Over the past few weeks I have been working on getting ready for the first two weeks.  These first two weeks are jammed pack with many projects, programs, and upstarts.So what is up in Room 11? We started NWEA testing, yes even though it was hot in the computer lab we were able to begin collecting the data necessary to provide an excellent direction for the school year.  We are also issuing the STAR reading test- this will help students in direction to find materials in the library. The data is archived so this should help us make the best decisions for the most amazing students.

Students will get their mobile lab assignments on Friday. To make sure that I can assign the laptop to our 5-8 grade students make sure all the annual technology forms are submitted. The forms are found here.

And my professional development? Well, I have to finish testing first. Then I will start looking at my direction.

Well, our teachers are starting to use their blogs. You can probably move around to the different blogs on my page. A few teachers have customized their blog’s looks, while others have set up multiple accounts. We have a giraffe on one blog, Curious George on another, along with flowers, piano keys, each showcase these teachers unique style. I am very excited to see what these tools hold.

Tonight was our welcome back night. So parents started  getting an idea of what has been going on during this very busy summer. We distributed our revised student handbook and we had parents do their annual technology forms online. It has been a busy summer and I am looking forward to this school year.

So I watched an amazing movie from Mabry Middle School about how teachers use blogs to communicate assignments. Two years ago when I started a few teachers tried this technology and it was a bit slow to get off the ground. After doing much research on which blog to use I decided to use WordPress and I am IN LOVE with it!

So I began to think what do we have at the school that can make this even more user friendly? Then I thought about our copier, yes granted we are striving for paperless communication and we do quite well on that front but there is a feature that is built in to our copier that allows scanning and emailing.

So after looking at these technologies I figured that students could download the rubric from their teachers blog and be able to know exactly what is expected of them. This might be even less time consuming than the iCals from last year.

This summer I have been working on preparing many Web2.0 tools for our school.

WordPress: I have had so much fun over the past few weeks blogging with WordPress. The ease of the program and the fact that it is embedded in our web server, makes it so much more manageable in my eyes. Probably the best feature is the fact that students can be contributors as well. I just sent one of our teachers her log-in, hopefully she will find it as exciting as I do.

Moodle: I had learned about moodle last summer at NECC in San Diego, but I was constantly running into problems when installing on our server. Finally our web hosting company offered moodle as a “Click and Build” application. Simple enough I had Moodle installed within 10 minutes and the students enrolled in classes an hour later. I began playing around with the program and am so excited to start using with our upper elementary and middle school students.

Wikispaces: Last spring one of the teachers asked if I could research how to use a wiki in her classroom. After some research we decided to use WikiSpaces for her middle school students. The students took the the program instantly but sadly the school year ended. I have been developing ways to use in the classroom as a study guide, research guide or a million other options.

We also use Google Apps, del.icio.us, and OnlineGrades to give students many tools to give them the most authentic 21st century experience. We are always searching out new options and avenues to make learning more meaningful for students. We also welcome new ideas so that we can continue moving forward.

I called my boss this morning to talk to her about the ideas for SRS 2.0 and in true millennial and digital native fashion, I multi-tasked. On the cell phone while at my house I finished my small chores, then entered my car switched to my bluetooth headset and talked on my hour drive. By the time I got to my destination, our conversation was still going strong. Took care of the small business at my location and finally hung up. Yes, the digital native who is now in the workforce is still a social butterfly.

So what did we discuss?

• Using a blog to communicate assignments (all teachers have a wordpress account ready)
• Journalism Club
• 1st Annual SRS Film Festival
• Spring Fling/Fall Ball- after the great success last year …why not?
• Setting up the calendar for better communication
• Google Apps
• Using Moodle/ATutor
• Workshop Week Training
• Technology Refresher/Handbook
• Preparing Grading Program

This weekend I will be working on my action plan to detail the professional development for our teachers. It will be a time consuming process but in the end even better for our students.

Big ideas I guess at one point start small. I just finished working on a draft of our school’s annual report. The report’s goal was to highlight the accomplishments of our students which I believe it did. I could have written a small magazine on the success of our students but for printing and time sake I was limited to eight pages. In those eight pages I talked about our major improvements, our elementary school, and our middle school. All of this was done to move SRS to SRS 2.0

As I was finishing this I realized there were a few other projects that needed to be finished before the school year starts. I still need to go and take my notes from NECC 2007 and transcribe them for summer professional development for our teachers and teaching how to blog using Wordpress is one of the major topics.

So what else is on my to do list:

•     Read 1 technology article a day and comment on it.
•     Prepare our web based tools for student use.
•     Look at how students will use our new website srsonline.org
•     and finally …Enjoy the rest of my summer.

So I was asked, “SRS 2.0, what are you going to do?” I thought about this, how might I prepare our teachers to use tools that are Web 2.0. So today, I worked on setting up all of our teacher’s with a WordPress account on our website- I’ll put their links on a blogroll. Each of them will have access to their own blog and can use the blog to their own content. The ideas of using this blog are endless. Last year, we had political debates and book talks using blogs. What will this year hold?

Last year we dipped our feet into the Google Apps for Education and we just scratched the surface. This year each teacher will have access to the SRS Calendar where they are able to add important items onto the the calendar. The ways grades are posted will be revised …and a whole slew of other things.

Lastly, I think SRS 2.0 means to me the further step of us going paperless by 2009. All of our technology forms will be online for parents/guardians to submit. No long line in the computer lab to complete the signing. I’ll keep updating as the summer progresses forward.