I will be teaching at another school this coming fall. After 14 years at my current school, it seemed a reasonable time to make the switch – forge a new teaching adventure – mix it up so my teaching remains fresh. Prior to the 14 years at my current school, I switched schools on average every five years (6 – 4 – 5 at the previous three schools, respectively). I thrive on challenges, on introducing people to possibilities, and on not following a rote pattern. The best way to nurture myself was trying my hand at different schools over the years.
Besides making a geographic change in schools, I am changing my focus from teaching middle schoolers to teaching lower schoolers. Lower schoolers are a range of ages not unfamiliar to me, having taught lower schoolers at three of the four schools, including my current one. Still, I am a tad anxious. Not because of the students. More because I am a rookie once again. I am busy refreshing my understanding of lower school developmental levels. And I am focusing on curriculum. Not getting bogged down in the details, but in the overview of what I would like to accomplish, and meshing that with the vision of the administrators and teachers.
One of my primary hopes is to get the kids blogging, beginning with the third graders. I firmly believe that blogs can be places where kids (or adults, for that matter):
- develop their digital footprint
- practice keyboarding
- learn to compose and enter their thoughts directly into a digital document
- start to craft a digital portfolio
- reflect (on their learning, their playing, their tinkering, their thinking…)
- share their creations and thoughts with others
- begin to have conversations with others in the form of comments
- participate in global discussions
- a compilation of links to posts by Kim Cofino about blogging
- Hagans’ Summer of Awesome – a 6-year old blogs with his mother’s assistance
- and a copy of this Tweet which I believe is a quote made by the Head of the NAIS
