I am sure that you are all very sad to end the school year and will spend the summer missing everything about HTMS.  :)  I am going to spend the summer getting the school ready for next year, reading, and hopefully finding time to spend with friends and family.  What are your plans for the summer?  Check the blog out this summer as I make posts every week or so.

Yesterday was Stop Cyberbullying Day.  I encourage each student to really think about how they treat each other in cyberspace.  You may think that words written on your computer won’t hurt someone, but they really do.

Here are some hints. 

• When you are angry or hurt, don’t write an email, send an IM, post to MySpace, etc.  Step away from your computer and give yourself some time before responding to something.
• Write as if the person you are talking about, their parents, or your parents are sitting beside you reading what you are writing.  If you don’t think any of these people would like what you are writing, don’t.
• Remember, you can’t take back words that you have written. 
• Don’t write something that you might be sorry for writing in the future.
• Respect!  Always be respectful of others.  This doesn’t mean that you have to like everyone, but you should always be respectful of others.

We live in a time of great access to tools (Internet, blogs, MySpace, etc) that expand our world beyond Trussville.   There is a great deal of positive information and opportunities because of these tools, but we all must learn how to use them appropriately and for good.

Earlier this week, I was privileged to attend the Greater Birmingham Math Partnership Community Math Night.  The leader of the session stressed the importance of math skills and lead the more than 200 people in a variety of exercises that provided practice of multiplication facts without the pain of drill that many of us experienced.  It made me wish that I had such experiences as a student. 

My memory of learning multiplication aren’t all that nice.  I don’t remember why father and I were in the car so much during my third grade year, but I remember him calling out problem after problem until I cried because I had had enough.  What are your memories of learning your multiplication facts?

Next week the high school’s career tech department is having an open house to showcase different courses that high school students might take.  What I want to know is what do you want to do when you grow up?  Also, tell me what you think you need to do to reach your goal.

I read another principal’s blog this morning about some of the ways technology has changed life for non-digital natives.  I would love to hear some of the ways technology has changed in your life time.  How has it changed?  How do you learn new technology?  What do you think is coming?

Here are some of mine–The television in our home when I was a child did not have a remote control–except for me,  as the youngest child, I was the one nominated to get up and change the channel.  I was in elementary school when desk top computers first entered classrooms.  The monitor was not colored or even black and white.  All text was bright green on a green screen.  Floppy disks were about 5 inches squared and really were floppy.  My parents got our first computer in 1983–an Apple IIE.  It did not have a printer and had 128K of memory.  It cost $2,300.  My first mobile phone was a bag phone that only worked in my car.  My parents gave it to me so that I could contact help if something happened when I was driving back and forth to college.  I had to type my high school papers on a word processor–a step beyone a typewriter but not a full-fledged computer either.

I can’t wait to read what you can come up with…Dr. Williams