September 2011 Tech Facilitator Meetings

Betty Weycker:


CL Marshall...Will be missed!
tribute to CL: very sad :(


New on Service Desk: Cameron Cook
Gail Barnhart NCWISE
Amy Shoaf—New NCwise Trainer




Kevin Sherrill: many changes made over the summer


• Definitely aware of all the issues…
• Most of the changes revolve around the server consolidation program, the move to windows server 2008
•Printing was tested and tested, but it ended up “biting them in the rear-end”
• Things have gotten a little better each week
• Kevin was a teacher and a tech facilitator and he does know what it is like...
• The way we managed printers was recommended by vendors, and there is a better and simpler way to add printers.


• They will work with each school individually
• One domain (wsfcs) very large network, 30000 machines, 65000 user accounts, almost need two domains because of the size of our active directory tree
• Age of machines is not helping either :(
• Chris, Buddy, and Sherry are working very hard (80 + hours a week)




Carla Miller Start about surplus/print management, etc.


• Spreadsheets will be posted by the end of the week on webportal
• Process to let them know you have equipment
• Technology facilitator webportal:
o Info for tech facilitators
o Request for information
o Your level, and school folder
 Surplus for fall 11
 Pull down, check document out
 Then open and edit
 All non functioning equipment, this goes to companies that recycle
 Type of equipment, model, serial number, fixed asset, machine name, esn if available (computrace number)
 Then save and close it, asks you to “check in file”, it saves it back and check it back in
 Please complete by October 15th, cannot guarantee it can be received after the 15th
 Looking at changing the company who recycles," Scotch Recycling" picks up everything but TV’s
 Looking company who will do it for free
 Monitors (old CRT) have to be disposed of in a different way
 Do go ahead and list TV’s , Jackie will work on this now
 Hold on to laptops that work but are not workable with new network


• WPA/Laptop Re-imaging


o Some have put in tickets for laptops that need to be re-imaged
o She had one temporary employee (if you have a vast amount (15 or 20 or more), put in a ticket, otherwise re-image on your own if you just have a handful
o Two patches were given (Microsoft patches, one and two) Assume image does include those…so okay to put them on, but they are also “pushing” down the patches.
o Re imaging was an attempt to kill two birds with one stone (clean them up too) and get SP3
o There should not be any remaining access points with WPA
o The education building and the other central office building still remain on wsfcs.
o If you see wsfcs that means there is an access point out there still set up for web code…and please submit a ticket and give as much information as possible (location, etc.) The W PA encryption one is wsfcs_something
o Try to  Log-off log on or reboot if they get authentication error message…if students get blocked from certain websites
o If you have a student who logs into an approved website and says ip group denied (means they did not get policies)
o Question: why is that wsadmin does not authenticate?


• Printer Management company:


o Many tickets are still out there about printing.
o Many questions coming from lead secretary
o They should have a list of printers on the management system and many that are not.
o When you get the display 1000 sheets left don't worry, It's the 25% markthat  triggers the order to purchase a new toner cartridge
o Please be as detailed as possible, ip address, the name of the printer and serial number, etc, when entering KACE ticket
o Question of used toner cartridge: Guy Lucas has a company that will take used printer cartridges
o Carla will put in TBT update about the cartridge recycling company
o Unused cartridges from last year?—Carla and her staff will be coming out to inventory—a little tricky, people who stock piled will get compensated—hope to credit in the November billing cycle.
o If you receive a damaged cartridge from the company? Send in a KACE ticket and let them know.
o CTE printers ARE under the management system
o "Strategic Printing Solutions" will fix anything wrong with the printer. There is cap on how much they will fix, before we get charged
o There is a lot of start-up cost with this program…May see a larger bill to start up to get them to a “readiness state”
o After this month’s bills should level out…
o How many schools are printing out progress reports? About half?… Print-outs vs Parent assist Betty will address--basically said schools should not be printing.
o If a technician prints out many test pages, let Carla know (you will not be charged for that)


• Chris Corbin: Assigning Printers


o Vendor Web X—They said: “here’s the way we are migrating from SSO to group policies in windows” to manage printers
o Not working too badly considering the size of our district
o Problem--We are starting to deploy windows 7, having a printer policy on those machines prolongs log-in times (greatly)
o We need to change things a little bit if only for that reason
o Current method of assigning default printer (web x way)

• o Now, making sure in printer group, making dure policy is on machine
•  Good news s it is not going to get worse.

