Valerie Buck

My Story

​

In seventh grade, my parent's purchased an Apple II for our family and my eloquent teenage response was computers are "just a fad" and "completely unnecessary" followed up with an eye roll and evil glare. Presented to me as tool to efficiently write school papers my rebuttal was that I had excellent penmanship and typing skills, this would just add a step of using that noisy printer. On the other hand, my younger brother started using the few games that came with it and viewed it as a cool new toy. 

​

Fast forward a few years and lots of personal growth, I embraced technology. The path to tech love started in high school when I began creating music for my figure skating programs. The process of splicing, blending, and fading different songs to create one unique composition was improved with each new technology that I could get my hands on. When I began coaching figure skating spreadsheets helped me track income and expenses, Publisher and email became my friend for communicating with my clients, and slow-motion video to show skaters form and technique was a godsend. 

​

I became a middle school math teacher in 2006 and my first teaching station was an overhead projector with a rolling film. Talk about the dark ages! Soon, I was set up with an ActivBoard and projector that connected to a computer. I could see that "sage on the stage" wasn't working very well for student engagement in my classroom, yet it was challenging to give everyone an opportunity to use the one piece of technology in my classroom. I started to acquire new devices for my classroom through the Issaquah Technology Project and dedicated much of my personal time to best practices for technology integration.  

​

Hour of Code inspired me to learn more about computer science and to integrate coding into my mathematics classroom. I started using the coding modules to reinforce persistence in problem solving, look for an make use of structure, and express regularity in repeated reasoning (Common Core Mathematical Practice Standards 1, 7, and 8). Students practiced angles, coordinate pairs, and more while having fun! 

​

Today, I work outside of the classroom as an Instructional Technology Specialist for the Issaquah School District. I work with teachers to help them implement technology that targets 21st century skills, ISTE standards for students and educators. I provide professional development opportunities, present at Conferences, and work in partnership with Code.org to bring Computer Science to ALL!

​