It is official, I am going to work for Google! The position was brought to my attention by Dan Meyer and after a wonderful interview process at the Googleplex, I am going to be the new Curriculum Fellow.
While many would think this would be a no-brainer, I wrestled with this decision for many days. While the job and the workplace is a dream come true, I love my job and my robotics team and it pained me to think of leaving. I have made the most of the situation by committing myself to be their virtual mentor for the foreseeable future. While we do need someone physically there, I am too intertwined to the process to even think of how I would be able to remove myself (nor do I want to). So that is how I have made my peace with that.
I am so happy that I get every teacher's wish, more time. I have been working for years piece by piece to create a computationally enriched science and math curriculum but between robotics and the daily classes, it has moved at a snails pace. Since that is what I was hired to do by Google, I cannot wait to provide the challenge more focus. No longer do I have to work on the car while it's running so to speak.
My other goal is to bring "the new cool" and amazing experiences that comes from a 21st century STEM program. I hope to be able to support more schools and especially more students have great learning opportunities and adventures.
This post coincides with the beginning of summer for me and like many other bloggers am going to take some time off. Especially with my move to the Mountain View area, ISTE starting this Sunday, and my Graduate Studies, I need to change my posting frequency at least in the short term. I will still post if something important or awesome comes up but at least for a month or so I am going to post less frequently.I am always around either by Twitter, Facebook or Email just click one of the pictures on the upper right of the blog. (Not the ones here, as it is just a picture). I highly suggest you subscribe to the RSS feed so you will not miss anything. I send my coworkers a digest of what I share with you and many of them keep an archive of them, their request as I was leaving was to somehow keep the emails coming, but you can do this by subscribing via email or rss.
Do not fear, now with summer you may find yourself finally able to try some new things out. Here are a couple of recommendations:
- Start using Programming in Your Math and Science Class Today! - This tutorial was made completely for the high school teacher with little or no programming experience who wants to give their students a way to start thinking of science and math in terms of algorithms and patterns as well as use the full power of the computer to do some amazing things.
- Create Video Tutorials for Your Classroom - A flipped classroom or even a classroom supplemented with video tutorials is a wonderful thing. It frees up class time to do more reinforcing or activities and projects, you eliminate the need to repeat yourself, and students appreciate the visual nature of their learning.
- Learn a new software:
- Geogebra for Interactive Mathematics with additional resources here.
- Autodesk 123D - Free CAD software
- Create or Experience a Google Literature Trip
- And of course you can start a robotics team and/or a CyberPatriot Team
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