After finishing up my staff meeting sessions and giving feedback to one of the meeting coordinators I was working with, we decided to have a full staff meeting to review each of the technology sessions and present the next sessions for the remainder of the school year. Each of the meeting leaders gave a short overview of their sessions and the outcomes as well as an overview of the upcoming session they would be leading. I decided not to lead another session for a few reasons. First, I was very disappointed in the staff attendance and participation in the meetings. Second, my team is participating in a year long staff meeting on vocabulary and was not able to attend the technology meetings. My principal allowed me to skip these meetings in the first half of the year so that I could lead the technology meetings. I decided to join my team to complete the vocabulary training for the rest of the year.
The meeting went well and all staff signed up for one of the technology sessions. I was happy to hear the principal make a statement about the attendance at these meetings and how we all have a professional responsibility to attend them. I hope this will make a difference in the future.
Since I will not be leading a technology session and my team has not been able to attend the sessions I have been training them on the Mobi and Interwrite Workspace software during our team meetings. This has helped to keep me involved in staff development while including people that I know will benefit from the training. My team is very dedicated to trying new things and learning more about equipment we already have.
Even though I had difficulties through this process it has been a success. The majority of the staff has and will be trained on several different kinds of technology equipment/software. I would like to continue with technology staff development in future years. I have developed a closer relationship with our media specialist through this process and we are looking at ideas for next year.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Final Staff Meeting
Last week was my final staff meeting to teach about the Mobi and Interwrite Workspace. A few days prior to the meeting I sent out another reminder about the meeting letting the participants know they would need to have something they created to share. I also said that I would be available for assisting anyone that needed help with their template or lesson. One person did approach me the day before the meeting and I met with her to help her come up with ideas and show her a few things she could do with the software. The day of the meeting most participants came about ten minutes late, which disappointed me again. I asked in the email for everyone to arrive on time so we could share. Seven of the ten original participants showed up.
Once everyone arrived I asked for people to share what they created. No one volunteered but eventually I did get one staff member to show what she had done. I also had a couple of people practice using the Mobi with that lesson. No one else would share and I did save three templates that were created to a flash drive. Overall I left the meeting feeling frustrated again. I tried to offer support to the staff to instruct them in this software and interactive tablet but many of the participants really didn't care to learn about it.
Later in the week the staff development coordinator I had been working with asked me about the session and I explained to her my frustrations. She understood and asked all of the session leaders to email her and say if they were interested in teaching a second session of the same staff meeting or a different technology meeting. I wrote back saying I was not interested due to the lack of participation and respect from my co-workers. Fortunately the other staff members agreed to teach a different session so there will more opportunities for the staff to learn about some of the software we already have on our computers. I also found out a few days ago I will be presenting what my participants created at a whole staff meeting on Monday. We will see how that goes. . .
Once everyone arrived I asked for people to share what they created. No one volunteered but eventually I did get one staff member to show what she had done. I also had a couple of people practice using the Mobi with that lesson. No one else would share and I did save three templates that were created to a flash drive. Overall I left the meeting feeling frustrated again. I tried to offer support to the staff to instruct them in this software and interactive tablet but many of the participants really didn't care to learn about it.
Later in the week the staff development coordinator I had been working with asked me about the session and I explained to her my frustrations. She understood and asked all of the session leaders to email her and say if they were interested in teaching a second session of the same staff meeting or a different technology meeting. I wrote back saying I was not interested due to the lack of participation and respect from my co-workers. Fortunately the other staff members agreed to teach a different session so there will more opportunities for the staff to learn about some of the software we already have on our computers. I also found out a few days ago I will be presenting what my participants created at a whole staff meeting on Monday. We will see how that goes. . .
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Third Staff Meeting
In the middle of December I led my third staff meeting. This was probably one of the most frustrating yet. Out of the 10 participants in my class I only had four show up. I did send anther staff member to a session I thought would be more pertinent to her job, so I guess I could call it five people at the meeting. Well two of the people showed up late and one that showed up late even left early. I feel like there is no excuse for this because I emailed the participants twice reminding them of the meeting and I sent out info on how to transfer lessons to their Workspace software. No one seemed to follow the directions so I helped the two members that stayed the whole time and are actually trying to use the software to do this.
Okay, after all that ranting, the time spend with the three staff members was good. I was able to really help them and they worked on some affects of their lessons using the Mobi. One of the other participants is getting very frustrated because her computer seems to be having some issues with the software. It is working very slowly and some of the same things I am helping others with does not work for her. There is one more session left for this differentiated staff session. I emailed the other leaders to remind them that this last session will be a sharing session at the end. Each participant should be creating something to use in their classroom or teaching. I have asked the leaders to send me the activities their participants create so I can compile them onto our email conference for others to refer to if looking for activity ideas.
