Balance

Every year we sit down and make resolutions.  I have thrown out the ideas for resolutions a long time ago.. I create a vision/dream board at the first of the year.  I wrote about our Dream/Vision board last year here and here.  A recap of this years adventures for our Dream/Vision board is here (now realize, that with dreams and vision they tend to be a little more personal)

This year I have seen many people just post 1 word for their Vision or Goal for the year.  I LOVE this idea! Great article over the One-Word Resolution.

The first challenge of the 2014 year for Techformers Unite:
Your Challenge: Create a vision board or goal board for the new year! This can be education based or more personal. (I love picmonkey by the way.. what a cool program!)

Why did I choose Balance?  As I look at myself in the mirror I realize I am a very intense person (happy with who I am) but I want to be involved in EVERYTHING! I do a pretty good job of being involved in everything... but there are nights where I don't sleep much because my brain doesn't shut down or as crazy as it might seem I get overwhelmed.  So, this year my word is going to be Balance.

Balance at Work- understand that it is okay to say no to certain things. This might be one of the hardest things to accomplish as I love being involved in everything!  So, when I get overwhelmed I am going to look back at my word of BALANCE, step back and reorganize my time.  Things I will need to balance on at work: Destination ImagiNation, my role as Instructional Technology Specialist, my role on the Campus Improvement Committee, and my role as a member of the school PTA board and Council PTA board.  This seems like a ton to balance, but if I put my mind to it, I know that I will be able to.

Balance at Home- This is probably where I will need the most work on for balancing.  Once I get home I enjoy spending my time on social media, playing mindless games, or watching TV.  Oh and I also need to balance my Jamberry business too. I want to have a more balanced self at home, where I have time to workout for an hour, read books and enjoy spending time being unplugged.  The unplugged part is going to be the hardest, but one that I really want to work on this year!  How I might accomplish this: set a time aside each day to be plugged in (to work on Techformers Unite, Jamberry, EdTech Chat and Chew, blogging, Tweeting, Instagram, and other social media outlets) but then shut down... and be okay with shutting down!  The world will not end if I do not answer that email, that Facebook request, or that notification on Twitter.

Balance with Self- I am very lucky with all the things that I have accomplished in these last few years. I have a wonderful family near and far, amazing support system and a roof over my head.  Just like everyone there are things that I want to accomplish. I am a lister and an organizer.  Sometimes my list end up being pages long (I finish them, but at what cost?) In the past I have attempted the 3 things (where I list 3 things that I must finish each day) This year I am going to work on more Balance with myself and have 5 things that I must accomplish each day.  The world will not end if I do not finish everything in one day, I will still go on living and still be a great contributing member to society.

What are your goals and dreams for this year?  Do you have a word for the year?  How do you plan to accomplish your dreams and goals?

P.S.- I my biggest dream for the year- to find balance and peace in my life so I might have the chance to become a mom.

Jamberry Giveaway

If you follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter you might have noticed that my feed has been taken over my new favorite thing right now!  Being a teacher I didn't have time or the funds to get my nails done, but I tried on Jamberry this summer in July, and my nails have not been naked since!

Kiss Me Ombre

Favorite things about Jamberry:

-I LOVE how many designs there are!  I could do a simple color, add accent nails, or even design my own. (I am also in love with the Nail Lacquer Line that is now available- the strengthening basecoat under my wraps are awesome)

-Since they are wraps, I don't have to worry about being uncoordinated in painting my nails

-They are so affordable!

-A manicure can last about 2 weeks and a pedicure about a month

-I can put them on while watching TV using the fantastic Mini Heater

-My nails look great even after I take them off.

Excuse the super short fingernail (weekend causality) but check out how good my real nail looks and I have been wearing Jamberry for over 5 months!

To celebrate the end of 2013 I am hosting a Jamberry Giveaway! Just do the super simple activities listed below.  A winner of the $15 eGiftcard will be drawn on Tuesday December 31st at noon.  

