I really don’t count the first two days of school as week one, they are rarely about class content, so I call it “Week 0.” For me, it’s more apt. Anyway, I had a great week zero! I have awesome students! Alas, I lost some students on day one that I was hoping to keep, and I just know that I’ll gain students throughout next week (who I will have to train on my rules and procedures), but these are minor things that one expects at the start of a new year.
I’m doing a lot of new stuff this year, which will no doubt consume my time, but I think the end result will be better learning for the students and better communication for the parents. In addition to School Loop this year, I’m also starting a weekly podcast of upcoming things in both US and World History. This is just one of the many takeaways from my “CUE Rockstar” seminar that I attended this summer. I’m also leaning heavily on two programs that will be new to me: EdPuzzle and Screencastify. These two programs allow me to do more with the digital content that I use in the classroom. With EdPuzzle, I’ll be able to assign Crash Course episodes for homework with embedded questions… that I can place in Google Classroom!, rather than show them in class when I’d rather be doing discussions and the like. To me, this is a huge win because it creates good digital content for homework, and it will also decrease the need for me to send out paper homework. My only concern is for the few students I have who don’t have ready access to a computer at home. I’ll need to make special arrangements with them to work in the library or in my classroom.
I’m going to be so thrilled to send these new podcasts out to my parents and students, and I’m going to have the students create the weekly content themselves.
Until the podcasts make it to iTunes, you can find them here:
Click on “Episodes” and you’ll be able to listen to the US History podcast or the World History podcast.