Gone but not forgotten

As  you can probably tell I have been gone for awhile but I haven't forgotten about my blog. I will be picking up my blogging work this year in earnest as the summer gets closer and time becomes more free.

A little bit about what I have been up to over the last 5+ years since my last post. I have been working as a middle level Technology/Engineering/Robotics teacher. I have also been working as a technology PD leader for my school and district helping teachers better integrate technology into their practice. Helping teachers perfect their craft through integration is my passion and what I hope to use this blog for moving forward. I also hope to use this blog to have some discussion and discourse about the use of technology and when and where it is appropriate to use technology in the classroom. I also hope to hear from those of you out there about your uses of technology in the classroom as I want to learn from you as well.

Recently our district went 1:1 with Chromebooks. It has been an interesting transition from computer labs to 1:1 computers for every student. I still work in a computer lab but am looking at changing over from a traditional lab to one that enables students to sync up their Chromebooks with an AWS server. I am excited for the possibilities this brings to my classes both in and out of the classroom. Anyone out there currently use AWS or something similar and can give me some feedback or advice or thoughts that would be greatly appreciated.

So before I leave you today I want to sure something I am doing with my classes that is making a difference in getting students to engage with learning how to manage a project. I am doing what is called 20% time. I model it after a story I heard about Google giving their employees 20% of the day to work on a project that they enjoy. We have what we call a late start Monday where we meet with other teachers in our building and/or district to align curriculum, plan out unit and lessons, and other stuff normally relegated to after school or other off times. This is see shortened periods for our kids which amount to about 20% of a students time in my class. I start off the semester with a definition of what 20% time is and then move into a couple of weeks helping students choose a project or skill they would like to focus on. From there I teacher how to use a Gant Project Planner found in Excel to manage their project. Then I let them go on their work for the rest of the semester. Students work on projects ranging from planning a composting project at school, to soccer skill development, to programming, to typing, to vlogs, and much more. This is just my first year at trying this but what I am finding is that kids enjoy the time to focus on their likes/interests and often times what they are doing relate back to what we are learning about in my classes. It also gives me more time to see their passions as well as work with those kids who need a little extra attention/differentiation during the week because if students are done with the lesson or work I have given them for the day then they know to work on their 20% time project. A book you can read (I am just starting it) is called "The 20time project: How educators and parents can launch Google's formula for future-read innovation" by Kevin Brookhouser. I hope to get some more ideas on how to grow and improve this time so kids.

I welcome your feedback and suggestions.