Downtime Now Means Productivity....

I remember when, as a teacher, if I did not have work to grade or lessons to plan, that time was glorious free time.  I would watch TV, catch up on some leisure reading, or just goof off.  Well, those days sure were nice.  Now, when I find myself free of grading and other teacherly responsibilities, my first thought goes to this grad internship.  Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat and I am screaming things like "telecollaborative", "VBA", or "what standard does that address?"  Hahah....okay, maybe it's not that bad, but I do feel like a house divided.  For example, right now I know that I will collect essay from my G/T students on John Steinbeck's The Pearl come Monday and that means hours and hours and hours of grading and I feel like my attention to my internship suffers.  So, that means I need to work really hard this week to document all of the stuff I've been doing at work to support this internship.  None of this is to complain but it's worth noting that one on the most important aspects of this final project is time management and the ability to juggle many things at once.  It's also another time when I wish that I was a physical education teacher.  Talk about easier grading.....If only I had hand-eye coordination and knew anything about sports.  See, I'm already off topic.  Back to working on my internship portfolio and addressing more standards.....

A Controlled Vision...

I had an interesting talk with my principal today.  She was informing me that her single biggest vision for professional development for our school is still rubrics and helping teachers to use them more effectively.  While Keith and I have been moving forward with professional development with eportfolio and aspen training, it appears evident that some of our PD may end up revolving around rubrics.  The tricky thing I am learning about this internship is that it will ultimately have to involve my own passions but also the direction of my administration as well. If they have an interest that they want to pursue with the staff then my internship will have to change and adapt to fit that need.  When I was first going in to this internship I felt like it would have a lot of flexibility but the more I am getting into it the more I am realizing that there are many hands in the pot that will effect my internship and its course of action.

More ePortfolio

Now that we've led our first session on ePortfolio, Keith and I are drumming up interest for our next session.  Today I was able to send an email to all of the teachers at my school who are signed up for a portfolio evaluation to try to come to our next after school professional development session.  Hopefully they will be able to make this session since we are given them so much prior notice.  Also, today at my team meeting I was able to show my team a preview of the ePortfolio and hopefully generate some interest that way.  Keith and I are hoping for really big turn out with our next session so we will keep our fingers crossed...