My First Week as a Technology in Curriculum Coach

Excited, nervous, eager...describes how I felt Monday morning as I drove to the ESC to begin this new position. I don't know if I've ever been so excited for the first day of school since my first teaching position.

First thing on Monday, Jamie (the other coach) and I divided our school assignments. I have the Westside feeder elementary buildings along with Clark & Bryant. We brainstormed how to effectively meet our building's BLT goals and will touch base with each principal to discuss how to proceed with this. I'm really excited about that, but am waiting a bit because I know it is such a busy time of year. We rounded out the day with a presentation from learning.com & how their web-based program can help our district in differentiating activities. I especially liked how the teacher lessons can be used with our new e-instruction interactive whiteboards, Mobis, and student responders.

On Tuesday I uploaded some of our .pdf files for the language arts curriculum to our website. When we went to West Middle to adjust the projectors, I was able to test my links to see if they worked. (They didn't) While troubleshooting, I discovered that my permissions didn't allow me to install Java, which is just a small hiccup, but noteworthy. I was also involved in a conference call about the upgrades to Pinnacle--which is an awesome step for our district. (BTW...I'm a big Pinnacle fan--it totally made my life easier when I was in the classroom & helped the students to keep track of their progress as well as missing assignments.)

Wednesday morning was an IT/MIS meeting...which I am very glad to have been a part of. I am amazed at the knowledge of these "techies." Jamie and I spent the rest of the afternoon in some of the elementary buildings. Getting out into the field and troubleshooting was HUGE for me! We were able to address several technical issues which are sure to arise as we roll out this 21st Century Classroom initiative.

Thursday brought us to West High School for the Netbook pilot. Kudos to the teachers for all their investment into this project. Moodle is an awesome tool, but definitely takes some effort to learn. I worked during the afternoon to create a Jeopardy PPT game for the North Middle Staff to use with the responders. I didn't realize how difficult it is and how creative you must be to "state your answer in the form of a question." I guess I'll still be working on that Friday morning before I head off to the new teachers' meeting.