#students — Page 6

It’s the little things…how to bounce back from a bad day!

December 4, 2013 by Amber 3 Comments

We all have bad days. We all have days where things didn’t go right…or as planned. Days that derail even th most positive of attitudes.

The real question is what you do when you have them. As a teacher, your mood affects the class. As an administrator, your mood affects the building. (When the principal sneezes, the whole school catches a cold.) So what do you do?

You could:

** Take a page from Venspired and just let it go.

free

**Appreciate the little things on your campus, like the funny jokes your SPED teacher posts each day outside his room.

(seriously, I chuckle.every.single.day.)

**Have someone you can Vox with that will give great “chin up, butter cup!” advice! (High five, @mrmacnology!)

** Borrow cheetos from your school counselor.

** Walk from classroom to classroom and be amazed at the incredible learning that is happening around you each day. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we do what we do. We didn’t get into this profession for money, for a fame, or for a campus rating. We got into this because we wanted to make a difference, and make education better. For all these kids and our own.

And you can’t do that if you’re being a Mr. or Mrs. Grumpy Pants. So put that smile one, channel your inner Mrs. Ripp, and get into those classrooms.

Who knows who is looking to you to be their sunshine?

Smilingly,

Amber

Lunch & Learn: a parent engagement opportunity!

November 10, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

Never under estimate a team of creative teachers who want to show off their creative students. Our kinder team hosted a lunch and learn for their parents last week. With November being a month of family engagement, this just tied right in! After 30 minutes in classrooms, parents also got to enjoy lunch wit their child. Despite having packed classrooms and 22 five year olds, I was so impressed with the calm & collected manner in which our teachers worked the room, making sure each and every child had someone to share with.

They sent home invites asking parents to come in for thirty minutes before their lunch time. As they walked in, their student greeted them with an iPad and they went and found somewhere to sit. Sharing a set of headphones, the student showed the parent how to get to the iBooks page. On that page, they were greeted by this, over a dozen student created iBooks showing off the culmination of their animal unit.

After a field trip to the petting zoo, our kinder kiddos came back and created these iBooks. They took pictures and videos of their chosen animals in small groups. They came back and were asked different facts and fun questions by their teacher. It was all then compiled into a presentation that they were so proud to share. The beaming smiles on ALL of the faces reminded me that yes, school can be FUN, and accomplish its curricular goals. Students worked together, had tasks to complete, and had to learn facts about their chosen animal. Sounds like a typical kindergarten activity…but what made this different? The opportunity for their voice to be heard by their family. The opportunity to make an artifact that showcased their pictures and their videos in a format that excited them. Moms, dads, and even grandparents, got to share the excitement of pigs, sheep, and cows through a 5 year olds eyes.

A principal colleague recently asked if school should be fun. This day full of smiles and a much more authentic version of “what I learned on my field trip” reassures me that yes, yes it should.

engagement proud,

Amber

ps: That lunch and learn concept? Imagine the possibilities. PD. Any grade level can do it with parents. A google hangout with other administrators. A principal’s roundtable on any number of topics. Everyone likes food and a 30 minute commitment isn’t too much to ask…

How busy are you? #SAVMP

October 27, 2013 by Amber Leave a Comment

I wrote about managing time over on the School Admin Virtual Mentoring Program blog this week and it really resonated with something a couple of assistant principals’ and I recently discussed.

We’re all working late and we’re all working hard. I think that’s just educators as a whole in this trying time of national pressure and low morale. How much of this pressure do we put on our self? & is it even effective?

I’ll never forget a teacher I worked with a number of years ago. He stayed late every day. He came in early every day. He held his own extra sessions of Saturday school. I remember watching his students take their lunch trays down to his room each day and working through recess and thinking wow, this guy is SERIOUS.

When his test scores came back that year, imagine all of our surprise when only 1/4 of his class had met standard. How was that even possible??

Easy. Activity does not equal achievement.

If you’re constantly working and never seem to get caught up, or stay afloat, or feel like you’re drowning…maybe you should take a step back and re-evaluate what you’re doing. Spinning your wheels isn’t going to get you ahead. It’s actually only going to frustrate you even further.

If you don’t get your priorities in order, someone else will do it for you. If you fall behind in your lessons because of let’s say, an assembly, or some random computer based testing…don’t stress yourself out cramming everything in. Figure out what the TEKS of the lessons are and focus on those! Get the big picture across and don’t stress over whether you were to take grades on every suggested activity. At the end of the day, or er, grading period, that’s what matters. what the students were able to learn.

Think about all that you say you “have” to do…and before you stress out to the point of regretting your chosen path of impacting children each and every day…change those words to what you “choose” to do. You are the owner of your time.

