Spring Fever, Senioritis, and Sinusitis...OH MY!

In the spring, I teach two sections of senior English, which I LOVE, BUT I have found it is dangerous to my health.  As the days get warmer and the sunshine streams through my windows I find myself transported back to my days as a high school student and wonder how my teachers kept it together.  We're all a little sick of one another given we've had no real break since the semester began in January, and everyone is a little snotty from the heightened pollen counts or an outbreak of whatever plague is currently trying to shut down the school.  Additionally, my senior babies are sooooooooooo close to graduation that they can see the light at the end of the the tunnel and keep trying to move towards those sunny windows like a moth to a bug light.  I find myself coming down with senioritis too. I'm tired of trying to constantly engage their flitty little whims, I'm tired of untangling their technology snafus, and I'm truly tired of being the whine receiver instead of the whiner. :-)  This is the time of year I find that I have to search the back of my closet for my big girl pants and soldier on.  

Where does technology come into play here?  It is the first place I go to revamp our activities and break the monotony of the last couple of weeks before Spring Break.  We'll start with a trip to the computer lab to create Mixbooks or Prezis of our modern day versions of "The Passionate Shepherd" or "The Nymph's Reply".  My students LOVE the opportunity to look for images to go with their poetry and create presentations of how they see the courting process in the 21st century.  We're also headed into Shakespeare.  During our studies of Othello and A Midsummer Night's Dream I'm working on a project utilizing paper slide videos to retell scenes as a review.  I'm also thinking we'll use some online resources to explore Shakespeare's world. For now, I'll be using technology to attempt to immunize my senior babies for a few more weeks from the dreaded senioritis that seems to be killing off their motivation.  

Top ten reasons to become a Pinnacle Leader...

10. It will invigorate your teaching!

9. Getting to hang out with other tech geeks is a fantastic experience.

8.  It pulls you and your teaching out of the box.  (What do you mean you won't tell me EXACTLY what you want this to look like?)

7.  Your dermatologist will thank you for stepping away from the pool this summer.  :-)

6.  Exposure to so many options to incorporate technology into your existing lessons that you will just HAVE to do it!

5. Meeting people from different schools, levels, and subject areas helps you see where your subject fits in with what is going on in the years preceding/following your own.

4. Twitter is an approved professional learning community! whoop! whoop!

3. Blogging is great therapy and is free and encouraged!

2. Our tech facilitators are great people who have tons of good ideas, but don't always get the time to share what they'd like.  At Pinnacle, the crowd is receptive to tech and we have time to explore and integrate it into our lessons!

1.  Have you seen the stuff in my room?  My students are always impressed with the amount of technology in my room and with the fact that I know how to use it too.

*I'm apologizing for my tardiness in posting this.  I have no excuse, just forgot even with the reminder!*