Well, we made it! 2020 is behind us. What a long haul!! But 2021 is going to be incredible! And here are a couple of great ways you can start your teaching year. Free conference? Yes please! Internationally recognized speakers? Um, yeah! Hours of amazing sessions with rock star presenters? YESSSS!!! PD in your PJs? Absolutely! Here's what's out there for you.

This is a FREE conference from 8-11 January 2021. Seven videos will be released on each day and will be viewable for  24 hours. BUT you can still access the videos after the weekend with a pass.
I have a BRAND NEW session for this conference that I am psyched about: "2 Weeks in a FLES Classroom." I walk through what two weeks look like in my kindergarten classes, and older grades. It has some concrete steps, simple ideas, and important things to consider when structuring your classes. Oh, and there are some super fun Brain Breaks!

There are a couple of ways you can access the videos for "Practical and Comprehensible." The first is to register to watch the videos for the 24 hours they are up on the site; that is completely and totally free. BUT you can also purchase the All Access Pass* for only $27, and THAT which grants you lifetime access to the videos!! 

This is my second year presenting for Comprehended! (formerly "Comprehensible Online"). The format this year is a little different, and I think it's going to be great! The conference begins on 13 February 2021, and  you can purchase a three, six, or nine month pass, with the option to purchase extensions! How cool is that?!  
I have three sessions: a pre-recorded video on reading strategies for younger students with the extraordinary Kristen Wolf (La Loba Lista) We make a killer team! My other sessions are two of my "regulars" and will be live with Q&A. So come join me to talk Clip Chat (sometimes known as Movie Talk) and elementary curriculum design. I have received A LOT of positive feedback about both of these presentations and I'm happy to be able to do them again.
This is a conference chock full of sessions on strategies, research, demos, grading and assessment, curriculum, and more, you can check out the program here. But prices rise in two weeks, so go sign up now!

I have been a SmartBoard-o-phile for years. YEARS. I was the first person in my school to procure one, and it changed my life. I loved all of the interactive possibilities: the screen shade, the "lock and move" feature, the "click and appear" animation. I cannot begin to tell you how many Notebook files I have. Notebook is the amazing software for the SmartBoard, though I know teachers without SmartBoards who have used it.

OK, for iOS, you have two options. The easiest way is to simply export the NB file in PDF format. You lose the interactivity, but if that doesn't matter to you, then this is a fine solution. The other, which I mention in my video, involves a website called Smart Notebook Viewer and Reader. But, to be honest, I have no idea why anyone would bother with this; it basically gives you the same thing as a PDF file, except you're viewing it in a browser window. (The first thing I discovered for Mac users would have brought the pages of a NB file into GS as images, but if you watch the video, you'll see that it just doesn't work.)
So, grab yourself a cup of coffee, settle down on the couch with something brainless on TV (don't tell anyone, but my guilty pleasure is RBOBH!), and set up your PC to do some file converting!
Good luck, and let me know how it goes.
Bises.

But the bad? It's really not so much bad as sad. There's no way on earth that I can provide the same opportunities for acquiring French in two week chunks, with an hour a day.  It's just not possible. (I'm used to minimum 90 minutes a week with each grade, spread out over the week.) There is the possibility of structuring an art project or a library lesson that will wrap up "neatly" in 14 days. However, that can't happen with language. I do not mean this to belittle my specials colleagues. But in this regard French is, well, special. You would never ask a child to practice writing or reading for a concentrated period of time, and then have them stop for six times as long. ​Logistically, it works fine. Realistically, it's a nightmare. And it breaks my heart to see a huge part of my identity, being a French teacher, disappear. I'm working, but I'm not doing my job.

But in a conversation with my therapist earlier this week (he's a GENIUS!), he said something that was simple yet profound, and really made me look at this year with a different lens. I'm paraphrasing, but he basically said, don't think of it as a lost year, think of it as a sabbatical. Hmmm....sabbatical? I let that sink in for several seconds. (And I'm someone who HATES silence!) And he's right. There's no way I can compare this year to past years. Therefore, I need to think about this year as unfamiliar territory. If I approach my lessons, my interactions with students, and my time in the classroom with the same perspective as I have approached every other year, I'm bound to be frustrated, sad, and even angry. I have known from the beginning that I would not cover nearly the same amount of material than in a normal year, but the reality of how it is playing out was a punch in the gut. I put emphasis on the word "was." I now look at my days at school in a unique way, and it has helped me to come to terms with what I'm not able to do and embrace what it is that I experience and observe. 

I have a long way to go on this journey but I am proud to get up and start running, and I will never shy away from that. I know I am late to the game, but I have ordered White Fragility and How to be an Antiracist, which I will be reading and discussing with friends and colleagues when they are no longer on backorder. (If you do not own them yet, consider ordering them from these black owned bookstores). I donated to the GoFundMe to help save The Frugal Bookstore in Massachusetts. I just learned about We Buy Black and will explore it in depth. I set a monthly donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center. I pledge to continue to educate myself and move forward. This is an incredible list of action steps for white people to work towards racial justice. On Monday, I will contact my legislators (by phone, NOT by email) to tell them to advocate for criminal justice reform, civilian oversight of police, and the allocation of taxpayer funds towards community services. And finally, I will continue to VOTE.