Year End Reflection 2010-2011 School Year

Year End Reflection


I began the 2010-2011 school year overwhelmed since I was starting a new grade so everything I had created last year with the SMART notebook, I was unable to use it again. So my goal that I had set for the 2010-2011 school year was to just get create more SMART notebooks for that coincided with my new grade level as well as set up a school blog that I would use as my main means of communication with parents. It was difficult at first because I was learning new curriculum. As I became familiar with new curriculum, creating notebooks and integrating technology became easy again. I started on day one with blogging with parents and updating my blog on a daily basis. There were days when it was hard to update it as I had to leave right afterschool for coaching extra-curricular but I was able to make it work. Many positive comments have been made by parents that the blog is a useful communication tool. Therefore I would say my technology success this year was creating a classroom blog and creating SMART notebooks for Language Arts, Science and French curriculum. I would also like to say that another technology success for me this year was moving on the “Technology Integration Matrix. I would say that I am at the “Infusion” stage with some “adaption” still.

Another area that I feel I had success with this year was in the area of mentoring. I have had the opportunity for mentoring with the other Grade 8 teacher at our school. We do a great deal of sharing between subjects. It has been quite funny because many times when I would be teaching her students, I needed my own room to use the SMART board. The problem was that she had also planned a lesson with my students and needed the SMART board too. So I guess that is a good thing that we were fighting over who was going to get to use the SMART board. One of us would then run down to book the other SMART board in the school to book it, but it too would be in use by another teacher. So the SMART boards are getting used in our school. It would be nice to have time at a staff meeting or on a TPD to get a few minutes to show the teachers in our school some of the neat pieces of technology that are out there. There have been many teachers at my school asking me if there is going to be more teachers that can apply for the SMART project so it is obviously something teachers find value in!

One of the experiences that I value in the SMART program is the opportunity that we are given for PD days. I believe it is so important to continue to provide SMART teachers with PD opportunities like the ones we had this year. I am able to accomplish so much when I have these days. Learning about Twitter and iGoogle was an eye opening experience for me. PD days give me the opportunity to explore and learn when regular school days are so busy. I also like the personal PD day that we get as well. This year I spent my day planning and creating SMART notebooks for a Greek Mythology unit. It was nice to just explore and play with SMART notebook, knowing that I would be providing my students with unique learning opportunities. The collaboration with other SMART teachers is rejuvenating and exciting. We can bounce ideas off each other and learn from each other. This is such a valuable tool that I would hate for these days to disappear. I also believe it is important for the SMART teachers to have an opportunity to show teachers in their own schools as well as other schools the value of SMART boards.

I have two areas of focus for my goals for next year. I will continue blogging with parents on a daily basis to keep them informed of what is happening in the classroom. I would now like to add blogging with the students. This will be through students blogging with each other and myself as discussion pieces through assignments and I think it would be very cool to blog with them about current events using kidblogs. The second area that I would like to continue to develop is creating more SMART notebooks especially in Mathematics. I didn’t teach my own my this past year but will be teaching it in the upcoming school year so I would like to use the SMART board as my main teaching tool in Mathematics. I am looking forward to being able to work towards my goals in the SMART project next year.