A Priceless Educational Experience with a Unique, Experienced Educator

There have been many times in my life that I have been part of an audience that is composed primarily of educators - teacher meetings, in-services, college courses, professional development workshops - to name a few. From my experience, I have found that teachers can be, and at many times are, a very tough audience. Information overload/redundancy, a sense of "when will I EVER use this?", a boring/monotone speaker, a speaker who doesn't seem to have their act together - are all triggers can easily make this difficult audience turn into vultures. For myself, I find that it is often hard to stay focused sitting in a seat as the learner after so many years of being the teacher. Rewind back a month ago to a lazy summer afternoon (a Friday about 1 pm) when I finally took the time to call the board of ed and ask how many hours I had beyond my Masters. Long story short, in our newly settled contract, teachers with 15 years and a Masters +20 would get a yearly stipend beginning this school year. Well, I was sure I had it but not 100% positive (an assumption, of course) and it was nagging me so I called and, lo and behold, I had 16 hours. I was 4 hours short. NO!! It can't be. I called my colleague Linda who shortly called me back to tell me she too had 16 hours. So the search began and within an hour I had found a 2 hour course, begged Linda to join me, filled out paperwork for the two of us, submitted it, registered us and away we went that following Monday on our daily 1 hour drive to Malone for Smart Board 101. Needless to say, neither of us had a real positive glowing outlook. As a matter of fact, we were both pretty bent out of shape. Enter Smart Board 101 instructor Jo Schiffbauer - one of a kind, sweet, patient, helpful, human "computer help tab" Jo! By the end of the one week workshop, we wanted more - 2 more hours to be exact! But not just any workshop would do. Linda and I both wanted the next workshop Jo was teaching - she seemed so excited to teach it as she had mentioned on a few occasions it was her favorite to teach. Ok, I had to prod Linda a bit (her daughter from Texas would be in town that particular week), but soon I was off filling out more paperwork and BOOM! - round two began a couple of weeks later. Well, if I thought Smart Board was great, I found Teaching in the Digital World to be different and interesting and almost all consuming. I would get home every night totally exhausted and it was as though I could not turn the ideas off. Things we learned about that day (and prior days) melded together and kept buzzing around in my head. I kept finding myself grabbing my Ipad to try things again or asking my kids for Twitter advice (I'm still not comfortable - I feel like a dork). It was overload of information at times but in a good way. The main difference was it was information I wanted and needed to explore more. In this day and age, I am well aware that the way I was taught is not going to work on my students. Sure some aspects remain the same but to stay that outdated teacher is to make yourself appear archaic and inflexible to your students - losing many of them in the process. What if Jo had taught these workshops like the good old days - given us a bunch of worksheets or a text, talked at us, maybe showed an example or two, didn't have much class participation. How effective would this class have been for me? As a student in Jo's class, I always felt like I knew where she was at and even if I did not fully understand as she explained I knew that she had given us the resources we needed via the class Wiki. It's funny because I can recall times in class that I was off on my own Twitter or blogger or Wiki world and Jo would be "reeling" us in in effort to keep us on schedule . I would think to myself "NO, I like what I'm doing now" and grudgingly tear myself away just to be drawn by Jo to something else new and different and interesting and unexplored by me. There are so many ideas I have taken away from these workshops that will enhance my techniques as a teacher, an adviser, an employee and personally. Jo has taught me in a small amount of time that there are quite close to limitless possibilities and it is important to take the time and see what fits me and my needs and make educated choices. So when and where will I use things I have learned from these workshops? Smart Board is a no brainer. I know that the workshop made me a better Smart Board user. I will think of things I've learned and try new things like the activity builders. Ideas from the Digital World workshop - well, at this point, I plan to keep a Wiki for my supplemental assignments - senior class, freshmen class, academic team and National Honor Society. I will also create a wiki for my Calculus class and then, after more experience, have one for Algebra 2 as well hopefully the following year. Personally, I will keep a Wiki for a church youth group as well. I want to further explore podcasting because I believe it will be quite useful - especially for days I am out of the classroom or days students are absent. I also want to go back to So Jo, I wanted to give you something to say "Thanks" and that hopefully screams it loud and clear. Thank you for teaching me new methods and enhancing my skills in others. I realize that for every hour I have put in to these courses, YOU have put in exponentially more hours preparing and updating and editing to make the courses effective. You are a role model and it is clear how you love and value learning and educating. You are a gift and I feel blessed that our paths have crossed. So again I say thank you - you have made an impact on this short attention-spanned mathematics teacher - you didn't leave me on the beach to fry and die - you made me feel like I count. The things I have taken from your class are priceless and I look forward to using social media in my classroom and personally as well.

Greek Alphabet Podcast

The Role of Social Media - Personally and Professionally

I will admit that prior to today, I pretty much did not give social media a second thought.  At various times when words like blog or twitter or wikis have come up during professional conversations, I would smile as though I knew all about it, nod my head here and there and think to  myself that other subjects like perhaps English could benefit but Math? Nah. So today, I began a one week workshop that is designed to open up my eyes to the social media world where I, in turn, will hopefully change my mind about its role and function in my mathematics classroom.  Today was a very quick day filled with much information. The best part is that here I am at 10 pm STILL thinking about it. I even called a fellow colleague and went on and on about class. Do I feel at this point that I can properly say how this social media craziness is going to fit in personally and professionally? Not yet. So for now I must leave this idea as "to be continued...".