Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Long time with no updates. It's been very busy.

Today I started by working with the 1st grade teachers at Pumpkin Primary. We talked about how to use the Smartboard and they were very excited.

Next I did a favor for Lee O'Neal and helped out Jane Crouse at NLMS. She is going to do READ posters and I helped her install Photoshop.

This afternoon, I am doing the first of three workshops on moviemaking.

Tuesday, Feb. 24

I started today at Iron Station, hoping to plan some staff development with Mrs. Carpenter and to install the shortcuts on their lab computers. Mrs. Carpenter was sick and unfortunately there were a number of NCWISE computers with problems. I helped them get work orders ready for those machines and fixed a few myself.

In the afternoon I went to Lowder for a workshop on United Streaming.

Monday, Feb. 23, 2009

Today I worked at the mobile for a while on lesson plans and e-mails and other housekeeping. I talked to a few teachers at the intermediate school about an idea for a grant-funded project about writing.

I took the afternoon off as comp time for Lily's Dr. appointment

Friday, Feb. 20

Today I worked on L-Core, e-mail and other housekeeping in the morning.

In the afternoon, I went to Battleground and put their shortcut folders on the lab computers.

Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009

Today I started at Pumpkin Primary where I discussed a possible follow-up workshop on Smartboards.

Later I presented a workshop to elementary guidance counselors. We worked on setting up their websites and I showed them some web sites they could use.

Afterwards I worked with Doug Clark on his news broadcast using Ustream. We tested the equipment and he will contact me when he is ready to get the kids started.

Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2009

Today I met Lee O'Neal at North Lincoln to help a teacher with some grant-funded equipment.

Afterwards I went to Pumpkin int. to help Sherry Borbeau with her star panel that used to be in the lab at the School of Tech. She is going to use it with her PE classes.

In the afternoon I went to Childers for the first of a two-part workshop on Podcasting.

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009

Today I went to Catawba Springs and St. James to finish up the new shortcuts for teachers on their lab computers. These will make it easier for teachers to send kids to a web site. I am making a video tutorial to go along with this.

In the afternoon I talked to Anita Robinson at Kiser. She is getting 3 Smart Boards in addition to the one she already has. We decided to go with Smart since she already has one Smart product. I also convinced her to mount her existing board instead of leaving it on a cart.

Finally I prepared for my workshop on podcasting wednesday afternoon.

Monday, Feb 16, 2009

Today I finished putting Smart Software and shortcut folders on the lab computers at the Primary School. I also set up workshops at Childers and Massey.

Monday,

Friday, Feb. 13, 2009

Today I worked on my grade level lesson in the mobile and started preparing a video tutorial for schools on using the shortcut folder.

After lunch I met with Lee O'Neal and we planned our summer tech conference.

Thursday, Feb. 12, 2009

I went to Catawba Springs again and worked on their video lab again. I showed a student and the media specialist how to work the sound board. I also helped them with a leak in the computer lab. There are still 3 computers that need shortcuts installed.

I then went to St. James and prepped their big lab for the workshop. I need to finish about half of that lab with shortcuts.

The 2nd half of the photo story workshop went well/

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2009

Today I worked in the mobile during the morning, catching up on e-mail and then working on grade level lesson plans.

I also went to work on the computers in the lab at Pumpkin Primary to get them ready for the Smart workshop.

Later I went to the central office to install some software. Afterwards I went to Love memorial for a L-Core update, but they had to reschedule for next Wednesday.

Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009

Today I started at Catawba Springs where I continued to work on their studio where I got their microphones working and hooked up their computer so that they can show videos. I also worked to put the shortcuts folder on their computers.

Later in the day I went to St. James to do the first part of a workshop on Photo Story.

Monday, Feb. 9, 2009

This morning, Lee O'neal, and I worked to finalize our NCWISE training. It should go smoothly.

Friday, Feb. 6, 2009

Interesting day. I went to Pumpkin Primary where I helped record Mrs. Keener's class doing a commercial for a Harris Teeter contest. I will edit this coming week.

After that I helped set up two machines at Pumpkin for use by a visually impaired student. I learned a lot about this and will be talking with Shelia Finger about training her folks to do this.

Finally I spend the rest of the afternoon working on the digital studio project.

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2009

Today I met The media specialist at Catawba Springs and worked with her and her assistant on a number of topics. We set up her lab to make going to web sites easier for lower grade students. I also gave her a lesson on using her broadcast studio and helped her set it up to show pre-recoreded videos over the air. Finally, I help Sally Hudson with her web page difficulties. Her login is messed up and Lee and I will try to fix it on Monday.

I will be going back on Monday afternoon to add a few cables to the broadcast studio and work on some more lab procedures.

Wednesday, Feb. 4

Snow day, no students.

I started over at Pumpkin where I helped finish setting up a smart board and prepped about a quarter of the lab computers for the upcoming Smart workshop.

After lunch I went to Lowder where we went ahead and did the Study Island workshop early due to the snow day.

I also spoke with the media specialist Lynn Smith about doing a digital photo management workshop soon.

Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2009

Today I taught a teacher at Pumpkin Primary how to install RAM. She was upgrading an old donated classroom computer. I also caught up on e-mail and set up some workshops.

In the afternoon, I met with Kristi Smith at Catawba Springs. We roughed out a plan for the following workshops.

web page update
podcasting
e-instruction (with board)
study island refresher (they will get training with their install but I will come in about mid Feb. and refresh it)

Monday, Feb. 2

Today Lee O'Neal and I worked on planning our NCwise training.

Friday, Jan. 30, 2009

Today I started at the mobile. I answered some e-mail and updated some of the language arts sites on my wiki.

Later in the morning I set up Ashlyn Weaver's loaner projector and her smartboard. I spent about an hour showing her how to use the smart software. She is very excited to use the board with her EC students.

I will be heading back over there on Tuesday to help her set up the software on her laptop.

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009

Today I worked on e-mails at the mobile and then went to meet with Ms. Morris at Rock Springs. We got her Smart board installed and running and gave her a brief lesson. She is most excited! I also talked about tech purchases with the media specialist. One option they are looking at is to buy Promethean boards for all or most of their 5th grade teachers. This is a good idea to me.

In the afternoon I did some spot checking on machines at Punpkin Primary that seemed to not have stickers. It turns out that all but one room has been prepped but that the stickers had gotten lost. Not surprising with little kids. One room had been missed however. I will go ahead and prep that machine myself.

Wednesday, Jan 28, 2009

Today I had a meeting with Glenda, we discussed the following goals

- prepare example technology lesson plans for each grade level in Language arts (perhaps make the 3-5 lessons EOC reviews)
- do a quarterly e-mail to principals on tech topics and updates
- learn how to do CTB Mcgraw item entry

We talked about goal setting for next year, with perhaps one major goal per semester (ie all schools will be able to . . .) We agreed that the focus should be on 21st century skills.

Afterwards I met with Lee. We discussed plans for next year and NWise for this year. We are hopeful that the Federal stimulus package will put money into the EETT grants.

After lunch I went to Love memorial. I spoke to Mrs. Canipe about tech purchases and then helped Mrs. Moss with blogging.

Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2008

This morning I helped set up Mrs. Rankin's Smartboard at Rock Springs. She was excited and ready to get started.

Next I went to Childers and worked with Carlie Tipton, the lab assistant. I helped him set up a network folder so that he could send younger kids to a web site easily.

finally I helped Rachel Masters set up a new laptop with her projector at Pumpkin Intermediate.

Monday, Jan. 26, 2008

Taday I started out by writing a letter of support for a grant that Rachel Masters is applying for. I also spent some time looking up prices for Leanna Stroup's music grant.

Before lunch I went to Rock Springs and finished putting together their new Smart Boards. I made appointments to meet with the two teachers who will be using the boards and showed the media specialist what parts she needed to order.

After lunch I worked on setting up an old video editing box that Rock Springs was not using anymore.

After that I e-mailed principals about upcoming workshops and set up a few workshops coming up I updated my calendar and then began studying up on Study Island for a workshop next week at Lowder.

Friday, Jan. 23, 2008

Today I started at Love Memorial with a workshop on Web page updates. I was surprised to learn that the teachers there had never set up individual web pages. I had them set up quick place pages on the server, but they need to be linked.

At 11:30 I met with Leanna Stroup. She tried a music technology grant for Ed foundation but didn't get it. We found some new grants for her to try.

I went to Rock Springs to check out their Smart Boards. They have three now; the big one with no cord or pens. The other two are new. They are the small boards, but they both have USB cables. I am going back over on Monday with tools and software to set them all up.

In the afternoon, I took some equipment and parts to Pumpkin Primary and discussed grant writing with Donna Belk.

Thursday, Jan. 24

Catch up day.

I started off meeting with Lee O'Neal on a variety of topics

- IWBs Unfortunately, budget woes have pushed this back until at least next year. Schools will instead get about 10K to spend on tech. I will be giving advice to principals if they they need it on how to spend this.

- NCWISE We discussed the training schedule and dates. We will meet Feb. 2 to plan for the train the trainers sessions.

- Cybercollege/tech conference We may do a two day tech conference instead of classes over a week and half. Lee is presenting the idea to Sherry Hoyle.

Lee is also letting me borrow the cool Dell Mini for a few days to test it out. I like it so far.

After the meeting I went to Chidlers to deliver a flip camera to Laura Rader. I talked to Heath Belcher about upcoming workshops on podcasting and working with Charlie Tipton. He will e-mail me dates for both. We also discussed him purchasing a set of the Dell Minis to use in classrooms.

After lunch I returned to the mobile and finished the computer survey for Pumpkin Primary.

Wednesday, Jan. 21

Today I spent some time setting up appointments, checking the pile of built up e-mail and generally getting everything together. I spent the rest of the morning finishing the computer survey at Pumpkin Intermediate.

I'm also still trying to get a projector from the primary side working for the EC teacher.

Friday, Jan. 16

My first day back after maternity/paternity leave.

I spent some of the morning catching up on e-mail. The rest of the day I spent doing a computer survey at Pumpkin Primary. They are in pretty good shape.