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To Infinity, and Beyond!

 

 

 

 

 

          When I thought of my future as a learner and tried coming up with a title for my essay the first thing that popped into my mind was Buzz Lightyear’s famous saying “To Infinity, and Beyond!”  I’m not sure why this came to my mind, maybe because my roommate and I dressed as Woody and Buzz last Halloween or maybe just because I love Toy Story.  For whatever reason it really does captivate my future as a learner.  There is no ending to infinity just as there is no ending to my career as a learner.  There are an infinite number of ways in which I would like to further myself as a learner and a teacher.  Some of these include becoming more of a leader at my school, obtaining more technology for my classroom and creating an interactive classroom website. 

 

 

           When I was deciding what three topics to focus on I tried to think about short term goals that I could accomplish within this upcoming school year.  The reason I decided to do this was to motivate myself to actually complete them.  A lot of the time when I make very long term goals I fail to make enough effort to get the ball rolling.  At least if these goals are attainable within a school year it will give me a deadline to complete them and I will be more motivated to accomplish them.  Technology has been a huge focus of mine during my Master’s program so it only made sense to add that into my goals.  I didn’t want all of my goals to focus on technology though so I decided to make it a goal to try to become more of a leader within my school.  I believe that each of these goals will improve not only my teaching but myself as well. 

 

            Becoming a leader at my school has always been something that has interested me.  Not in the way of becoming an administrator but more so as a team or department leader.  I believe I have some great ideas on how to improve our department and streamline our communication and I’d like to have the chance to put those ideas to the test.  This summer I am participating in the Teacher Leadership Academy after being chosen along with two other teachers by my principal to represent our school.  I am thrilled that only was a chosen but also to have such an amazing opportunity to grow as a professional.  I can’t wait to see what new skills I will learn in these seminars and begin to implement them in my professional life.  Although it doesn’t look like gaining a leadership opportunity is possible within the length of the school year I can start making those positive steps towards achieving one by the following school year. 

 

            Obtaining more technology for my classroom is very important if I want to continue to transform my traditional classroom into a flipped classroom.  My current goal is to get 3 new iPods for my students who don’t have Internet capable phones to use.  In order to accomplish this goal I plan on using DonorsChoose.  DonorsChoose is an amazing site that provides teachers with a platform to display what they need to improve their classroom and garner funds from donors.  I used it this past school year to get new dictionaries for my French students and I was impressed with how easy and quick it was to raise the necessary funds.  I have created another page and hope to find funding to provide these iPods for my students before this upcoming school year.  Since many of my students are economically disadvantaged it would be so helpful to have these iPods for them to use as resources when they are in my classroom so they too can experience what an amazing tool technology is. 

 

            Lastly, creating a classroom website has been something I’ve wanted to do for a while but I just haven’t had the time to put into it.  After discovering Wix through my Capstone course I finally found a platform that I really enjoyed to create my site.  My goal by creating my website is to have a way of staying in touch and providing notes, PowerPoints, tips, announcements and other information to my students and their parents.  I already got a solid start on my website that I am pretty proud of because I believe it is easy to navigate and is aesthetically pleasing.  Throughout the year I will need to work on being diligent about posting on a regular basis and keeping everything up to date for my students which will be something new to deal with since I have never had a class site in the past. 

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