So many meetings, so little time . . .

With this being my first year in a new district, at a level I've never taught, with all new everything to me, I'm stretched beyond my capabilities to blog most days. I tend to read a lot as stress relief, but posting has taken a back burner.

We had a "technology workshop" on Monday. It was SO different from what I was used to in my old district. We saw all these great things you can do with technology, but we were in a school with only two computer labs for the entire elementary teaching staff for the district (7 schools x 40+staff at each > 60 people!!) I am used to tech workshops being held in a space where we can try out what we've learned right away. In this case, we had two sessions altogether in the morning, and then we were sent back to our teams in our own building to share what we'd learned. The rest of the afternoon was supposed to be "exploration" time, but as is true for most teachers, with two hours of unstructured time in my own building in my own room, I didn't spend it all looking at web resources (please don't tell the powers that be!). I did take care of my part in a web project we saw, and I used a couple of the sites in my teaching already this week. I am excited to share resources with my team, but I am afraid they aren't all as stoked about the things technology can do as I am. Change is a slow process, isn't it!

Here are some of the great sites we were exposed to (thanks to Adrian Champine for her great presentation and for sharing her list publicly!): http://www.district112.org/cre/Media/online%20tools.htm

I have already used the Bobbie bear activity (from the math illuminations site) with my math class when I was teaching how to make an organized list. I plan on using the biocubes (from readwritethink) with my ELA class next week, as I head into a biography unit.

What are your favorite web resources for teachers? One not mentioned on her site that I just LOVE is teachingbooks.net. I have found many resources to use in my ELA classes here. Also, I didn't see any mention in any of my classes about the power of social bookmarking (del.icio.us). Seriously, I couldn't live without that one tool and continue to teach!