The district where I teach is so great about providing professional development opportunities, especially those that incorporate technology. And I feel a little guilty about taking a class called “Blogging 101” since I’ve been blogging for 8 years, but I’ve not been as consistent blogging professionally as I have been personally, so I’m hoping this class will create a more solid dedication to my professional blogging life. So here’s my first assignment…
My name is Julie Rowse, and I teach English 11, AP Language and Composition, Pop Culture Studies, and advise the Newspaper at Bellevue West. I went to Brigham Young University for three years–initially as a vocal/piano performance major–and eventually landed at UNO, where I earned a B.S. in Secondary Ed with a Language Arts endorsement. I student taught at Bellevue West and then moved to Utah. I taught in a suburb of Salt Lake City for two years and then came back to Nebraska and taught at Bellevue West for four years. In 2006, I moved to Bowling Green, Ohio to earn an M.A. in Popular Culture At Bowling Green State University. When I left West, I told Mr. Rohlfs there was about a 1% chance I’d return to teaching. He took those odds, and I’ve been back at West since 2008.
Some people in my building would consider me pretty tech savvy. There are some things I feel pretty confident about in terms of troubleshooting, but I also feel like there’s so much I don’t know how to do (I’m horrible at fixing printers, for example). I’m a Mac person–I have completely drank that Kool-Aid. My students often tease me and my “Apple Family” (iPod classic, iPod mini, iPod touch, iPad, MacBook pro…and that doesn’t include any district-issued technology. Yes, I have a problem. :D)
The tech I use in my classroom? Well, this semester it’s the iPads. Apple TV is fantastic–so fantastic that I gave away my Document Camera, because everything I did with that, I can do with an iPad/Apple TV/MacBook combination of some sort.
I do love to read blogs, and my Feedly proves that, so I’m excited to read the blogs that the other members of my online class write!