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Are you interested in hosting a catalog party, face 2 face party or Facebook party?  Let me know! I would love for you to earn the awesome Hostess gifts!  Interested in joining my team and becoming a consultant? I can help you there too!

Techformers Unite

You might have noticed that I am sort of on a Tech Challenge kick lately.  I LOVE using technology (shhh.. I know this is a shocker!) and I want to help teachers see how easy it is to use in the classroom.  One of the main reasons I wanted to become a Instructional Technology Specialist was so I could begin to affect even more people (students and staff)  I have loved how the challenges are going over in my school, so I decided to branch out!

I put a plea out to my Facebook friends, and I had 9 fabulous friends say they were interested in helping with Tech Challenges.  With LeaAnne, Dave, Robin, Helen, Mindi, Aimee, Jeremy, Sheila, Jan, Jennifer and myself the Techformers Unite group was formed.

"As educators (of any form or fashion) we are constantly saving the world through various challenges! Join the Techformers Unite team to boldly take on technology challenges that increases the use of these tools in your classroom. If you are ready to be a part of the Techformers Unite group, you just need to join our group and start attempting the various challenges! These challenges can be completely done by you, or you can do them with the students that you work with! Remember that any challenges you complete and post about need to comply with your schools/district rules for posting pictures/information. You are in charge of keeping up with what challenges you complete when you fill out the Google Form at the end of the month! On other social media? Share using #TechformersU"

Our idea:
Create various challenges for each month that could be accomplished by teachers and even be carried over to the classroom.
We started with the 12 days of Techmas

Thanks Cindy Wallace for the awesome logo!

For the month of December there will be 12 challenges.  You can find the challenges on the Weebly  and also on our Facebook Page  At the end of each month we will post a Google form where participants can post what challenges they completed that month (there might be prizes involved!)  The challenges do not have to be done in any certain order, but people can share their completed challenges by posting in the comments of the challenge on the Facebook page or sharing through social media using #techformersU.  You can also find our Twitter account at TekFormersUnite

Now, we are currently in an icemageddon going on in the DFW area, so I am sure that that might have some impact this weekend on how many challenges get done.  

The first challenge (posted this morning 12/9/13) ended up with over 70 wonderful word clouds that different people created over their favorite holiday song.  Not only that, but I hadn't even posted the full challenge and people were already posting their challenges. 

Are you up for the challenge? Find our group Techformers Unite and learn some new tools and tricks.  In the process you will also have a chance to meet some amazing people!  I am So excited to see where these challenges will take us!  I am even more excited that I am able to collaborate with even more people over things that I love.  Cindy Wallace wrote a great blog about our Techformers Unite Challenges here

Tomorrow is another bad weather day (this ice is crazy), but we are pairing up classes for the #kidwish project!  

I hope you will join in our Techformers Unite challenges.  December has 12, but the rest of the months will be only 4 or 5.  How do you increase technology use on your campuses?  How do you get teachers excited to use technology in the classroom?

Walking in a Techy Wonderland

The first part of this year I worked on finding my place in my new role.  So many ideas.. so little time.. but not wanting to crazily overwhelm people that I work with either!  So, I don't think my to-do list will ever get completely done (it never did when I was a teacher either) but there are some of the coolest projects that are coming up!

Irving Arts Center Christmas Tree

I blogged about our tree that comes to life here by using the Aurasma app.

Now you can go vote for our tree here (you might need to like the Irving Arts Center Facebook page first)

It only takes a second!

#Kidwish

We are pairing Special Needs Classrooms with Regular Education classrooms to share holiday cards and also New Years wishes!  We are pairing up classrooms on Thursday December 5, 2013 for this first round! Sign up at http://kidwish.weebly.com/  (special ed friends.. this is a GREAT chance to collaborate!)  We are going to have more projects throughout the year, but this is a great start.

12 Days of Technology

I have LOVED creating the Tech Challenges for my staff... and the conversation it is sparking.  So, I put it on Facebook looking for people to collaborate to create holiday tech challenges.  Be watching for information on how you too can participate!

