I had the absolute privilege of interacting with such an awesome teacher as Denise Krebs, for my C4T. From just viewing her blog, I knew I would be able to connect with her easily. Denise is currently living in the Middle East teaching kindergarten ELL (English language learners) students. Her first post that I chose comment on, talked about her concept of genius hour where she lets her students choose what they will learn and how to present, create or inspire what they have learned. Denise shares that it was very different from the 7th and 8th grade genius hours that she was used to participating in, but it still did not disappoint. I absolutely loved the concept of genius hour and tried to tell her so by leaving a comment on her blog post. Unfortunately, she hadn't posted in a while so she turned disabled the comments section of her blog. Nevertheless, I sent her an email and introduced myself and told her how fascinated I was with genius hour. I let her know that I couldn't comment on her blog but that I wanted to still tell her how inspiring it was to me that her students were creating things they wanted to create with materials they had chosen, all why learning a second language! I sent her a link to my blog in the email and I actually received a reply from Mrs. Krebs! These were her kind words in her reply:
I was tickled to get a reply and better yet, she was kind enough to go take a look at my blog! It was a moment where I felt proud and excited about my teaching career. I was even more excited when I was able to comment on her most recent post of just about a week ago. Not only was is great to see Mrs. Krebs posting again, but it was another post about genius hour! This time, Mrs. Krebs was reaching out to other teachers through twitter, asking them about their experiences with genius hour and about how they differentiate each genius hour. She even posted some of the Q&As from the #geniushour conversation that really appealed to her. I enjoyed the continuing conversation about genius hour, and hope that I can use this concept in my future classroom. This time. I was able to leave her a comment on her post. I let her know how great it was to see her posting again and that I was thrilled to receive her email. I told her that I would soon be digging around twitter for her genius hour hashtag and couldn't wait to see what resources that would bring about for my personal learning network. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with Mrs. Krebs and following her progress with her students in the Middle East. She is a great inspiration to add to my personal learning network. I will definitely be returning to her blog to see what the next genius hour will bring!"Hello,and welcome to being a connected educator. So much lies in store for you! I just went to your blog. I loved this: "She strived to show compassion, to inspire creativity, and to give hope to all of her students." And your passion to "embrace continual learning." Awesome! I can relate so much!
It's not your computer that didn't allow you to post a comment on my blog! I have it set to stop the conversation after a few months. I'm not sure it's really necessary, but I wanted to be sure not to get spam comments on old posts that I wasn't keeping up with anymore. I need to post again!
I also have a couple other blogs that get more regular attention these busy days in kindergarten! http://krebs.edublogs.org (class blog) and http://krebsfollow.org (My husband and I try to update this one, but we're falling behind there too!)
Anyway, best wishes to you as you grow in all you are learning in EDM310 and all your classes."
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