Week 8 Sept. 28th-Oct. 2nd

Once again this week flew by. This week was a week in which no two days were the same. On Monday, I started off my week by walking through some classrooms and observing what technology was in use and how it was used. I find it really fun popping in to classes that I have helped in the past to see the growth with technology. Also on Monday, we had out first coaches meeting with Mary Jo. We discussed things that we have been doing so far and the importance of relationships, as well as discussed a way to document everything we are doing in the classroom.

On Tuesday, I had a very busy day out and about. I went to a first grade room at Nodland and discussed technology with the teacher, I went to East middle and helped trouble shoot CPS responders with a couple teachers, I stopped by Whittier and sat down with the principal to discuss technology in her building and where she wants to go with it, I went to Irving and trained Mr. Koch in SOCS, and finally I spent some time at Roosevelt working through some issues with Mrs. Bigbee. We got her squared away and her technology is good to go. Sorry for the run on sentence, I was busy!!!!

On Wednesday I went to Unity and trained a teacher in PLATO. We set up classes, assigned assignments and set up for me to come back on Friday during lab time to help out and teach the kids PLATO. I also had some training of my own in PLATO Focus, I need to buckle down and learn that....

This Thursday was my first ever CADRE. I am part of Sunnyside/Nodland. I had a good time meeting new faces and trying to help them out in anyway I could. I feel awkward giving them advice until I learn more about how they do business. Great connections though.

Finally on Friday, I started out my day going to Whittier to talk their principal and a BLT member about a NING that I built for them. They decided they wanted a way to share information, thoughts, and ideas on a NING. So I built one and showed them how to use it. I look forward to seeing how it is being used. I also spent some time Friday playing with equipment and learning more about why things happen the way they happen. I finished Friday co-teaching PLATO at Unity in Ms. Flewelling's room.

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

I was almost giving up hope that I would actually get to go to my desk this week and answer some of the email that has been piling up in my inbox. However, I was redirected on an all day meeting Friday and I was able to spend some time meeting with Mrs. Weltz and Mr. Lang.
Early in the week, I met with the middle school technology teachers and we worked all viewed a presentation on a free tech-assessment that can be given to our students. We also heard about a net-safety curriculum and an online technology skills curriculum from the same company. Pretty spendy stuff, but very good! The website is http://www.infosourcelearning.com/education if you are interested.
I also attended a meeting with J. Wibbels from the AEA and A. DenBeste, discussing how to really utilize the coaching model for bringing real-time help to teachers integrating technology in their classroom to support instructional practice. With a clear and consistent vision, we can make huge progress in this district. J and I also discussed the rollout of our initiative for online learning with a subscription to NROC. More to come on this topic! Later that day, an incredibly excellent meeting with teachers who have the complete 21st Century classroom package in their classrooms. This meetings are excellent because we get to work out issues, share celebrations and really refine the focus and goals of using technology in the classroom. This was just our 2nd meeting, but we are really getting good at using differentiated strategies, formative assessments and technology to make it all efficient and effective. The teachers all agreed that using the responders really changes how you can react to student learning quickly. Our next meeting isn't until October 20th and we'll get to introduce the Pulse responder, with full text answer capabilities!
The audio enhancement was another piece that was getting great praise!
I was able to address some issues out in classrooms on Wednesday and then I did a training with our Health Occupations teacher who received all of the 21st Century classroom tools through a grant. We both benefited from this!
The final touches on the week were mostly centered around planning for the full-scale rollout of 21st Century classroom tools in grades K-8. How it's going look, when it's going to start and what funding sources are going to be used for each piece. From software to hardware, up and down, the classroom of tomorrow is coming to Sioux City Schools in full force!! What an exciting time to be a student, teacher, parent in the Sioux City Schools!
Here's a few websites I'm curious about and wanting some teachers to try: edmodo.com - it's supposed to be a twitter-esque thing safe for education.
Also, Aviary.com, this has photo-editing potential!

It's All About the Memory...

Several of our issues this week were solved by a simple memory upgrade. At one of our schools, our board would not stay callibrated. In fact, at one point, I'd move my pen down the board & the cursor would move to the left. It was like watching a mirror image. I thought to myself, "Self, I would not have the patience to deal with this in my classroom on a daily basis." (Kudos to our very patient Mrs. V!) The software really wasn't the issue, & after brainstorming with L & L, we concluded it was the memory. Memory was installed; I checked it out today, and all is well.

Speaking of memory...a good tip with our CPS responder software is to remember NOT to delete your database. Everything you've ever done will be gone. (Sorry we couldn't recover it Mr. W!) :)

I worked on Skyping this week. We have two middle school and one elementary room that I am using Skype to communicate. The two middle school classes are social studies classes and are looking to contact classes in other countries. I got the audio to work perfectly, but tried to use our document cameras as the webcam. I know it is possible, but am just about ready to go out and buy a webcam--the doc cams aren't the greatest for Skyping anyway.

