Nanci+Dettra

roposal Project__** My project proposal will be a wikispace created for the use of the elementary teachers at Merritt Island Christian School. Faculty and staff members will be able to add pertinent information on to the wikispace entitled Flamingofeatures. The initial purpose of the space was to encourage my faculty to become more comfortable and experienced in the use of this new technology. The site is set up for teachers to add their favorite teaching tips, favorite teacher web sites, prayer and praise requests and photos of elementary events. I will continue to develop this space, but I hope to see it develop into a group project. I presented the format of the site, Flamingofeatures, to my faculty in a teacher’s meeting. Two teachers have since added information to the space. I am a bit disappointed with the lack of interest. Our school’s curriculum focus for this school year is The Six Traits of Writing. I will encourage my faculty to submit lesson plans and comments on their use of The Six Traits of Writing. This will be a teaching/learning project. I will continue to use my teacher meetings as a training time for my faculty. I plan on using web-based text as well as slides to with this project. To motivate them in submitting lesson plans and comments I will design a Flamingo Contest. I hope to see this space used by my faculty as a great communication tool for sharing teacher expertise. I would like to have feedback on this proposal. Is this acceptable? __JOURNAL PAGE__ Today, Sunday, September 30th, I attempted to create my new wiki space, called FlamingoFeatures. I need to resize the large picture of the Flamingo members. I will work on that tomorrow. I have attempted many times to make the photo smaller but I have had no luck. I found two interesting tech tools for teachers that I would like to attempt to add to my space. One is __BubbleShare__ where you combine digital pictures with narration using the free digital story telling tool.I would, also, like to add a calendar to organize my groups' special events. I found one on Google Calendar. Anybody seen another one that would work? Nanci: you may need to re-size the photo using a photo editing program on your own machine before you add it to the page. another device I have used is to create a table, 1 column and one row, drop the photo into the table and then shrink the size of the table cell by grabbing the corner of the photo and pulling it in. Regarding calendars, Google is all that I have used. However, in the widgets (see the tv screen icon above) there are three choices for calendars, so you have at least two more you can try. By the way, I deliberately shrunk your photo below by clicking on the corner and pulling in. I did this to demo the possibility of reducing a large photo. You can wipe out my text here and re-size the picture manually or by going to the history tab and selecting a previous version of the page to save as the current version. October 2nd, I re-sized my photos, added more teacher categories and learned how to "link" web sites. October 3rd, I presented my wikispace, __FlamingoFeatures__, to my faculty and staff and asked if they would help contribute to it. I think there will be many additions, soon. My next step is to add the calendar. I think I will attempt to add the Google Calendar. October 9th, I added three teacher/student links to __FlamingoFeatures.__ In meeting with a former, Ohio teacher /friend we exchanged some helpful elementary sites and tips. These three links are her favorites. The link, __Starfind__, is exceptional! October 10th, I added a photo of our elementary PE teacher dressed up for one of our Homecoming events. October 14th, On the wiki site I added the new topic areas of: The Six Traits of Writing Lesson Plan section and Teacher Comments and questions pertaining to The Six Traits of Writing.
 * __Nanci's school site
 * Jeanette's Journal** - I went to OurPrayer.com by Guidepost. I found the responses from writers who wanted to share their answered prayers quite inspiring. I love Norman Vincent Peale and appreciated his comments. I would, personally, be a bit hesitant in sharing my prayer request to unknown individuals. I think this is where you will be investigating the risks and limitations of these sites. This will be an interesting project, Jeanette. I look forward in reading your results.
 * Tim's Journal** - I was interested in seeing what Tim Porter was doing on his wiki site. It sounds like his intentions are similar to mine. I went to his wiki site and will continue to go to it to check out the responses he receives, as well as, his input.
 * October 23**, Today I added a Google calendar and another silly flamingo icon to my wiki. I am excited about my upcoming Elementary Teacher's Meeting, tomorrow. All classroom teachers were given an assignment to design a lesson plan for The Six Traits of Writing or find a Six Trait's of Writing website with a lesson plan for their grade level. They have been instructed to come to the computer lab in the morning to add their lesson plan to our wiki. Every teacher, and let's hope it is EVERY TEACHER, who brings a lesson plan will have their name put into a Flamingo Bowl (appropriate for the site!) for a chance to win a $25.00 Carrabba's gift certificate. This should boost my site and hopefully boost their confidence in adding items in the future to Flamingo Features!
 * October 28**, Updated the calendar and "tweaked" some areas. Now that my wikispace is up, it has proven extremely easy to manage. I appreciate Scot introducing me to "wikis". As my new superintendent said, when he saw my wikispace, "Let's get wiki with it!"
 * October 30**, Added prayer request and a teacher's Six Traits of Writing site.
 * November 5**, Updated prayer requests, Six Trait's web site, and calendar. Finally got the diigo toolbar attached. I began to comment with highlighting and sticky notes on //Teaching Through a Mirror Dimly: Partnering with Christ to Overcome Self.// Our school internet site has been down and I have had to go back and forth about five times. I was successful with what I did add.
 * November 6,** I added November faculty birthdays with photos and clip art. I added a link for Christmas Cookies from a former favorite teacher of mine. I added a link and photo of the lady who will be doing our school in-service on Friday.
 * November 13**, I updated the google calendar and edited some sites and comments.
 * November 27**, I created 5 new pages: a link to the elementary weekly calendar, the recent pictures of the Flamingo Bahamas Cruise, pictures of the Third Grade History Log Cabins, pictures of Melissa Forney's vocabulators and pictures of Melissa's writng satchel. I spent over an hour trying to recreate a page I lost. (I have no idea how I lost it!) I had just spent at least an hour creating it. I was very frustrated!! I updated the Google calendar. I created a new topic for the site: a photo of the winning elementary November bulletin board.

I had the opportunity to be the "special reader" at our Barnes and Noble on Monday, September 17th. The two singled out, adorable chidlren are my grandchildren!

Every student that attended received a "homework pass". This event goes on each night. Tonight, September 19th, is a special program with one of our upper school teachers on Christianity and The Lord of the Rings.



Here are my three grandchildren. Raeanne is 1 years old. Nathan just turned 3. Baby Trey is five weeks old in this picture.

Raeanne's daddy is the head football coach at Merritt Island Christian School. Her mother, a third grade teacher at MICS, was a cheerleader in high school and college. She thought it would be fun to dress Raeanne as a cheerleader. As you can see, Raeanne does not appreciate being a cheerleader! (She is our strong willed granddaughter!)