NCWISE adventures

A busy day today with lots of NCWISE stuff. I started at McAdenville where I helped the autistic class teacher setup her NCWISE classes. Apparently a recent decision was made at the county level that required the autistic class teachers to provide report cards through NCWISE. At Lowell I worked with the media specialists and introduced tux paint to a kindergarten teacher. I also showed her gcompris, which she will really liked and was very enthusiastic about testing. I’m going to submit both gcompris and tux paint for approval for widespread install. From Lowell I went to Gardner Park where the autistic class teachers also needed help setting up their grade books. I’m going to again meet with Miss Parker next week to work on the school web site at Gardner Park.

Sherwood

I spent today at Sherwood. I helped Mrs. Colvin with her Smartboard. She is using it well and I gave her a few tips. Her laptop is doing something odd. It will not allow objects to be dragged. I'm going to research this this week.

I helpedMrs. Fallin get her document camera connected, but I need to get a login that works here to load the software and drivers.

Sometime in the next few weeks, I need to set a time with Mrs. Falter, who wants me to observer her and then give some pointers on using the smart board more effectively.

Overall, the last few boards are being installed soon, then I will need to begin Smart training.

Ashbrook

At Ashbrook today I worked with several teachers. I helped Ms. Ortiz get familiar with the staff development system. I worked on Senteo clickers with Ms. Burt and got Mr. Cloyd's Airliner working.

TLA and Sherwood

Started at Grier again today to do the TLA. We only had a few problems and we got them resolved. I need to get Chrissie to switch me over so that I can administer the remediation and retakes.
Next I went to Sherwood and spoke with principal Leigh Smith. Sherwood seems to be in very good shape for technology. Their pinnacle leaders are very active and teach a number of workshops. Everyone except for kindergarten already has their smart board installed and the kindergarten boards are being delivered now. The plan is to go and spend the day they are on Thursdays for the next few weeks and act in a support role. The kindergarten teachers will need some refresher lessons on smart once they get their boards installed. I will send an e-mail out to the staff at Sherwood today to tell them I will be there in the library on Thursday. I will mainly be working with their media specialist who he is the sysop. They also have a class works lab teacher.

I’ve also worked today on preparing some video resources for working with the science class next week.

Short Day

Today I started at Grier, where Chrissie and I were troubleshooting for the TLA test. Things went pretty well although we have a few problems.
Next was Ashbrook where I met with Ms. Coombs to talk about a video project her ninth grade students have already started up on lab safety. I agreed to come back next Wednesday and give students a short lesson on making videos to prepare them for going to the lab to edit. I will also work with them in the lab November 8.
Finally, I went to Gardner Park, answered emails, and figured out how to sync my Google calendar with Lotus notes.
I took a 1/2 day today, for a doctor's appointment to look at my arm.

TSS meeting

Exciting news about apps and Race tom the Top money

A busy day

I went to a lot of places today. I started Grier middle where I met with Chrissy, several teachers, and guidance to discuss the TLA computer tests being given on Monday and Tuesday. Chrissy and I are are going to to some prep for the test tomorrow. While at Grier, I also helped Mr. Edge the science teacher with his document camera and microscope. After a recent update they stopped working it appears to be something about the computer recognizing the devices. I will ask about this tomorrow.
I left Grier and went to Gardner Park for a short time and checked the results from the Ashbrook survey. I was surprised to find its 16 teachers had already responded to the survey.
At 1:30 PM I met with Dr. Ramere, the principal at McAdenville. He wants to begin training on smart boards as he will have boards installed for almost all teachers soon. I will e-mail him early next week to set up web training and other training for the teachers who have boards now. Dr. Ramere also asked about training with Classworks.
I then went to Lowell we’re amit briefly with principal Juanita Knight. She indicated that she probably would not need much training at the school because for pinnacle teachers would be doing that. This was somewhat disappointing. She did ask about Classworks and I told her I would ask about it at the meeting. I did speak to a media specialist Melanie Burton and I think she will be a good “in” at the school she’s very interested in smart boards so I will forward her some links on Friday about the smart initiative. But I also asked Ms. Knight if I could contact her smart Board teachers to offer them assistance. She said I could. I asked the school Secretary, Anita, I believe, to forward me a mailing list of teachers at the school so I can send out an open invitation to smart training.
Finally I went back to Gardner Park to finish up notes on the day.

Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2010

Today I spent the day at Ashbrook. I met a number of teachers and assisted a few with tech issues and questions. The day was somewhat hectic at Ashbrook because of the funeral of a teacher.
I spent a good bit of time talking to Sherri Sparrow the class works teacher. They are having trouble logging on some students and I will ask about that tomorrow at the TSS meeting. I also prepared and sent out a staff development interests survey for teachers at Ashbrook.
At four I went back to Gardner Park to finish a few things off in the office.

Smart training

Today I assisted with 6th grade science training on Smart Notebook software at the Rader center.

I started today at human resources to drop off paperwork. I met with Roxie Miller for a while to discuss my progress so far. For the rest of the day I stayed at Gardner Park, working on setting up my office, installing the monitor, and scheduling for the week ahead.I salo set up my facilitator blog.

I want to install Tux paint on my laptop to show people at the meeting on Friday. So that we can possibly get it approved four installation everywhere. I got the idea from a teacher at Lowell who wanted to use kid pix

A new start

As of last Monday I started a new job as a tech facilitator in Gaston County. I’m liking it so far even though I’m still getting my feet underneath me. I’m going to again blog what I do each day to keep a record and for a reference. I have recently broken my arm so I am dictating most of this. What follows is a record of my first week.

Tuesday, October 12
Starting today in office at Gardner Park. Set up phone, familiarized myself with e-mail. Set up telephone and voicemail. I met with school principal Shay Matthews who is excited about getting 12 new smart boards. I also set up speech recognition so that I can type without having an arm which is very annoying. The school is working on getting a key for the door soon until I can lock it I will not bring in the monitor. While at lunch I’m going to purchase a headset microphone to make it work better and I went by Ashbrook to introduce myself to the principal, but she is out until Thursday.
After lunch I went to Rankin elementary to observe a smart day one developing workshop with Leslie Noggle. I worked on adapting smart software for windows seven.

Wednesday, October 13
Started at Gardner Park again. Worked through half of the smart board training videos. After lunch went to Kiser Elementary in Stanley to assist with smart board training.

Thursday, October 14
Started today at Gardner Park. Worked with smart board for a while and finished all smart board training videos. After lunch I worked through the developing smart board curriculum for elementary.
In the afternoon I did orientation with human resources.
Later I met with Ashbrook principal Page Carver. She has a staff that is eager to learn more tech. The previous facilitator spent Wednesdays at the school. I am going to start by doing that, starting next Wednesday. She pointed out that it was often good to mix staff development with working with individual teachers to backup staff development.

Friday, October 15
Met with Gardner Park principal Shay Matthews. She is very convinced of the value of technology and seems eager to work with me. Our focus will be mainly on smart board training. Some teachers have some training already but most have not dealt with boards that are mounted in their classrooms.
Smart boards will be a major initiative. Two of two Computer Labs each has a smart board.
Grades one through five will have mounted smart boards in every classroom. Kindergarten, I believe, will share a board or two, as will the autistic classes.
There has been some smart board training, but it will probably be best to start at the beginning. All grades have common planning and the principal says that this is a good time for training. They also stay until 3:30 each day and the principal also says that this would be an ideal time for large group training.

Continued to work with smart board developing and proficient notebooks. Set up tungle and updated calendar. Added principals to a contact group and sent e-mail inviting them to meet with me at their convenience.