toys!!!

So I finally got myself the new I pad I have benn waiting for ! I went from a first gen to the fourth!
I made a similar upgrade with the keyboard. The old one was a soft but slow one. This one I hpe with be faster once I get use to it.
My goal is to be paperless this term. Not sure how handouts will work in all that.
now my desk has two laptops, two iphones and two ipads. Three phones if you count the one I gave to mike.
TOys are good!

First day of break 12/22/12

Well it's the first day of winter break. I got up like I do every Saturday and emptied out my Connexus mail box.
The rhythm of traditional school is gone for me. Virtual Learning happens 24/7. I will change my work habits over the break. I have to clear all my tests off the deck, write some rubrics, map some course ware  but I will not answer every message and I will not be harpy on students for weekly interactions. I figure it will be a more test run at summer school. I am willingly to be on call all summer. We would have to define that role but I have hear their will be no interactions. I would check my message every day. Grade tests as they come in and answer phone calls anytime needed.  For some extra money it would be worth it. I could handle 100 kids if the interactions were gone.

So I think I am converted.

Reflecting on this job. I like the working at home. I like the taking a shower at nine as my morning break.
It's too much grading. The program should have embedded tests for everything other then compositions.

Next year I want more money. The salary is the only thing that would make me leave this position. I really like Carol - my boss. It's very important to me that I respect, like and admire my boss.

Developing the learner

Sometime people say things to you once and twice and you still don't get it until it occurs to you:
Vickie said to us ,"You are developing the learner. "

I realized I don't see my students as "people" or "bodies" with stereotypes around them. To me these people are pure constructs of their learning. I don't see the classroom misbehavior. I don't see their skin color, their clothes, their social class. Honestly some of them I don't even know if they are male or female.
To me they are truly only learners. Our relationship is based on teaching only. It's really not until I got here that  I realized how much of a teachers' relation with their students is NOT about the learning but the conflicts and judgments that come from both parties.

Teacher waist so much learning time to misbehavior and power struggles. It's ridiculous! 

Online teaching has ruined me. I could never go back to discipline  classroom management  oh and grading papers I mean the paper ones.

Ahhh learning in the new world.

vision- a new learning model

Carol said to me that she wanted to focus this experience for the families as a teacher to family relationship. She wanted to keep the school as an organization to a minim  I believe this is a new model but a really value one. I could see getting a student in sixth grade and following through the next three years with them. Or really I should say the next three levels because that might not be three years. 

I need a new word

I need a new word for my parents. Because in my teaching world they are parents, co-workers, and people I supervise ( supervisees). They are teachers I mentor. Co-workers I can educational decision with. Learning guide is  term the program uses but it does not have meaning to the outside world. It needs defintion. I need a word that when outsiders hear it they will say Ahhh I get it.

I build out of parent-teacher-collague. "Par-teach -ah league " I think I like that.

I find this this role I am more intensely connected to my parents. The relationship is more like a rocky collague dynamic then iint the traditional role. Tension comes from unknown our role borders of the roles.
The tension can come from my invasion into their homeschooling world. The tension can come from their resistant to do their job as a Learning Guide or to share personal information that greatly impacts the learning.