so much for using gadgets

For some unknown reason, my video bar isn't working right now, so I removed it. Often, on teacher blogs, when information is outdated or incorrect, it doesn't get corrected, and that makes me nuts, so I'm trying to be a better role model on my blog! ;)

Quick, Easy Tech Assessment

http://www.simpleassessment.com/infosourceoffersfreetechassessment

When we began our technology infusion program, at the initial teacher training, we gave teachers this assessment to gauge what their current skill/knowledge level was in using technology. It's a free assessment, really designed for students, but worked well for our tech specialist to give her quick feedback and help her design her future programs of PD for staff.

Tech Training

Throughout the day today, our tech teacher specialist was doing training with our year one cohort of teachers who have recieved the laptop/smartboard/projector set ups in their classrooms. This training would be at least the second, if not the third training opportunity afforded them since the start of the school year. By now, we are seeing more and more consistent use of technology on a regular basis in these classrooms, too. More important, we are seeing more and more student interaction with the technology. A parent recently asked what exactly is a smart board, because that is all her child talks about when they get home from school! This parent remarked that when she was in school, the smart board was a paddle used to make kids 'smarter' about their choices! Interesting evolution of terms!

video gadgets

I was playing around with creating another blog for a different venue, and ran across some resources for "gadgets". Sooo, I added one that I thought was kind of fun to learn more about "gadgets". See, I am learning! ;)

technology and school law

In our other online class, school law, we have been looking at a number of issues dealing with actions by and toward school personnel. In the court case that was posted as a scenerio this week, a non-custodial parent sent a false fax to school, granting him permission to pick up his daughter from school, which was clearly against the wishes of and court orders in favor of the custodial parent. This raises the question about how careful school personnel must be in verifying the sources of electronic communication. While technology by and large has made our lives more efficient and effective, this court case proves that it still isn't foolproof and raises an issue of looking for additional policies, procedures and safeguards to put in place that we may not have needed 5 or 10 years ago.

Spoiled by technology?

This past week, my daughter came down with a bug that kept her home from school for a couple of days. Her school district has recently switched over to new "communication" system for parents, one which is supposed to allow us to keep up with grades and homework via the internet. Sounds like a good plan, except that on her first day home sick, none of her teachers' inforamtion was current. So I had to resort to e-mailing her teachers, which meant a full day turnaround to get her assignments. Now on day two of her sickness, while waiting for teachers to respond, she is now 2 days behind in her work. When she and her brother were first starting school, e-mail was still a novelty, and the only "technology" available to communicate was the phone. So, now she is 15, in high school, and we're frustrated that her teachers don't keep their web-pages current so that we have immediate access to what's going on in her classes. Interesting perspective . . .

Personal Blog, week 2

On Tuesday I was talking to our tech instructional specialist about what she was preparing for a "tech time" meeting she would be facilitating with our adm. council. The conversation turned to using the NETS-A standards as a pair/share conversation. I mentioned to her that we were doing personal reflections on the standards in this class, and she shared that she was teaching a master's level class and doing the same type of activity with the NETS teacher standards. I like the idea of using those standards as a way to set the bar for what we should expect in the way of tech behaviors and attitudes with our adm., staff and students. Hadn't really given this much thought to those standards before now. I have to admit, though, I'm surprised that we are using the 2002 standards when they are already out of date. Isn't part of the point to be using the best, most recent information available to us?