Constant Improvement

As I have been starting projects and other activities in my classes that utilize technology, I have noticed that the students are coming in with better skills and stronger skills. This is the first year ever that students have asked me (prior to explaining a project entirely) if they need to cite the pictures that they use in their projects and checking for website credibility. I discovered that this is due, in part, to our new G/T resource teacher who came to our school last year. Prior to the students beginning their internship or their independent research project, they are required to spend most of first quarter learning how to find credible resources and the facts/issues with plagiarism and copyright. I am SO proud of this school!!!

This teacher and I are going to work together to present the basics of this to the staff at the beginning of second quarter. We are going to go around to each department so that we can more easily answer questions in smaller groups. I found this great video that teachers can use in their classrooms about website credibility. I am going to start with my team in November. Check it out...

Dropbox

After school today, I led a professional development session on Dropbox for interested staff members. Dropbox has saved my life this past year, and I wanted to share its capabilities with everyone else. I sent an email about the session last week to let people know in advance so they could make plans. When I sent the email and coordinated plans for the media center (still no wireless in my room...bummer!), I did not remember that the night before was Back to School Night. There are only so many days that all of this can be coordinated, so I stuck with the day and time. Consequently, I only had four people show up today. My principal stopped by to check on things, and he was excited because this is what he has wanted from the beginning. Most of the people who came today came to the first session for the staff; my principal wanted a small group of staff members who were excited about technology, and who wanted to utilize it with their students.

I was really excited because two of the women work collaboratively as a team and team-teach every day, so they can share files and folders through Dropbox. Most of the people who came today have also lost documents and/or everything on their computer due to a virus or some other issue. Everyone was really excited!

Earlier in the day, I had a one-on-one session with the principal's administrative assistant, and I helped her set up her Dropbox and get all of her documents together. Now, my principal and her can share anything they need. He lost everything on his computer over the summer, and it did not go well. I'm hoping that Dropbox will help them both!

Although the session was small, it went really well, and it was nice to be able to walk around and help everyone. I had a moment of panic the other night and I was not sure if I knew how to run the program on the Mac side of the computers, so I played with that yesterday to make sure I was ready. I was glad that I did because it is a bit different from the Windows side of our laptops, and one person was using Mac! Everyone who came was very appreciative.

I am offering two more sessions to my entire staff, and I may provide some incentive for the next one. I won a wireless mouse for our laptops at a technology conference over the summer. I do not need it because I LOVE my track pad, but I think I am going to give that away to someone who attends the next session.

I know that it is ambitious to complete all of my internship before the holidays, but I know that I can do it. This also does not mean that I will stop leading PD for technology or continue to be a technology leader in the building. My principal already has other ideas for continuing this, especially with our new CMS, ASPEN.

Overall, today went really well even though it was a small group. I am excited about the collaboration going on already even with just PlanbookEDU and Dropbox. Next up...Study Stack!

ASPEN...take 2

I led the second session for ASPEN today with the World Language department. I felt like it went better than the first session, but working with certain people in my department can be a challenge. This part of the internship is definitely testing my patience! I realize that people are upset with this program, but this is what we have been given and we need to run with it. Until the county tells us that we are able to use something else, we are stuck with ASPEN.

This program is not user-friendly in the least bit, and that is why the staff is so frustrated. Today, I walked my department through setting up the categories for their grades and setting up all of their gradebook preferences. Yet again, there are varying ability levels within the department. They asked questions that I thought were very basic, but I tried to be patient and walk each person through getting their gradebook ready to go now that we are two weeks into the school year. What my team leader and I thought would take 25-30 minutes, took almost an hour! We had the time, so it was not a big deal, but the varying ability levels kept us from moving at a reasonable pace.

I was pleased with the session today, but a bit disheartened that we could not get as far as I had hoped. I was only able to show them how to set up one assignment instead of the multiple samples that I had planned. Hopefully, this will change the next time when we talk about interim grades and report cards in October!

I am making myself available during planning and before/after school every Monday so that department members who need help can drop by if they need to. The reference sheets with which Howard County provided us are fairly clear, and most teachers have been using those to guide them and figure out what they need to do. Some people learn better with hands-on help, however, and I understand that! Before you know it we will be moving on to interims and report cards!

I would love to show screen shots of what we have been doing, but the county has made it very clear (with a warning message at the top of the page EVERY time you log on) that this information is to be kept private. I will respect their wishes!

Follow-ups: PlanbookEDU

Not too many people requested follow-up sessions for PlanbookEDU, but this week I had the opportunity to meet one-on-one with two people who wanted some extra help. It was interesting because the two one-on-one sessions were so different. S.D. just needed confirmation that everything she had done already was correct and that she was on the right track. V.M. had to have her account reset because she forgot her password, and then, had trouble sharing her homework/assignments planbook with her students because she had the book restricted instead of open.

While both sessions were brief, it was nice to "have the answers" as both women told me, and to feel like I could help them. I am trying to be patient as other teachers email me questions. I guess it's difficult to have patience when someone emails you a question and expects you to have an immediate answer when you can't see what they are seeing on their screen. I've responded to every email as soon as I get it, and I attempt to provide step by step instructions if I get the email in the evening or during a time when I cannot go to their classroom to help.

In the midst of all of this, I am just grateful that my principal has been supportive, and that he was willing to fund this application. All of the others are free, so I feel like I do not have to stress about that aspect of it.

I am getting nervous about adding a class into all of this, and I feel like I am barely treading water right now. I teach only upper level language classes (2-3 hours of grading daily!), National Honor Society eats up all of my extra time at this time of year, and I have been able to be really on top of my internship. I do not know if I am going to be able to do all of that and take an intense class. I really wish this had been a course for August so that we could focus just on that and preparing for the internship and back to school. We are also under renovation still at MTH, and are still dealing with the problems that come with new technology mixing with old technology, and the ever-changing educational initiatives.

I think I am a bit down this week! I'm looking forward to next week when I lead another training for ASPEN with my department and a session on my favorite application ever...Dropbox!