Thursday, August 30, 2012

Wow!  I was surprised by the turnout for MBC training.  It was nice to have Paige Goodson come share the high school experience with this platform.  After the training I'm adjusting my recommendations.  Please note that these are recommendations and not declarations.  MBC is provided by Lightspeed, our filtering system.  It provides that layer of protection between students and the Internet, keeping us informed of questionable use.  Therefore I believe MBC is best suited for adult-to-student and student-to-student web based interactions.  If you are looking to communicate with parents, providing them current electronic information I suggest you continue with your blogs and expand the use of Skyward Family Access.  In Skyward you can post assignments in your grade book assigning a due date.  It then shows up on the calendar.  Messages can be sent to parents and posted on the calendar.

If you are looking at creating student groups to work collaboratively through electronic medium, I suggest you continue to investigate the richness of MBC.  This is a great platform for such work.  Eventually you may want to expand to a MBC blog, calendar and parent communication.   Keep me posted on what you are learning and doing in each of these areas.

Paige will be returning with examples and support for creating instructional videos to link to MBC or blogs.  Let me know if you are interested in this or other technology PD topics.   Darcy will be offering an introduction and support session for Espresso.  The State is providing Discovery Education this year and we expanded to provide Espresso for our younger grades, K-2.   Check out these resources to enhance your instruction.

Speaking of Skyward ......  it is beneficial and important that you submit a student referral when you have a major incident with a student.  This referral informs me of the situation from your perspective.  Then I can better intervene and apply appropriate consequences.  This referral can then be edited to become an incident with my additional notes.  REMEMBER, these incidents are visible for parents.  Your words and tone should be selected carefully.  Please do not include names of other students in the description.  You can add victims which are then not visible to parents.

Constitution Day is September 17th.  You are required by law to acknowledge and teach about the Constitution on this day.  Now is the time to start planning (maybe check out Discovery or Espresso resources).   In the past, many buddy classes have shared in a learning project.

Buddy classes are proposed as follows:

• BHarris/Forse
• Creekmore/Santero
• Combe/Foster
• Navratil/Maxwell
• LHarris/Hicks
• KBrocke/Burke
• McCormick/Brown
• Pfeifer/Nowotny
• Anderson/Caagbay
• SBrocke/Martin

Tuesday morning at 7:30 I will be reviewing the teacher evaluation process and professional goal setting with new staff members.  Others are welcome to attend if you want a review of expectations for writing your PD goals.  (Third grade has submitted their goals already).  The following Tuesday, September 11 the American Fidelity representative will share options available through the 'cafeteria' plan - cancer, disability, life and identity protection.