Yesterday was the end of our first week of school. There are 14 new kindergarten students with one new teacher, Mrs. Matsuoka and one returning veteran teacher, Mrs. Turner. Miss Johnson and Mrs. Ekstrand have 17 first graders, 5 of the students are new to CAJ. Second grade was excited to welcome 5 new students […]
Learning
A New Role
This coming school year I will have a new role: Interim Elementary Principal. Last spring I was asked to fill in the position of elementary principal for the coming school year, while our principal takes a sabbatical. To help prepare I applied and was accepted to attend the Christian School International (CSI) Educational Leadership Development […]
Empowering People to be Independent
It has been way too long since I’ve written a post and this post will be different than most of my previous posts. During our spring break I had the privilege to travel to London, England with my husband in a tour group, Cancer Philosophy Clinic Tour in England. Not the typical tour or vacation […]
How Do We Help? Part 3
Flat Classroom in Yokohama finished today, but it is far from ended. You can see an incredible final student presentation here. The videos are awesome and awe inspiring. What passion and desire to make a change. While some of the students were furiously working on this presentation and videos the rest of us continued our […]
How Can We Help? Part 2
Day 2 of Flat Classroom 2013 is ended. WOW! How our day began! Such energy and fabulous ideas of how to use Web 2.0 tools to collaborate, create and change our world. We started the day with Future Learning Action Talks(Flats). Alan Levine began by sharing several amazing and inspiring stories including how and why the […]
Google Apps for Education Summit
Just spent 2 incredible days of learning and connecting at Google Apps for Education Summit Tokyo. The theme was Passion, Play and Purpose. How do we bring those into the classroom? The Keynote speakers: Rushton Hurley, Jim Sill and Wendy Gorton were very inspiring. Also enjoyed sessions by each of them and a few other […]
Goal Setting
On Monday, I will be having my students look at the list of “hard things” they wrote in August and reviewed in October. Our school wide theme for this year is “Do Hard Things” based on this book. Each student and class was encouraged to decide on what “hard thing” they would do this year. I […]
ICEC Chiang Mai 2012
“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. 3 John 1:4 NIV “Teaching Children Truth” was the conference theme. ICEC (International Christian Educator’s Conference) is sponsored by Association of Christian Schools International(ACSI). The conference was hosted by Grace International School, Chiang Mai, Thailand and held at the Empress […]
Technology Integration Vision and Roles
About two years ago the Elementary division at Christian Academy in Japan(CAJ) began plans to integrate technology into the classroom. One of the first activities we did as an elementary staff was think about what 21st century learning is and is not. Our discussion were focused around an article that our principal gave us to […]
Moving Forward
It hardly seems possible that we have been in school over one month already. Time is flying by. I finally was able to finish the introductory video of the teachers who work with the second grade students. I wanted it done for Back to School Day, but that didn’t happen:-( Teacher Introductions from Jean Hino […]