The Learning Goes On

I meant to write something every day last week, then I'd get home, and  just drop onto the chair exhausted. However, there is no rest for the wicked...I spent all day Saturday at conference on Blended Learning. I'm obligated to attend two more of these techie conferences--one in February and one in March---in order to earn my professional development credit. Yes, even though I've completed two separate college degrees, the requirements never cease to add more notches to the belt in order to continue license renewal. I'm sure most professional certifications are like this. But, I learned some great things!

Ha, ha! One of them was about a system that is somewhat like Facebook for teachers and students to interface on the computer in school. It's called Edmodo, and, although I've had an account for a year, and I've gone to at least three other sessions to learn about it, finally yesterday it clicked! I sat there, in the "beginners" session, once again, and as I logged into my account, and listened to the moderator, I suddenly saw everything she was talking about! This time as I gazed at the screen, her words and directions made sense! I inserted some skill quizzes for my students to practice; I replied to a query from someone; I realized how I could easily use this in my classroom! YEAH! So, the main lesson I learned yesterday is that I need to revisit the introductory classes for new technologies at least four times, if I don't "get it" the first three times! I'm so excited to go back on Monday and get this going in my classes.

Another interesting event from yesterday was that I was the answer to someone else's prayer. Yes, she told me. In the parking lot, I saw another person wandering from door to door trying to figure out which one was open and where we were to check in. She joined up with me, and we finally were successful. I asked her which classes she intended to go to and she asked if she could just follow me to the first one. Sure...I had a plan. Well, it turned out that she was hired in September, and just moved here from Colorado. It was also a career change for her, in that she'd been an engineer for a telecommunications company for a couple of decades. She was recently divorced--hence the big move to another place. Anyway, she was felt overwhelmed by her new job, and came to this tech conference for ideas on managing her classes. She declared that I was the answer to her prayer that morning to find someone who knew what they were doing, and she could just pal around with them, to get her from spot to spot. Turns out that she teaches in a middle school just up the street from my school. Students that I taught go to that school (as well as a couple of others) and so we share the demographics and families. She announced that when she found out all these details, she knew I was sent to her to help her today. I thanked her very much, and we really did enjoy one another's company for the whole conference, and lunch.

So, my lessons for the week: prayer works, and listen to/read the directions enough times and finally they will mean something!