30 days in

It is Oct and here is what I have accomplished with my one period a day.......

- Put together two carts of ibook laptops running OS 9 with Photoshop 6 (can you believe we are still using these) for a digital imaging class that started the year off with no computers.

- Attempted to put together an email server for one of the Academies on a G3 server.

- Installed a wireless network into a classroom set up with a handful of the left over ibooks and a handful of desktops only to realize that that the wireless ap acted like a DHCP server and reassigned IP addresses to a bunch of drops throughout the school denying internet access. (Nice one on this!)

- Helped to implement a new reading program that is being used district wide.

All in about 20 hours. The needs of our school far outweigh the the time and resources invested to resolve many of these issues. I was able to lobby a little bit for an instructional technology specialist (fulll-time) during on of our accreditation focus groups. I mentioned this was one of the action items that needed to be focused on in order to take us from a "basic" score to a "proficient" score on our school accountabilities in technology. Hopefully this gets adopted.

Many more items to do, not so much time.

Collecting dust....

I can't believe how many laptop carts are gathered around campus collecting dust. I have gotten 3 carts each with 15-20 laptops that have not been used for at least a year. Yet when I show up to take them, people are super resistant! I even tell them that I am here to run diagnostic tests to see if they can become useful again, but people still want to hold on to them. Well of all the issues that each of the computers have, a simple system restore and the computers are back up and running again. Now when I take them back, they are overwhelmingly appreciative that they working again, but my gosh people, let go a little bit. Granted these computers are running OS 9, some fail to charge a battery, and some of the mouse pads aren't working, they are still useful for internet research, office applications, and even graphic design and web design. I am now trying to figure out how to re-distribute them to teachers who want to use them with their students. Equity, not equality is our new mantra.

buy in

This must be the key to adminstrative support. If an administrator buys into a vision for technology and its implementation into our curriculum, you'll get their full support. Our principal was approached by our scheduling AP to have me take extra science classes in lieu of assisting with technology because of a high need area in Biology, but my principal was adamant about having me work in an out-of-class edtech position assisting teachers. WOW! Gotta feel the love.

Technology Assistant

Just found out that my plea to assist with technology has been approved at my school. Should make for some interesting stories and hopefully some good stories about how tech influences student engagement and understanding. More to come.

insomniac

Since returning from Japan (wed), I haven't slept much.

rants of a edtech science teacher

going to catalog this upcoming year as a science teacher/tech coordinator. we'll see how it goes.