New Job…

I was leaving for lunch break on Monday when my upcoming school year took a dramatic twist.  I was offered the Instructional Technology Specialist position at MacArthur High School in Irving, TX.  After some contemplating and talking to the MacArthur principal and my previous principal I accepted the position.

It’s a really fast transition and I’ve got to learn a lot in a short period of time.  If you’ve read my previous posts, you know that Irving is a 1:1 district.  We are provided with so many resources it’s hard to know where to begin sometimes.  If you have any suggestions of tools available or great web 2.0 sites I could show my staff, please share them!

I’m very exicted about the opportunity and looking forward to the upcoming year.  Wish me luck…

It’s hard to believe…

…that school starts in just over a month! For those of us who take on the challenge of summer school, summer break is basically non-existent. But I do know I’d be bored to tears if I was sitting at home though. My summer school students are piloting a new online World Geography course my school is offering next year, so it has allowed me some planning time and opportunities to check out and find new websites to use this upcoming year. Ones I have come across thus far:

• Wetpaint: an alternative to Wikispaces, pbwiki, and the like, this site so far seems very user friendly and has many more design options than the others.
• Timetoast: This site allows students and teachers to create timelines and share them out with others. A great alternative to programs such as Timeliner.
• CreateDebate: This site allows teachers or students to post debate questions online and have others in the class post arguments in favor of or against while voting each other’s arguments up or down on a point system. This is a great way to get those quiet kids involved in the class discussion!

If you have found or know of any great sites like these, please comment. I’d love to see them and be able to share them with colleagues.

Another thing I’ve been working on this summer is planning for next year. I’ve set up a wiki, at Wetpaint of course, that I’ve been working on. Please check it out and leave feedback if you have some ideas to offer. It is very much a work in progress right now.