Choose to have achievement, not just activity.

Choosingly,
Amber

How using Dropbox changed my life!

October 14, 2013 by Amber 2 Comments

I know that sounds a lil’extreme, but seriously, it did.

Dropbox is a storing/sharing place in the cloud that allows you to keep up with all of your files,where ever you are, even across platforms. I love this blurb I came across:

“This program acts as a “magic pocket” which is always with you and contains whatever you place in it. Put a file into your Dropbox and it’s on all of your computers and mobile devices.”

Who doesn’t want a magic pocket? The genius of this for me is that I use a number of different devices for a number of different things. I take pictures on my phone, I take notes on my iPad, I do appraisals on my Mac, and then will write a blog post on my home PC that needs ALL of those things. Having a place that I can easily access ALL of my “stuff” is crucial for the efficacy of what I do throughout the day.

How to get started/going?

Step one: Go to Dropbox and set up an account. I just use the free one because with as many times as I downloaded it, I got a couple free GB just for multiple downloads. Next, download and install the Dropbox app. Put files and folders that you need to access from various locations and devices into your new Dropbox folder. Then repeat these steps on your other Mac, PCs, and iOS devices. (Again for me, that was two ipads, a phone, two PC’s, and my macbook.
The account that you create automatically includes a Dropbox folder and it shares files with any other devices that have Dropbox and are connected to your account. (PS: you don’t HAVE to download it, but it does make life easier. Anytime I’m working with a file I know I’m going to need later, I just toggle and save in my “Dropbox” folder so I can get to it later.
Now, anytime, you go to SAVE something, you have the ability to add it to your Dropbox. Easy peasy, I tell ya!
Many of us store the files and folders for active projects on the desktop. Put them in Dropbox instead. On your phone and take a pic? Click the + sign on your app and choose what pics you want to add to your Dropbox. It will then be available from any of your devices. Working online? Fabulous! The “files” tab on the website will bring you to your Dropbox folder. This folder is exactly the same as the folder on your devices; any files that you’ve placed into your folder on your computers are accessible through this part of the web site.
Want to share files? BIG Files that you couldn’t send via email without crashing the world wide web? Presentations for parents? Set up separate folders in Dropbox’s Public folder for different people, and then send the separate URLs to each. Or set up a different shared folder for each project, and then distribute that URL to all project participants.
Want to share amazing classroom pictures, but not make them “public public”? Copy photos to Dropbox, and share the URL with family and friends. (I’m going to use this for our family involvement activity next month!)
Feeling adventuresome? 62 things you can do with Dropbox suggests this: Go to the Send to Dropbox Website (sendtodropbox.com), click on Connect To Dropbox, and provide your Dropbox credentials. You can now email files to Dropbox. That makes all sorts of scenarios possible. For example, create a document in Google Docs and then opt to share it. In the Share drop-down menu, select Email As Attachment and provide your Send to Dropbox email address; the Google Doc will appear in Dropbox’s Attachments folder.” (WHOA BABY!)

It’s a very intuitive tool to use and following through some of the getting started tasks easily explains it as well as earns you more “free” space, 🙂 Nothing to lose there!

Parents not on Twitter? No problem!

October 9, 2013 by Amber 3 Comments

One of the first things I hear from educators as a reason why they shouldn’t jump into the social media stream is because they don’t have families/staff on Twitter.

Social media can be very dividing. Justin Tarte and I were just discussing how there is still such a mentality of “block it & lock” it…as if we were to stick our heads in the sand, *maybe* these crazy tools will go away. I don’t think that is going to happen but I can tell you my rationale’s for moving forward with twitter as a communication tool between the home and our campus.

I LOVE that when I get onto twitter, facebook or instagram, I get updates on my daughter’s school. It is SO much easier for me to read an update on Facebook than it is for me to get home after a 12 hour day, get her purple folder out, get through her graded work, and find any announcements her campus has sent home.

Now, the flip side of that is that my anti technology hubs? ONLY gets info that is in that purple folder. He doesn’t visit the website and *gasp* has no online presence.

I’m not suggesting that schools stop sending paper items home, I’m merely pointing out the opportunity we have to reach even more parents.

When we send home information at the beginning of the year, we send home something asking if parents want to get school information through text messages. (Regular rates apply.) It walks them through sending a text, “Follow Watson_Wildcats” to 40404. Once they have done that, every tweet we send, that parent gets as a text. It doesn’t require a twitter account. You don’t have to have the “scary social media” talk.

98% of all text messages are opened, and 90% are opened within the first three minutes.

The point isn’t getting on Twitter, or blocking social media, or adding to your plate. The point is connecting with as many parents as you can in order to do what is best for our students.

Connectingly,

Amber