Since I was so frustrated with the lack of participation I went to one of the administrators and explained my concerns. She understood, but like me was not surprised. I am not the other meeting leader with these problems. Our school is known for the lack of participation, late arrivals and lack of interest in staff meetings. While I can understand this due to our workload and the fact that these meetings begin 25 minutes before our normal start time, it is also part of our job and people should understand that. The administrator talked about how this shows a lack of respect for other staff members which is true. I asked her to mention something at the next team leader meeting to discuss the problem and possible solutions.
My last meeting is in a few weeks. When we get back to school in a few days I will send another email reminding my participants that they should be working on their activity/lesson. I will offer assistance to help them with the Mobi and Workspace again to see if anyone would like help this time. I am very interested to see what everyone will create and how many members will show up this time.
Okay, after all that ranting, the time spend with the three staff members was good. I was able to really help them and they worked on some affects of their lessons using the Mobi. One of the other participants is getting very frustrated because her computer seems to be having some issues with the software. It is working very slowly and some of the same things I am helping others with does not work for her. There is one more session left for this differentiated staff session. I emailed the other leaders to remind them that this last session will be a sharing session at the end. Each participant should be creating something to use in their classroom or teaching. I have asked the leaders to send me the activities their participants create so I can compile them onto our email conference for others to refer to if looking for activity ideas.
Since I was so frustrated with the lack of participation I went to one of the administrators and explained my concerns. She understood, but like me was not surprised. I am not the other meeting leader with these problems. Our school is known for the lack of participation, late arrivals and lack of interest in staff meetings. While I can understand this due to our workload and the fact that these meetings begin 25 minutes before our normal start time, it is also part of our job and people should understand that. The administrator talked about how this shows a lack of respect for other staff members which is true. I asked her to mention something at the next team leader meeting to discuss the problem and possible solutions.
My last meeting is in a few weeks. When we get back to school in a few days I will send another email reminding my participants that they should be working on their activity/lesson. I will offer assistance to help them with the Mobi and Workspace again to see if anyone would like help this time. I am very interested to see what everyone will create and how many members will show up this time.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Second Staff Meeting
So last month I had my second staff meeting which went a little smoother than the first. The 6 Mobis that we ordered came in a few days before the meeting so I was able to have them charged up and ready to go. Several people were out that day due to other meetings so I had a smaller crowd and everyone had their own Mobi to use. The goal is for everyone to learn something new about the Mobi and create a lesson for them to use in their classroom. I showed a few examples of easy lessons I had created and walked around to troubleshoot some issues teachers were having with the software.
At the end of the meeting I was happy to have two teachers check out new Mobis to try in their classroom. I just emailed a reminder about our next meeting and gave them instructions on how to import already created lessons so they could start off using them in their classroom. We have two sessions left. My original plan was to have the last meeting be a sharing sessions between different grade levels but I decided this would no longer be the best plan. Two grades levels had to participate in a different kind of meeting and many team members signed up for the same sessions so they would not be the best way to share ideas. Instead we will have one more session together and share withing our meetings with what teachers have created. I will then collect samples from each technology meeting and create a folder of documents for other teachers to view. We will see how next week goes!
At the end of the meeting I was happy to have two teachers check out new Mobis to try in their classroom. I just emailed a reminder about our next meeting and gave them instructions on how to import already created lessons so they could start off using them in their classroom. We have two sessions left. My original plan was to have the last meeting be a sharing sessions between different grade levels but I decided this would no longer be the best plan. Two grades levels had to participate in a different kind of meeting and many team members signed up for the same sessions so they would not be the best way to share ideas. Instead we will have one more session together and share withing our meetings with what teachers have created. I will then collect samples from each technology meeting and create a folder of documents for other teachers to view. We will see how next week goes!
Friday, October 21, 2011
First Staff Meeting
A few weeks ago I had my first staff meeting training on the Mobi Interwrite pad. The meeting is supposed to take place at 8:15, which is 25 minutes earlier than our normal start time. The staff at my school is notorious for being late or not showing up for these earlier staff meetings. I asked the secretary to make an announcement to remind the staff the afternoon before the meeting took place. Well this didn't really seem to help. I had one person show up on time and several others show up a few minutes late. I made an annoucement for all staff to report to their meeting around 8:25 and then everyone else showed up.