o School by School Approach: Start by deleting printer groups
o Deleting groups will not change the printers assigned to a machine
• New Utility for adding and setting default printers: shows all computers in the container, right view  shows all the printer applied to your school
o Can select multiple machines to mass apply a printer, click set to be installed
o Computers will have to be logged off and logged on or refresh to get the printers
o In start menu, you will have a refresh menu
o Use “goey” interface from your machine
o This new tool will give the flexibility of searching by school code, and do multiple schools (for those shared with more than one school)
 Computers DO have to be on for you to do this 
o Profile Sweep can be done per request per school (can sometimes solve printing issues)
o Sometimes students can not see their H drive, (Profile sweep fix can sometimes solve that)
o We are in windows 2008 environment, windows XP is not designed to see windows 2008 domain, (Client based extensions patches help)
o No time to update images, and the two patches are not in there, there’s where one problem lies.
o Still deploying through trend micro, and
o Three things have to happen, printer group has to exist, printer policy has to exist, and
o If you have a machine in a printer group and not showing on a machine, Chris looks at the log for the machine.
o What about PDF’s not printing? Had issue with T-61 and some desktops, says you need to load the printer
 Trying to print NCWISE, (does not like adobe 10)
 Try uninstalling adobe and reinstalling (the one on the AICP)
 Something about T61’s is strange
 Some of the same machines cannot print excel either…does not matter the machine, printer or
 Do not update ADOBE (hey may block that from happening
 There is capability to have multiple versions of adobe (encore program may need 7)
 They will do a web-x next week and go over what they are doing.


o Joining Computers to the Domain:


 Giving a machine a brand new name it works fine
 If you give a machine the same name and rejoin it after re-imaging
 Something happened during the change over
 Something do to with inherit permissions
 Workstation information menu: lets you know if client side extensions are there or not


o Work Orders:


 Need as much information as possible, tell them what you have tried (put as much info in the issue request)
 Have to reassign to service desk if you add a comment
 Getting phone calls from teachers, who leave tickets in the default ticket cue, need to assign ticket to service desk
 Check your cue once a day
 They will look at possibility of sending an email and possibly changing the default assign to automatically assign to the tech facilitator at that location
 Repair process: make sure you put in there –sending in for repair
 Days of pick up have not changed
 In repair cue, lots of ones that are old…should be moving faster now…
 Whenever you put in a ticket for a printer, leave it where it is until repair person comes in.
 Chris and Buddy will set a schedule to visit schools to go over the new process


• Betty: Miscellaneous topics:


o Progress reports should be on-line, period
o Remind teachers of the ability to save an adobe file of a progress report and email that
o Parents should be using parent assist, There is mobile access for parent assist (pa.ncwise.org)
o Parents should have a Kiosk station in schools with user name and pw: "parent", pw: "parent"
o Issue—Bus driver access to e-docs—should not be used to print e-docs—we are not going to support that
o Remind parents that Parent assistant is down on maintenance weekends
o WEB-X sessions--shared with Dr. Martin and were effective method of sharing


• Marlo—AUP


o School board policy (6161.1) employees are obligated to report violations of password protection. (so if a teacher has user name and password taped to their monitor, it should be reported to principal)
o Passwords should be treated like ss#
o MTAC is revising policies
ohttp://todaysmeet.com/tfsept11


o School Wires:


 Ran a script that ties email to their own section/calendar to fix that problem like happened with Theo Helm and teachers getting a ton of e-mail
 C-2 Upgrade:


