Blessed to Teach and Read

I am currently plowing through one of the most interesting books I’ve read in quite a while, thanks to one of my 2018 resolutions to read more books that are of personal interest, and not just juvenile literature, like I did last year.  (Thanks also goes to Goodreads’ book goal email-50 novels for the year, and The Gwinnett Public Library for having such a wide variety of eBooks.) The book is  The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg.  Lots of awesome insights, based on scientific studies, into how people’s habits drive them and how they can change those habits.  It also discusses the role of groups in creating culture. I’m only halfway through the book, but I started it yesterday and had two semi-final, college football games to watch last night. :D #RollTide This 2017-2018 school year, our administration and school put forth a culture of #BeTheChange, in which we not only enacted purposeful times to do good within our schoo...

I don't typically make a New Year's resolution, but seeing as I have yet again lapsed in posting, when so many other teachers I follow are so good about keeping their blog posts current, I am making an end-of-the-school-year resolution to update my blog at least once every two weeks.  This should help me to read professional articles I've bookmarked in a more timely fashion. On a completely different note, I am shifting teaching gears a bit next year, as I will serve as part of a team in the media center!  I am SUPER excited about this new position.  Some are now calling a media specialist a teacher librarian, but whatever the name, I am SO happy that it is me!  Our school is very fortunate in having an Instructional Technology Specialist and a Paraprofessional in the media center too.  We will work together as a team to teach and support students next year, obviously integrating technology into our lessons. My position is a specials, or a fixed schedule ...

First, let me say that now that it is February, I have stumbled upon my new year's resolution.  Better late than never, as they say!  I am resolving to improve my blog and also write in it weekly instead of every other month, or every 9 months! Found a link via #TLChat on Twitter tonight to " Seven Features of Highly Successful Picture Books " by Abby Connors.  Her bio states that she is a music and arts teacher of over 20 years.  I loved that even though the article is geared toward librarians or teachers, that I can use it to help my students write fiction stories that are not too complex.  Often, students try to write fiction that is as complex as the stories on their 4th, 5th, or 6th grade reading levels.  They get overwhelmed and bogged down in overly complicated dialogue and too many subplots.  Plus, they simply don't have the timeframe to flesh out and publish a full-length novel. At the bottom of the article was a link to another of Abby Co...

Another find from a Tweet about a LiveBinder has led me to a great website called PicLits . Sign-up for a free account and it gives you access to a gallery of photos and a bank of drag-and-drop words to add a caption to create a poem. There is a "freestyle" option if you would prefer to type in your own words. The best part is the "Learn It" tab. Under this tab is: - "Write It", which tells about basic sentences, compound sentences, and paragraphs - "Rhyme It", which talks about why you would choose to rhyme your poetry (or not) - and "Master It", which has advanced lesson plans on all manner of figurative language techniques, and different genre of poetry. Granted, because this site has photos, it will likely be blocked at school, but it is also a great site that students could explore at home and then share on FB or Twitter, save, print or e-mail to share at school.

I love Twitter ! It took me awhile to start using it, but it is an exponential wealth of information via links to education articles, discussions, and Web 2.0 tools. I started following LiveBinders recently. If you haven't explored LiveBinders before, it is a website that allows you to create an online binder that is similar to a physical binder. You can name your binder, add tabs and subtabs, and organize your resources into it. Resources can include webpages, videos, pdfs, and images. You can share your binder and/or look at binders that others have shared. I had originally set up an account with LiveBinders in my last graduate class hoping I would start using LiveBinders to store my units online as well as having my physical unit. But, if it is usable at school, it would be an AWESOME tool for students to create their own LiveBinder of learning for student-led conferences in the fall and spring! LiveBinders posted a link to this binder about Web 2.0 that heyjudeo...