Do you have any projects in the works?  I hope you take a moment to vote for our tree.. and sign up to participate in #kidwish!

Make it Monday- Irving Arts Center Christmas Tree

Every year the Irving Arts Center has a tree decorating contest.  This year the theme is Navidad Latinoamerica! As soon as the theme was announced last year, I knew how I wanted to decorate it!  Then during the summer I learned about Aurasma from Two Guys and some iPads and Todd Nesloney, and I knew what else I wanted to do with the tree!  Thanks to my partner in crime Alex Alkire (aka AMAZING Art Teacher) we were on a mission!

So, our tree is themed as a giant Spanish skirt. 

Although our tree looks awesome (if I do say so myself!) what is even better is it is INTERACTIVE!  Each picture that is on the tree is tagged with an Aura.

I watched this video about a hundred times.  Aurasma is an amazing app, but there are definitely some tricks (and it is also awesome... but when you are working with 50+ pictures it is also a little more time consuming than I planned)

What I did:

-Take a picture of a student (I tried really hard to get 2 from each class in the school, but I ran out of time)

-I asked the student to say this sentence I am from ____ and during the holidays we ____

-Downloaded these pictures on my computer (you can use Aurasma through the iPad/device, but then only that iPad/device is able to see the Aura)

-VERY IMPORTANT-I had to edit each picture so the pixels were 480x640

-I then followed the directions that were listed in the above videos and the rest that were on Drew Minock's Youtube channel (oh and I bugged Todd about a hundred times!)

-I created a channel called Elliott Christmas Tree and put all of the pictures and videos that channel.

-During our Hispanic Heritage Month celebration I also took video of students doing traditional dances.  After they danced I took a group photo.  

At the foot of our Christmas tree I also included this picture how to

Now. I realize that not everyone is going to download the app and interact with our tree. 

Our note about the ornaments at the base of the Christmas tree is this:

The traditions of Latin America are so rich!  Between the colors, stories, traditions and food Latin America boasts wonderful ways to celebrate the season. 

Elliott Elementary chose to showcase 4 different Latin American locations.  Our tree has the embodiment of a Folklorico dancer’s skirt.   Her skirt carries hand crafted ornaments that the Mini Davinci’s created to represent the different areas. All the picture ornaments will come to life after you follow the directions for downloading the Aurasma app.

Ecuador is represented by the fans (Aventador) which are found all over Ecuador and are made by the local Indian groups.

Puerto Rico is represented by the Three Kings.  Three Kings Day/Epiphany celebrates the Three Wise Men’s visit to see the newborn Christ by exchanging gifts.

Mexico is represented on our tree by the poinsettias are native to Latin America especially in the Southern Mexico region.

El Salvador is represented by the Roman Candles.   Families in El Salvador celebrate by playing with sparklers and fireworks during the holiday season.

There are so many regions and areas to celebrate during the holiday season.  A large part of celebrating is joining family members for food and fellowship.  The pictures on our tree represent different areas across the world!  Students shared where they were from and what they eat during the holiday season.

Our school celebrates the rich traditions of Latin America by having a Hispanic Heritage Celebration every year.  The group pictures around our tree will also come to life by using the Aurasma app.

We hope you enjoy your journey through various Latin American traditions and will dance your way through the holidays!

Tech Challenge Update

We just completed our first month of Tech Challenges, and I am pretty happy how it turned out!  You can check out my first Tech Challenge Blog here.

My challenges for November were:

-Non-Negotiable-Complete the STaR Chart (guess what! Everyone did this!)

-Science- Use Voki to share science words.  These were posted on our Scientifically Sharing blog.

-Web2.0- Skype- connect with another classroom using Skype

-Data-Driven-Comment on either the Number Crunching blog or Wonderful Writing blog

-Support Staff- Create 2 Voki's to go with the Number Crunching blog

The end product for the first month

-Non-Negotiable- ALL the teachers completed this!

