My excitement is building for ISTE 2918!

I have not blogged in several years for many reasons, family, job, etc.  However, I decided I need to return because I enjoy sharing what I learn with others and what a great time to start over is with ISTE!  

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend NCEA this year in Cincinnati and I have to tell you it was truly amazing and the amount of new knowledge I walked away with was incredible however it was over Easter break and it wasn't the time to start my blog again.

So my goal is going to be to blog at least twice during ISTE!  Would I love to set the goal to blog everyday of ISTE? YES!  But I think I am setting a goal which is unrealistic. 

I hope you follow and find out about my incredible journey at ISTE and back into blogging!

Can You Help Me?

As ITCs (Instructional Technology Coaches), we wear many hats such as: IT person, Coach, Co-Teacher, etc.  However, the other day, I had to admit I was unsuccessful at my job, or so I thought.  Then, I realized after reflecting on the day, it was success undercover.

A student came into our office during my IT time and asked me if I could help her.  Feeling more confident in my job then I did in September, I knew I could help her.  She told me that her USB flash drive was not working anymore and wanted to know if I could get her files off her flash drive and place it on a new one.  THEN…she handed it to me.

As you can see from the picture, it was not a good situation. Well, as promised, I did try to retrieve the files from the flash drive but I was unsuccessful.  I tried many machines, but not one machine even picked up the fact that I put a USB in the computer. 

But on the other hand, I thought about how impressed I was that the student had that much faith in us that we can fix anything!  So overall it was a success!  If we take time to think about our “unsuccessful moments”, we can find success!  Success is not always completing a task; success can come from the process or from the person who asked you to complete the task!

An Amazing Moment

Many times during your teaching experience you have an amazing moment.  A moment that you want to share with everyone and one that you tuck away and recall when the day is not going your way.  Well, last week I had one of those moments.

I was in our Kindergarten where I have a fantastic opportunity to assist the teacher in helping her students develop their computer skills.  Our goal is that the students will be able to turn on the computer, find the correct short-cut which will lead them to a website (ex. Starfall), navigate the site, and then shut down the computer.

Two students came over to the netbook center and sat down very excited to show me how good they were with computers.  They immediately showed me how they could turn on the computer and then log on using the username and password.  Then the both asked me “what site would you like to see?”  I admit, I giggled a little, they were so proud of themselves.  I told them that I would love to see Starfall.  They both clicked on Starfall and they could not wait to tell me all about the site, I was amazed.  After they finished, I asked them if they could turn off the computers since our time was over.  Both of them immediately shut down the computer the correct way and closed them, leaving the area as neat as when they arrived.

I took a picture of each of them and we are going to make a bulletin board in their classroom.  As each student in the class accomplishes this task I will add their picture to the bulletin board.  

I cannot wait to see all of their pictures hanging on the board!