• The have improved the documentation in the"how do I" tab
• Multiple calendar apps issue: DO NOT put more than one calendar app on a page
• Rotating flash…text is set to point 2, if you change the text, there are directions on how to fix using html
• Correct picture  size 684/360
• Webmasters no longer have the ability to edit or add users/unlock users
• You basically can’t create users now, but you can still emulate the users
o School Directories are all up to date based on personnel/marketing and communications (but they have not had deleted orders yet)
o So hide in faculty and staff webpages of people who are no longer there, BUT DO NOT DELETE,submit a KACE ticket for moves
o User Groups: fix for groups that are not working, may have to delete group and re-create
 Delete and add back –if you are not protecting pages then don’t bother doing this
o Assignments Page:
 Item gets duplicated when they add to the calendar
 Fix for right now is to just delete duplicated assignment
 We have 51000 teacher webpages, other big districts don’t necessarily have mandatory pages
 There are 17 known issues right now
 Map and directions page has issues (doesn't work now because yahoo is now charging)
 Images and links—make sure cursor is n the box first—otherwise the image may end up in header
 When adding files, make sure there are no crazy characters in name of file name
 There is a card in the release highlights under tools tab
 Comment approval for blog pages are now right on summary tab
 Should now be getting accurate numbers on hits (maybe)
 Will be new directions on the last modified report.
 Calendars don’t get last modified date unless you change the app
 Take those reports with a grain of salt—look at content first before accusing teachers of not having up to date page
 Don’t punish a teacher because they have planned ahead (like done multiple pages in the summer and
 Directions for running last modified report will be in TBT
 Standard on updating webpage time frame—principals vary in their requirements
 Updated page  will not change to a specific time frame
 Website rubric: this is a draft:
• Based on developing, proficient, accomplished and distinguished
• They want feedback on this rubric
• This will be on edmodo and TBT when it is complete
• Share with Principals if they want to add ideas, but not send to teachers yet
• First row are the sign off guidelines for school wires that were set from the start of school wires
• Open labs first Monday of every month
o Oct 3 330, nov 7 330, dec 5 8:00
o No agenda and not for credit, for getting help with your site
o You do have to register, and you have to cite specific issues you need help with
• PTA Workshop: Webmaster training Oct 25th 8-12
o Principal must send message of who they are
o And they must register by visiting the Technology Professional Development Calendar
o Emulate another user, sign in as yourself, go to users (and Marlo will tweek that, not visible to us right now!)
 But it will be next to Users tab, out next to everyone there is a "more and an emulate"
 They will go back and look at that…they will look at permissions
o Where are we on Synergy? Piloting at Atkins and career center
o Other options, typepad,
o School Wires has at least been responsive to our concerns (much better than school center was)
• Professional Development Catalog
o Face to face on Mondays or Tuesdays
o Atomic Learning
o Moodle opened on sept 15 (close on December 30th)—have the whole time
o LearnNC: Melissa & Steven are co-trainers (two course 5 weeks more intense) Have to have ten minimum to do
 Registration closes next Friday, PBL, and e-binders
o Simple k12—webinars done every day
Steven mentioned a Password card for Learning Village and other online resources --you can find on learning village.

Technology Facilitator Meeting August 2011

Welcome Back!

Staff Changes: New people: 

• Dale Fox--Hall Woodword
• Dj Brently Konnoak Elem
• Tracy at Hanes Middle
• Ronetta Snyder at NW Middle
• John @ Meadowlark Elem
• Josue @ Petree Elem
• Anna Daley @ Forrest Park
• Jennifer Mickey @ South Fork Elem
• Julia Chisolm Kimberly Parlk Elem
• Amy Daniels
• Brian Smith was at Hanes is back on Service desk
• Charlie no longer with us as NCWISE trainer—Amy is new person...will introduce at  September meeting
• Jim Mendoza is leaving us.
• Kevin Sherrill is out on back surgery
• CL Marshall is in serious condition and in intensive care at Forsyth Hospital…send a message to him :(
  Today's meeting will be "hosted at" :
• http://todaysmeet.com/tfaugust11
• Way to ask questions that don't necessarily pertain to the whole group
• Will be archived and posted for everyone to review

Video from Marlo:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZVIWZGheXY
• About pessimism, pragmatism, present , future--A BETTER future is possible if we build community power--“A tale of power”

 Betty--This has been a tremendous summer of work projects so need to focused at today's meeting

First, an overview of the Wireless/Carla Miller

WPA project: 

• certificate based security system/there is no code, only way to get on wireless is through group policies...
• For guest speakers who come to your school with a personal laptop, you will have to put in a ticket ahead of time, or use one of your machines or have presentations on a flash drive.
• Following Schools have not been touched yet :( 
• Career Center
• Kennedy
• Carter (Had power problems)
• Carla re-imaged every laptop or desktop that they had access to over the summer
• Teacher laptops coming back in without service pack 3 will have to be reimaged in order to connect to the wireless.

