Dizzy Gillespie and me. After graduating from high school, I attended Winthrop College (now Winthrop University)with a major in Secondary English and a minor in sociology. I started teaching in 1980 after substituting for three days. I taught 8th grade English at Long Jr. High School for about 6 years and then taught Developmental Studies at what is now Northwestern Technical College. After returning to the junior high for several years, my family moved to the beach.
On a Friday before school was to begin on Monday, I was interviewed to work at Pleasant Hill High School in Georgetown county. After six years of teaching high school English and video productions, I moved to Socastee High School. I have taught all levels of English except IB and AP along with newspaper production and Journalism I.