Year End Reflections: What I am going to do differently next year......

Each year, when the last week of school is fast approaching, I always find myself starting a "To Do in the Fall" list. I teach French in a high school for gifted students. This year, I really enjoyed Google voice for their speaking assignments - but there were a couple of times I did not even listen to the assignment because I ran out of time. I realized, when it was too late, that I should listen in depth and give extended feedback to 25% of them at a time, and at the end of the month everyone will have had good feedback once. I realized my students actually need training in how to compose an email to a teacher, and in what a professional email address looks like. I finally acknowledged this year that Moodle is overkill for what I need, and instead of paying for my domain and hosting I'm migrating to edmodo. I also have teacher guilt: we didn't spend enough time integrating technology this year, we didn't incorporate enough culture. My "To Do" is starting to get full!

What are some things that you will do differently next year? What did you try this year that failed? That succeeded? How did you learn to tweak what you did this year? I would love to hear from the wonderful breadth of experience in this Ning.

Thanks - and when it comes for you, have a beautiful summer! We're out May 25th here in Tucson.

Tags: failures, reflection, successes

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Wylie on May 15, 2011 at 12:43pm

Next year I am going to trial a mini 1-2-1 program. We are getting a couple of mobile laptop carts for our elementary and I only have 17 students (they are splitting the grade level) so I thought it would be an idea time to try some kind of 1-2-1 initiative. We won't have access to the laptops all the time, but we only had a computer lab last year, so it will be good to see how many ways I can implement the use of these mobile options in the classroom next year. In the lab, we only had 16 computers for an average class size of 25 or more, so I am looking forward to seeing what technology projects I can do with a small class next year now that everyone can have a computer to themselves.

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Permalink Reply by Karen Maginnis on May 18, 2011 at 7:20pm

Please post what you create - it will be really interesting to hear.

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Permalink Reply by Eve Heaton on May 15, 2011 at 2:54pm

I want to gather technology project samples (K - 5) that teachers can browse through. The goal is to give teachers a "one stop" place to look for ideas as they plan for technology projects in the classroom.

Eve

IT Specialist

Beaufort County School District