Perfect fit? Yes, indeed!!!

I recently applied for a position at a high school in Columbia, MO.  It is for a full-time high school Japanese teacher!!  How cool is that?!  That would be perfect for me.  I love teaching Japanese... I'm good at it. And I love the high school age group, too.

I had an informal interview with the head of the World Langauges Department and found out...wait for it... they are moving towards integrating technology. Who just finished their master's program?  I did.

Also, they want to start offering online classes.  Who currently teaches online and is web savvy?  I am. My experiences teaching online have definitely been great  There are definitely things I would change if I were in the command chair.  Personally, I think having  a "live" online course or hybrid course is the way to go.  I've already starting thinking about how I would implement this, given the chance.

Also think it would be fun to try an "flip" class where I could record all the lecture, then have the students come to class ready to do the fun activities that teachers like to do, but usually run out of time for.


Anyway, I am still waiting to hear back about an official interview.  The informal one went well I thought.  They want someone enthusiastic and I think I fit the bill. I also am a dynamic and out of the box thinker, too.   As a bonus, they get all of the tech skills that they will be able to use as their district moves forward.

More on this as things progress.

Is it really the end?

Wow... it's been 3 years and 3 cohorts and it's over.  It somehow doesn't seem like it should end so abruptly.  I just got done re-reading my blog posts and we sure covered a lot.  It was almost like meeting an old friend and catching up. I must remember to do that more often.

One thing that jumped out at me is how fact technology has caught up.  fur.ly a few years ago was the place to go if you wanted your URL shortened.  However, now it's automatic for those of us who tweet or share YouTube videos.  That's just an obvious thing that jumped out at me.  I wonder how many other things have become standard and we don't even realize it?  Technology is advancing crazy fast... I just hope that train doesn't derail because I can't hunt.

Another thing that has really taken off are the QRC codes.  Three years ago when I started this program, you'd see them from time to time, but didn't know what you would do with them...really.  Now with the proliferation of smart phones, everyone is using them.

I have never been good at these final blog entry type things.  I am not a wordy person (on paper), but if you've had me in class you know I definitely contribute.  I said this earlier on in my coursework, but it bears repeating here, I think I got more out of this class than a traditional student.  To me, it almost doesn't make sense to do this sort of classwork sitting in a classroom.  I got so much more out of using the tools like google calendar, Skype, Ning, G+, etc. to set up online meetings and get stuff done.  We had to do it.  There was no choice to meet in person so there were times when we were trying to use a new tool (G+) and were were on Skype talking through all of the technical issues.  Experiences like these were priceless.

I also enjoyed looking back over some of my projects.  I especially liked the Pecha-Kucha project. I like the idea of story telling for a limited time and using pictures. I can see all kinds of really great uses for this.

Probably the best part of the whole course was sharing website, tips and tools with each other.  That was something I have always done both professionally and privately. But mostly it was me doing the sharing because I am the tech savvy one trying new things. So it was great to have stuff shared with me. Some I've gone on to use, other items have been bookmarked or saved for future use.  I have been able to some of these tools with my current position as an online teacher, but hope to return to a classroom as a teacher or a technology consultant so that I may really use what I have learned.

I would like to toast (with coffee) all the the cohort members in all three cohorts I was a part of and all of the instructors.  It was a great experience and I look forward to using this as I move forward!

Whew.....

I guess being the tech savvy guy who keeps making suggestions is a sure way to get something to do.
I have been transferring over the website for Toward Community to google sites to we can get rid of the old host service and clean up the site a bit.   If you take a look at some of the site event links...they're over 10 years old.  This is exactly why I am switching it over to an easier to edit format.  Because they had an exclusive web guy who did everything, it made it difficult to update.  Especially with everyone getting busy doing things.

I still need to update my project idea (as the one on my portfolio isn't the one I am currently working on (obviously)

I have discovered putting a FB "like button" on a google site is very difficult to do and have given up for now.  Adding the G+ button was ridicously easy though.


I have been focused on what I need to do still.   I need to find an information aggregator to the website/FB page can quickly and easily be disseminated.   That's the next big thing along with a little bit  of tweaking.

Then there will be the training.