All righty folks. After what has been one of the best summers in my memory – and there have been some good ones – I sit before my computer contemplating how to best proceed with my new school year. I still teach ELA. I still teach seventh grade (to the best of my knowledge). I have last year’s reflection book, where I made notes about the things that went well in the classroom and the many, many, many things that could do with some…tweaking. Projects in! Worksheets out! Writing in! AI out! Reading in! Scolding out! Supporting in! Complaining (mostly) out!

So first, I am making a website. It is something that my team lead asked me to do last year, and she showed me how, kind of. But she was so fast and none of the buttons she used worked when I tried it because she is a Millennial, and I am an X-er, so she was born with the codes and I was born to the sound of an 8-track. So it never got done last year. BUT, I decided to take advantage of this summer to learn many of things that were Grand Canyon sized gaps in my skill set last year. So I got my Gen-Z niece to help me out. Honestly, I thought really hard about letting her do it for me. She has an incredible eye for graphic design now that she has outgrown her “vibrating-neon-rainbow” tendencies. I knew she would make something that would be delightfully animated, clever, user-friendly, informative, and mostly grammatically correct. But then I thought about how despondent I was every time a kid used AI to complete an assignment, or cheated by letting someone else do the work.

“They won’t learn the material/skills/lesson/things they need to know!” I wailed to my fiance last year. Fortunately for me, Past Ms. G (I have Past Ms. G who makes the mistakes, Present Ms. G who learns from them, and Future Ms. G who does her blessed best to prevent them) spoke up to remind Present Ms. G about all those times. So for this today’s goal is to have my website set up and ready for information by the end of the day.

Wish me luck!