Heard a great story about responders this week. One of our teachers (Mr. W) was watching the results as the students took a quiz using the responders. He noticed one student who really didn't put much effort in--he was just pushing the same button for all his answers. Typically the teacher wouldn't have known this until later that evening or the next day when he checked the quizzes. But the responders allowed him to immediately redirect that student. He also noticed that as they finished the quiz, one student did not pass. Before that child ever left the room, he was able to show him his results and schedule a time later that day for reteaching. That student was awe-struck. That teacher said instead of always trying to "catch up" he was able to be proactive and make an immediate difference. He compared it to coaching on the field & how he is able to give immediate feedback and direction on the spot and have the player make the proper adjustment. What these responders are doing is allowing the teachers to teach, coach, & guide rather than checking & grading.

The one thing I've made my goal and tried to follow emphatically is when a teacher is needing assistance to get out to that classroom immediately, or at least as soon as possible. I just know that as a teacher who wants to try new things to enrich my teaching & student learning, if I had a technical issue, the waiting, waiting, waiting is the what would frustrate me the most. So I make it a priority to at the very least get some help if I cannot solve the issue. I want to make a difference for those teachers. I want them to feel supported.

Week 7 Sept. 21st-Sept. 25th

This week was truly a better week. On Monday I was out at Leed's and spoke with a teacher about using video in her classroom. I also was at Joy for PD on ITPDP. Some teachers discussed using technology in their plan. On Tuesday we had our monthly AEA coaches meeting. We had a great discussion and continue to outline our mission. Tuesday after school, we had our monthly Diff and Tech meeting. We discussed the highs and lows of our project as well as saw demonstrations with the equipment.

Wednesday was the best day of the week. Jo Dee and I finally finished up moving all the elementary websites. Some of the websites took just a few minutes, while some took a few hours. It was a great relief to finish this project. It was like a huge weight lifted off our shoulders. On Thursday, I went out to Longfellow and talked to some teachers about downloading an E-book they needed for PD on Monday. Solved some basic issues and went about my day. Finally on Friday, Brad from Office Elements, Jo Dee, and I went around to our buildings and met with teachers answered questions, and did some demo's. It was a well needed trip with Brad and reassured with many people our commitment to making this initiative a success.

As you can tell, I was very happy with his week. I know next week will be the same. Right......

Week 6 Sept. 14th-Sept. 18th

Wow this week went by fast. I guess that is a good thing. This week was trully a mixed bag of things to do. We had training from Joyce at SOCS to learn how to move the elementary websites over, Skills Iowa training, got back in the classroom and taught some math lessons using technology, met with Rick from Red Cat audio and took him around to different schools, and finally met with our group to discuss the importance of changing the middle school technology classes and curriculum.

Every week I learn so much more about not only technology itself, but the importance of my job position. Helping teachers one on one, fixing issues, discussing how to use this technology we now have to create differentiated assignments, and now looking in to the future of our middle schools and helping to create a curriculum to teach technology skills our students now lack.

I don't have alot to say this week, but it has been a great week. Maybe it's the new job, but I now enjoy my Monday's....

I'm Moving....

Well, I'm not actually moving, but I am in the process of merging the elementary sites into our district's main site. This small step will save our district quite a few dollars as well as streamline our elementary sites. My worry right now is that we have some "go-getter" teachers who have their objectives, word lists, etc... already posted for the month of Septemeber and once I transfer their pages, any updates they do before the end of the month will not show up. My plan is to e-mail each teacher who regularly updates a page to let them know. (As soon as I finish this blog post.)

I had a meeting earlier today which really put a fire in my belly. As a district, we did not do very well with our annual 8th grade technology assessment. One of the main reasons is that we do not have a technology course that each student is required to take. For one reason or another--specifically scheduling--only about 50-60% of the students have some sort of deliberate technology instruction. It is possible for a student to graduate without ever having a technology class. This HAS to change! We do know this--so that's not where the fire in my belly comes from. Today we discussed several ways to address this & my favorite way (by far) is to require keyboarding in 6th grade, a general tech. class in 7th, and then infuse the technology into the 8th grade core class with the help of a technology coach. We came up with some other alternatives, but I really favor the infusion of the technology into the classroom in 8th grade. That will allow us to use the technology tools in a sound, meaningful, & engaging curriculum. This is not to say it cannot be infused in 6th or 7th grade core clasess, but we will have a specific curriculum which ensures all students will have access to 21st Century Classroom instruction.

Week 5 Sept. 7th-Sept. 11th

HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It gets to be very frustrating when things begin to break down and you can't fix it. Ever called tech support and spent 2 hours on the phone and get no where.... Ever felt like you know more than the person you called for help??????? Yep. That sums up my week. This week was full of ups and downs.
I finally had the opportunity to get back in to the classroom, work with kids, and introduce topics all while using technology to do so. My first class Friday morning went very well. I was excited, the kids had a good time learning about stem and leaf plots and the technology worked wonderfully. Then...... the afternoon came. My rf receiver for my CPS response system quit working. Reboot.... Reset..... 4 times..... all the while my pen for my MOBI rolled off a kids desk and fell apart and broke... Well no more dual board today..... Put in a new rf receiver that worked OK after 45 minutes...... After that, I had a good time. I introduced some technology to some third and fourth graders and they seemed to love it. I know Murphy's Law won't creep up on me next time......