Go!

Well today was the big day. It seems like most of the students got off to a good start and Kendall and I are both amazed by how great our students seem to be this year. I'm just afraid that there might not be any room for improvement as the year progresses. Today was pretty light as far as curriculum and material. We'll be starting math review concepts tomorrow and into the coming weeks while science will be devoted mostly to training the students how to use the technology we have at our disposal here at HTM (which is considerable). Tomorrow we've got an all community meeting (which should be revealing as to the overall attitude of the student body) in which the teachers will propose their X-Block offerings for the first semester. I can only assume the students will be making their selections on line at some point in the following days. The next few days for our team will consist of some good team building activities as we try to ensure that every student enjoys at least one good relationship with a classmate during the early part of the year. I'm hoping to have a couple of students contribute their thoughts here tomorrow and in the days to follow as well. The year has begun at last, we're going to have an amazing time together! -Mr. H

Get Set...

Well, we're just a weekend away from the first day of school and the optimism around this place is getting really infectious. It was great to get to see all of the incoming students on Wednesday and yesterday we all got to see the returning students too, so the finish line (starting line?) is definately approaching fast. Earlier this week all the teachers attended an inservice workshop put on by the Buck Institute about designing successful projects, and while I might not have walked out of the place with a concrete plan for a project from start to finish, I did leave with a refined sense of the procedures that can be employed to develop a well-designed project. For this school year I'm hoping to employ some of the lessons I learned during last year and orient all of my projects around a beginning proposal, intermittant critiques, and a concluding reflection. I'm currently working on an outline for what a generic proposal might include so that the entire sixth grade can be consistent across all the classes, so I'll be sure to post on my DP what we all come up with (hopefully later today). In the meantime, I hope everybody took notice of my redesigned site. I've been lending a hand to some of the faculty in setting up their DPs and realized with some disappointment that they were all going to be a lot better than mine. So I took a few hours last week and made myself a new template. The content is pretty much the same, but I'll be adding some photographs as soon as the school year starts to spice things up a bit. Can't wait to work with the kids and help them design their own sites. -Mr. H

Get Ready....

Well, a new year here at HTM is nearly upon us. I've actually been coming in to set up my class since Monday, but was finally able to find the time to set up my blog just today (albeit at 7pm). I've decided to post my blog here this year for a few reasons, not the least of which is so it will still be accessible by the students in the event of our HTM server going down (almost a sure thing at some point in the year), but also because I'll be able to update this blog when I'm away from school if need be. Some of you may eventually snoop around and find the other blogs I've registered with this site, and if you're so inclined you're more than welcome to read about the fascinating world of educational flash movies in China, but this particular blog space will be reserved for matters concerning my classes at HTM (science and math at least, I might start another one for Robots). Another nice feature of the site that was unavailable in last year's blog is the ability of readers (most likely parents and students) to comment on my blog entries. You may want to tread carefully here though, as unscrupulous individuals may sieze this opportunity to publicly shame themselves. Now that I think about it, I should probably see if that feature can be removed.... In any case, I'm already getting excited about the upcoming year and hope to see everyone very soon (but not too soon, I've still got a lot of stuff to unpack). Until next time -Mr. H