After the slow start I think everything went pretty well. I introduced the software that went along with the Mobi and had everyone try to create things on the software. I had to troubleshoot with a few staff members and download some of the lessons from the software website. After that I passed out the two operating Mobi tablets that I had and let the staff test it out. This also went well but it was difficult not to have more of the Mobis so that each group could use them at the same time.
I did encouraged the staff to test of some of the lessons on their own or create a new document using the software. The nice thing was everyone already had the software on their computer and they could use it without having a Mobi. We also discovered that one staff member could use her ipad in place of the Mobi using a whiteboard app called splashpad. A few days after the meeting I received the two new Mobi pens I was waiting for. So next month I will have four operating Mobis and I will ask the other staff member to bring her ipad. I hope this will help to make the session more productive and interactive.
After the slow start I think everything went pretty well. I introduced the software that went along with the Mobi and had everyone try to create things on the software. I had to troubleshoot with a few staff members and download some of the lessons from the software website. After that I passed out the two operating Mobi tablets that I had and let the staff test it out. This also went well but it was difficult not to have more of the Mobis so that each group could use them at the same time.
I did encouraged the staff to test of some of the lessons on their own or create a new document using the software. The nice thing was everyone already had the software on their computer and they could use it without having a Mobi. We also discovered that one staff member could use her ipad in place of the Mobi using a whiteboard app called splashpad. A few days after the meeting I received the two new Mobi pens I was waiting for. So next month I will have four operating Mobis and I will ask the other staff member to bring her ipad. I hope this will help to make the session more productive and interactive.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
The beginning, more trouble than I expected. . .
I am in the beginning of my final project for my graduate program, my internship. At the end of last school year I came up with my plan and went over it with my principal and graduate adviser. I decided to organize and lead staff development for the fall/winter for my staff. In June I gave out a survey to see what tech topics teachers were interested in and received some decent feedback. With a co-worker of mine we came up with 5 tech sessions, one of which I will be leading. In September of this school year we met with the principal to go over the plan again and then I led a staff meeting to introduce the topics and give a brief explanation of each session. Whew, well that was all just the beginning.
After everyone signed up for the session they were most interested in, I realized that one session had twice at many staff members signed up and we were going to half to split the meeting into two sessions. Thankfully, one of the session leader was flexible enough to take over the second session of website management. Then, the tricky part happened. As I started splitting the group, people emailed me that they would prefer to be in the other group, or they needed to be in a group with a co-worker. I didn't think that was a problem until I tried lay it all out and keep both groups equal. I also discovered so many people picked one topic because they really didn't want to learn anything new. This is frustrating because my whole plan is exactly the opposite, I want everyone to learn something new and create something they can use with this new knowledge. While I understand that many teachers are overwhelmed, it bothers me but doesn't surprise me that the staff feels this way. I finally got it all figured out and sent the list of participants out to the principal.
The first staff meeting is set to begin next week. I have been gathering some tutorial information and creating some documents to introduce my session, the Mobi Interwrite tablet. Unfortunately, I discovered this week that the electronic pens that go with the 2 Mobis I have are not working. I contacted the tech support and we discovered they needed to be replaced and were no longer under warranty. Uhhh! I got in touch with a salesman from the company and it turned out the pens were not very expensive, $38 each and my school had funds to pay for them. Yes, something is working out. I was also able to borrow 2 Mobis from co-workers to use for my meeting. Let's hope the meeting goes relatively well!
After everyone signed up for the session they were most interested in, I realized that one session had twice at many staff members signed up and we were going to half to split the meeting into two sessions. Thankfully, one of the session leader was flexible enough to take over the second session of website management. Then, the tricky part happened. As I started splitting the group, people emailed me that they would prefer to be in the other group, or they needed to be in a group with a co-worker. I didn't think that was a problem until I tried lay it all out and keep both groups equal. I also discovered so many people picked one topic because they really didn't want to learn anything new. This is frustrating because my whole plan is exactly the opposite, I want everyone to learn something new and create something they can use with this new knowledge. While I understand that many teachers are overwhelmed, it bothers me but doesn't surprise me that the staff feels this way. I finally got it all figured out and sent the list of participants out to the principal.
The first staff meeting is set to begin next week. I have been gathering some tutorial information and creating some documents to introduce my session, the Mobi Interwrite tablet. Unfortunately, I discovered this week that the electronic pens that go with the 2 Mobis I have are not working. I contacted the tech support and we discovered they needed to be replaced and were no longer under warranty. Uhhh! I got in touch with a salesman from the company and it turned out the pens were not very expensive, $38 each and my school had funds to pay for them. Yes, something is working out. I was also able to borrow 2 Mobis from co-workers to use for my meeting. Let's hope the meeting goes relatively well!
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