Great Moment

Today was one of the busiest days of the year; I was trying to organize teaching assignments for next year speaking to teachers to ask for some input. Of course, I couldn't make everyone jump up for joy. I should actually do a tally, because my husband tells me that I tend to spend too much of my time worrying about the one or two that are not happy. He continually reminds me that they would be unhappy with our without me in their life. I guess I know this, but there is just something inside me that wants to just do the best that I can do. Ok, I've done that. That actually felt pretty good to say . Who knew it would feel good?

Ok, the tally - There was one teacher who wanted to hug me; she actually was going to - I should have.. Another teacher whom I only spent two or three minutes with - she was happy. Ok, another was very pleased. One more really surprised my and worked even harder with her assignment. One was ok, a bit confused, but good in the end. Another five or so were fine. Two were not at all happy - one somewhat got over it. Another was very distraught... Actually 12 out of 14 is pretty good... Could it have been better? I don't know how and I thought about it for quite awhile.

Anyway, this afternoon I was walking towards the staff room and one of the grade eleven girls stopped me to ask me if she could help. She said that I looked tired and she wanted to helpme with whatever I was doing. I told her that there really wasn't anything that she could do. What a doll. One day, I hope my son marries her; one can wish... It was a good moment. What sweet kids; I am trying hard to find a twin community for our exchange. Youth Exchanges Canada has approved our trip, but they have been unable to find a twin community. Hopefully we will find one before the end of September.

Smart Boards

I attended an excellent workshop last night on the use of Smart Boards. I was very impressed and now I want one; I hadn't ever seen one "in action" before. There is some great potential for collaborative learning, exciting lessons, manipulatives, and student motivation. This type of instruction fits more readily into our kids' lives: instant images, choices, video, sounds,.. I was very impressed with some of the interactive lessons, and especially the Jeopardy templates.

M. Gavel did an excellent job, and she is inviting discussion on the use of Smart Boards on her blog. Of course, I can't participate much because I don't use one, but I'm going to see if I can find one... I would love to have one in my class, but I keep purposefully forgetting that I really won't have a class in the fall. I'm going to ask my teachers who wants to work with me to learn this new technology.

Countdown

I am working on the last two weeks of my Masters' Degree, and I have made a time line. It will be a busy two weeks with a thirty page paper to do; I do have a pretty good start but it will take the next seven days of working long hours after school to complete. In addition, I have to create a presentation, but that won't take long once the paper is complete.

With school coming to a close, there is still so much to do at my school: finalizing staffing, grade configurations and course offerings. We are behind this year, because we are waiting to see how many new students we will be getting as a result of school closures. Hopefully we can finalize this in the next week to ten days.

Lots to do...