oct_journal

October 1-5

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Lynn Ritter's Interpersonal Communications Classes use word processing and Internet for career studies

Reggie Dowlen values his computer file management skills to more effectively be prepared for his classes

Our security carts arrive ready to accept our laptops for recharging and storage

Tom Waller, our Network Director, prepares our wireless network access points for connectivity

Technology Infusion Efforts
This week continues to be busy with teachers scheduling the computer lab to work with students. I see a dramatic increase in the use of our open access lab compared to last year. We have teachers wanting to schedule the lab at the same time. It is getting crowded. I can conclude several things from this. First, our after-school training has been the catalyst for making better use of our resources as we hypothesized it would. Secondly, teachers are impacting student learning with activities that go beyond the use of the Internet as our progress indicators relate. Thirdly, it further indicates we need more mobility in our computing to bring our network resources to the classroom which is what will happen when our wireless laptop labs begin moving into the classrooms rather than moving students to a lab.

Efforts of infusion this week include our Interpersonal Communications Classes using the lab for word processing for resumes, letters of applications, and follow-up letters. Students are applying a wide range of skills to produce an acceptable product from English, grammar, and spelling to the technology related skills of creating, formatting, saving, and printing the file. Within this group are students with varying levels of ability, i.e. some with keyboarding experience and some without. Collaboration exits to share knowledge as well as the opportunity to emphasize the need for keyboarding to become a more productive computer user (as a business teacher I see that is an opportunity to recruit students and actively do so).

In addition, I continue to answer questions from teachers about using web pages for their classroom instruction. I also met with Bill Johnson, a community resource, this week to help me with using a slide show on our Web site to display classroom achievements during future lesson implementations.

Teacher Coaching Progress Indicators, Attitudinal Shifts, and Celebrations of Accomplishment
I find many teachers truly excited about their learning, but we will not be able to reach all teachers until our training groups start. However, our departmental mentors are staying in contact with teachers. Some group sessions are being held during teacher planning periods to share learning. For example, training started with a one-on-one with Spanish teacher Kim Griggs on file management skills to clean up her network directory. She shared that learning with Reggie Dowlen who was ecstatic to organize his tests, handouts, and other files into folders in a hierarchical order. That excitement led to the Departmental mentor, Jerry Underwood, helping them find Web sites to use in their classes and book marking them into organized folders all of which relates to our effort to improve basic skills for teachers. I'm quite sure if this same training had been done during the summer, it would not have had the same impact. Training must be done at the time of greatest need to be effective. This allows us to show teachers the benefit of using technology until they are seamlessly able to do so. That can only be done if the need and desire to learn is present at the time training occurs so teachers can immediately apply it.

Management Challenges
I sometimes feel like a race horse ready to begin the big race, and we can't get the gate open. However, we are continuing to ready our training room to bring teacher groups in during the day. Our security carts for our wireless laptops arrived this week, but we discovered we have more electrical work to do because of circuit overloads. We assembled the laptops in the carts, plugged the carts in and everything electrical in the room went out. We are attempting to resolve that issue next week, and it will require a dedicated electrical panel.

Tom Waller, our Network Director, was able to get an image ready to use on the laptops for training which I will be loading on each laptop next week. We still have our hubs, printers, and base stations to mount on the carts. We were excited, however, to experience the true value of wireless computing in being able to walk from our training room to our Math Department before our wireless connection dropped. We have nine access points to position in our building. We feel our reception will give us excellent range and will allow two to three classes to have network access at the same time.

I also visited our central office this week to help prepare our first reimbursement request. Our central office staff is wonderful to work with, and it gave us a chance to revisit our purchases, categorize them, and check for payment. We will send it out next week.

I continued to work on training materials to use when we begin our daily groups. I also prepared the implementation forms for our teachers and post-observation questions to consider as they implement their technology lessons. I also continued to correspond with the Student Technology Committee encouraging them to give me feedback on their ideas for using technology to reinforce what they are currently learning. We will have a meeting in the near future to prepare for a demonstration of our wireless equipment during upcoming Parent/Teacher Conferences.

Our network was down off and on for two days this week causing major technology problems for entering grades, attendance, use of labs, etc. Our teachers have become accustomed to actively using our network and downtime causes a stir.

