Principal's Message - September 28, 2015

Monte Vista School

The Independent Learning Academy

Principal’s Message

September 28, 2015

“The influence of teachers extends beyond the classroom, well into the future. It is they who shape and enrich the minds of the young, who touch their hearts and souls. It is they who shape a nation's future.”

F. Sionil Jose

Monte Vista School is on Twitter! Become a follower and get all the last minute news, updates, and more!

@DrMVPsimivalley

This message as well as the past messages can be found on the Principal’s Blog:

http://drmvpblog.blogspot.com/

Good Afternoon and a pleasant Monday! We’re winding down September and October is knocking on the door.  October will not only bring us Halloween but a plethora of activities and events for Monte Vista students and staff.

Back to School Night is Thursday evening.  We’ll start the evening (6:00pm) off with a complementary MVP Dog dinner, then a quick welcome in the MPR followed by classroom visits. Brittany has been busy making gift baskets for our opportunity drawing and a few lucky ticket holders will be selected to have the ‘naming rights’ for a couple our incoming baby chickens.  There will also be a ‘Passport’ program for students and all ‘Passport’ completers will be put in a special drawing.  Please encourage your students and families to attend!

Spin Class at the YMCA starts this Thursday!  Best deal in town!  Let’s make sure the word gets out….9 weeks for only a suggested donation of $25!  Class starts at 3:30pm.

Thursday, October 8 (6pm) will be our introductory Floral Design class, all students, parents and staff are welcome to attend.  Our first project will be a fall sunflower arrangement.  Future classes have been scheduled for 10/29 & 11/19. To make sure we have enough flowers and materials, please RSVP in the front office by Tuesday, October 6^th.

The PSAT is nationwide test given by the College Board.  The test is sometimes thought as a ‘pre SAT’ and will provide sophomores and juniors with great college readiness information. However, juniors that do well on it can qualify for the National Merit Scholarship.  This year Monte Vista will provide our students the opportunity to take the PSAT at a reduced fee of $5 (the other schools are charging up to $25!) on October 14. Please encourage all of your sophomores and juniors to stop by the front office to sign-up for it!

Field Trip Time!  The Getty Museum trip is all set for October 19^th.  Spots are limited, so please send you’re interested students to the front office sooner than later.  I’m planning on attending as well, it’s going to be tough to keep me out of the gardens…especially the roof-top cacti display!

Our C & I (Curiosity & Imagination) room will have its official grand opening this Wednesday at 9am.  It’s designed for the primary students (a little guy’s Makespace Lab).  If you have secondary students that would like to help mentor the young students, please send them over.  And speaking of the Makerspace Lab, we have received our 1^st shipment of mini bots with more to come.  Hopefully we can find a volunteer to help man it…I know many of our secondary students are just itching to get in there and start to ‘make’.

Our garden is up and growing!  The first planter has been planted with fall veggies by our primary students.  Hopefully when the weather cools in a few days, we can get the other gardens up and planted….if you have students that want to get their hands dirty, send them my way.  Our volunteer, Mr Ed Garcia should be here next week and hopefully be hired by the county as our Agscience teacher before too long.

Start thinking about some Harvest Day Crafts for October 29^th.  We’re looking for crafts for both primary and secondary students.  Perhaps we can even do a dress up day (notice I didn’t say “costume day”).  Students can come dress up as a literature figure (ie, Bilbo Baggins, Harry Potter, etc) or even as a historical figure (Ben Franklin, Abe Lincoln, etc).  Let’s hash this idea around at our Friday’s staff meeting.

Thanks for all the great interest in supporting Paul and signing up for the Fiddler on the Roof.  Out of the 25 tickets I reserved, currently we only have 6 tickets left, if you have a friend or family member that would like to attend, let me know.  Also, we’ve decided to eat dinner at the Junkyard prior to the play.

Finally, they say “mum’s the word”.  Not true!  We have been getting the word out that Monte Vista is the place to be!  So please take a moment and respond to the Blog (http://drmvpblog.blogspot.com/) and tell us what makes Monte Vista special!  And if you do (teachers, staff, blog readers), I’ll show you what I mean when I say Mum’s the word!

Follow Monte Vista on Twitter*, keep smiling and let’s all make it a great week!

Steve  :)

Principal's Message - September 4, 2015

Monte Vista School

The Independent Learning Academy

Principal’s Message

September 4, 2015, 2015

“The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.” - Robert M. Hutchins

Monte Vista School is on Twitter! Become a follower and get all the last minute news, updates, and more!

