Teacher: Visual Display & Media Specialist & Leader & Instructional Partner (12H)

Teacher: The past two weeks, I have worked on several projects. I completed my visual display and the virtual display to accompany it. In honor of Dr. Seuss's Birthday, I created a visual display that showcases his most famous character: The Cat in the Hat. I also created a virtual display using the media center's information board which consists of a large digital picture frame. The virtual display is a slide show of some interesting Dr. Seuss trivia. I spent about three hours in the media center on this project.

Media Specialist: I was also able to log six hours these past two weeks in the media center. During my available planning periods, I have spent time straightening shelves, re-shelving books, and checking out students.

Leader: I also completed my staff development unit this week. I spent about three hours polishing it up. I think I finally have a finished product.

Instructional Partner: I also spent an hour more collaborating with the other science teachers at my school on our Ecology Unit. We spent the time discussing which aspects of the biomes we would like for students to focus on during their project.

Instructional Partner & Leader & Information Specialist (13H)

This week has been a great week. I feel like I have gotten a lot accomplished. I have begun collaborating with the assistant principal and the science teachers at my school to identify an area of weakness related to information literacy at our school. We spent some time reviewing the ITBS and CRCT scores for the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. After review we noticed a trend. From the 6th to 8th grades scores dropped significantly in the area of reference skills. We only have one unit to complete for the remainder of the year. Students will most likely be assigned a specific research project within that Ecology unit. We have looked at several possible projects, but have not yet decided the specifics of that project. We have spent about 2 hours on this unit.

I have also begun work on my staff development unit. I will be teaching differentiation with the use of podcasts. I have spent about 8 hours on this project this week. I have begun to turn this into a distance ed class as well.

I worked the book fair for 2 hours last Saturday from 4 to 6 just before the pageant. It was great to see some of the parents discussing books with their children.

I am continuing work on weeding the old fiction section at one of my practicum sites. I was only able to spend 1 hour on that project this week. Hopefully I will have that finished soon.

Information Specialist: Professional Learning Community- Wiki (1H 30M)

I forgot to mention that I set up a wiki for the science teachers at my primary site. Once a week, usually Monday, all science teachers are expected to meet and discuss student performance, lesson plans, lesson ideas, etc. These meetings are called data team meetings. At these meetings we are required to log how we are working to increase student achievement. Often these meetings are unproductive because not everyone shows up due to scheduling conflicts or sometimes not everyone brings ideas/materials to the table. To help facilitate the exchange of resources and keep an accurate and fair record of data, our last meeting was spent on learning how to use the wiki that I established. Each person is expected to go on to the website once a week and discuss how specific instructional strategies impacted their students that week. Teachers are required to post that lesson activity or resource in the appropriate unit folder for others to be able to use. I think the wiki was well received. The teachers appreciated not having a specific meeting time in which they had to arrange to be somewhere. This way they can work at their pace and time, and everyone is held a little more accountable now. I spent about 1 and 1/2 hours on this activity.

Multi-Tasking: Information Specialist - Weeding & Inventory; Instructional Partner - Collaboration (9H)

Time is just really flying by. I can't believe that it is almost the second week of February. I guess I have been so busy that I haven't noticed the time. I have been very busy at two of my practicum sites.

At the elementary site, I have been working on a special project. I am in the process of weeding an older section of the media center. This particular section is somewhat unorganized. I am going through each of the items on the shelf to check their condition. I am also checking each one to find out what level they fall under in AR. Most of them are older books. I find one AR book for about every ten that I process. Once I identify them as an AR book, I tag them and re-shelve them in the appropriate level. (All of the fiction books are shelved by AR level). A few have been found that are beyond repair. I have spent 4 hours on this task and I am not even half way finished. She does not have flexible scheduling in this media center. A new elementary class comes in about every thirty minutes. It makes for a busy atmosphere. I have enjoyed interacting with the students though. It has been fun. I will work on this project more next week.

I have also completed a technology inventory for the media specialist at my primary site. I have worked on this project for about two weeks. I sent a survey out to all faculty and then compiled their responses to complete the inventory. (When they finally responded!) For areas of the school that are not assigned to specific teachers like the computer labs and the conference rooms, I had to gather the information physically. This project has taken 5 hours of my time.

I have also begun the process of collaborating with a teacher at one of my secondary sites. I have decided to work with a Social Studies teacher on the reading enrichment unit. We are in the process of deciding on a topic.

I have also been collaborating with the media specialist at one of my secondary sites on a staff development unit. She has already planned to teach a lesson on how to use Photostory. I am going to extend that with how to create Podcasts and how to turn Photostories into Podcasts. I am actually excited about this because I really want to incorporate Podcasts into my own classroom. They have so many practical applications!