Susan Gaboriau

Friday, April 12, I had the pleasure of spending the day with a great group of educators! They are making a change in education! Media Specialists from all over North Florida came together to share the wonderful things happening in their media centers. They showcased how they are helping students and teachers learn skills for future jobs in fun and innovative ways. Suzanne Buckles from Kelley Smith Elementary School and I showcased Dash and Dot, Ozobots, Lego Mindstorms EV3, WeDo, Bloxels, and STEAM Park. It was a great day of learning and sharing across North Florida, very inspiring! @LibMakerFest

Classrooms across the district have been sharing and collaborating through Hangouts. One of our fifth grade teachers wrote a grant for a weather station and invited all fifth grade classroom in the district to check it out through Google Hangouts! We had four classes participate! The students from the other classes were excited to see other fifth graders in the district and had great question! What a great way to bring the district together!

I wonder... where will education be five years from now? I have personally seen many teachers hang up their hats in teaching. In the district I work in and many district around the state of Florida. You may say or think, they were not good teachers, but they were. They worked hard every day to help their students be successful. They arrived at work early, stayed late, and you could find them at the school on weekends. They truly cared about their students and wanted to give them the best education they possibly could. Unfortunately, due to many obstacles out of their control, they chose to leave the profession. Not only are teachers leaving the profession, but new teachers are not entering the profession. According to the Orlando Sentinel in January 2019, they wrote, "Halfway through the school year, Florida's public schools need to hire 2,217 teachers to fill open jobs in classrooms across the state, a sign of Florida's growing teacher shortage, according to the stat

Winter Olympics is just around the corner! There is so much you can do in the classroom surrounding the o Olympics in all subject areas. From reading about the athletes, the history of the Olympics, math from simple arithmetic to calculus, to the science behind the Olympics, all tied to standards. Writing is a big part and should be integrated throughout all subject areas. In our class, we always start off the Olympics with students creating teams, I allow them to choose who they will work with. They create a name, logo and poster for their team. We then have the opening ceremony. The teams walk through the school carrying the homemade torch to the class where the teams are introduced. We then learn about the country hosting the Olympics. Students have plenty of choices, they choose which athlete(s) or winter game(s) they want to learn about. Then they begin their journey. We have fun friendly challenges for the teams to win their medals, which are given out at the end of each c

Here is the green screen studio we set up in one of our elementary schools! The gifted teacher started using the room with the 2nd - 5th grade students. They are making story boards and learning how to use the cameras, download their footage and edit it in iMovie. Some of the students are using photos for their background and others are drawing the background. They are excited to be in their own pictures. Check back for updates on how the green screen studio works out!

There is a lot happening in our county! Summer Professional Development started off with over 60 elementary school teachers attending Code.org Training. It is exciting to see so many teachers ready to implement code in their classroom next year! We are also starting Makerspaces in our media centers! Folllow us as we take this journey.