EducatingMe

So, I started my #oklaed journey around 2 years ago. My friend Anne Beck invited me to EdCamp Tulsa, hosted by Jenks PS. My very first session was a Twitter 101. I was already on the Twitter, but I was fumbling. Tobias Brown, aka Doc Brown, split the room in half and taught the fresh fish how to set up an account, whilst walking the new-tos through what it means to chat and how to be a little more specific with your Twitters. It was game on from that day forward. Sitting in the Mountains enjoying a Sunday evening #Oklaed chat Scott, is the guy who sent out the challenge to write about what we thought #oklaed meant to us. In his 3/22 (today) The Drive, he talked about the growth a teacher could get out of take a video of themselves teaching and sharing. Well, I don't teach these days, so my blog posts are my way of doing just that...putting myself out there...being vulnerable to the criticism and the hits that might come my way.  I can write up a blog post of my thoughts and

I know I still have to fill you in on SXSW day #3, but my husband had a few words that resulted from a conversation with several teens yesterday. Rules were made to be broken. If there is one common saying that infuriates me to the point of blood boil, it is this one. A philosopher that I am quite fond of, Os Guiness, tells us that the best way to show a person that their belief is a fallacy is to encourage them to follow it to the end. This means, to get a little stuffy here, to use deductive reasoning to follow premises to their logical and necessary conclusions. Rules were made to be broken. Am I safe to reword this phrase a couple different ways for the sake of clarity? -The reason rules are made is so that they can be broken. -A rule is made for the purpose of being broken. -The purpose of a rule is for it to be broken. If we are in disagreement that all these statements are the same, then I suppose I’m attacking a straw man. But if they are the same, if you ca

Anyone happening on this post because of the SXSWedu title, please know I am no writer... So this post Im writing much later than last night and under a completely different disposition. Today was a bit less inspiring. Great...but less yesterday. But one thing today did have over yesterday was an experience. There are many links in this post here; feel free to click on them. But especially the video I made today. Here's the rundown. But there is no possible way I can articulate the awesomeness (in my mind) of each of these things. But I'll give it a try. Todays sessions were todays sessions. The morning was filled with a little Scratch.mit.com learning. I made a dance video in about 30 minutes. It looks like it, but I have never created in this fashion before. If you watch this video , first click the green flag and then I think you have to click the space bar to get it to start. And its a continuous loop, so shut it off whenever you get sick of me. Which will likely

Alright, someone told me right before the opening keynote this morning that by the end of the day my mind would be absolutely blown. I was all like, "Yeah, ok, Ive been to conferences before" And he was all, "But you've never been to SXSWedu" And the I was all like, "Ok, we'll see" Ya'll, wow! This place is like Edcamp meets ISTE meets TED talks. The ideas. and then I get ideas. And then I think that the Ministry of Education would not approve of my ideas. So the opening keynote was Temple Grandin . I had never heard of her before today. She is #amazeballs people. She is a 68 yr old woman that is on the spectrum and also works with the beef industry and more...designing cattle runs to the processing plants. She speaks about her autism and how we should make these kiddos great at their one (or more) thing. Here is a link to her TED talk from 2010. I did not grab a video of her today, but you will see in this video why I instant

Travis Barnes, aka, the hubs, has guest blogged for me before. I challenged him last month in a bloggers challenge. And because he won't get his own blog - here he is taking over mine. What has been your ONE biggest struggle during this school year? My ONE biggest struggle this year has been keeping a positive attitude about the school’s administration. When I started with this school the environment and culture was small and personable - it’s now big and mighty; bureaucratic and formal. This has left me feeling disenfranchised, and I’ve used that word more this year than ever before.   Share TWO accomplishments that you are proud of from this school year. In contrast with my struggle, I have managed to form an even closer relationship with my students and their families. Every year they feel more like my extended family and my confidence in knowing their goals, ambitions and learning styles is even higher. I’m proud of my “Double Platinum ‘A’ Teacher” stat

What could you do with $106 million dollars?  State Dept be like...cut funding to the kids so we can M ake It Rain . The state of Oklahoma send out another memo saying that there would be another hit to education .  Are you serious?  I am wondering if the state of Oklahoma would like to or be willing to account for where they would like to put that $106 million dollars, an accounting for or a reckoning of the shortfall to the children and families of Oklahoma. I understand being in the hole. I do. I was once a reckless youth that while in college I overspent in my checking account. I paid the overdraft fees and then then learned a lesson. The lesson I learned was that you don’t spend money that you don’t have.  I expect there is much more to running the state’s checkbook than that. And they are trying to do the fiscally responsible thing right now, they ARE trying to cut spending .  But here is the deal…because there is always a deal. You also cannot continue to