Sketchnotes; a Gift From Scholastic; Conferences & Student Goals with a Smile!

My 1st Wow! is about Sketchnotes; more specifically Sylvia Duckworth's Sketchnotes...if you don't follow her on Twitter, I would highly recommend following her!...maybe I should have called this one a WOW! because that is how I feel when I look at her collection of sketch notes!...here are just a FEW of her amazing sketchnotes:

 ~notice this collage does not have my usual TABT logo on it because all I did was put 6 of HER sketchnotes together...if you click on the image above it will take you to her Flickr photo stream...she has so many great ones that make me think, inspire me, and connect with me in a different way than other media...maybe one day I will try to sketchnote as well!...I liked what she had so much that I downloaded around 60 of them!!...I plan to use them to help me to think differently & to inspire my fellow staff members!

 I received a book order this week and I was so excited about the gift they included for me in the order!!!  I love the color, the quotes, & the finger & thumb tips that work on my gadgets!!  So nice to get a little something unexpected, thank you Scholastic!

Yesterday ALL day we had parent conferences & we had a short day today with conferences after the students left...I am pretty wiped out, they went well, but are quite draining...part of our conference is to include going over a parent/teacher/student compact...it has preprinted expectations in each column, and spots for goals for the student...in class we had brainstormed about different goals they could choose; turning in their homework, mastering the multiplication facts, take more AR quizzes, improve on test scores, etc...they were welcome to come up with one of their own if they chose to...then at the conference the parent chooses a goal & I choose a goal for the child to work on.  I was very proud of how self reflective my students were...they chose very appropriate goals for their current challenges...as I was going through them yesterday and saw the one below my mind was trying to figure out what the child could have possibly meant by 'white heater'...I was at a loss...this morning I looked at it, I guess I had my 'teacher glasses' on because I suddenly saw 'write neater'!!! Very appropriate goal!! 

Now, 1/2 day tomorrow, then school Friday, & after school I will be taking off with a few other teachers from my school for an EdTech Summit on GAFE {Google Apps For Education}...I am SUPER excited & I am sure I will be blogging about it!