My First Blog Post

My first blog, how exciting!  Hello world, I am Phillip Loomis, a third-year, sixth grade teacher at Fort Crook Elementary School in Bellevue, Nebraska.  I am a husband, father, grandfather, veteran, traveler, reader, and passionate about teaching.

My journey to becoming a teacher was long but fun (maybe I'll tell that story on a later post).  I graduated from Peru State College in 2009 with a degree in Elementary Education and certifications from Kindergarten through Ninth Grade in all core subject areas.  Leading up to my graduation was my retirement from the Air Force on December 31st, 2008 after serving 25 years, 2 months, and 6 days as a Meteorologist.  This life experience adds greatly to my classroom instruction.

Also adding to my classroom instruction is the gradual addition of technology.  I use to believe that the A/V Rovercart I use on a daily basis was technology, but that idea has slowly changed during this school year.  The various technologies used in my classroom are netbooks, the computer lab, and most recently my iPad.  Personally, my greatest technology tool is Twitter, in which I collaborate with countless teachers, principals, and parents on how best to help my students grow into the successful people they are capable of becoming.  Through Twitter and my district technology office, I've learned about numerous apps that are now available in my classroom.  My two current favorites are VoiceThread and ShowMe.  If you're not familiar with these, I would highly recommend them!

Blogging is another technology that I want to become more familiar with as I believe it is a valuable tool to help students learn 'outside' the classroom.  Blogging will help students learn about the expansive world that exists far from their reach and sight.  That is why I'm here, to learn about and become familiar with blogging in order to use it next school year.  Let the blogging begin!