Race to the Top Update: 

• Awarded the bids for wiring contractor and switches, etc. so that every school in the district will be completely wireless
• Carla will contact us and principal with a schedule –There are  not to the point of getting everything done yet, but coming

Printer Solution:

• Toner will arrive at school with yellow label indicating printer name
• If you move a printer, you have to let DOT know of the moves, a VLAN change may make it unable to print.
• Vendors will be contacting and visiting schools
• Contact Carla Miller if you don’t get a cartridge for a printer that is out
• Let the cartridges run out…before you replace them.It will reset back to a 100% when you put the new one in
• Company will come to schools and do an inventory of supplies that you already have and collect or buy back surplus.
• Pricing is the same as earlier advertised: 
• charged by the clicks on the printer wheel…doesn’t matter how light or dark the copies are…
• Secretaries/Offices are still able to purchase cartidges for local printers (lead secretaries were told this information too)

Buddy Martin and Chris Corbin and Sherry Reich:

Desktop Provisioning:

•  97 % of school staff is now provisioned
• 65000 student accounts are managed this way
• Every night accounts are updated (fairly automated system)
• DOT has started taking staff extracts out of HMRS…instead of NCWISE (now have ~ 6000 accounts)
• Big Drawback: a teacher moving may show up at new school before HR moves them. But the standard is to wait until HMRS makes the change before technology moves.
• Tech Faciliators are not going to be provisioned—we are pulled out because of new service desk requirements
• Process runs at about 3:00 am every morning
• Student user names and passwords have been reset : 
• Elem: pw: is their student number
• grades 6-12, passwords are 123...
• Will be prompted to reset at first log-in

Server Consolidation Changes:

• Server virtualization/consolidate servers to data center
• VMware: allows 80 virtual servers running on 4/5 virtual servers
• MC Hammer still works (interface for active directory)
• They have added a folder called “group containers”
• Generic media account moving to staff—so you will reset pw under staff now for that account
• Roaming teachers:  mapping drives and the "xxxaltaccess group" (all based off schools IP subnet) 
• Through service desk ticket shared teachers can be put on other schools and map drives for multiple schools (Have to put in a ticket for people at multiple schools)
• Yearbook, Newspaper groups are empty need class rosters—submit a ticket—csv preferred format of members who need access:
• Can we move computers into containers in MMC? We will have access rights to do that soon…hopefully by next meeting

 Storage locations: 

• mapped to new locations in the data center..\\wsfcs.net\xxx\
• Change in how printers are added
• Office Home folders were copied minus media files
• Teacher and student home folders were not copies over
• Staff and student shared folders were not copied

School Servers are still on:

•  go to start
• Run, type:  \\xxxdc01\

Share this knowledge if there is critical need, but don’t advertise.

 file://wsfcs.net/516/data

New quotas:

• ES students: 50 MB
• MS/HS students: 100 MB
• Teachers: 300 MB
• Office Staff: 1 GB
• Tech Facilitator is at 1 GB
• Media Coordinators at 1 GB

May increase even more if needed…

•  File Screens: new capability to block files based on their extension (no scripting files, no exe, .bat etc)
• You will get accessed denied if trying to copy someone’s old data and they have one of those file screen types.
• Students can not save exe or bat files to home folders (but could still save to Staff Share or Student Share)
• You can request changes to file screen types…

 SSO is gone so a new way that may drives:

• I drive: CTE programs only
• K Drive Media Drive available upon request (Data is still there) You may have to request the data be re-mapped)—Not backup up
• Archived data (2009-2010) has been removed from K Drives…
• File screening does not apply to K drive at the moment

Mapping Groups:

• Group containers: three groups
• Click on members
• Object types first
• K Drive is part of school user group, not limited to any group
• document will be posted with these instructions…
• So if someone needs to have access to a certain drive (like the i drive for CTE classrooms), you will have to add computer to those groups (for example CTE group)

Printing: 

• New way to deliver printers
• MMC: groups container:
• As long as a machine is in that group, it will print to that machine
• They did did do pull out printers already assigned in SSO by machine name
• Problem today with network printing and a Policy refresh was done and they started working

 Put a computer into a printer group

• Computer object, “member of”
• Add
• Apply and ok

If you Don’t want a machine to print to a printer

• Go into printer group:
• Uninstall SSO admin tools from your machines (so you don't get confused and try and add printers there) Uninstall SSO administrative tools (version 3) in add remove programs

To Install more than one printer and set a default:

• Last printer applied to the machine will be the default one
• In KACE:  http://ithelp.wsfcs.k12.nc.us/
• Go Software Library Tab will replace AICP, but inside there is a Printer management tool:
• Will need to download on on your workstation. 
• Click on machine and will have a list of printer assigned to it, pick one you want to be the default.
• It will execute after the policy after a log off log on
• You will have access on whatever machine you download the management tool on…
• Computer has to be in a printer group for this to work (done on MMC)
• If you have a problem with Printers, include machine name and the name of the printer you are trying to print to in your KACE ticket
• They have had some problems with 4015’ printers
• to summarize: To make printer default: go to KACE, Software Library, Printer Management Tool

