You'll find the posting here:
I like my job, and god and my boss have told me to stay there today. (Long story for another post).
This could be a game-changer for the right person, if you are patient. This could be a position that will allow you to make computer science more important to a major district. However, there isn't a lot of money in Texas for education.
Email me at kweaver at dallasisd dot org if you have questions, and you will have my full support, in changing the game.
Things I’m liking about him:
From the DaMN (my favorite way to spell Dallas morning news):
– What he expects from parents: “We want no excuses around three things” : 1) Get their kids to school on time, every day. 2) Have their kids read every day, even if it’s not in English and even if it’s a TV Guide, comic book or cereal box. At every age. 3) Get them to do their homework. Set up a quiet place at home for study, the kitchen table for example.
DISD Superintendent Mike Miles on finances, teacher pay, top worries
Yep, I’ll go with that.
– On whether he expects each teacher’s evaluation grade to be publicly available: “I try to do things that help the education institution, that helps kids. I’m not sure that the public always understands the numbers. … That’s a lot of information for the parent to absorb. If there’s not a good explanation, data is misused, the teachers get hurt for no reason. …”
On of the issues with my numbers, is that my sample size is so small. I have about a 33% passing rate of students who take the AP exam without taking PreAP. Sample size of 3. I have a 100% passing rate of students who take the AP example with taking the PreAP. Sample size of 30 over 20 years. Not really useful numbers.
The thing I don’t like is the expectation of teacher turnover. I am really proud of the fact that I’ve taught in the same room for 20 years. However, I’ve changed my curriculum and adapted to my students, and I certainly haven’t taught the same subjects in that room. I’ve taught:
Next year I’ll be teaching:
Something I don’t get. This is 2012. You are teaching students with 1-to-1 computer technology. Why would you ever not take advantage of it?
Seriously.
I use technology to train my dogs, manage my diabetes, cook, and never have paper on me. I usually the pieces I have and less rarely have a pen on me. Usually because some kind sole has given me a “swag” pen.
This is the only issue I have with the Exploring Computer Science program. I know the people who put it on, and I respect them highly, and I know that they often like to use other technologies than computer technologies.
We had this discussion last year during a PBL workshop I went to put on by TI. The facilitator of the workshop insisted on using lower levels of technology.
We all agreed that there are different levels of technology:
Now I am very comfortable teaching with computers. I use Moodle as a classroom and curriculum management tool, and have my students do their work completely electronically.
Hey, I even had that discussion with one of my colleagues today when we were discussing the curriculum I am developing for the Computer Science Fundamentals jokingly acted as if I was afraid of paper. And no, I didn’t take the receipt from Starbucks.
I choose deliberately to use technology throughout the course, but will reserve a few lessons from CS Unplugged just in case the power goes out or we get kicked out of the lab.
But hey, if you want to use another technology have it, just don’t expect me to play with you.
What I am trying to get across, is that there are people out on the internet who want to help education, and CS education in particular.
I am inviting other educators, especially CS educators, in learning how to expand our fund raising capabilities. I have a Moodle set up where I have links, tips and tricks out there, and I am inviting teachers to join me in and hope to share my ideas and techniques.
Can’t promise you any computers, but can help you get peripherals and curriculum materials.
If you are interested in HOW I raise money, email me, and I’ll add you to the Moodle where I have all my resources.
For those who don’t know, I am wildly successful at raising money for both my robotics team and my classroom. I did a presentation on this at CS&IT but unfortunately I was up against two other popular presentations and buried in a back corner.
I have been able to get at least one paying staff development a summer for the past summer. For example, last year Texas Instruments paid me to learn more about PBL, something I am implementing for my district.
This summer I am getting paid to go to another one.
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I have gotten local mini-grants to support my robotics team, and have one a very large award from district. As a result, I obtained $5000 for my classroom and $5000 for my classroom. I am now on the selection committee and have helped others gets that award.
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Finally I have had over 20 projects funded on Donor’s Choose.
Now, I can’t guarantee that you will equally successful, but I think by working together we can increase the odd.
Email is at kweaver at dallasisd dot org
I woke up this morning and checked my email…..
Had a Donor’s Choose email, on a Sunday morning. Was still checking email and got another one, and another one and another one….
Seems that my current project was featured on a little website called “Daily Kos”, http://www.dailykos.com. Here’s the article:
And the project got fully funded in less than an hour.
How cool is that?
I mentioned to the Super Shuttle driver that I taught high school ….
Come to find out, he taught history in Kuwait!
I’ve posted about my surveillance cameras before, but Nightline is talking about them: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/burglary-victims-catch-thieves-home-surveillance-cameras/story?id=16016822
My husband wanted them after the drunk driver hit the house, I got a few cheap wireless ones that didn’t work well at all. We ended up buying high end cameras on Ebay, and a high end DVR, and had a former student install everything.
It’s great, because while I’m traveling to teaching workshops, I can check on the dogs and the husband. Especially the dogs. I have three cameras on them!
We haven’t caught anyone breaking in – between cameras, dogs, alarm system and the countries best cops, you’d be crazy to think about it – but we have watched a car spin out around the place.
If you have a digital camera, you SHOULD have an Eye-Fi Card. I have two, and have two cards. Took one of the cameras out to our walking parade yesterday, and it was awesome.
The photos are at http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAq2bmb
When I got home, I was just going to let the camera sit and upload but realized that was taking a bit longer than I wanted, so I pulled the card out and put it in a computer. That was literally all I had to do. Once the card was in my laptop, it took less than two minute for the pictures to get uploaded to my main desktop computer upstairs and uploaded to Flickr. A few minutes more to get the descriptions added to Flickr, and a bit longer to get them on Facebook.
Best part – I have a copy job that runs in the middle of the night that copies them over to my home server (an Iomega cloud server) so I have them backed up.
I’ll be taking everything with me to California to CS&IT as I will be doing a lot of sight seeing.
I’m going here –> http://csta.acm.org/ProfessionalDevelopment/sub/CSITConference.html
Flying into LAX, taking SuperShuttle to the hotel, and flying back. Leaving next Sunday and back on Wednesday.
On Monday, I’m doing the following Workshops:
Exploring Computer Science–Teaching with Inquiry and Stop Talking About HTML5 and Learn It!
I’m presenting from 2:45-3:45 on Tuesday, against my friend Alfred Thompson. Email me if you want access to the presentation ahead of time.