The End of The Week Rundown

The big news: The netbooks have arrived- all 800+ of them. Quite a sight to see. I spent a few days this week in the computer lab helping to get them imaged and ready to be distributed to the students, although it looks like we are talking early October here. Still.... October is only a couple of weeks away. I am excited, really, really excited to get these computers into our students' hands.

I saw this post this morning on Teach Paperless:

Here's a challenge that went out on Twitter last night and has been gaining steam:

Hey PLN: let's make Fridays paper-free this year. No copies, handouts, notebooks. Just discuss & connect, tech or otherwise. Plz RT!

I am in. Eventually, other than timed essay prompts, I would love to be completely paperless, but it will be a transition. I will start with Fridays and work my way up. This is one of my goals for this year.

In other news: Our school does an Adopt-A-Senior program that tries to pair some of our at-risk seniors with a faculty member who can help keep them on the track toward graduation. Six of my homeroom kids are on that list. I have been reassured over and over again by our administrators that I have a particularly "challenging" HPT and the fact that six of my kids are at-risk is in no way a reflection of my ability as an adviser. And in my defense, two of those six I did just inherit this year (they should have graduated last year, but didn't). But I can't help but think about what I haven't done for them. How I haven't pushed them enough or offered them enough support. There must be more I can do. I will do more. I will graduate all of them. I will.

New Teacher: We interviewed for our empty English teaching position and I do believe we have a new teacher in our department. Yeehaw!