Celebrating Two Years

This past weekend we went to San Francisco to celebrate the wedding of Mike McCarvel and Jennie Hoffman. Since it was our second anniversary, we decided to take a few extra days off of work and make a vacation of it. Because our work and school schedules don't align, we hadn't taken vacation together since last Thanksgiving when we went to Honduras. The wedding was beautiful, the weather was fantastic and the city was amazing. Take a look at the slideshow to see a few of the things that we did. We spent a lot of time walking all over the city and covered many of the neighborhoods. Another highlight of the trip was Alcatraz which neither of us had seen before. We would recommend the night tour to anyone who plans to visit the city in the future. But, be sure to buy your tickets well before you arrive in the city, they sell out fast. We enjoyed spending time with each other and couldn't believe how quickly the past two years have passed. We are so happy for Jennie and Mike and wish them much happiness in the years to come as they begin their married life together. As we head into our third year, we continue to be surprised by how much we still enjoy learning about each other and how much it means to us as we watch and help each other grow.

Young Scholars iTouch Summer Program Video

This past summer, I helped implement a program at one of our middle schools that I had designed to develop potential in students from underrepresented populations in advanced academics. The curriculum for the program centered around students being hired as consultants for the DC Board of Tourism to act as consultants to develop a virtual tour of DC. I worked with Destination DC, the official tourist organization for the city, to partner with the schools. The students' final podcasts were linked to their sites so their products were very authentic. To learn more about the project, you can view the video that aired when the program was presented to the school board on September 24, 2009 and is currently being run on Channel 21, FCPS's cable station.
To see the video click on the link below:
http://www.fcps.edu/DIT/streaming/is02_ipod.asx

To see the students' podcasts, go to:
http://www.fcps.edu/SandburgMS/YoungScholars/index.htm