Desktop Shortcuts 

• can still be created: 
• Still need to submit ticket if you want something like a special program published to a certain machine…
• Will be a few things different: But, will still see teacher application, student application.
• DOT will be doing a whole lot  changes the next few days
• Now in start menu: Programs/utilities/gpupdate
• Now, you will only have to log-off and log on for policy update to take place not a restart
• Start menu: only updates user policies…(sometimes you don’t even have to logoff)
• If icons/printers not showing up, do the gpupdate
• ICONS: past couple of days not showing up, they are in transition phase right now…

Applications Programs:

• Still have to ask that a program be approved, make sure it works in their environment—has to go through educational value, and technical evaluation—Just because it comes with a text book does not mean it has cleared the software approval process.
• Exam View: Test banks can be installed on AICP but will be put on KACE

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure:

• Thin client. Motherboard with video board interface, a little flash memory, better warrantee, couple usb and much cheaper!
• These devices run about 400$ with monitor keyboard and mouse for about half the price of a desktop
• Going to start with office staff first
• Starting at Morgan elementary…Walkertown High, and will pilot delivery to other schools…will pilot at a slow pace.
• Implementing will be all based on licensing

New Email System:

• Tired of managing the servers…
• Moving to a hosted email system/in the cloud
• MSlive@edu
• Online version of MS outlook
• All email will be accessed through internet
• They will no longer have to manage servers
• Users will get 5 GB mail quota!!
• And user will also get 5 GB skydrive in the cloud (home folder in the cloud)

 Implementation:

• All Mail will be migrated (only problem will be for the handful of users who are over 5 GB)
• All email will be migrated over, but there is a possibility messages could get corrupted.
• If an email is important, they need to save it :forward it, archive it, print it out, whatever…)
• 30 days to migrate email—starting sometime in November.
• Plan is over Christmas break, to turn it over
• Plan to do some training before Christmas…
• Can archived email be viewed without lotus client on machine? Will still be able to as long as the machine stays alive
• Blackberries—servers will have to be synched through another method.—still testing—will update you on how that will work
• Email addresses will be the same tho for some old accounts, active directory accounts that are different from email user names, those accounts may have to change…They will let you know, but may happen unexpectantly…

Most of information today was shared with principals:

Jim with KACE update:

• These instructions on on the KACE menu
• Access KACE under user options
• In house: you can simply type "ithelp" in browser (that’s all)
• Anywhere else, type:   ithelp.wsfcs.k12.nc.us
• Use your active directory user name and pw:
• Submitter is the customer/requester
• Owner is person who does the work
• Always include serial number in hardware:
• Search--Active tickets: this queue (your tickets where you are the owner)
• Custon view: status != (does not equal) closed
• Employee self service, teachers need to update their information so KACE information is up to date
• Don’t click on anything until it gets done searching
• Look for new tickets, either assign it to yourself, another tech facilitator/ or service desk
• Changing status to in progress generates an email to notify all parties
• Issue/request –be as detailed as possible—keep everything as much as possible in there.
• Don’t change the priorities of tickets…owned by service tickets.\\
• In order to close a ticket, change to closed, save and then a resolution field is available and then you can type in the rsolution…
• Great people at service desk who can help you:
• Joan Proffitt formerly at Jefferson elem
• Brian Smith from Hanes Middle
• You can submit a comment in a ticket where you need more information and it will generate an e-mail…

 NC Professional Teacher Standards Marlo:

• Rubrics are being supplied for things like interactive white boards (whats developing, proficient, etc)
• Common Core/Essential Standards—next year
• But this year, information technology skills are required to be taught!
• This is actually not a new requirement, it’s been in place several years
• They are working with instructional services to provide support for this requirement.

5 technology Strands

• Sources of information
• Informational text
• Technology as a tool
• Research process
• Safety and ethical issues
• This was shared at prncipal's Retreat  (ppoint will be posted)
• Teachers need to be discussing how they chose websites for example

Technology as a tool: students can access, organize and communicate information!!

Marlo’s soap box item!!

