Learning Mosaic

I’m writing to reflect on my school year beginning and hopefully send an encouraging message. I think I sometimes wear my frustration on my sleeve, so after a good day at school and some reflection on the last year, I’m celebrating my colleagues who are starting to take risks by upgrading their teaching methods by doing old and new things in new ways.

I spent some time last night creating a wiki page to manage the collaborations we have started this year in grades K, 1/ESL, 4, 5, and my after-school group (plus a promise from the first grade to start one later this fall.) I’m excited to have so many that I have to take time to create a management tool! This week I’ve worked with the 4^th grade team and a 5^th grade teacher to create blogs for their collaborations. Today I helped the Kinder class create self-portraits in Kid Pix for their Voice Thread.  One of our MS classes is participating in the Digiteen project.

The LS Art teacher and her assistant teacher are creating a VoiceThread for 5^th graders to share their research reports on Spanish artists (1 group/Artist per VT.) Their planned partners have dropped out but when chatting with wonderful Alecia Berman-Dry in Maryland, she said her Spanish teacher would love to get involved! Next week I start my after-school group of Grade 3-5 students where we’ll write/photo/podcast in collaboration with a few groups.

I never would have reached this point without the online network of educators to collaborate with and all the blogs and podcasts I read and listen to in my Personal Learning Network that teach and inspire me. I’m looking forward to this year and continued growth and collaboration on and off campus!