Skip to main content

Star Parking this week for ME!


My principal awarded me the Star Parking spot this week. She said I am a Technology Pioneer. 
At first I thought she meant I was old... I am one of the older teachers on my campus. 
But she said, "No like the Pioneer Woman! "

(Yes, I have all her cookbooks and record her show every Saturday.. so I felt flattered with that comparison. My husband wishes I generated her income!)

But this technology shouldn't be so hard... 
I am learning Google. Google Docs and Google Drive and sharing Google Docs.  
In addition, I haven't been blogging much since I have set up a Google Site for my classroom. 
I need more time with it to see if it is worth the time, 
and to find out if anyone is looking at it. 
I tried to add a web counter and that isn't working .... yet. 
tinyurl.com/skaggsart

(but I did figure out tiny url thing.)

I am also working with our new librarian on Google Classroom for our PLN Technology team. 
That is pretty cool. She also set up a Pinterest Site for the teachers at our school.
 I have been pinning away!

I also have been working on my tweeting. I set up a class twitter last year and really enjoy the feedback I have gotten from this. But, my main frustration is that I can't use the school wifi and my phone to use it. I have to upload the pictures to my computer and then tweet from there. Otherwise, I get zapped with data on my personal phone. Every teacher is now being asked to set up a Twitter page, so I may have to make my voice heard a little louder on this issue. 


All of this has been in addition to Teaching. The kids have been fun $#&% and full of excitement with hugs everyday. I also have a student teacher. I always feel so bad when they look at me with puppy eyes as they find out I am not teaching the lesson. It's  very hard sharing your kids and your room. Three more weeks and we are back on track. 


Oh, I have to give a shout out to School Speciality. This was my order recently. 
The watercolors shook out of the box and were stuck and melted to the glaze. 
They are resending the order. 

I am not a complainer, but we have to speak up and be an advocate for our time and money as we pioneer our way through new technology, teachers, staff and not get stuck doing the 
same old thing!!! 

Have a Sparkling week!




Labels:

Comments

  1. Mrs. CSeptember 22, 2014 at 1:41 PM

    My district is using Google Apps this year! Everyone has an account teachers and kids... I started a Google Site but have some things i still need to do with it before I'm satisfied... I find the Google sites harder to work with than my Blogspot site. I still have a lot of learning to do with Google Apps. The school gave us some training at the beginning of the year but it was just an overview. It will take some time but I'll get! Congrats on Star parking! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Leah HeeremaSeptember 23, 2014 at 10:18 AM

    Way to go, Beth! I loved your blog post. Skaggs is lucky to have you as a Tech Pioneer! Enjoy that Star parking!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Beth CarterSeptember 23, 2014 at 6:09 PM

    Thank you Leah for stoping by with a nice comment! Your team inspires us every time.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Beth CarterSeptember 25, 2014 at 8:09 PM

    Stopping*

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment. Beth

Most popular post

Kandinsky Trees

My first graders really need help with their fine motor skills this year. After completing a very successful Kandinsky Concentric Circle painting lesson noted below, I followed up this past week with a tree inspired lesson. Once again, I found my inspiration from  Jen Draw the Line At  and I used her lesson suggestions for this very successful lesson. My student's used Crayola Metallic crayons instead of the Crayola Construction paper crayons and we used juice lids for some bigger circles in the stamping part of the lesson.  Day 1 On day two constructed the trees and circle leaves. I passed out a 12 x 4 inch piece of black paper and had two different sizes of  square paper for the circles. Yes, this was a challenge since we did not use pencil, but we drew with our scissors. Day 2 I will definite repeat lesson for next year! I will be displaying these soon.  Displayed artwork is posted  HERE ...
6 comments
Read more

Monet's Pond

The Dallas Museum of Art  has a wonderful   Monet Painting  in a beautiful gold frame which inspired me to create this lesson for our Big Art Day which is fast approaching in Texas schools.  For our Big Art day this year I have a Theme....Circle Art!  Themes are the way to go when organizing events.  I love this new lesson that was inspired by one of my favorite artists,  and two favorite bloggers:  Painted Paper and Cassie Stephen's who also use themes.  I ordered the 10 inch cardboard circle rounds for this lesson, the same size  Cassie used in her Dot Day Art .  School Specialty has various sizes. The kids loved painting on this canvas instead of paper.  We read about Monet's garden and look at prints of his masterpieces. I even show them some of my pictures that I took when I   visited his garden in France.   On day one, we painted the pond and the water ...
24 comments
Read more

Clay and Weaving!

I'm brave, I tried a new lesson again.... I can say as we are completing these clay frames that you have to follow some basic rules or you will have broken frames. We have had only 3, but I did make extras.  My 4th graders tackled this lesson with stoneware clay, and finished them with oil pastels, one color of watercolor paint and I painted modge podge on them when dry.   The texture is the key part of the coloring process! I have rollers and rubber texture mats.  At least pencil think and more than 2 fingers in width.  You need some lid tracers and a pin tool. Don't try to cookie cutter it.  I strongly recommend 15 or 19 holes punched with a straw. You must have an odd number!! If they go hole craze, pop out the clay from the straw and plug the holes.  I found the directions for weaving the warp threads here on Cassie Stephen's blog.   I am also doing her plate weaving at the same time with...
28 comments
Read more