Bix 6 and Super 3

If you want to present to your staff, Marlo or Jackie can present to our staff…information and technology essential standards

funny Movie clips beta: The smurfs (2011)

On google:  goooogle

What are your school's technology professional needs:

Use Social networking as a PLN

Website

KACE...list goes on an on--all tools

• These are all tools:
• Would you design a house around a faucet?  kind of backwards, same with designing lesson around a tech tool..
• How to we change out model:
• TPAC model: teachers know their content and how to teach, but do they know how to put it all together?
• Old school teachers know pedagogy and content
• Pedagogy/content/21st century technology
• we must Teach a balance of all three
• Learning activity types
• College of William and Mary—learning types—table with tools that might be used with certain concepts…
• How can we help you?
• Getting away from 1 hour staff development
• More use of teacher planning/plc’s/online instructional resources/
• Want teachers in their planning times
• You need to get them  the dates now…or will get filled up
• Build capacity (PLN)
• Get information from other places.
• The networked teacher—needs to know Learning Village for common core curriculum.
• Teacher groups in Facebook
• The instructional Technology Department Site--check it out
• Fall 2011 workshop catalog is up and online and new (lots of resources there)

Mandy Durance: Project Manager for Edmodo

• Came from Caberras country (MS SS teacher)
• Edmodo is a closed environment
• WSFCS has a sub domain
• Important to go to WS/FCS sub domain
• She is using slide rocket to present this
• You can share unlimited amount of content (as long as individual files are less than 100mb)
• Can create folders and groups/committees
• Tech Facilitators group
• All teachers would need is a six digit code that you get generated when you sign up
• School codes:  see Mandy Durrance
• http://wsfcs.edmodo.com

 This is some of the stream from the online chat in Today's meeting:  http://todaysmeet.com/tfaugust11  
Go to this link to see all the chat:

Link to the Meetings for the year!

PLN can be so many things



As I was scrolling down my twitter feed, I came across this tweet from Gcouros about a blog from Richard Byrne:

"PLNs Aren't Limited to Twitter" http://t.co/MwAp5iV

There is a nice, short and to the point  video in the blog about what could be a PLN (Professional Learning Network) for you...?

 

It immediately made me want to share with my teachers.  I held back since I am afraid they are already overwhelmed with the start of the school year.  However, it was a good reminder to me that there is no one "perfect PLN".  A PLN is whatever collaboration or sharing that leads us to be better teachers and life-long learners.  And while twitter does open a world of ideas that otherwise I may never have come across, a simple cup of coffee at a coffee shop with a friend or even a stranger could just as easily give me insight to make a day in the classroom more interesting for my students. 

 

For example, I actually view my Facebook account as a form of a PLN.  Many times people look at me like I am crazy when I say that.  Why are you putting that on Facebook?  they say.  But, that's what I like to do-- not only do I share pictures or events in my life, but I also like to share interesting articles that I read including: the weather, politics, education, the environment, medicine, and the list goes on and on.  Sure, some people must think I am a geek or boring, but I look at as just another tool in sharing knowledge and insight into life. 

 

So,  keep this in mind when people start preaching about what you should be doing in your "PLC meetings" this school year. There is no one perfect PLN.

Resources:

Examples of Good and Bad collaboration in a PLC:  http://justintarte.blogspot.com/2011/08/how-well-does-your-team-collaborate.html

NC PLC's What are they and why are they important?  http://www.dpi.state.nc.us/profdev/resources/proflearn/

 

Thinking about Social Media in Schools...

I have been reading quite a bit recently about using social media in schools particularly Facebook.  Twitter is where I find these article and they constantly inspire me with new ideas and  sending my mind in many directions.  For example, I follow a principal in Canada who has given me concrete ideas of how to use a school Facebook Page:

gcouros gcouros RT @luc_germain: RT @bhsprincipal: Creating your school’s niche on Facebook http://bit.ly/qjlxfP

Another Principal, Eric Sheninger is a leader in the use of social in schools.  He sent this tweet recently:  

NMHS_Principal Eric Sheninger You School Needs a Facebook Page by @mrwejr  http://bit.ly/qJwqph

I plan on talking with folks at my school to see how we might encourage the use of a variety of social media tools--platforms like  edmodo for the classroom, facebook, twitter and various others social media tools for communicating with families.  

