The School Year is Flying By....What a Year So Far!!

WOW! It has been a while since I posted on my blog. I apologize to those who follow it and have asked when I was going to post again! This year has been crazy! Between helping Stateside Elementary (our brand new themed IMPACT school) get up and running, getting Carolina Forest going on IMPACT, and helping teachers learn and utilize NCWISE gradebook to JCMS and Northside High, it has been busy, busy, busy! (That is a good thing!) And to top all of that off, I am trading Northside High School for Summersill Elementary! I will surely miss them, but am looking forward to working with the teachers and students at Summersill!Whew!

Now that I have a couple days to breathe, I have finally finished my website: http://onslowcounty.schoolinsites.com/gretchenrobinson. For those of you that would like a shorter URL, I used MooURL to create this link to my website: http://moourl.com/grobinson. Please let me know if you would like me to include anything else on my website or if you have any suggestions to make it better! It is there for you to utilize.

So as I was trying to remember all of the ideas I have had for blog posts over the last few months (but never sat down to do them), my mind wandered to Michael Jackson??? I was a fan of his in my younger days and now so it seems is my daughter. So I thought I would post a picture of her in her Michael Jackson Halloween costume to go along with this great video I found a few months ago about Google. I think you will enjoy it very much!

A Computer Programming "Language" for Kids

As I was on Facebook today,(I know the big bad world of social networking) I ran across a post from an old friend in high school. He is a computer engineer now. He was talking about a website from the education department at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). The site is called Scratch. So I decided to check it out. As I was browsing around, I was intrigued by the possiblities that this website could have for teachers and students. Here is MIT's description of the website:

Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web.

Scratch is designed to help young people (ages 8 and up) develop 21st century learning skills. As they create and share Scratch projects, young people learn important mathematical and computational ideas, while also learning to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.

Click this link for their Information for Educators.

Check out this video from YouTube:

NC K-12 Computer Skills Curriculum

I have been thinking...yes I really have. I have been thinking about the NC K-12 Computer Skills Curriculum. It amazes me that I hear from teachers weekly that say they don't know about the Computer Skills Curriculum and that they don't know that it is THEIR responsibility to teach that curriculum to their students. I think many of the teachers think that they will gain these skills in Middle and High School CTE classes. I am dumbfounded when I hear students tell me that they never get on the computer, or I see kids in 5th grade that don't know how to type or 7th graders who only know how to create PowerPoint Presentations and Word documents.

The fact is that the Curriculum is Kindergarten through 12th grade. It is the teachers responsibility to teach this curriculum (integrated throughout the NCSCOS) and make sure that their students know the grade appropriate objectives. In fact, students are more apt to learn and utilize these skills the younger they learn them! The teachers that are trying to do this...thank you. The world is a technology driven society...we do not want OUR students to be left behind.

So I am giving you some links to the NC K-12 Computer Skills Curriculum and some links to some websites that have ideas for you to use to integrate this curriculum!

NC K-12 Computer Skills Curriculum

Learn NC

Guilford County Schools

Computer Skills Lessons/Files

NC Catalyst

Onslow County Schools Media and Instructional Technology Website

Back to Work & Already Have Email OVERLOAD??

Welcome back to school! Happy 2009!!! I hope everyone had a wonderful vacation! I hate to bring up a horrendous and daunting topic, but it is now time to sift through your email! It has been waiting for you...Ahhh!

I am not sure about anyone else, but if I go more than 4 hours without checking my email, my INBOX becomes overloaded with email messages. So what happened over Christmas Break? I promised myself that I would check my email everyday, so that when I came back to work this morning I would not be overwhelmed with the hideous task of going through a GAZILLION email messages. So after shopping, napping, wrapping presents, playing with the kids, overindulging, etc, etc, etc. I managed to check my email a whole 3 times. Where did all the time go? For those of you that know me, that is unbelievable!!! Although I did check my email a few times (and picked a limited amount to reply to, I had 226 messages in my INBOX this morning. (So instead of replying to them, I decided to blog about it!!)

If you are wondering how to tackle your overloaded INBOX, I am here to rescue you! These are Ten Quick Tips for Handling Your INBOX (adapted from www.successnet.org).

Top Ten Ways to Handle Email Overload


1. Don’t Check Mail Every Few Minutes
This is very difficult for most people (especially me) but it’s much more productive to stay focused on your current work and pick specific times each day to check your email.

2. Flag Messages for Later Action
Click on the flag next to emails that need action soon. The other messages can wait (or...GASP! They can be deleted!) You can sort your inbox to all of the flagged messages and use this as a "TO DO" list.

3. Use Folders
Create folders for messages that you need to keep, or for specific groups and people. This will help you sort through your messages faster and clear out your inbox.

4. Set up Rules
You can create rules for specific incoming email messages. If you constantly receive ISS lists, Absentee Rosters, etc. that you would like to keep, but look at later, this is the perfect solution for you. Create a folder and a rule that sends the perpetrating email to the folder for you to look at later. This way, it is not clogging up your INBOX.

5. Deal with Similar Responses All At Once
By sorting your mail using the methods described above, you can now deal with similar messages all at once. You save time by not having to look up the same info all over again.

6. Templates
If you are constantly sending out similar emails (every day, every week, etc.), then create a template that you can use over and over again. They’ll save you oodles of time for those responses that require the same or similar information on a regular basis. Just create your new message based upon your pre-established template and edit as needed.


7. Cut, Copy, Paste
One of the most powerful features of today’s email programs is the ability to cut and paste—sometimes multiple pieces—of information to transfer from one document to another. Save the typing time. Copy from other documents and paste into email. (This works for saving important information located in an email, too. Copy and paste the information you want to save into a WORD document...and then DELETE the email!)

8. Make Heavy Use of the Delete Key
Hardly anything can free up your inbox more than deleting email you don’t want. Hitting the delete key or delete button is the best way to dump data. Sometimes I go back and wonder why I kept an email, when I should have just deleted it. Just remember, the messages you don't delete today, will come back and haunt you when your INBOX has a million messages waiting for you to clean up!

9. Signature Files
You can use different signature lines for different email messages. If you are sending a message in which the person is going to need all of your contact information, send your signature with phone, email, fax, address,etc. If you are sending a message to a student who is going to need to know your office hours or tutoring times, send the email using that signature. It really helps save time and saves the back and forth emailing to retrieve information.

10. Customize Your Program
Most people use only 20-30% of an email program’s capability. Take this up to even 50% and you’ll marvel at your added efficiency. Investing some time in learning more of the features of your email program and then customizing it to work the way YOU want it to will keep your INBOX happy and not overloaded!

Well I am off to answer email messages now....wish me luck!!!

Gretchen