Land of the Luddites, Part 2

My new principal is tech savvy and he wants the staff to be as well. I'm all for it. It may take some of my coworkers some time to get used to it. When the principal toured our building during the interview process, he was taken aback by the number of chalkboards in the building. My building was built in 1990, so whiteboards were not prevalent at the time.

He's trying to make us as paperless as possible. I 100% agree with this. He does everything by email, which I find to be efficient. He has required staff to check their email at least 3 times a day. Some people are balking at this, they don't like being tethered to their laptops. However, if this is the only way you will learn about what is happening, you will have to adapt. The problem with my old principal was that she would communicate everything in two forms: email and a printout of the email that appeared in everyone's mailbox. It was redundant and didn't encourage people to check their email. I like this move because it's forcing me to be more efficient. I no longer create schedules in word and email them as attachments, now I just make appointments in Microsoft Outlook (what a novel concept). The funny thing is that I used to operate this way when I worked in an office years ago.

One bright note about technology: it's making printed text obsolete in the lives of our children. A fifth grade class in my building was looking at methods of reference. It was amazing watching the teacher try to explain certain types of books only to be met with blank stares and looks of bewilderment from her students. Items that elicited bewildered looks: encyclopedias, almanacs and phone books. It was especially funny to hear the students ask questions about phone books. "They print everyone's phone number in a book?" "What if your number changes?" "How do they know about your phone number?" It was also funny to hear the discussions about encyclopedias and almanacs. With the internet, how do you even describe what they are that makes them sound relevant? It made me realize how far we've come and it also made me feel old.

BBC

Changes

The new school year started off with some new changes. A new principal is roaming the halls. The first day of school was interesting because it was the beginning of a new era. My former principal had been in my building for 15 years. She witnessed a lot, and put a lot of systems into place. The beginning of the day started with students arriving to school. Some were confused and were found roaming the hallways before the morning bell rang (a no-no in my building). Arrival was chaotic because buses arrived late and parents were meeting teachers outside and people had new responsibilities and duties. The day started a little later than usual, but it went as smoothly as possible.

I was stuck in my office all day, playing detective, trying to find records on new students. That's how I usually spend my first few days. It's really funny when I get to know a student through his/her paperwork, yet I never lay eyes on him/her until a few days later. We have 2 new sixth graders that require one-on-one aides. This is quite a switch for us, because one-on-one aides are not that common in our building. I will try to learn what I can about these new students. I'm already scheduling meetings for them so that we can meet the families and revise their IEPs as needed.

My new principal is moving us towards the technological age. I promise this will be its own posting. Look for Land of the Luddites, Part 2.

At the end of the day, we had a major problem. None of the teachers had bus lists. Usually the teachers would have these lists so that they could verify them before the end of the day. Our school dismisses at 3 PM. At about 2:58, teachers received bus lists so that they knew which buses their children ride. You would think that most of the children know which bus they ride, but maybe you haven't met the average kindergartner. The end of the day was very hectic and nerve-wracking and we only had one child get on the wrong bus. Not bad for the first day.

BBC

Land of the Luddites

Maybe Luddite is too strong of a word. Technologically naive seems more appropriate. I've been on a crusade to get people in my school to embrace basic technology: email, web-based programs, word processing programs, i.e., nothing fancy. As I've been trying to educate others I've noticed the different levels of technology naivete that people have in my building. My district, like many others in the nation, has moved towards using a web-based program for writing IEPs. The problem has been that only two people out of 6 are comfortable enough with the program to complete an IEP. Everyone else has expressed their trepidation towards using the computer. One of the drawbacks is that the entry fields do not appear as they do within an IEP so that those who are used to completing them by hand do not know what they are looking at on the computer. I remedied the situation by creating a manual that helped everyone work in the computer program with ease. I think that it was well-received.

Another one of the initiatives I started in my building was to post a Tech Tip of the Day. I read a New York Times blog post by David Pogue and it enlightened me on the numerous bits of computer knowledge that I've been unaware of all these years. Since there were things that I didn't know about, I figured that no one else in my building knew these either. So I started posting Tech Tips each day. I thought about sending them via email, but that would have defeated the purpose, since some people are reluctant to check their email. Well, people are reading the posts, I've seen copies floating around the school.

The last week, I've experienced two different eye-opening moments on the vast technological divide that exists in my school. Those on the inexperienced end amaze me. I was asked by a co-worker how to attach a file to an email. I thought that was the lowest, but that was beaten the next day. I was sitting in my office when I got an internal call from another room. A teacher was on the other line and she asked me if I had turned off the computer when I used it in the lab. I used the lab when I taught my coworkers how to use the web-based program last week. I guess I turn off the computer out of habit; I was finished using it so it seemed like the thing to do. I didn't know that there were people in the building that didn't know how to turn on the computer. So I figured it must have been something complex. I went to the lab to see what was wrong. The LCD projector was working so that was one less problem to deal with, but the screen was black. I thought that maybe something was unplugged and when I looked at the computer, I realized that it wasn't on. I pressed the button on the CPU and the computer sprang to life. It couldn't have been that easy, I figured that I would have to do something more than that. Well it appeared that the teacher was pressing the wrong button. Instead of the on/off switch she was pressing the button that opens the CPU. If you're familiar with old Dell computers then you know what I'm talking about. She was pressing the wrong button and couldn't understand why it wouldn't turn on. That was a new one for me. I thought I had seen it all until that moment.

BBC

Professional Development

Since today is Election Day, school was closed. But instead of a day off, I had to attend professional development with millions of other educators across the nation. My school isn't used as an election site because of the proximity of other schools, but nonetheless all schools were closed. My professional development was on writing better IEPs. This has to be the 4th or 5th time this has been the topic. There are a few things that I have learned each time, and the trainings have helped shape how I think about IEPs. The unfortunate thing is that many of my colleagues i.e., school psychologists, social workers, speech and language pathologists and special education teachers, have been writing IEPs for years and they don't like it when methods or philosophies change. Everything is electronic now and IEPs are rarely handwritten, except in the most Luddite school districts. My more seasoned colleagues mourn for the days they could write out their IEPs. I think they should get over it and move on. I'm glad that I never had to learn the antiquated way. I don't have anything to unlearn.

BBC