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Many years ago, I penned my personal metaphor of teaching:

“To teach is to mold. As teachers, we have chosen to daily model to young people. Good, bad, or indifferent, we are shaping their lives. Maybe we will not see the results today or tomorrow, but some day our influence will show up in their lives. To me, this is the most exciting part of teaching and the scariest. Knowing how much influence I will have over these young lives because I will be molding them-and their future.”

Since that day, several hundred students passed through my classroom. I added more certifications to my repretoire and transitioned from classroom instructor to reading coach. Through it all, my teaching metaphor has not changed.

These pages include just a few of the tools I used in recent years to mold not only students, but the teachers in charge of their lives.

DragonSlayer - The Wilkinson Junior High reading department voted a couple years back to adopt the image of FCAT DragonSlayers for our students. We use paper dragons on the walls, give out DragonSlayer tips, and encourage our students to identify this "FCAT dragon." I took it a step further by creating the DragonSlayer mini-course.

DragonSlayer was designed in Spring 2009 for Dr. Merrill's Instructional Materials Development (EDG 6925 ).

FAIR - Florida Assessment for Intervention in Reading is a new reading progress monitoring assessment given to Florida K-12 students. Reading Coachers were trained as "train the trainers" and given the task of training the Language Arts department to administer the test. However, at Wilkinson Junior High, some of the teachers took summer training and only needed a quick refresher while others had no idea how to start. I quickly (two hours) created an online training site for all the teachers. The teachers told me that they love it since they can go back to the site any time for a quick refresher.

Alliterate Stoppers is based on Steven Layne's book, "//Igniting a Passion for Reading//". It was written as a school-wide training during the Reading Leadership Team's book study.

Alliterate Stoppers has podcasts designed in Spring 2010 for Dr. Dennen's EME 6507.

Social Studies Reading Initiative- was written for Wilkinson Junior High. Patrick Capriola (WJH's social studies department head) provided invaluable insight into the teachers' needs. Together we researched the areas of greatest needs to target with the course. We are excited to see how the program changes during this year, especially since I am adapting the program for Science and several electives.

[|WJH Battle of the Books]- was written and updated this spring for Wilkinson Junior High's Battle of the Books. Teachers requested a site for students to comment on the Sunshine State Books they read.

Mashups - This website provides great mashup technology for teachers to use. It was designed for Dr. Antonenko's Fall 2013 Introduction to Educational Technology.

Feel free to browse the courses and keep coming back - this is a work in progress.

Thank you, Sherry Walsh