It's Been a Month??? What?

It's SO hard for me to believe that I haven't blogged in almost a month! Wow! Where did the time go?

A lot has happened this past month...

• The students I blogged about in my last post were featured on our high school "Tiger TV" channel


• My Junior Achievement Company Program students successfully created, delivered, and set up 70 incredible centerpieces for the Crystal Apple Awards Gala


• My BEIS class participated in a JA Titan competition while still working on the NetGenEd Project


• I had new systems installed in my computer lab (yeah!!!!...the old ones SO did not work anymore!!)


• My younger son 'champed up' in Tennis (woo hoo!)


• We moved my parents in with us during spring break

Needless to say, I've been incredibly busy. My only regret in all of this is that it has prevented me from being as involved as I wanted to be in the NetGenEd Project. It's is such an amazing opportunity for the students who are involved. I've been reduced to lurking about...trying to keep up as best I can with all of the happenings. I haven't had the time to participate in the webinars, the book club...not much of anything..and, well, frankly it's depressing... :-(

I am excited that my students will finish their videos on time, though. They have some incredible ideas for their videos; I'm looking forward to seeing those ideas come to life. These are the same students that participated in the 2008 Flat Classroom Project and the Flat Classroom Conference. They are amazing students! Most of them are seniors, so it's a little hard to get them to focus right now...they've all been accepted to various colleges and universities, so now they are waiting to hear about all of the scholarships for which they've applied. Plus, they are getting ready for the prom, various banquets, etc...

Well...off to help my students post-produce their NetGenEd multi-media artifacts!! Promise it won't be another month before I post again!!

Photo credit: http://eladthegreat.wordpress.com/2009/01/13/the-ultimate-clock/

Score 1 More for Technology in the Classroom

I stayed home from work today...the flu...

I felt just awful, but I really needed to meet with my Business Education Independent Study class. Today begins their trek into a Junior Achievement Titan competition and they needed to made their first round of business decisions...how can we do that when they are there and I am here? Enter technology...

...I set up a private chat room for us via Chatzy last week so that we could communicate and record our ideas during class I discovered Chatzy while attending the Flat Classroom Conference in Doha, Qatar last month--thanks Julie and Vicki!!. Since I can save text files of the chat room for later reference, we can recall our recorded chats as needed to make decisions for the JA Titan competition. Pretty cool, huh?

I called the substitute and told her what I wanted to do. With her support...well, having access to Chatzy helped make a difficult situation much easier. I was home...they were in class...We all logged into the room and began our chat. We exchanged ideas, scenarios, consequences, etc. Via the chat, the students made informed decisions for their competition.

Once again...I was able to utilize technology to be a 'guide on the side' rather than a 'sage on the stage' in my classroom...man, I love technology!