Spring break in Elberton!!! I hope to get some shirts made to celebrate this week.
Today was the first of my five full days of traveling to Elbert County School District to follow Mr. Clint Winter, Instructional Technology Coordinator for the district. Clint is halfway through his second year in this position. Prior to his employment in Elbert County, Clint was an Instructional Technology Specialist in Clarke County for four years. Fortunately, I now get the experience of seeing exactly how a technology coordinator handles the day-to-day requirements of the position.
The day began with a cabinet meeting that included the Superintendent, Director of Instruction, Director of CTAE, and the Instructional Technology Coordinator. The purpose of this meeting was to review the districts testing platform. Much of their discussions focused on how to be proactive regarding upcoming changes within the current platform.
The next meeting involved the Central Office Leadership Team. Here the team prepped for the night's board meeting. The Superintendent requested information pertaining to the districts technology initiatives. He asked for the exact number of Chromebooks at the different instructional buildings, the number of help desk tickets opened, and closure rate. The Technology Director shared that tickets are being closed within a day of them being generated and the Superintendent requested that they praise the technology team at the meeting tonight. The Superintendent also asked that the Technology Director share information pertaining to the network and infrastructure upgrades taking place.
The morning was finished off by attending another meeting to hatch out the details from the morning cabinet meeting. The team, minus the Superintendent, met to discuss how to move forward with the test platform issues. The team attempted to predict questions by building administrators, discusses the concerns of the teachers, and when to contact companies to schedule webinars.
The afternoon began with a call from a concerned parent asking that the district lock his daughter out of her school email account. Apparently, she was sending and receiving inappropriate messages with a male student. This was investigated through Google Admin features and through GoGaudian data. The two students were indeed committing such acts and were placed "in the penalty box." This restriction, for those who violate the code of conduct, limits the websites students can access.
The afternoon involved visiting a teacher and the media specialist at the high school to assist them with WeVideo, a web-based video editing site. The county recently purchased a license for all teachers and students in grades six through twelve. This teacher is excited to have her students begin making content on books they have read.
It was an action-packed day. Can't wait to see what tomorrow hold.
March 12, 2019 - 8hrs.
My second day in Elbert County School District with Clint Winter. Today I was tasked with creating an informational Google Site for WeVideo. The school district recently purchased a district-wide license for all teachers and students in grades six through twelve. The purpose of the Google Site is to provide teachers with a tutorial n how to use WeVideo as well as to provide ideas on ways it can be utilized.
I spent the first half of the morning watching tutorials and playing around with on the platform. I then moved to the planning phase of the website. I wrote out some overall objective, mapped out a few of the pages to include, and then began creating. (It's not complete at this point.)
WeVideo Introduction
The creation process continued after a quick lunch and only concluded when Mr. Winter needed to go visit a coding club at the middle school (fifth through eighth grades) This after school coding club consisted of 10 girls who clearly have an interest in coding. I used this time as an opportunity to make some observations around the media center. There was a maker space, 3D printer, a wall dedicated to being a digital learner.
Mr. Winter spent the majority of his morning troubleshooting issues with GoGaurdian. He also took multiple phone calls with technology support staff and answered many e-mails. The rest of his day he worked on a nine choice document we will be using with sixth graders.
March 13, 2019 - 8hrs.
Teaching, teaching, teaching; that was how we spent this day. We began and ended our day teaching sixth grades how to create a map using Google MyMaps. The sixth-grade social studies teachers are currently teaching their students about our northern neighbor, Canada. Yesterday, while I was creating the WeVideo Google Site, Clint was creating a nine choice document for today's lessons. The choices ranged from having students measure distances, label regions, find locations and drop pins, watch videos and make observations regarding the location, etc.
Quick note, Elbert County is One-to-One with Chromebooks in fifth through twelfth grade
After spending about 8-10 minutes introducing the assignment, he released the students to complete the tasks. This lesson reminded me a little of the Breakouts I participated in at Whit Davis Elementary. Part of the lesson is for students to use trial and error, problem-solving skills, and communication skills with peers.
Overall, the assignment went great in all classes. Students were engaged with the content and not one student was observed being inappropriate with their device. The students explored the different features and figured out how they work. The one area of difficulty that needed to be explained was how to capture YouTube URLs and knowing where to paste them on the pin drops. However, once a student was shown, they did a wonderful job of helping peers.
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Mr. Winter and I began the morning at the board office. I spent the morning continuing to work on the WeVideo site. Clint expressed his desire to push that out to all the middle and high school teacher by tomorrow. (No pressure!)
After a few hours of working on the site, we were off to the elementary school (second through fourth) to meet with the school psychologist to talk about read&write. She reached out to Clint yesterday regarding a student who is being tested for special education. The initial results indicate that this student has processing deficits with written language. However, his auditory learning is extremely high. He wanted me to discuss Read&Write with her and how it could benefit the student and the teacher. I shared my face-to-face staff development presentation and the online staff development with Clint in case he wants to use it in the future.
After lunch, we met with the elementary school testing team: building technology specialist, county's technology director, county's technology coordinator, principal, assistant principal, testing coordinator for the building, and special education team leader. Many things were discussed a few are included:
-Discussion about how to login to DRC link,
-Wifi concerns in the mobile units and at the far end of the building
-AP (access points) in the building and the need to borrow two from the high school
-Concerns with student devices (headphones and Chromebooks)
-How the building will be staffed during Milestones to provide tech support
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| Clint listening to the concerns of the principal. |
After the meeting, it was back to the board office to continue the Google site. Ready to sleep by the end of the day.
March 15, 2019 - 8hr.
My last day in Elbert County School District. The plan was to participate/listen to multiple webinars on testing platforms, however, the technician at the high school called in sick, so we were off to the high school to fill in. Things were pretty slow, so I continued to work on the WeVideo site.
The most interesting part of the day occurred when we met with the administration team and two students who have been making videos for the golf team and track team. Clint expressed his desire to get some students to make a video on innovative teaching in Elbert County. The students and administrators are all on board.
After lunch, we were back at the BOE to learn Questar, the new online platform that will be used for the first time with LID special education students. Over the years, students with severe and profound disabilities have taken the GAA (Georgia Alternative Assessment). This involved teachers putting together portfolios for these students to show how they worked on various standards. Now, the state is moving to an online assessment and stakeholders are nervous.
After reading and discussing concerns regarding Questar, we finally got to the webinar on the testing platform. The webinar was on Illuminate Education. Clint and the cabinet team wanted more information regarding how their testing data is presented.
What a Spring Break!
What a Spring Break!
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