Back to School… Almost
It’s been a busy couple of weeks prepping for kids to come back to school. Fortunately, my school gives faculty a full week of paid prep and meeting time. As a tech coordinator, I’m contracted to put in an extra four weeks during the course of the year (mostly summer), to support the needs of teachers and students.
What have I done so far:
- Prepping all student machines – I spent a week sorting through all student laptops to see which needed repair before reimaging later in the summer. Machines needing repair were recorded, boxed, and shipped out. They were imaged while I was on vacation. When I came back it was time for sorting, identification, bagging, etc. Fortunately, the new machines have a handle with space for student name.
- Planning special schedule time with administration for time with each grade level to discuss use expectations, AUP, and rollout. There’s a lot more involved than just giving kids the computers. A solid foundation is necessary if you expect kids to use the laptops appropriately in the classroom and at home.
- Curriculum support for teachers… We have three grades prepping to use tablets with students; last year we had one. It’s been a frenzy for teachers to make sure they effectively integrated the tools available into their lessons. Microsoft OneNote has been a popular application in science, math, and now social studies.
- Working with new teachers – We have a new Chinese teacher as well as long-term subs in math and Spanish. Few teachers have taught in such a technology-rich environment. There’s an expected level of use that requires a lot of support for even the best teachers. One of the many things I share is this list of classroom management tips for laptop classrooms.
- Converting my former computer lab into a classroom for technology and math – As we expand our 1-1 laptop program and begin to implement the ClassmatePC Convertibles, I’ve had a lot of details to check off my list. Carts for the initial weeks of 6th grade laptop use were too expensive. For this reason, I had to design another option. With the help of my Twittersphere and a great electrician, here’s what we came up with:
- Adding a grade to our laptop program also means a transition from carts and a lab in 6th grade to needing more intensive technology/wellnology training as well as student support. We’re doing this without adding an official class to the roster. This means that I’ll have weekly classes with groups of students during their advisory time. For me, this translates to teaching EVERY 6th grader and 7th grader approximately once per week in a formal class in addition to supporting them in the classroom. Doing so will mean more parent conferences and communications. Still working on a plan for this…
- Updating documentation for teacher websites – Every year our website provider tweaks something. This year was no different!
- Catching up with subscriptions and creating accounts for Gaggle email, Typing Pal online typing, Nettrekker, Quia, Atomic Learning, and United Streaming.
- Oh, did I mention we migrated our network and servers from Novell to Windows? Ok, I didn’t do it, but I need to support about 275 teachers and students who did. This meant reimaging virtually every machine on campus. Considering ALL of my faculty have laptops (and now all of my students), this was quite a process.
- Creating a Technology Integration OneNote notebook – With all of the changes this year (and pretty much every year I’ve been doing my job), I send out lots of documentation to my teachers. This year is no different, but I’m archiving everything I send in a OneNote notebook shared on the server. This serves two purposes. First, it allows teachers to access the documentation even if they’ve deleted the email (I’m only printing when absolutely necessary) as long as they’ve opened the notebook on their computer. Second, it models use of OneNote for collaboration (and has already given several folks ideas for using it in their practice).
- Creating an electronic version of our Middle School Planner – I worked with our principal’s assistant to redesign the calendar all of our students and faculty get each year in spiral-bound form. I decided to convert this into OneNote so users can ink/type directly into the notebook without ever using paper. It’s not an ideal solution for every user, but it will work well for many of us.
- Rolling out replacement tablets for most of my teachers – The Toshiba R10s many of my faculty had were replaced with M700s this summer. The M700 has a slightly smaller display and keyboard as well as a touchscreen and webcam. Honestly, many of my teachers are only scratching the surface with what the hardware can do, but it’s been exciting to share resources, techniques, and tips.
- Updating from Office 2003 to Office 2007 for all users and machines – I didn’t start using the current version until late last spring, so I had to come up to speed over the summer. I still have a lot to learn but have already begun training faculty. So far, so good.
Still in process…
- Continuing support of all of the above.
- Updating and developing “Wellnology” curriculum for my middle school.
- Working on technology-rich service learning with our 6th graders.
- Parent discussions on raising safe, ethical kids in a digital age.
- Supporting year two of curriculum mapping – Last year, we began the process with Rubicon Atlas. This year we get to use what we’ve created and revise, revise, revise.
- Ordering flash drives and headsets – We order flash drives and headsets for all 6th graders (as well as for 7th & 8th graders who need them). We bill the parents for the hardware, but they get a better price than shopping on their own, and it means uniform hardware for most of our students.
- Oh, did I mention I’m yearbook advisor? This year families will have the ability to upload the pics they take to the photo database. Hopefully this will encourage more families to send us photos. The yearbook fund was able to purchase cameras for every adviser. I did a short training for the 26 recipients earlier this week. I shared a great list of ideas from Gayle Berthiaume for using digital cameras in the classroom. High energy level. This provided every academic teacher with a classroom camera to be used for curriculum projects, parent communication, and of course the yearbook.
- So much for a short list. It feels like it’s going to be an exciting year!
Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.
Hi Tami,
As someone who blogs about OneNote from time-to-time, you may be interested to know that we have created the ultimate online destination for OneNote fans called http://www.iheartonenote.com. We have over 8,000 registered users who share tips and tricks, upload videos and notebooks and generally share their love for OneNote.
I would love to find ways to cross promote with you – whether we exchange links or you do a guest blog on the site or whatever! Please contact me at info@iheartonenote.com to discuss.
Cheers,
Marcus