Teaching Mrs. Ryan

Our school was selected to participate in Google Expeditions.  How awesome for a small East Texas school to be visited by a tech giant and chosen to participate.  Let's be honest, if you google "Google Expeditions" you will see that they have been all over letting schools test out their new app, but they are all schools in big cities.  We were so lucky to have such an amazing district STEM coordinator that is always looking out for exciting STEM opportunities for our students.  During the expeditions, my students used View Master Virtual Reality viewers with cell phone devices.     I WAS BLOWN AWAY. I was excited, my kids wanted to do everything even though we only had a 20 minute window per class.  I knew I needed to check into this more. December:  I had visited the View Master website and of course checked out how I could get one of these off of Amazon .  And then I just let it drop back into the back of my brain as teachers tend to do when testing comes up, g

Every year when students are counting those days left of summer time fun, teachers are going back early.  We have to get our classrooms ready and of course training.  Tons and tons and tons of training.  In fact, I've started my training 3 weeks before students come back to school and MAN am I learning a lot!  We just got done with some fabulous STEM training done be Dacia Jones (@dacia92 if you twitter) from Durham, NC public schools.  I encourage you to check out her blog over at Discovery Education HERE   Like many STEM conferences we learned about cool projects we could try out with our students, but she also helped to facilitate and grow our little STEM program that for 5th graders is in its infancy.  She organized and helped us get lab coats, helped us with grant writing, gave us great resources and information, and did it with an energetic happy smile everyday regardless of the tech difficulties we sometimes hit (WIFI issues blah!)  That was amazing week number 1! On to

Let me be honest.  I live for the summer.  I always knew teaching would be the perfect job for me because when I wasn't a teacher and spring hit... oh it was so hard to sit still in an office.  The last job I held before I taught was perfect for that!  I was able to turn off my fluorescent lights and open the blinds and let the natural light come in, and I would make excuses to visit clients so I could get out of my cubby and go!  Now, I just wait for that last school bell to ring and give my goodbyes for the year to my students and plan on a summer of organization, exercise, dieting, travel, crafting, sleeping in, and a new me.  Oh yeah, and I always intend to blog so much more. Reality is, I do a little bit of all of those things, and sometimes I even feel I've accomplished something, but partway into the summer...I get bored. There I said it!  The nerd in me gets bored and I start researching cool technology and thinking about all the new things I'm going to use in my