Friday, July 7, 2017

Dreaming about next school year

So the summer is now half way over. Tomorrow I am using my language skills to serve as an interpreter for Remote Area Medical, a new thing I have never tried before. I found a great video about finding your passion at https://youtu.be/HScOL_aOMrw. Thinking about his method of finding my passion I discovered that mine is simply creating school stuff for my students. It's discovering new ways to reach and to motivate my students with things that interest them and bring them over to my side, allowing me to teach them the Spanish language with an open mind. My genius hour project ideas need to be further defined. I need to make sure that all of my students will actually work on their projects during the allowed class time and that all truly work on something worthwhile and valuable. This will be the challenge, and I am still searching. So upon further consideration, I am not ready for the next school year just yet. I will keep dreaming.

Sunday, July 2, 2017

My ISTE17 Takeaways and Other Matters

So last week I was at ISTE17. What an awesome experience it was! I got my 15 minutes of fame presenting my "Great Global Project Challenge" project there at the Global Education Day. It was indeed and unforgettable experience and I am so grateful to Lucy Gray for making it happen. I learned so much at ISTE that it's just hard to put in words right now. One thing is for sure, Genius Hour is a big deal and all three sessions were totally booked. So I know that doing the Genius Hour and giving the students a voice and choice is the right thing for me to do next school year. Coding, yes, I will get my students to try it with Scratch this year. Also, the SDG's Sustainable Development Goals are big and I will get my students involved in something that makes a real difference. Google Classroom is also big now and I am so glad I already created a classroom for each of my upcoming classes. Just today I discovered that you can make mobile green screens with pizza boxes. Who would have ever thought? Amazing. Well, summer has finally arrived for me. I'm ready for next school year with my new makerspace station sitting in my living room, reminding me of the new school year that will be upon us in a month or so.