Because I know nothing...and I mean that!

This is a screenshot of a table found on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website.

I pulled this up today because I was curious as to the job market our students (who are currently picking out their outfits to walk in our doors next week) will be facing as they enter the job market.  

The news looks as good as I expected it to; however, I'm kind of startled by the number of health care professionals that are going to be required to care for our aging boomer population.  I am fascinated by the amount of technology heavy jobs that are predicted.  I feel once again reassured that I am on the right path in my career and that teaching with computers could make a positive difference in a student's future.  

I'm threading together several lines here, so please bear with me.  Many, many things are coming to fruition in my career and I'm athrill with anticipation of a great year.

Going into the big adventure, I just want to remember the great words of Socrates, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing."  As I continue with this unit for the first time, I will be repeating this line as a mantra.  

Gamification Meeting

In an ongoing effort to "meet our students where they are" Mr. Loomis, Mr. Bernardt, and Ms. Lambert and I met to go over our plans for the gamification of the grammar unit.  So far, we are agreed that

• There is a digitalization process and a gamification process and they are seperate.
• The main goal of the implementation of this self-paced and guided section of the curriculum is to engage the students and ease the grading burden for teachers.

Here's the next to the last sketch of how I see the game and the digitalization to work. 

I know it looks crazy, but this is my plan and since I know nothing,

It breaks down like this.  For each unit in the grammar curriculum, students will be assigned a pre-test to evaluate previous knowledge. After they do the pre-test, the computer will prescribe them either "Battles" to complete to get points for their h ouse OR if they make a perfect score, Schoology will ask them to complete at least ONE creative project.  After they have completed the course work on grammar, they will be assigned a "Boss Battle" with me (formative test).
There are a lot of flaws as we start out; however, I'm please with the progress so far.  

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