@DrMVPsimivalley

This message as well as the past messages can be found on the Principal’s Blog:

http://drmvpblog.blogspot.com/

Good Afternoon and a Happy Friday!  August has come and gone and we have already completed 3 weeks of school.  Soon it will be Autumn and we’ll be enjoying cooler weather along with Fall colors.

Great article in today’s Acorn.  Monte Vista is certainly growing and making its mark in our community.  If you haven’t yet seen the article, here’s the link:

http://www.simivalleyacorn.com/news/2015-09-04/Front_Page/Independent_learning_on_the_rise.html

Earlier in the week, I met with Dr Morse from the county to discuss possible CTE programs for Monte Vista.  She relayed to me that there is some funding from the CTE grant for alternate schools and that Monte Vista could jump on the band wagon and develop a couple of pathways.  Two that come to mind are a Robotics/Technical & Art of Engineering as well as an Agriscience pathways.  If you know a retired/semi-retired engineer/computer type of person, let me know and we’ll see if they would like to teach a course!

Also, we still looking for parent volunteers, our Makerspace Lab (w/its new green screen) and a possible ‘gamification’ room could use a volunteer or 2 to help staff it.

Thanks to our volunteer, Elaine Hitchcock our library is now on Mondays from 12noon to 3:00pm and on Wednesdays from 9 to noon on Wednesdays.  If you’re going send a student over, give her a call to let her know that a student(s) are on their way.  Also, all of our students are invited to drop in to read, do research, use the computers and/or get lost in the wonderful world of books.

Besides the Library, here’s a list of the available labs and activities available for our students…please help get the word out!

Subject	Course/Grade Level	Day of the Week	Location	Time
Math	MS Math 6-8	Tuesday	Rm 9	11 – 12noon
	Algebra	Wednesday	Rm 9	11 – 12noon
	Alg/Geo/Alg2	Monday	Rm 16	11 – 1pm
	Alg/Geometry	Tuesday	Rm 16
	All Levels (APEX on line learning)	Wednesday	Rm 4	3 – 4:30pm
	Algebra	Thursday	Rm 16	10 - 12 noon
	Geo/Alg 2/and above	Thursday	Rm 7	2:45 – 4:45pm
English	Eng & Writing 6 -12	Monday	Rm 9	2 – 3pm
	Eng & Writing	Thursday	Rm 9	12noon -1pm
Foreign Language	Spanish 1	Tuesday	Rm 4	3:30 – 4:30pm
	Spanish 2 & 3	Thursday	Rm 4	3:30 – 4:30pm
	French 1	Tuesday	Rm 10	3:30 – 4:30pm
	French 2 & 3	Thursday	Rm10	3:30 – 4:30pm
Social Studies	History	Wednesday	Rm 9	11 -12noon
Science	Earth Sci Lab	Monday	Rm 6	12noon – 1pm
	Science Lab Help  K-12	Tuesday	Rm 6	12noon – 1pm
	Chemistry Lab	Wednesday	Rm 6	12noon – 1pm
	Biology Lab	Thursday	Rm 6	12noon – 1pm
Physical Ed	Yoga/Pilates	Monday	MPR	2 – 3pm
	Golf	Wednesday	MV Field	7 – 7:45am
	Spin	Thursday	YMCA	3:30 – 4:30pm
	Skateboarding	Tues & Thur	Skatelab	2 -3:30pm
Elementary Activities	Discovery Day	Wednesday	Rm 8	12:30 – 2pm
	Parent Directed	Friday	TBD	9     – 11:00am

Activities and labs to come:

            Floral Design - Monthly

            Gardening Day – Weekly

Gamification – Weekly

MakerSpace – Weekly

4H Meetings - Monthly

Follow Monte Vista on Twitter*, keep smiling and let’s not only all make it a great day but a fantastic 3 day weekend!

Steve  :)

http://ideafm.org/2015/01/18/twitter-101-links-tips-and-more/

*Yesterday I was facilitating a Twitter 101 Session at edcampLA and a couple of teachers who were new to twitter asked for a Twitter 101 or Twitter for beginners blog post. We didn’t have access to a projector screen in the session so I couldn’t show them any posts during the session, so I promised them I would send them a link. Instead of just sending them to one spot I thought I’d post a bunch of links below that are curated by me since I use Twitter a ton and help run two Twitter Chats. So below are some links, tips and thoughts about Twitter that I will update as often as I can.

