GAETI: DAY 20

Wow...last day. We made it, and it is hard to tell these wonderful people "so long." We have been through so much with each other. We have learned so much in such a short amount of time. I truly hope that IHL funds GAETI for next year. I would love to come back to work with the next group, but mostly, I would love to see more teachers get to be a part of this fabulous institute.

A special thanks to Mrs. Angela Latham, for her sweet, exuberant nature and her belief that we all have the creative spark within us! God bless you for enthusiasm! Take care of yourself.

To all of our instructors: Dr. Beriswell, Dr. Sherman-Morris, Dr. Lee, and Dr. Huang--you have been wonderful to work with, and we appreciate all of the time you have invested in this institute and in our learning.

Dr. Bracey: God bless you and your family! We are so excited about Joshua; he is precious! 

GAETI Day 19

WooHoo!!! Finished my art project presentation...in front of IHL evaluators, Dr. Bunch and Dr. Lee. My colleagues and I did such a great job on these presentations! We are all working on final lesson plan presentation for tomorrow...OUR FINAL DAY!!!

I forgot to mention on yesterday's blog how wonderful Dr. Taylia Straughter was during her presentation. She made me see that, if I don't take time to take care of myself, I cannot take care of others. She was very adamant about the importance of balance in all aspects of our lives, and I realized that I have not been doing that very well, especially in the physical part of my life. So...what am I going to do about this? Well, my goal is start on Saturday, July 1, walking at Ola J. Pickett Park in Caledonia. I plan on getting up very early and taking the hour a day for myself (5-6 a.m.). Don't freak out...Dr. Straughter takes from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m.!

Pizza tomorrow and presentations and lots of love and ready to step out into the future with all that I will take away with me from GAETI 2017!!!

GAETI 18:

Sorry I missed this yesterday, but we were evacuated because someone decided to call in a bomb threat to the library (one building away from IED Building! How crazy is that?

Oh well, I cannot believe that our time is almost up at GAETI 2017. We have made friends, learned a lot, and found out that we actually are creative!

I truly appreciate my time here and please know that I cannot wait to implement all that I have learned from this institute in my classroom. The instructors have been AWESOME!!! Sorry I did not get to meet Dr. Bracey, but I am so excited for her and her new baby boy! We are supposed to meet her in the fall.

Got to run...must finish tonight with final assignment!

GAETI DAY 17:

This has been an extremely busy day for me. I have learned about Infographics and Piktochart and Spark video/audio content.

I have completely caught up on my Weebly portfolio pages. I have to admit that it looks great. I finally got all of my assignments posted on my Work Samples page.

We are learning about how to use Prezi from Mrs. Agnew (Library). We actually learned about Prezi Next, the newest version. We have had some technical difficulties...technology is wonderful as long as it is working!

GAETI DAY 16:

Ms. Agnew from the library spoke to us today about using IPads in the classroom. She showed us several websites, such as Pocket Body Lite and Career One Stop, for teachers to use.
Next we covered creating our story in Spark. This took me a little while because I forgot to publish at times.

We then started on our newspaper by researching tech topics to use as info for our newspaper. My topics were related to cyber security issues and gene therapy. We each found two articles that we will use in the newspaper.

After lunch, I completed my art project by typing my document that is attached to the back of the project. We had to write about how we would use this project in our classroom and how we would relate to our subject. I teach STEM, so I talked about how I would relate this project to the use of safety rules in the lab, the design process, and writing for reflection.

We finished the day by completing our newspaper in Google Docs as a shared document with two other students, April and Beverly. I am continuing to work on the Weebly webpage and posting my info on Canvas.

I cannot believe that we are in our final week! Where has the time gone?

GAETI DAY 15:

Today was an extremely busy day! Mr. Jeremy Martin, the assistant Mississippi Secretary of State, spoke to us about how to use the Secretary of State's website to develop an LLC, as well as showed us many of the resources that are available to the public for data analysis in preparing to open a business. He was so knowledgeable and passionate about his work and the good things that are happening in our state. We need many more people just like him!

Mrs. Latham discussed with us the parts of the business plan that we will need to work on for our project that we will complete next week.

After lunch and lots of rain, we completed our art projects. I am so excited about mine! I will upload a picture next week.

We worked on website (weebly.com) this afternoon. I did not realize how much I still had to do the site, but Jason said that we were on track with our work. I hope so! I hate being behind in my work.

Have a great weekend!

GAETI DAY 14:

Today we had a guest speaker, Mrs. Billie Jean Fulton, and she talked about different programs that she uses in her classroom to engage the students or help with classroom management.

We then worked on our videos in Camtasia with Dr. Beriswell. We had some technical issues, but she was great and helped us figure out what we were doing wrong. This is our Flat Stanley project. We then Skyped a gentleman from England, a friend of Tony's. He told us about the educational system over there, as well as some cultural issues he had to face when he moved there from the US.

After lunch we worked on our art project. I have almost finished it! It has turned out great, so far, and I hope to get it finished next week when we get our fused glass.

Mrs. Latham finished up our day with information on starting our own businesses as a way to supplement our teacher income. I actually already have a business, as well as two sideline jobs--apartment complex management (two sites) and as an assistant bookkeeper/secretary for a local water system. Many irons in the fire!!!