More Technology Issues

I had been using Moodle last year for my storage of all my resources and had hoped to add Edmodo to see which the students used more or preferred. But the district switched us to Moodle 2.5 over the summer and that meant I had to take time to rebuild and upload all my lesson levels yet again this year. So I have one quarter left to go! and maybe next year I will see the benefits of having the course built and just having to tweak and add new ideas.

I am already considering making use of the lesson feature which has students read information on the Moodle site, then answer questions for credit. This could be a way of helping them progress independently that I would like to try? Also, I plan on no longer requiring students to turn in their folder for credit at quarters end, so I can expect them to upload more lessons and grade them on Moodle more so they can see their scores too.

Around Thanksgiving our district decided that Google site and all it's applications were a security issue that meant we lost google at school! except for the teacher computers with the web override so that meant I had to find a new site to store and link my videos too! Frustrations! So since then I have been uploading both to Vimeo and Google so students can choose which to use at home, but at school Vimeo is available for those who do their homework at school.

I hope nothing else changes in future to add to my workload on this!

Maura

Third Quarter Summary

Well, the third quarter has come and gone, and here I am relaxing on my Spring break ready with my reflections again.

My students this year continue to need more supervised class time to complete work that previous years could complete in one class period or less...and I am no closer to answering my question of why?
So instead I have modified and adjusted the schedule to give them that time. Not to simplify their work, or expect less of them, simply to allow them more class time with me to complete it by building in more makeup days/enrichment opportunities for those who did complete the work at the pace I expected.

This has meant more reteaching time, and retakes of test...I still see a need to offer formative assessments over smaller chunks of content, as do the other 7th grade teachers, so I plan to add to my test assessments so I have one per chapter for next year...no 2 or 3 chapter unit tests. And keep those enrichment ideas coming for my top students in science.

This is the way my whole school is moving for next year, adding reteach/enrichment class time for all students in all areas. So I am doing this for my own classes independently since I know Math and English will take precedence each week for reteaching time in this extra class we are adding to the schedule.

I am one week behind where I had planned to be for Spring break, so my final week of lessons and the Geology benchmark are set for when we return. Then it is full steam ahead with our state AIMS tests and Ecology/Water Conservation for the end of the year!

This week off I am focusing on my teacher evaluation documentation log and narratives needed. I agreed to skip the second observation since I do hope and expect to get the effective rating, so it isn't necessary. So getting the rest of my evidence and artifacts uploaded and finalized is important. This first pilot year I feel a bit trepidatious about this whole thing, but one often does with new things, next year should be smoother as long as they don't change the rules at all.

Maura