Skip to main content

...moving in.

...getting used to my new digs in Germantown. I moved into an office I'll be sharing with a soon to be hired Student Information Specialist. To be honest there were plenty of times in the last week I felt like I was going to puke - moving on from all I've known for 7 years professionally. Stomachs have settled now and great conversations are taking their place. Had a great one today with our high school media specialist Jeff Schreiber who has done great things integrating technology, boosting circulation and getting kids reading. I know we're going to do some great things in the next few years and I look forward to the challenge of discovering what works for Germantown in terms of instructional technology.

In addition to instructional technology integration, I'm also working on data and assessment analysis. This is a hot topic in Wisconsin right now, as the DPI NAEPized (more than you care to know on this link) our standardized test scores. Students who may have been deemed "advanced" in the Spring, now may be considered "basic" with the score changes. There's so much to communicate to our community and staff right now, but with districts helping each other the work is less daunting. The great thing about education is - everybody shares! Map testing is literally only a few weeks away, along with many other assessments. Many PDFs to read, many recorded webinars to view.

New school year! New job! New challenges! Bring it on!

Labels:

Comments

  1. doug0077August 28, 2012 at 11:07 AM

    Good luck in the new position, Nathan. You'll do great!

    Here a sign for over you desk as you start doing all that data:

    Not everything that counts can be measured. Not everything that can be measured counts. - Einstein

    Doug

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownAugust 28, 2012 at 7:08 PM

    Thanks Doug. One of my colleagues in Sheboygan told me the same thing today. Now it's my job to prove both of you right!

    I love the quote - I think it would be great to put that line on my signature, but it might raise some eyebrows!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do we have to call them 21st Century Skills?

I'm glad a few years ago I introduced the book 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times  to our administration. It was exciting to have an assistant superintendent interested in changing the conversation for learning in our school district. While I still certainly appreciate the content of this book, I am soooooooo sick of hearing about 21st Century Learning, 21st Century Skills, 21st Century ad nauseam . Isn't there a better way to phrase this for everyday conversation? Perhaps we need to stick with this so everyone hears consistent jargon, but I don't think people overall have the right idea of what it means. I would imagine if we polled our staff or parents they would say its technology or computer skills. That couldn't be further from the truth. If I say higher order thinking skills  I think that's pretty clear (at least to me) of what that means. I worry 21st Century  means the Jetsons or Star Trek to all too many people. I appreciate Tony Wag...
2 comments
Read more

Google Reader's End - Maybe its a Good Thing?

Like other folks, I was surprised and annoyed about the end of life announcement on Google Reader. This is something I use everyday (but I guess I'm only one of a few thousand...not several million) and I rely on it for getting a great deal of good ideas sent directly to me. Tonight I had a thought that it might be a good thing. Did Google Reader stunt my own growth and curiosity to read about what many others have to say? There's tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands or more...) of educators out there sharing what they're doing, what they're thinking about but don't have the bully pulpit of Larry Cuban or Will Richardson. It certainly doesn't mean they have lesser things to say. Mostly they right about their own action research they're doing right now - very useful things to read for practitioners. In the last few weeks I've divorced myself from Reader and used other avenues to get my information from. Tonight I came upon this nice post on I ...
Post a Comment
Read more