The countdown has begun! Lyle and I are about to retire and start a new chapter in our lives. Perhaps I will be able to tend to my little blog more often than once a year! The staff has planned an afternoon of fun for us and it would be great if students past and present could attend. A copy of the poster is below. If you aren't able to attend, please add a comment to let us know what you are up to these days. We would love to know where your life is taking you!

RETIREMENT CELEBRATION IN HONOUR OF

MRS. BYRNA LUYBEN-CRONK & MR. LYLE CRONK

 

CUT KNIFE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PLAYGROUND

Saturday, June 1, 2013

1:30 - 3:30

EVERYONE WELCOME!

BRING A LAWN CHAIR.

YOUR PRESENCE IS YOUR GIFT!

Past and Present students, this is your opportunity to celebrate their gift to you.

Getting Kids to Write

Recently I convinced all of my staff to try blogging with their students. The result has been amazing! Each teacher set up a blog (including specialty subject areas) and the kids went to town. Problem solving began to run rampant throughout the school. How do the Kindergarten kids blog? The grade 6 students help them! What do we write about? Everything from soup to nuts, art to phys. ed., and world issues. It gives me warm fuzzies every time I comment on another class' posts! Since we are an elementary school, we moderate all posts and comments so this is a huge time commitment from our staff and I appreciate each and every one of them!

My PLN

When it comes to technology, I always feel like everyone knows more than I do so why should I write about something that others already know? There is a lot that I don't know. Maybe if I just concentrate on writing what I do know, however meager that may be, I will develop some sort of flow.

What I do know is that I have learned an infinite amount of information from my iSITS committee. Our meetings always serve to revitalize me and I lurk on Yammer every day. More power to those folks who faithfully share links to sites important to education. I only seem to comment when I need help! Sorry.

The internet has afforded me the opportunity to learn from my global colleagues. It’s exciting to find out that other teachers of 7 year old children have the same problems and successes that I experience. It’s rewarding to share lessons and activities that have worked particularly well. It’s comforting to know that someone else out there has advice for me. Some of my favourite haunts are inhabited by other Grade Two teachers. These are the places that I frequent the most:

• The second grade mailring on teachers.net. This site has a chatroom for each of the grades 1 – 5. It has a newsletter that includes regular articles by Harry and Rosemary Wong as well as lesson plans and job opportunities. It’s the one-stop shopping of the education world.
• http://secondgradeclub.ning.com/ is another place I hang out. Ideas abound from creative and dedicated teachers.
• I love reading Danny Nicholson’s “The Whiteboard Blog – Interactive Technology in the Classroom”. He basically critiques online tools for every subject area. Lots of good ideas have been snatched from this blog!
• I also have Technology and Education Box of Tricks on my iGoogle page for easy access.
• I enjoy reading David Warlick’s Blogmeister blog entries. They often help me with my own classblogmeister account.

I'm sure that my PLN includes other resources but these are the places that I can most often be found surfing my butt off.

I'm playing with some 2.0 tools today.
Title: blogsticker
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December Technology Meeting

Today I feel more comfortable with the whole idea of what digital citizenship looks like and what my role is to ensure that the information is getting out to my staff, students, and parents. I love the spreadsheet that we constructed to lay out the descriptors as well as the appropriate skills by grade level. I intend to show that spreadsheet to my staff at the next staff meeting and give them the links to websites to help them teach the necessary information to their students.

October Meeting

Today I learned so much from my colleagues. It is easy for me to get comfortable with the things that I already know how to do and forget to stretch and grow. Taking risks is scary!

I always leave these "get-togethers" with renewed excitement and determination to introduce my staff and students to new things. When I get home, it's hard to keep the momentum going when everyone else at my school has their own issues, deadlines, concerns, and gripes. Somehow they think that when I come to a meeting, I should be coming back with answers to questions about blocked websites.

My next plan is to invite pairs of my staff members to join me in the lab for a bit of hands on page planning for the new school Drupal site. My goal for this year is to have everyone comfortably using their pages for communication with parents, students, and other teachers.

Thanks for the info about the web calendar Terrel! I'll be getting in touch with Methodius next week!