Wow! The past year has been full of learning and growth!

I completed my first year as an Educational Diagnostician. My caseload was entirely elementary level. I completed 68 evaluations and 201 ARDs. 

I thought I had my organization system ready to go, but I learned more tricks that made life easier to interpret at-a-glance. I continuously reflect on my practices and try out ideas to see if they improve or hinder current systems. I started something new in the last month of 22-23, and I hope to see how well it works from day 1 of 23-24. 

I'm one week from returning to work and just finished 24 hours of PD over the last month, with another 9 slated before returning to work. (We have to get those 40-hours per year in at some point!)

I *think* I'm returning to the same campus I had last year. I haven't yet heard for sure, and don't know who to ask since our director retired. I'm sure information will be shared shortly. 

Here's to a fresh year that will *hopefully* be slightly less stressful than the first year.

If I need a break, I can come here and look at this photo until I can get back to GranLand.

Certified Educational Diagnostician!

Through the support provided by the cohort I was in, we finished our practicum in December of 2021, took our exam in January of 2022, and got our test results today!

I'm so happy to have scored well and to now be a certified Educational Diagnostician. Next up - revamp the resume and start applying for diagnostician positions for the next school year. 😊

Welcome 2022

Personal Education

It's been a while since I posted - April 2020 to be more precise! Since then, I applied for a Digital Learning Specialist position but wasn't selected. *sad* I took that as an opportunity to continue teaching while furthering my higher education a bit more. That spring, I enrolled in a program to obtain a certification as an Educational Diagnostician. The program began in the summer of 2020, and I just finished the final practicum course in December of 2021. Next, I'll take the certification exam at the end of January of 2022, and will then wait for results to be released in mid-February.

Teaching in a Pandemic

In-person or Remote

After transitioning to remote teaching after Spring Break of 2020, the remainder of the spring 2020 semester continued in an online format. COVID-19 forced everyone to quickly adapt to working and learning remotely. Upon returning to school in August of 2020, families were given the option to return to in-person learning or to continue learning remotely. Our campus had a 50-50 split in what families chose. This meant that teachers had to teach in-person and online students simultaneously. Our district leadership decided that all teachers had to be on-campus to facilitate in-person learning. Some other districts split teaching duties and had specific teachers to instruct the remote students, but still had teachers report to an in-person site to teach from. 

Risks

While our state leaders and many other industries continued working remotely, educators were forced into situations where exposure to COVID-19 was still a reality. Even with temperature scanning, extra hand-washing, sanitizing stations, masks, desk shields, and social distancing, many still contracted COVID-19. With 17% of people becoming infected, and 2% of those cases experiencing fatalities, anyone returning to in-person situations had legitimate reasons to be concerned. 

Adapting

The entire 2020-2021 school year was a mess. Districts that were not already 1-to-1 with technology had to rapidly secure and distribute equipment. All districts had to develop new protocols to adapt to hybrid learning situations. Some districts fought their state board of education to remain remote: some won and some did not (Texas districts did not). 

2021-2022

The 2021-2022 school year seemed to bring more promise, even as COVID-19 case numbers continued to rise. Some states allowed schools to continue remote instruction, but Texas was not one of those states. Mike Morath, Commissioner of Education in Texas, initially said that remote instruction would be funded, but in-person learning must also be offered. All of that changed once teachers returned for summer training though, and remote instruction funding was pulled. Some districts had already hired teachers for remote programs and enrolled students. Some districts maintained their programs, even though funding was pulled. Other districts had to alert teachers and families that remote instruction was no longer an option. With most districts returning to all in-person learning, social distancing was no longer possible, which raised levels of concern before school even began. 

More Challenges

Even though instruction is all in-person, teachers still had to accommodate any students who were out due to close-contact exposure or illness. Teachers are still having to teach in-person and remotely, but were now having to do so without the authorization to live-stream instruction, as they had done in 2020-2021. This actually made instruction exponentially more difficult. Many teachers are now reporting they plan to leave the profession. Some are even resigning mid-year because the demands are so high, and the support lacking or completely absent.

Torn

With COVID-19 cases at all-time highs and almost 2 million new cases per day worldwide, teachers can choose to push through and risk exposure or can resign and look for work elsewhere. While more companies and city services are returning to remote work and not allowing patrons inside, teachers and students are still being forced into daily exposure situations. As a teacher, I'm very torn. While I love interacting with my students in person, I also don't want to risk being exposed and potentially bringing this virus home to my family. My own children attend in-person classes because that is all that is available to them. My pre-teen was successful with remote learning in 2020-2021, but my 1st-grader would likely not fare as well - especially if I am still working in person and unable to directly monitor her work. 

Social Skills

In addition to these concerns, there are also the social skills aspects that the TikTok "Devious Licks" challenges have presented for schools - students purposefully vandalize, destroy, or steal property on campuses. It seems that 1.5 years of remote and hybrid instruction has damaged our students' abilities to properly interact in an educational setting. These issues are not restricted to educational settings though - street-racing, thefts, vandalism, and violent crimes have all increased - especially with younger populations. 

2022 - Hope

As we enter 2022, I hope people take more personal responsibility for their own health and for ensuring those around them also stay healthy. I've been fortunate so far and have avoided bringing COVID home. I hope our family is able to continue this streak of luck. I hope more families are able to experience a healthy year. I hope more leaders consider new options for learning and education in K-12 as we move into this new year. We already know our current plan is not sustainable. We must look to other places for ideas to alter our education system before it collapses. 

