Post date: Oct 23, 2010 5:5:25 AM
Good evening families. Happy tenth... this is issue 10 of my weekly newsletter and I have been well motivated by parents mentioning to me that they appreciate getting them every Friday (archives are on the announcements page of my website too). Good to hear.
This past week's events went as planned and we were able to get quite a bit done. The BTT final essays are published, the science test is done, and almost all of the make up work has been turned in. It has been a true team effort. Parents, thank you for keeping your eyes on PowerSchool and my website to monitor your student's progress. Kids, thank you for responding to my many "missing work" emails by getting it done and turned in. Although my policies call for late work to get only 60% credit, I did bend that rule this quarter in order to make sure that students who fell behind felt rewarded for their efforts to complete missing work. Next quarter the late policy will be more objectively enforced, so please make every effort to follow instructions carefully the first time and get the work done on time and with your best effort. Although DCS (and I) believe that individual needs and flexibility (rather than conformity) should drive policy, if the exception becomes the expectation, then your work habits will suffer and the transition to the relatively rigid demands of high school will be quite jarring. Lets keep our class moving forward together and at a ambitious pace -- I wouldn't want any of you (or me) to get bored.
The conference calendar for next week is online and I emailed instructions to parents on Tuesday night with the subject line of "Conferences". As of tonight, 22 spots have been filled and a few alternative arrangements have been made. These student-lead conferences are new to me as a teacher, but I've experienced them as a parent. I am eager to participate as the students show off some of their accomplishments of the year, including their digital online portfolios, composition books, and work folders. Students, please browse your work and choose one or two pieces of writing that you would like to share as examples of your best product (or process). I'll also ask us (students and parents and me) to come up with one common goal for Q2 and some strategies for achieving that goal.
On the technology front: Kids -- Today at 3:00, I lost the bidding on eBay for the Student Response Pads ("blue clickers"). I'll keep scouring the web for a set and I am confident that we'll get some in your hands soon. Here is a link to the product description or you can visit the eInstruction(.com) website. Also, I've put the electronic whiteboard on a sliding mount now, so that we can move it out of the way to recover some regular whiteboard square footage. I've written and submitted a $1000 grant to the Silicon Valley Education Foundation to get some FlipVideo HD cameras with which to capture labs and events that demonstrate principles in physics and enable their detailed analysis. The winners of this round of SVEF grants will be announced on November 4th. Lastly, I'm meeting with a member of the DCS Technology Committee next week to discuss our use of GoogleApps (your sites and docs), in hopes of getting the whole staff (and eventually students) on board behind a single common GoogleApps domain. Thanks to you, I have some good stuff to show and powerful stories to tell. You are certainly leaders in the school, know it or not.
I hope to see most of you tomorrow at Fall Festival and hope we can recognize each other in our rain-gear. In my opinion, the tickets for the dunk tank should be doubled on rainy days... if any of you dunk me (fair and square... no running up and pressing the bar), I'll give you a homework pass to sweeten the deal. How's that for motivation.
Chris