July 30, 2010:
Hello Discovery 8th Grade Students and Families.
My name is Chris Heumann (pronounced "hoymin"), and I'm going to be your student's 8th grade English and Science teacher at Discovery this Fall. From what I'm learning about your school, it will be a great fit for my teaching style and views on students and learning. Everyone at DCS has been very welcoming so far and I'm eager to get to know the families and students.
In order to gather some information about you and your student I've created an online form that I'd like you to fill out at your earliest convenience. It asks for some contact information as well as your perspectives about your child and suggestions from me to consider as I get to know them. This email is being sent to the addresses given to me by the office so it will likely arrive in more than one email box (father, mother or both). You may fill in the form separately or together -- diverse perspectives are certainly valuable.
While teaching 7th grade science in Cupertino and Santa Clara I developed a website that has been useful to students and parents in the past. I'm in the process of restructuring most of the existing pages as well as adding many more in order to make it useful during this upcoming year. In addition to that website, I'm very interested in using a variety of online tools this year, including Google Apps for Education and Edmodo, in order to make your child's learning experiences as deep, interactive, and efficient as possible.
Again, please fill out the form linked above, and I'm looking forward to meeting each of you and am eager to become an asset to Discovery as well as your child's 8th grade experience.
Chris Heumann
482-2394
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August 18, 2010
Hello Parents and Students-to-be,
They just installed power in our new room, so I'm getting even more excited about our coming year. Next goal: Getting the 14(!) computers installed and wired in before the first day of school. After that there's activities to plan, lessons to build, and I think that I should spend some time refilling my supply of school-appropriate jokes. Maybe you could help me with that last part.
I am writing for three(+) reasons:
First, to let you know that I'd like to get us (homeroom) off campus for two afternoons during the second week of school. On the afternoons (12:30 - 3:00) of Tuesday the 31st of August and Thursday the 2nd of September I'd like to have us do some activities at the Krause Center for Innovation at Foothill College in Los Altos. I am a part time instructor in the teacher education program there and have made arrangements for us to use the computers and multimedia facilities there to do our first big online activities, print some posters, and to set up your GoogleApps accounts. I know the lead time is short, but I'm hoping that there are enough parents with TB tests and paperwork done that would be willing to drive for either or both of those days. Please email Leslie Shen if you are willing to do that. Of course, the sooner you can do that the better.
Second, I plan on using a book called "The Hunger Games" as one of our class-wide books in September, and before I go out and buy a bunch of copies, I want to find out how many of you have copies already and/or would be willing to buy a copy. The paperback is $8.99. Teachers get a 25% discount though, so I could certainly buy some and get reimbursed by families (if they want to keep the book) or the school (for future use). So please email me about that and I'll tabulate responses and go shopping (or not) as needed.
Lastly (almost), if you haven't filled out my online student information form, please do that. You can also take a look at my website (www.heumann.org/discovery) if you like but it is far from school-ready.
Finally (for real), please reply to me even if you just say "hi" if you haven't already, because I'm losing confidence in the accuracy of my email distribution list.
Thanks again and I"m looking forward to meeting you all!
Chris