Wii Fit

My husband surprised me with a Wii fit today. I have to say that my nerdy side was quite interested in trying it and my non-fit side was really interested in seeing if it would get me moving. Of course the first time we turned it on was a learning process so we didn't get a lot of "exercise" out of it, but the 2nd time was all work! I was sweating, having trouble catching my breath and all out exhausted after only 20 minutes of exercise. The two person run was quite interesting as my husband and I were side by side doing an "in place" run. If someone happened to walk by our window at the right time, they'd have thought we were complete idiots.
I sat a goal to lose 5 lbs using the wii fit in a two month time span (all done within the software). I'll fill you in on how well it works, but from what I've seen tonight, the cost of the program is totally worth it. Fun and hard work all in one!

Watch out-Summer Ahead

Today was my last day of school for a while. I'm sure I'll be in next week because I can't stay away, but I don't HAVE to go.
I had a few interesting things happen while talking to everyone at the end of the year banquet. First of all, had a great conversation at my table about how important technology is in the lives of students today. I tried to just sit back and listed because I didn't want to be the one to initiate any interesting ideas on this one. It was really interesting to hear the teachers talk about how they knew technology was one of the best ways of reaching students. A couple of teachers even mentioned that technology projects they implemented this year were viewed as "best projects" by their students. I'm really interested to see what these teachers come up with over the summer. The excitement over the county technology camp is overwhelming and I truly believe it will affect how lessons are developed in the coming year.

As the year comes to a close.....

I've been working a good part of the last few days to "tie up loose ends" around here. Cleaning the labs, FINALLY getting a chance to organize my office and pulling in all the borrowed technology equipment from throughout the year.
I always find myself reflecting on what I did right/wrong and what I'll do for next year. To be honest, I started thinking about next year several months ago. So, you may ask, what are some of the changes I'll make? Here's my list:
1. I sat down one day and picked dates for the entire next year and planned workshops-with topics too! I turned that list in to the office so they know to plan around those dates as best they can. I think that if I have the dates posted at the beginning of the year, teachers will be able to plan for them better. After I made the list, though, I realized that I could totally offer a workshop every week to cover all of my material. So, still working on whether or not I can handle that.
2. I will be working most of the summer to get a lot of handouts and maybe even some step by step videos on my website so if teachers have questions, they can go to there for help.
3. I want to get into the classrooms more to observe technology being used - specifically with our smart boards. I had a goal this year to go and watch and something always came up to prevent me from going. Next year, I'd like to actually get that done-my goal is to see all the rooms with smart boards at least once.
And, I'm sure I'll add more. There's always room for improvement and I like to re-evaluate from time to time to see what needs to be changed.
Looking forward to a summer of planning and a new year ahead!

2+2-a+b=Photostory?

I was asked a couple of weeks ago to do a quick presentation on how to use photostory for a group of students taking a statistics class. I thought "hmm, wonder what's going on here"? So, I showed them how to create their story (mainly a 5-10 minute overview of the program) and told them to go for it! I walked around for a few minutes to see exactly what they were doing and I heard the following topics being passed around : Growth Hormones, Video Game Violence and, the oddest, Cheese. I figured I must not know much about statistics and I'd just wait and see what the final outcome was.
Over the next several days I had random questions like "Can I borrrow your microphone?" and "Why isn't this saving correctly?" but never totally got the overall idea of the project. I was getting excited to see what they were doing with this.
Today was the day to watch the movies they had created. I was excited as I had no idea what I was in for. I thought I'd go watch the first presentation and then head back to my office to finish up a few projects I was working on myself.
The first presentation started with the photostory itself and the topic was about growth hormones. The students had beautifully selected appropriate pictures featuring cows, music of "cotton eyed joe" and text explaining why growth hormones are used. Then the music changed, got a little slower and the photos changed to pictures of little girls. The text started explaining how hormones in meat effect menstruation cycles in girls. My eyes welled up a little and I knew I was hooked!
I ended up staying the whole period and thoroughly enjoyed watching everyone's project. And I was even intrigued by the one on how cheese relates to "#2"! And hey-it really doesn't cause constipation in everyone!
The best part of all this is how well it integrated with the statistics curriculum. Students were using terminology as if they truly understood it, used graphs to show the survey data they had collected and even commenting on what they learned and what they would have done differently a second time. I was very impressed with these projects and I look forward to seeing more in the future.
Getting Math to integrate technology like this has proved to be a challenge at all schools I have worked in, so it was extra special to see something like this work out so beautifully. I hope to be able to share a couple of these shows once I get permission from the students.