October 22-26
Dianne Jenkins' classes work on research papers

Mike Goodin teaches his ROTC classes about Military History

Lynne Ritter helps her students research for their illustrated presentation

Stephen Marvin completes a Fall evaluation

Our Engaged Learning workshop involved group activities

Mary Kate Meyer conducts the Engaged Learning workshop

An afternoon workshop on using Web Quests in the classroom was well received

Small group on-site training produces better than expected results

Technology Infusion Efforts
This week's efforts to incorporate technology in classroom learning were very rewarding. Dianne Jenkins' English IV classes used the laptops to go over very important details regarding the formatting and style of their research paper. Mrs. Jenkins created several Word files for the students to access while she explained source cards, note cards, citing references, etc. She provided hyperlinks to various Web sites students could use for reference. She commented students seemed to pay more attention to the monitor than they would if she had given them a handout. They seemed more on task during the discussion. They were also encouraged to copy the files to disk so they would have the links for research at home or in the library. Although we experienced some log-on and connectivity issues, it was a good experience. Students felt special they were able to use this technology.

Mike Goodin used a laptop to connect to a miniprojector supplied by funds from the Marine Corp to go over Military History with his students. He commented it worked well and was well received by his students.

Lynne Ritter used two carts to have her students begin the Internet research process for illustrated talks in Family and Consumer Sciences' Interpersonal Communications classes. Curriculum standards B.3, C.4, and D.2 which focus on values, goals, and needs of personal and work behavior was the focus of this project-based activity. Students are to critically evaluate the logic and validity of information, generate and organize ideas and prepare an illustrated talk on teen concerns and problems. Our teachers and students are conscious of our focus on standards-based learning using technology.

Two of our teachers received visits from our state evaluator, Stephen Marvin. We felt that went well. Students were responsive to visits from our own administrators as well as they also evaluate classes for state requirements.

Because of my total involvement with the wireless labs, I was not able to visit teachers using the open access lab although I know they are continuing to do so.

Teacher Coaching Progress Indicators, Attitudinal Shifts, and Celebrations of Accomplishment
On Wednesday afternoon, ten teachers attended a workshop on "Using Web Quests in the Classroom." Many had never heard about Web quests, and they were eager to learn all they could about this student-centered learning activity. They were especially excited to learn how to inspire students to reach new heights of creativity and resourcefulness in this guided approach to inquiry. Most all wanted a Level II of this workshop offered in the future.

Training Group 1 spent Thursday and Friday continuing their on-site training. By having small group departmentally diverse teachers interacting with others, it produced an awesome comradery of "engaged learning" with ideas flowing for interdisciplinary units of study. I was completely in awe of the interaction of this group and the curriculum ideas which developed. We all commented how "professional development" should always be this good but often isn't. Teachers were given time to work on lesson plans, research, construct, bounce ideas off each other, and work with rubrics. In the process, teachers questioned each other about basic computer skill tasks and had several "ah ha" moments. They also had support when frustration occurred. Some teachers who barely knew each other before found friendships and common denominators in their teaching assignments. They learned they do not have to know everything about a particular software program before they can use it in their classroom. Some teachers took their laptops home and in the evening spent time on lesson plans. At the end of the week, they evaluated the quality of their training.

In all the time I have spent planning and dreaming about the potential of this grant opportunity, it confirmed, without any doubt, that it can and will work. If other teacher training groups are as successful as this group, we will change the way we teach and learn using technology. They are being taught to fish; and if they are hungry, they'll go fishing. The rewards? A revolutionary way of learning and students who are excited as well as prepared to face the future with higher-order thinking skills to tackle today's problems. The only drawback is there are not enough wireless labs to create a seamless and on-going use of technology in the classroom.

I also realized I was not so worried any more about teaching my peers. This group accepted a challenge more positively than I imagined and made me feel comfortable in my role as Technology Coach. I am now more at ease with the job.

Management Challenges
On Monday of this week, 21 of our faculty members were involved in a day-long workshop on Engaged Learning with Educational Resources as a part of our Fall professional development program. This workshop focused on student-centered learning using technology as a tool for project-based activities. It was a difficult workshop to absorb because too many activities were planned for our staff on that day. Department heads were encouraged by administration to be in important curriculum meetings while I encouraged them to be in the Engaged Learning workshop for technology. It put quite a strain on the faculty. Because of that conflict, the nature of the workshop activities, and the presenter's methodology, the results were somewhat disappointing for me as Technology Coach. We did put quite a bit of money into the workshop, and I was not pleased with the overall acceptance of it. It helped me to realize we must be careful not to place too many responsibilities on our teachers at the same time. It also reminded me how quickly teacher's attitudes toward technology can turn when things aren't going so well.

One of the biggest management challenges this week was in the realization that we all can't have the laptops at the same time. Scheduling for lesson plan implementation will be tight with the possibility of dead batteries between chargings. Teachers requested I post a schedule on our staff development Web site so they could see the open times without depending on e-mail or mailbox inquiries. It is a good problem, and I was encouraged that the suggestion of using the Web site posting to communicate was definitely an application of what we had learned about technology.

October 1-5	October 8-12	October 15-19	October 22-26
October 29 - November 2