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.