I Don't Hate School . . . but Summer Will End

A friend recently shared a blog post with an article titled "I Don't Hate School, I Just Love Summer!" I'm not sure that I have "loved" this particular summer as it has been so hot. My summer morning walks started earlier and earlier in the morning as I attempted to find a "cool" time of the day. I failed to keep my flower beds tended and weed-free as I usually enjoy doing. According to weather history, we have not had such a hot summer since 1980. Triple digit temperatures on a daily basis! Without the assistance of a water sprinkler system, the yard would be yellow and dead long ago.

As a school librarian, I am not paid for summer work. However, I appreciate having summer time to work on and possibly complete work that I do not have time to pursue during the school year. Even though I have an assistant at each site, many projects remain in some stage of being completed. Part of this is that we are busy doing our business: serving our patrons. The other part is that my assistants do not always share the same time frame or priority level to complete the project as I do. This is not always their fault. When a teacher reports that AR is not working on their classroom computers, my "to do" list is cast aside to assist the teacher. As it should be. So part of my summer is spent trying to follow up on these partially completed projects and hopefully completing a few or at least taking them to the next stage at each school.

Another part of summer that I appreciate is having the time to read and consider edtech resources and posts. This is a time where I can sit and enjoy my cup of coffee as I follow up on RSS feeds and catch up on Twitter posts. I have time to explore and test edtech tool suggestions or simply read and reflect on blog posts.

This activity has become a common feature of my summer breaks since I started my "Summer Quest" a few years ago. I started then with "23 Things" to try to become more familiar with Web 2.0 resources for education.

This summer I explored and found several edtech resources for myself and to share with teachers which I listed in my last blog post. I am very excited about livebinders and Symbaloo and sqworl for the organization of similar online resources. I am still waiting for a teacher to get on board with me on Wordstash which I think will be great for academic vocabulary. And of course I am so pleased to be allowed to use Edmodo with my gifted/talented class this year.

So it isn't that I hate school but it is more about losing the time to follow and explore this wealth of online resources. I may have a brainstorm to write something notable about a web resource I stumbled over or utilized during the school year, but more likely than not, my time to share in blogging will end for now--just like this summer of endless heat will finally come to an end.