State Testing
This week was the Alaska State standardized testing week. That’s right, every school in the state of Alaska participated in testing this week. Testing ran from Tuesday thru Friday (Tue-Reading; Wed-Writing; Thur-Math; and Fri-Science). As a teacher, it is my responsibility to be a proctor. My assignment for this week was to proctor the High School Graduation Qualifying Exam (HSGQE) taken by all 10th graders. This is a very important exam for students. As the title suggests, they must pass this exam in order to graduate from high school. Proctoring an exam as important as this one comes with a few extra tasks for the proctor, but the trade-offs are great because the students usually are very focused and don’t cause any trouble because they know what is at stake. All our exams start a little before 10:00 am and run until the student is finished. This usually takes until 2:00-2:30. I only proctored Tuesday and Wednesday because I was sent to Anchorage. Kaitlyn dusted off her old teacher shoes and filled in for me on Thursday and Friday. Kaitlyn asked our good friends, the Crabtrees, if they would be willing to watch Kaylee for the two days. They love Kaylee and are always ecstatic when we ask them to sit for us, which is usually few and far between. Apparently, Kaylee had a blast too. Below are a few pictures from her time there.
This week was the Alaska State standardized testing week. That’s right, every school in the state of Alaska participated in testing this week. Testing ran from Tuesday thru Friday (Tue-Reading; Wed-Writing; Thur-Math; and Fri-Science). As a teacher, it is my responsibility to be a proctor. My assignment for this week was to proctor the High School Graduation Qualifying Exam (HSGQE) taken by all 10th graders. This is a very important exam for students. As the title suggests, they must pass this exam in order to graduate from high school. Proctoring an exam as important as this one comes with a few extra tasks for the proctor, but the trade-offs are great because the students usually are very focused and don’t cause any trouble because they know what is at stake. All our exams start a little before 10:00 am and run until the student is finished. This usually takes until 2:00-2:30. I only proctored Tuesday and Wednesday because I was sent to Anchorage. Kaitlyn dusted off her old teacher shoes and filled in for me on Thursday and Friday. Kaitlyn asked our good friends, the Crabtrees, if they would be willing to watch Kaylee for the two days. They love Kaylee and are always ecstatic when we ask them to sit for us, which is usually few and far between. Apparently, Kaylee had a blast too. Below are a few pictures from her time there.
Going Google
A few weeks ago I was hired as the district Secondary Education Specialist, which oversees curriculum development & technology integration for grades 6-12. One of the items that I will be overseeing is the deployment and training of Google Apps for Education within the district. The district office sent me to Anchorage, with another district office guy, Kyle Schneider, to attend the training.
The training was titled “Google Apps Boot Camp” and was all about becoming a Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer. This requires taking and passing a series of Google apps exams, providing a few videos of you training someone how to do something, and generally being a good representative for Google. I must say, that I totally have drunk the Google Kool Aid. I really like some of the stuff they offer. This fall I will be offering Google Apps professional development to staff members and introducing them to all the wonderful things they can do with Google in their classrooms. It’ll be great!
4 Months
Kaylee is officially 4 months old. She hit her mile stone on Friday of this week. She weighed in at 16lb 4oz and a whole bunch of inches long. She is something great. She is a very happy baby. She loves to smile and she’s starting to giggle and squeal a lot, which makes playing with her so much fun. Kaitlyn and I are simply having a blast being parents. Sure there’s a little screaming, fussing, and tired mornings, but we wouldn’t trade this for nothin’!
Move to Dillingham - Update
Kaitlyn has been working hard on finding us a place to live in Dillingham for next year. She’s lined up a bunch of apartments and houses for us to check out. It’s getting really exciting. We have started packing up non-essentials and begun shipping things over to Dillingham a couple boxes at a time. One of my bosses, Steve Noonkesser, offered to let us use some of his basement space to store our belongings while we work on trying to find a place to live. It’s great. In addition to house shopping, we have been car shopping. We found out that shipping a car from Seattle is the same price as shipping a car from Anchorage. So, we’re currently looking for SUV’s to buy in Seattle to ship out in the beginning of the summer. All in all, we’re very excited to move to Dillingham and start phase 3 in our marriage.
A few weeks ago I was hired as the district Secondary Education Specialist, which oversees curriculum development & technology integration for grades 6-12. One of the items that I will be overseeing is the deployment and training of Google Apps for Education within the district. The district office sent me to Anchorage, with another district office guy, Kyle Schneider, to attend the training.
The training was titled “Google Apps Boot Camp” and was all about becoming a Google Apps for Education Certified Trainer. This requires taking and passing a series of Google apps exams, providing a few videos of you training someone how to do something, and generally being a good representative for Google. I must say, that I totally have drunk the Google Kool Aid. I really like some of the stuff they offer. This fall I will be offering Google Apps professional development to staff members and introducing them to all the wonderful things they can do with Google in their classrooms. It’ll be great!
4 Months
Kaylee is officially 4 months old. She hit her mile stone on Friday of this week. She weighed in at 16lb 4oz and a whole bunch of inches long. She is something great. She is a very happy baby. She loves to smile and she’s starting to giggle and squeal a lot, which makes playing with her so much fun. Kaitlyn and I are simply having a blast being parents. Sure there’s a little screaming, fussing, and tired mornings, but we wouldn’t trade this for nothin’!
Move to Dillingham - Update
Kaitlyn has been working hard on finding us a place to live in Dillingham for next year. She’s lined up a bunch of apartments and houses for us to check out. It’s getting really exciting. We have started packing up non-essentials and begun shipping things over to Dillingham a couple boxes at a time. One of my bosses, Steve Noonkesser, offered to let us use some of his basement space to store our belongings while we work on trying to find a place to live. It’s great. In addition to house shopping, we have been car shopping. We found out that shipping a car from Seattle is the same price as shipping a car from Anchorage. So, we’re currently looking for SUV’s to buy in Seattle to ship out in the beginning of the summer. All in all, we’re very excited to move to Dillingham and start phase 3 in our marriage.
