Good Morning!

In order to get ourselves going this morning take 2 minutes, respond to this post in 6 lines or more and describe what you are currently working towards achieving (professionally or personally).

The climate in education right now is a difficult one, it hurts me to hear so many amazing teachers sound so disheartened, burnt out and on the brink of walking away. It kills me to hear students echoing similar sentiments. Many of your that have looked at my “About Me” page or read any of my former students blogs know that I love to run. I use the Nike Run App because of the head trainer that does so many of the guided runs. Coach Chris Bennett has helped me push through a lot of barriers that I never thought I would be able to push through and recently I have kept hearing him say “This is About Running and This is Not About Running”. I am not trying to minimize or dismiss anyone’s feelings because they are valid since you feel them. I would only ask that you keep this in the back of your mind. “It’s not always going to be easy but it is really important to remember that it’s not always going to be hard”. Thank you Coach Bennett for that, it has helped carry me through difficult runs and difficult days. I hope that the hard doesn’t last too much longer for those of you that feel overwhelmed. Until next time Happy Blogging!

The past month has just flown by and I have been way too absent from this blog. If you check out Twitter @KMcCray85 you will be able to see all of the awesome risks that the teachers have been taking and the amazing experiences that our students have gotten to experience. As we come to the end of the first full week in October there just never seems to be enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that I want to get done. This is shaping up to be an exciting school year as we keep moving forward with meaningfully integrating technology, identifying new opportunities for our students, and a more transdisciplinary appoach to education. Stay Tuned and Happy Blogging!

I cannot believe that this year marks my 10th year in education! It has been such a wild ride from “knowing” at a very early age that I was going to be a law enforcement officer, achieving that goal, and realizing that it was not what I meant to do. Going back to school, earning my certification, two master’s degrees, and multiple certifications (contemplating a doctorate) and finding where I really feel like I belong. I no longer have my own classroom but this role as an Instructional Technology Specialist allows me to have a hand in all classrooms and watching how excited the kiddos get when they write something, share it with the world or write their codes and watch the bot go through it just lets me know that I am moving in the write direction. Thank you all for coming along with my classes on this journey and as we progress more into the year we will be adding some new kiddos to our class blog so that they can share out all of their amazing creations! Until next time, Happy Blogging!

What a whirlwind this past year has been! I know it has been a while but there has been so much going on! I was able to secure funding from a national grant to bring coding robots to the elementary schools for the Waynesboro Area School District and I have been busy with more graduate work as well as preparing to instruct some professional development classes that are starting next week. Even though I am not currently in the classroom this blog is NOT going anywhere. When my schedule starts to slow down I will take some time and see how we can still make this an effective place for students to share their work and make global connections. Until next time…Happy Blogging!

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard” I have always loved this quote and a lot of you guys put in the effort into your projects that you shared today. Thank you for sharing your work, not only with me but with other kiddos around the world. Remember that our work is not trapped in side the four walls of our classroom or even the building. Keep up the excellent work and I am so excited to see what else you create and come up with!!

geralt / Pixabay

Today is the day! A brand new class of students are gong to start to make global connections with their work! The world is not nearly as large as it was when I was in school. How cool is it that with a few key strokes and the push of a button, our work goes from being confined on our computers in the four walls of our classroom to being available for the whole world to see. Let’s see how many new people we can reach and inspire with our work! Happy Blogging!

I cannot wait unit Friday, February 12th! My new position has taken me out of my own classroom but allows me to work with all different grade levels and amazing teachers. Next week one of those amazing teachers is taking the leap into blogging using this site! The blogs are set and ready to filled with amazing work and demonstrations of understanding. It would be awesome if some of you folks could pop into some of their blogs and leave them an encouraging message BEFORE they even get started! I love this part of education and watching kiddos take on something new and finding ways to teach me something new about a platform or piece of tech that I have used for years. This is the start of an awesome journey for these guys and I am so thankful that I get to be a part of it! Until next time…Happy Blogging!

I can’t believe it has been almost 5 months since our last post on this blog. I cannot even begin to describe what we have been through. The layout of our blog is going to change a little bit in the future. I made the extremely difficult decision to leave the classroom at the beginning of December. Educational Technology has been my passion for years as I am sure it has been evident in all the bragging I have done about my kiddos when they excelled in coding, engineering, and being just all around awesome little human beings. I am now the Instructional Technology Specialist for my home school district and I couldn’t be happier. I miss my kiddos but I am loving working with teachers K-5 and helping such a wider range of students explore, implement and grow with the use of technology in the classroom. I will be posting more pictures and information about the awesome risks this new staff I am with is taking as well as adding a new group of kiddos in the near future to our blog, so please stay tuned and comment on all the awesome work that is coming soon!

Welcome to a new 5th grade year! This year is not starting out like most other years but what an exciting time to be in school! Our distance learning schedule is set and we are going to make the most out of this opportunity. Throughout the course of this year our blogs are going to be more important and play a bigger role in our learning as we share what we have learned and created with the entire world! I cannot wait to get this year underway and share what we learn and create as well as learn from what others have created. T-minus 2 weeks and as always Happy Blogging!