Teaching in 1952

Just how much has changed in 58 years ...

I think I would enjoy showing this to students and then having a discussion about what in the video is still true today, and what has changed.



Good Fun!

Collaboration

If there is one thing I have learned this year it is the power of the internet to support the growth of one's personal learning network (okay, a group of folks with whom to collaborate). When I first registered with Twitter, I was underwhelmed. I let it sit in my bookmarks, visiting it occasionally only to find nothing there. Well, I wasn't really that dense, so I started to ask a few questions amongst my network of technology support friends. An invite to follow a peer in another city got me going and now I find the tool positively addictive. I've also met (virtually) a good number of new contacts and benefited greatly from the links and 140 character ideas they have shared. I'm now following 56 people and have 49 following me, a set of numbers above the norm, but far fewer in both categories from some of the folks I follow. Of course, they seem to share a lot more than I do, something I need to work on in the new year.

I also started to make more intelligent use of Delicious. I've set up some key, keywords, and plan to present at a conference in February on making the best use of this tool to build not only an easily accessed database of your own personal bookmarks, but also determining a schema for how best to share with others in your PLN.

Our district use FirstClass as mail/conferencing system and I have used a third-party application to build our school district website. Recently, with the approval of our laptops for teachers project, I've use the built in tool provided by the FirstClass software to develop a webpage for the 24/7 project. Over time I expect to use it to show teachers a simple way to use their FirstClass account to build personal or class websites.

The plan over the next four weeks is to get a good start on the professional development activities for the 24/7 project. It was unfortunate that the weather impacted delivery of the MacBooks to the teaching staff, only 155 of the 210 got in their hands before Christmas, but, for the rest, consider the laptop a New Year's treat. Can you tell that this teacher loves her MacBook?

Teacher 24/7 Laptop project

It is a pretty exciting time for me. I'm very excited about the decision our Board of Education has made regarding the provision of MacBooks to all our teaching staff, full time and part time, continuing and temporary contracts. The teachers must apply for the laptop, but the costs are being handled by the board over a 4 year lease program.

The laptops will be ordered next week and the rollout will be held over much of a week before the Winter Break. I'll be coordinating training sessions on various pieces of software and web 2.0 tools from January through to June and we will have summer days during the July/August break.

The purpose of providing a laptop to our teaching staff to have available for them to use at any time of the day they wish is to enable them to support/enhance instruction in the classroom. The learning opportunities for staff though workshops and peer tutoring will help teachers, individually and collectively, as they become more familiar and confident in using this resource to support student achievement.

I'm even thinking of a "laptop camp" similar to the Hypercard camps we used to have many years ago.

This should be a very interesting project, one which I am happy to see get rolling before I retire.

The purpose of providing a laptop to our teaching staff to have available for them to use at any time of the day they wish is to enable them to support/enhance instruction in the classroom. The learning opportunities for staff though workshops and peer tutoring will help teachers, individually and collectively, as they become more familiar and confident in using this resource to support student achievement.

Photo Credit Swansea Photographer
http://flickr.com/photos/tfrancis/1288761901/in/set-72157600161692049/
Used with Creative Commons Licensing Permission to copy, distribute and transmit the work

Anticipating the first day back

I've been up since 5:30 this morning. It was a restless night for sleep. Today is the first day back for the 2007-8 school year and though I have been working on technology stuff during the summer, today really does kick off the new year with students and teachers returning to school.

This will be the start of my third year with district as opposed to school responsibilities. I found it funny last week when meeting with the administrative assisstants and the meeting organizer asked everyone to introduce themselves and tell folks how long they have been in the district. There were two of the admin assistants who have been in the district for 30 years. The newest member of the group has held her position for six years! There were a couple of on call people in the room who are brand new to the job. When it was my turn to say something, I indicated that I started with the district in 1974... 33 years ago. I started teaching in Smithers, BC in 1971.

When I read this blog the other day, The First Day - A Different Perspective, I couldn't help but think back to a few days in my carreer.

1) The first school day in September 1978 when I got my first posting as a school principal at Davis Bay Elementary School. Yes, it was a 0.2 assignment and meant I would teach 4 days a week, but not that first day.

2) The first day of school in September 1986 when I wasn't there because I had taken a leave of absence that would turn out to lead to resignation and 13 years in business with my brother and then on my own.

3) The first day of school in September 1999 when I returned to the school district as principal of Langdale Elementary School.

4) The first day of school in September 2005 when I started in my current role as Technology Manager.

Today, I will visit a number of our schools and complete that tour tomorrow or Thursday this week. My first stop will be the school where I was last principal. I like it that the kids there still greet me warmly. It will be a great set up for a great new year.