Summer Plans

9 days! 9 days! 9 days! School is almost out. At the end of the 9 days I will actually be able to think about what to do for next year. This is the part I look forward to the most. Not the kids leaving {well let's be honest, that's nice right about now} but the fact that I get to plan for what's to come next year. The excitement of it starts all over again and that's the fun part.

After the extensive weekend long Springboard training, I don't HAVE to do summer PD. That weekend long training will count {thankfully!} for the summer PD we're usually required. Now I'm free to do other things like hangout with my 18 month old.

I will be doing some training because I can't just sit around all summer. I'm also leading some PD this summer. One of the things I'm working on is a restructure of our Reading SSI curriculum. We use this class for our students who are "bubble" kids on the state test. I'm working with 2 other teachers to restructure the curriculum and then we'll be leading the half day PD in July.

The next training is the district's annual Technopalooza! I blogged about this last year. This was my favorite part of last summer and I'm looking forward to the 2 days this summer. I'll be presenting a session called "Welcome to the Blogosphere." If you're around the DFW area and are looking for an awesome summer technology conference check it out! It's July 30-31.

Besides that, I'm pretty much free! We have a family vacation scheduled to San Diego in July. The best thing about summer is that my brain has time to recuperate and then the ideas start to form.

What are your plans for Summer?

Technopalooza 2013

So the first day of Technopalooza didn't happen due to my mom getting hit by an 18 wheeler. Yeah... Long story short she's okay. The car isn't pretty and my daughter wasn't with her. Needless to say, I missed the first day and was super disappointed but thought it would be better. I did get my Dell tablet! But didn't get a chance to work on it.

Technopalooza Day 2! I'm pretty excited today. Either I've had too much coffee or it really is excitement causing my nervous shaking and fast talking. I was surprised at how few people from the district were there. Our district is {majorly} into technology. With an opportunity like this to spend a couple of days and learn more about technology available to us I would have expected more people to be there. That's kind of disappointing.

Here we are! Day 2 peeps!

One of the neatest sessions I was at today was one about Google apps. I'm going to have to do a blog post dedicated to only this after I've had more time to go through these and try them out. There were some that I had no idea about. The guy who presented had us scan a QR code when we got in the room that connected us to a website that was packed full of lessons and links to even more for all grade levels and subjects. I mean {all} subjects! Not just the core ones.

Some sessions I was disappointed in to be honest. I am no technology guru but after working in this district, I know a lot! I wish there were more differentiated sessions for people who are more advanced than others. The district did a great job of putting this together. I got to learn how to use Windows 8 today on my tablet and that was a {HUGE} accomplishment. I felt like such an idiot today not knowing how to use this. I got it now though. The tablet's charging and we're going to get to work on getting some things done!

If anyone has any suggestions of some great apps to use in a Language Arts class for a Windows tablet I would love to hear about them! Comment me below.

Unproductive Day :(

I went up to my school today to do some cleaning, organizing, and getting some of the stuff I've bought out of my house. I took Avery with me and my mom came to help. This was probably the {least} productive time I've ever spent in my classroom. Ever. This little girl makes me and anyone in range only want to play with her. Therefore, not much work was done. But, she's pretty cute.

I did get my filing cabinet cleaned out. It was stuffed with folders and student work that I was holding on to. I saved a few things and took pictures to save electronically to my computer to use as exemplars and trashed the rest. I hate saying that but I can't hold on to it!

I plan on using my filing cabinet as a magnetic board. I think I will implement a "No Late Work Club" or "Homework Club" idea. Once I see what classes I'll be teaching this coming year I'll be able to wrap my brain around that.

I'm so excited about tomorrow and Thursday! My district is having it's annual Technopalooza!! I will definitely be blogging about this in the next couple of days. Talk about a technology overload! We also are going to be getting our new Dell tablets! I can't wait to see what all I can do with it.