Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Moving On...

It's been awhile since I've added something here. Reading some blogs by some people on another online community has given me the inspiration to finally come and update.

After 11 years, I'm changing schools. It's my choice; familiarity may not breed contempt, but it sure can breed complacency. It was time for me to move to a different environment and try something new. The Emerge project is finished (all except for the final paperwork), my former school is in good shape with their AISI project, and the new math program is completely implemented. There's a strong team at that school that will continue to do great things for kids.

I'm going from a K-9 school to a K-12 school, and getting the opportunity to work with some Grade 10 math in the second semester. We still have to figure out how we'll handle it, as a team-teaching situation or something different. I have a great deal of respect for the other teacher who is an excellent math teacher, and I hope to learn from her.

I'll still be working with junior high kids in math and social, but moving to the new school is giving me a chance to rebuild some of my plans, especially since I've been immersed in the 1-1 project for the last three years. I'll be going from a situation with ubiquitous computer access for students to a place where I've been 'given' a cart with 15 mini-laptops. That will require some adjustments, but I hope the move by our division to allow staff and students to use their own devices will encourage some of them to bring their own laptops, or iPods. Certainly, with a limited number of machines at our disposal, *collaboration* and *teamwork* are going to be key, especially in the social studies classes!

There will be plenty of opportunities to work with kids on digital citizenship, as I plan to use wikis for both the social classes I'll be teaching, and perhaps the math. I want the kids to take charge of their learning; to learn how to learn and to learn from each other. I know how kids can be engaged by technology; I would really like to take advantage of that. I suspect I might be kicking over some applecarts while I do that, but that wouldn't be the first time. Would it?