My 12 in 12 Journey (Plus One!)

This morning I was looking through tweets and came across Chris Brogen's tweet about Fitarella's 12 in 12 New Year's challenge; 12 commitments, 12 months in 2012.  The idea is to pick one new thing to do everyday for one month no matter what.  The next month you may continue the previous month's practice, but you must also introduce something new for the new month.  I think this idea is fabulous, so I am going to join Fitarella in her 12 in 12 quest.  Here is what I have decided for my year:

January - bike for 20 minutes.

February - eat only homemade meals.  This means no canned soups or microwavable meals; something that will be tough for me since I tend to eat alot of canned soups and microwavable meals for lunch at school.

March - 50 crunches every morning.

April - Computer and cell phone off at 7p.m.

May - Tony Horton's 10 minute trainer  My fiance got this for me to encourage me to work out with him. I always complained about time, but no more excuses!

June - A picture a day.

July - Yoga.

August - Daily Affirmation.  I'm sure there's an app I can download on my iPhone for this. Any suggestions?

September - 10 push ups every morning.

October - Call family every day.  Each day will be designated to a certain person in my family.  I usually call my mom or dad once a week anyway, but I want to make sure to keep in touch with my brothers and grandparents also weekly.

November - A month of thanks.  I will post or tweet each day about something I am thankful for.

December - bike for 30 minutes.

I have decided to also make one more commitment in addition to these 12.  I haven't been commited to keeping up my blog since I graduated for the EMDT program, so my plus one is to blog about my 12 in 12 every month.  12 in 12 here I come!
If you would like to also join in on the 12 in 12, be sure to also follow #12in12 on Twitter.

What is your New Year's resolution?

New Beginnings

It's been two months since I've graduated from Full Sail.  I've had time to reflect on all that I've learned and have planned for the new school year.  School has been in session for a month now, and I'm so excited for what's ahead.  I have a fabulous class of 32 students who are all eager to learn.  This year I am planning on participating in many global projects.  My personal goal this year is to provide opportunities for my students to connect, collaborate and learn about the world around them.  Here are some of the opportunites we will be participating in:

1. Global Read Aloud
This project starts on the 19th.  Students will be reading Tuck Everlasting at the same time as humdreds of classes from all over the world.  We will connect with other classes through our class blog and twitter acounts, Edmodo and on the GRA wiki.

2. Edublogs Teacher & Student Challenge
We have been learning about internet safety and will be talking about quality commenting this week.  The challenge officially starts tomorrow!

3. Read Across Arizona & Read Across America
Through video conferencing we will connect with another classroom to share what we have been learning and reading in our class.

4. Challenge 20/20
Challenge 20/20 is an Internet-based program that pairs classes at any grade level (K-12) from schools in the U.S. with their counterpart classes in schools in other countries; together the teams (of two or three schools) tackle real global problems to find solutions that can be implemented at the local level and in their own communities.


How are you connecting your students globally?  

Wk4 Publishing Leadership Project

Click to Download Presentation

The goal of this action research project was to integrate Web 2.0 tools to motivate and engage students in developing innovative products based on text. The literature review indicated that in order to engage my students I need to recognize and consider the multiple literacies that students are engaged in outside of the classroom and incorporate them into my classroom instruction. Cycle one allowed students to share a book they read to another class through videoconferencing. Cycle two allowed students to master the objective of figurative language by teaching others through a video lesson. At the end of each cycle students were give a reading motivation survey.  Results indicated a greater percentage of students were reading more frequently for fun.

I plan to submit my Publishing Leadership presentation to the Georgia Educational Technological Conference.  I believe the results I have found through my action research project would be of interest to the population of people attending this conference.

Think Out Loud blog post one

Think Out Loud blog post two

Wk4 Wimba

I unfortunately could not make my scheduled Wimba time to receive feedback on my publishing leadership project.  I shared the link to my presentation with a few friends who were able to view it and give me some constructive feedback.  What I received back was all positive!  One friend commented "It looks like you have everything in place, good luck!" Another knew that I wanted to make it interactive and gave me some suggestions for adding the videos I made and hyperlinks.  I am grateful for the feedback, but don't feel that the presentation is finalized yet.  Being the perfectionist I am, I know that I will keep updating until moments before I present!

Wk 4 Comment to Lionel

Lionel said:
What a great read this week!  The Zander’s manage to remind us about positive things in such a delightful manner.  This week we cover passion, apologies, blame and a host of other heavier type aspects of discussion but shared with stories and a refreshing view.
To read more of Lionel had to say about this week's reading follow him HERE.


Tawnya Said:
"If it is meant to be, it is up to me." This is something I need to work at committing to 100%. It's hard take full responsibility instead of putting the blame on others.

Wk 4 Comment to Jana

Jana said:

After reading the last chapters of the Art of Possibility, I had three take away points.

Find out what Jana's take away points were by following her HERE.

Tawnya said:

Jana,
Great take away points from the last chapters. The more I keep seeing and reading your second take away, the more I am inspired to purchase the book. I am thinking of buying multiple copies to share with others. Hopefully I can enroll others and generate a spark of possibility for them to share. Thanks for sharing!

Art of Possibility Ch. 9-12

Chapter 10: Being the Board  was the chapter that spoke to me this week.

After reading this chapter I choose to declare, “I am the framework for everything that happens in my life.”  I have always known this to be true, and have told myself for many years, “If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.”  I don’t think I have ever completely followed through with this though.  I have been fortunate to accomplish many things in my life, but I don’t think I have accomplished them 100% for myself, because it was something I wanted.  A lot of what I have accomplished was to please others.  If there was something  that did not work out, then I would blame others or something else instead of looking at myself.

Starting and finishing the EMDT program is something I have done for myself.  It has been tough, but I have powered through and given my all to successfully achieving this degree.