MY TWO BIGGEST TIPS ON GETTING PEOPLE TO FOLLOW YOU BACK ON TWITTER ARE:

1. Make sure you have a picture of you in your profile, fill out your bio, and use a header image that gives people a little glimpse of who you are or what you like. Passion is contagious so showing people what you are passionate about in your bio helps find like-minded people.

And here are few other examples:

Twitter Headers

Chris Long loves kettle bells, Eric Saibel Loves Travel and Adventure, Sean Ziebarth loves biking and his blue bug, and Alice Keeler loves her kids so much she will hold them in her arms while she is presenting and still rock it.

Lastly, please tweet out six pictures as soon as possible. I can tell what you are like very quickly just by looking at the picture share part of your Twitter account. I make the majority of my “follow” decisions by looking at your photo shares and by seeing if you are interacting with me.

You can see by Sean Ziebarth’s shares on the left he likes people, silliness, taking pictures of his friend Greg eating four donuts and music. You can see that Jodie Morgenson, on the right, LOVES being silly and is a positive person. As I said in my blog post on taking better photos, you can quickly see into a person’s soul when you see how they look at the world.

There are lots of Twitter accounts, even teacher accounts, that I consider SPAM accounts. SPAM accounts are those that just share relentlessly without actually interacting with other Twitter users. Worse yet are those that will only share things that they have done or are a part of. Don’t be like that.

No one worth their salt cares how many people follow you on Twitter. Heck anyone can buy fake Twitter followers. If you want more followers provide value that people appreciate. Point out other’s victories. Post other people’s blog posts. Find useful tools and resources and share them. Interact. That’s the most important part, remember it’s called SOCIAL media. Be sociable, have fun, be a good friend, not a good network.

WOLF

LAST BUT NOT LEAST: Please, please, don’t lock your Twitter account (keep it private) unless you are on the run from the mafia, and then maybe you just shouldn’t be on Twitter.

TWITTER BASICS:

Great Tip by Alice Keeler on how to get a group of people to sign up for Twitter while bypassing all the sign-up steps.

Twitter 101 article by Jeff Dunn on Edudemic

One question I hear from Twitter newbies is how do you follow conversations in Twitter. When you click on a Tweet, if people have replied to the Tweet you will see the entire conversation thread. I going to post a few other observations under the next picture.

Twitter Thread 2

When you click on a Tweet you will see that it has its own shareable url that you can share, link to in a blog post or presentation or do tasks with it.

There are three circles at the bottom of a Tweet. If you click on it…

You can share a Tweet via email, Mute the user without unfollowing them (sneaky) or report a Spammer or inappropriate tweet.

Here is the conversation thread

By putting Twitter handles in your tweet your message will not only show up in the reader of the people that you follow, but the people whose Twitter handles you put in the message will see your message in a special area called “Notifications.”

Here is where you click to see your Notifications. If there are tweets in here, people really want you to see what you Tweeted. When I’m busy sometimes I will only look at my Notifications.

TWITTER CHATS:

How To Survive And Thrive In A Twitter Chat.

A list of educational Twitter chats by day, hour, and subject.

TWITTER IN THE CLASSROOM:

Using Twitter Chats In The Classroom Or As An Assessment Tool.

WHO TO FOLLOW ON TWITTER:

If you go to the lists section of my Twitter account you can see that I keep a curated list of people to follow on Twitter by subject taught, grade level, and their role in education. It’s a great list, seriously.

Alice Keeler’s List of Teachers by Subject Area on Twitter.

 UPDATE 2/18/2015:

I had a friend ask me “What do you do on Twitter, how do you use it daily?”

That’s a good question:

Here are a few things you should try on Twitter either once a day or once a week.

Share a picture of your classroom.

Share a picture of some student work.

Share a picture of a process or tradition you have in your class, give a short explanation.

Share a quote or song that is guiding you lately.

Ask a question to a subject area hashtag like #engchat or #tweatre

Ask a question of a teacher you don’t know.

Share a link to a resource, website or video that worked in class.

Share a link to a Google doc or Google Presentation that you used in class.

Share when a student says something awesome.

Share when a co-worker says or does something nice or awesome.

I’ll think of more, but hopefully that gives you something to do on Twitter besides sharing pictures of your food and talking about famous people.

The shortlink to this blog post is: bit.ly/twitter101forteachers

Sean Ziebarth and I did a training/presentation for the College Board on using Twitter as a Professional Development tool/strategy. Here is our presentation on using Twitter as a Professional Development tool.  Or you can use this shortlink to the presentation: bit.ly/twitterpdpresentation