Skip to main content

From Nausea to Showtime

I didn't have much of a chance to perform on my own growing up, but attempted to play sports. These past few weeks I was reminded of what pre-game jitters are all about. As we wrapped up new staff inservice on day two I thought I was going to puke. I had literally just walked out of my old district that week, left all I knew professionally for the better part of a decade behind, all my sick leave (we have two young kids) behind in Sheboygan. The person who hired me had left the district the week prior. Sharing time with my new colleagues was over, now it was time to start things up. My mentors are fantastic people who know what they're doing, but not much would settle my stomach down that afternoon.

If you're a classroom teacher or library media specialist you go and start setting stuff up, getting grade books, things like that. I'm starting a new position with no direct boss. Time to coordinate data and integrate technology...1,2,3 go! No log-ins to access data, no usernames to get into our AIMSweb account yet. Where the heck do I start?

I found out quickly, like in my other two career stops, the secretaries you work with hold the knowledge, physical and virtual keys to get things going. Thank goodness for all of them! Once our wonderful colleague assured me she could get me access to NWEA and Turning Leaf I calmed down.

The other thing that was missing, other than access, were people to serve. Sure a few of the other new-bees told me they wanted SMART Boards or a Mac instead of a HP laptop. That's not really a solvable problem on Day 2 when you have no budget. First the high school principal chimed in with a request on ACT data in our area. Great! Something I know how to do and something I can wrap my brain around! That started moving things in the right direction. Then the following Monday all the other teachers showed up, so it was time to meet people, go on tours and start the school year up. What a great week it was! I had wonderful conversations with many folks, most of all the district's three AMAZING library media specialists. All of them much better in that role than I was.

Next up was creating community and staff communication pieces on the changes in state testing, and the list grew from there. A to-do list gets daunting sometimes for all of us. But I needed one to be able to feel like it was showtime. And believe me, I have one now...including starting social media communication for the district.

Year number 10 of my career, here we go!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Do we have to call them 21st Century Skills?

I'm glad a few years ago I introduced the book 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times  to our administration. It was exciting to have an assistant superintendent interested in changing the conversation for learning in our school district. While I still certainly appreciate the content of this book, I am soooooooo sick of hearing about 21st Century Learning, 21st Century Skills, 21st Century ad nauseam . Isn't there a better way to phrase this for everyday conversation? Perhaps we need to stick with this so everyone hears consistent jargon, but I don't think people overall have the right idea of what it means. I would imagine if we polled our staff or parents they would say its technology or computer skills. That couldn't be further from the truth. If I say higher order thinking skills  I think that's pretty clear (at least to me) of what that means. I worry 21st Century  means the Jetsons or Star Trek to all too many people. I appreciate Tony Wag...
2 comments
Read more

...moving in.

...getting used to my new digs in Germantown . I moved into an office I'll be sh aring with a soon to be hired Student Information Specialist. To be honest there were plenty of times in the last week I felt like I was going to puke - moving on from all I've known for 7 years professionally. Stomachs have settled now and great conversations are taking their place. Had a great one today with our high school media specialist Jeff Schreiber  who has done great things integrating technology, boosting circulation and getting kids reading. I know we're going to do some great things in the next few years and I look forward to the challenge of discovering what works for Germantown in terms of instructional technology. In addition to instructional technology integration, I'm also working on data and assessment analysis. This is a hot topic in Wisconsin right now, as the DPI NAEPized  (more than you care to know on this link) our standardized test scores. Students who may...
2 comments
Read more

The Future of Technology Funding and Support

Will Richardson and Chris Lehman shined a light  on what I found to be horrifying statements. At the Education Innovation Summit Lehman reported defeated former Mayor of Washington DC Adrian Fenty said "if we fire more teachers, we'll have more money for technology."This happened a while ago - back in April, but this morning it came back to me as I contemplated the future of technology funding and support in schools in the face of ever-decreasing budgets. In my opinion, people are more important than machines for our kids. I can buy an iPad or laptop, but a personal teacher/mentor/advisor that's a little more pricey. Can we find ways to use technology to lighten the load for teachers - of course - but as a parent, a school flush with laptops and tablets, but devoid the necessary number of caring professionals to support learning is not a school I want my kids in. To contradict Mr. Fenty, "the more technology we don't buy, the more caring professionals we ...
2 comments
Read more