Spring 2 - 2020

What a wild end to the school year! COVID-19 sure upset a lot of plans, but we are all making it work.

Transitioning from a flipped classroom to an online classroom wasn't too stressful. What was stressful though was trying to figure out which students didn't have access and how to get access for them. The struggle was in filtering those without access from those that chose to not check-in or complete work. Now that we have determined who has true access issues, the problem is getting hotspots since so many are ordering them all at once. As soon as ours arrive, they'll be distributed to those in need.

On the home side of things, navigating work and my own online class while caring for my two children has been interesting. Braden, my 11-year-old, is relatively self-sufficient and helps with his sister. Danica, 5-years-old, is really good about playing independently, but she deserves more attention than I can give while working from home.

I just finished my last assignment for my Master's degree and found out I've earned an honors distinction! I'm so happy! I've worked hard for this and am ready to take a bit of a break from university work this summer.

Spring 1 - 2020

This term, I've doubled-up again and am taking Educational Research (EDUC 5203) and Curriculum Development (EDUC 5113). Both courses have engaging reading and writing assignments. I'm at the half-way point and have completed all of the readings and writing assignments. All that remains are exams and waiting for grades on my papers.

In addition to these courses, I was also asked to develop a professional development session for our district training in February. I'm so excited and nervous!

Spoonfuls of Applesauce

I created a website to share my son's ADHD story. If you have time, I'd love for some people to view it and give some feedback. This is my final project for my Digital Storytelling course.

With this, another semester and two more classes toward my M. Ed. are complete.

bit.ly/spoonfulsofapplesauce

EDUC 5333 - Digital Story Progress & More

This past week was productive. I managed to complete my story map and story table & script and added content to a Google Site I made for Braden's story. Much of the feedback I received about the initial story idea tried to address my concern about keeping the story within a 5-8 minute timeframe. After contacting my instructor I felt much relief. Evidently, the story itself doesn't have to be 5-8 minutes in length. Our summary and reflection that we present needs to be 5-8 minutes in length. Our peers are to view/hear our story before our presentation.

Gathering photos for this project and converting them from HEIC to JPG or PNG took much longer than I expected. Recording and adjusting the audio to have consistent quality across the whole site also took some time. Initially, I considered not adding audio, but I think it adds more feeling than what someone would experience by reading text only. The audio is an optional component but is available for anyone that would like to hear the story instead of, or along with, reading it. I considered using the Choose Your Own Adventure-style of storytelling, but I was feeling pretty overwhelmed with all of this to start. Maybe I'll try something like that later.

For the presentation during week 7, I plan to briefly walk-through the website I created for this assignment. I would like to demonstrate each of the components - audio, text, pictures, surveys, and resource links. I won't have time to go through all aspects of the site, but I hope to provide a sampling of each type of component.

Potential Resources to Use in the Classroom

There are several resources I could see my middle school students use. They're all so app-savvy, but they don't necessarily know how to use their Chromebooks - it's a work-in-progress. Here's a list of what I'd try first on Chromebooks with my group of 7th-graders:

Screencastify - I absolutely could see students using this to record an explanation of an assignment, to make a tutorial for other students, or to create a presentation for later viewing.

Soundtrap - I love this tool, all the options it has, and the ease of use for creating vocal recordings and music!

Comic Life or Motion Comics or Storyboard That - These could be fun for personal storytelling or for our succession comic assignment in the spring. (I've had students use Storyboard That before, so the other comic sites will be interesting to add in.)

Above resources were found here: 

Kapular, D. (September 7, 2018). Top 30 tools and apps for digital storytelling.  Tech & Learning.  Retrieved from:  https://www.techlearning.com/tl-advisor-blog/30-sites-and-apps-for-digital-storytelling

Community Assignment Precursor

As a precursor to an upcoming assignment, we are now asked to consider our audience, skills, and the impact this story may have.

Who is the authentic audience for this story? Who will be impacted by it? In what ways might this story resonate with this audience?

I suppose the target audience is anyone trying to better understand what a journey through ADHD diagnosis and treatment may look like. I hope my family better understands what led us to make some of our decisions about treatment and identification in school. I hope parents, educators, siblings, and other children will try the simulations available on Understood.org so they may better understand ADHD and other learning challenges. It's hard to accept what you don't understand, and Understood.org certainly takes some of the mystery away. I hope everyone that experiences Braden's story leaves with a bit more compassion and empathy for those with learning challenges - especially those challenges that are not visible.

What skills and knowledge have you developed as you created your story?

I have further developed many skills with this assignment. I've worked on photo editing, audio editing, website design, scripting/storyboarding, and research. I certainly have a greater appreciation for storytellers now. In addition to this course, I've also listened to an audio course about storytelling during my commute the past month. While the audio course is about live storytelling, not digital, I still feel I learned some tips and tricks that I hope to put to use in my classroom.

How might your community/students be impacted by engaging in digital storytelling? What role can I play?

I think my students would benefit greatly from learning to tell their stories digitally. Digital storytelling takes some of the discomforts of public speaking away. While the whole world can see the story, the pressure of dozens or hundreds of eyes on you during a recitation is absent. There is an opportunity to fine-tune and edit before publishing, and even after publishing, as needed. As students share their stories they may find they have more in common than not. So often, especially in middle school, students can feel alone and like there's no help or solution available. If they hear others with similar stories, maybe they won't feel so alone. Maybe they'll see a resolution to a story like their own and feel hope. Maybe they'll be the ones that provide hope to someone else.