Hi everyone! My name is Alyssa Carricato and I am a teacher
in Derry Township School District in Hershey, PA. Currently, I teach computer at our middle
school to students in sixth and eighth grades.
I am originally from this area, Middletown, PA (Three Mile
Island is our claim to fame). I
completed my undergrad at Bloomsburg University (May 2010) and started working
here at Derry Township. I completed my first Master’s through Wilkes in
Instructional Media in December 2012. In
addition, I am currently pursuing my second Master’s in Online Teaching and am
two weeks away from being completely finished! Right now, I am taking three
graduate courses at once (two online and one face to face through Penn State)
so forgive me if I seem out of sorts in the beginning!
This is my twentieth online class through Wilkes and my
first using this new and updated LIVE.
In addition to my job teaching, I like to be involved as
possible within the school. I am one of
the coaches of the basketball team here at the middle school and co-advisor of
Future Business Leaders of America club (FBLA).
In addition to all that, I’m an officer on our union’s executive board
and oversee our competitors at the PA Computer Fair. My school life is pretty busy so when I have
“free” time, I like to go to the gym to work off all my stress and watch TV!
If you want to know a bit more about me, this is a link to a project I do with my eighth graders utilizing GlogsterEDU that is "All About Me!" Click here to view my project.
If you want to know a bit more about me, this is a link to a project I do with my eighth graders utilizing GlogsterEDU that is "All About Me!" Click here to view my project.
Enough about me, let’s get down to the real questions! I find a
majority of my teaching resources online.
Our Computer curriculum uses a website called CommonSenseMedia.org so we
get most of our resources, handouts and videos from there. It is the perfect place to find a lot of
really great stuff. When I need
something extra, I usually just scour the Internet to find what I am looking
for. Other than CSM, I don’t use
any specific website.
Thankfully, our school district gives us a lot of professional
development opportunities to research new ideas. Here at HMS, we also have Professional
Learning Communities (PLC). That is time
in which we can confer with colleagues and come up with new ideas to implement
into the classroom. The other Computer
teacher and I split the entire sixth grade class so it is nice to have
someone to run ideas by and come up with new ones. In addition, we have Computer Articulation
meetings twice a year in which the entire department can come together and talk
about our curriculum; what is going well and what needs to be changed for the
future. I have so many different people
to lean on for support and new ideas and that is something I love about my job!
I would have to say that challenges I face as I incorporate new
ideas and research with my students is the fear of failure or uncertainty about
how to present the material. At this
point in my career, usually I am not afraid to try anything once. I figure, if it goes great, that is awesome
and I will be able to do it again. If it
goes terrible, oh well, at least I know I tried and probably won't do it again. Certain parameters also limit my willingness
to try new ideas as the schedule is quite constrained. I have my sixth grade students all year long
(two days out of a six day cycle) but I only have my eighth graders for one
marking period (four days out of the six day cycle). I find it difficult to try as many new things
with my eighth graders as I want to simply due to what little time I have with
them. I feel like I have so much to
teach but so little time to do so!
Overall, I think anything that I learn that I can incorporate
into the classroom is beneficial; that’s why I love teaching. There are always new ways of doing things and
new things to try. I’m looking forward
to working with, and learning from, all of you over the next few months!