-Data-Driven- I had about 1/3 of the teachers participate in commenting on the blog

-Science- just a handful of teachers participated

-Web 2.0- just a handful of teachers

-Support Staff- I had about 1/3 of the support staff join in the challenge

To keep up with who was completing challenges I created an Excel document.  As a teacher completed the challenge I added an X.  I highlighted the box after I had put the badge in their box and given the swag that they earned.

My overall experience? I knew going in that not everyone was going to participate.  My goal for the Tech Challenges is to plant seeds!  It made my heart SO happy when I had a teacher approach me to ask for help on how to complete the Tech Challenges.  I loved seeing her class comment come up on the blog.  It made my heart SO happy when another teacher told me that she enjoyed the Number Crunching blog because it was a perfect transition.  It also made my heart SO happy that I had 2 teachers complete ALL of the Tech Challenges!

One of the Tech Challenge game boards

The badges for the Tech Challenge game board

I just finished up the December Tech Challenges.  I have contacted a couple of the websites/tools we will be using this next month.

Loved that Voki sent some great prizes for the teachers!

Loved that Skype in the Classroom also sent some great incentives!

I just finished creating the challenges for next month.  You can find December challenges here  I have enjoyed the communication that the Tech Challenges have opened between myself and teachers.  I have also enjoyed hearing teachers discuss with me how they are going to use these tools next (outside of what was required for the challenge!)  The challenges are basic, but who knows how big the seed will grow and where it might transplant.  I can't wait to see what else the teachers that I work with accomplish!

Have you tried Tech Challenges?  What are the pros/cons that you have seen?  What are some great tools that should be included in future Tech Challenges?

#kidwish-Connecting LIFE/Special Ed classrooms with Mainstream Classes

I am just so stinking excited to write this blog!  For the past 6 years I have had the opportunity to break down walls of my LIFE (Living in a Functional Environment) classroom by participating in online collaborative projects and virtual tours.  I had a chance to do these activities because I had amazing teachers that I could collaborate with. 

Being a teacher is tough these days, and being a special education teacher brings on even more challenges! Challenges that are worth it, but challenges none the less.  There are a TON of amazing projects online for classrooms and my class and I have participated in many of them.  I knew how to modify the projects so my students could be successful and participate, but also be challenged at the same time.  I have the same expectations as other teachers, I wanted my students to have the world! As I connected with other classrooms I noticed that there were not very many special education classrooms that were taking on the challenge of collaborative online projects.

And then...... it happened!   Several of my amazing friends (Dyane Smokorowski, Michael Soskil, and Karen Wright-Balbier) began talking about the idea of creating a project that would partner LIFE/special education classrooms with regular education classrooms.  http://kidwish.weebly.com/ #kidwish is starting out as a Holiday Card Exchange and New Years Wish for the World exchange using video conferencing and extension activities, but we hope that it expands to so much more than that. 

Now you might be thinking, why is it so important to identify a LIFE/special ed classrooms and pair them up with a mainstream classrooms?  I had the opportunity to connect with Dyane's class for this very project for the last 5 years.  My students LOVED it!  It gave them a chance to be creative on a holiday card, they received something in the mail, and they were able to connect with someone outside of our school setting. I also was able to see a change.  My students began to take more time in their holiday cards (works on writing, following directions and most importantly... creativity).  My students also began to attend and participate more during the actual video conference.  Nothing could make my heart soar more to hear the students reading along with the book and then ending the video call with holiday carols (even my non-verbal students would attempt to participate)

So, LIFE/special ed teachers I challenge you to sign up and participate in this project! http://kidwish.weebly.com/ You never know what connections you might make from it!  Our classes ended up Skype calling with other classrooms and even other LIFE classrooms.  We have done science projects, shared ideas, and read lots of stories.  The ideas are limitless if you take that first step!  Want more information, check out the website http://kidwish.weebly.com/ ? Want to email me with questions akbusybee@gmail.com?  

My wish is for all students to have the same opportunities inside and outside the classroom no matter what the abilities are.

I have written about my fears of losing my niche as a special education teacher when becoming an Instructional Technology Specialist.  I am so stinking excited that this is giving me a chance to share my love of connecting, technology and special education.