Finally, there is still a lot of fear out there about social media and teachers interacting with students in appropriate ways.  Even though I personally don't friend students, I found myself agreeing with the teacher in this article about the state of Missouri making it illegal for teachers to be friends with students on Facebook:  http://bit.ly/oMr56e "I am not a pervert and don't wish to be treated as one," Joplin middle school teacher Alana Maddock wrote in an email to Gov. Jay Nixon in June, not long before he signed the legislation. "I am very responsible with my Facebook pages and don't appreciate being assumed to be a danger to my students."

OTHER RESOURCES:

http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/08/50-reasons-to-invite-facebook-into-your-classroom/

Solving Facebook concerns can be as easy as creating a FB page or Group

"No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care"

Post Cards from the edge of my life as a Tech Facilitator:




As I was walking around the halls of my soon to be former school this week, a  revelation became clear to me, "No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care..."  No! really... I mean that--- nobody cares how much you know,  they really need to know that you care first!  The line came to me from a close colleague and friend, Lacy Brigman who said it in context of how much she was going to miss me.  She said that what she would miss most about me is that I showed people I cared.

I thought long and hard about that and then came to realize that this is something that I need to share with administrators. Not because I am the best at showing people I care, but clearly it is a need that people are feeling out there especially in light of all the "bad stuff" being thrown at teachers these days.   I spoke at my administrative meeting the next day and tried to convey the meaning in Lacy's quote.  I think they heard me, but I felt like I missed saying some of the emphasis I was trying to convey.  So, the following is what I wanted to get across.

Why were people all over the school crying about me leaving?  Were they going to miss my help as a technology facilitator that much?  And my conclusion was:   No...I was really not that great of a technology facilitator.  Sure, I studied technology and have a degree in it, and after 12 years I think I have enough experience to diagnose many problems that teachers encounter on a daily basis, but in the end all that knowledge doesn't matter.

People simply want to know that you care about them.  Period.  What may seem insignificant to someone like me who sees a multitude of technology problems, to the individual teacher who has endured so much in one day, a lost file, a projector not working, or their laptop acquiring a virus can be enough to send them over the edge.

So, when I reflected on just what my strategies were in helping people, I came up with the following ideas and here in lies the lessons for administrators and other support people:

 1)  Let the person know you have their undivided attention. Listen to them attentively and look them in the eye showing them you care about their problem.  Don't be on your blackberry answering an e-mail while they stand there feeling like yet another person doesn't understand what they are going through.
 2) Let them know this same problem happens all the time.  There is nothing worse than being ridiculed and made to feel like being stupid is what caused the laptop to crash.  I have been guilty of this in a poor attempt at humor, but have learned that this can really hurt a person's feelings. 
3) Get to know a little bit about someone when you are visiting with them.  The personal connection can result in a multitude of "sin forgiveness".  So,  I might not be able to solve your virus ridden laptop problem immediately, but in the course of asking: "how was your week?" or "how are your kids?" you and I exchange just a little bit of empathy between one another.  You can't underestimate the importance of this.
4)  Compliment something in their classroom. (and I don't mean the essential question or some other "requirement" for a "classroom walk-thru").   Showing teachers you care about something going on in their room shows that you appreciate what they are doing for kids, and acknowledges them as hard working professionals.
5)  Finally, be calm in your demeanor and attitude.  The last thing a teacher needs after a day of students climbing up the walls is someone who conveys intensity and impatience.  If I act like the laptop breaking is going to "rock my world", it only heightens the stress of an already bad situation, and sends the message that my time is more important than their time.

So,  these are some of the lessons I learned this week as I walked around my school and had to say goodbye to people I never wanted to leave.  These suggestions are not all that profound, but I think they are reminders that we all need to be HUMAN first.  I hope others will take these lessons learned and know that there must be some truth in them since I heard them over and over again.

2000 Hours Project

(picture created by Jennifer LaGarde)

So, after a horrible week of saying goodbye to my close friends and family at Jefferson Middle School, I am trying to find solace in summer vacation.  I am still reeling from more or less being forced out of the school I started back in 1999 because of budget cuts.  But, I am not the type of person who wallows in self pity, but I openly admit this has been a very hard pill to swallow.

I am looking for sources of inspiration, and as is often the case I find them in social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.  My friend, Jennifer is always one of my inspirations.  I admire her positivity, her determination, her sense of humor, and most of all the quality in her that is always looking out for the best interest of teachers and especially students.  This week she posted two blogs that inspired me.

First is one about professional reading ideas for the summer:
http://lib-girl.blogspot.com/2011/06/professional-beach-reading.html   One of the many things I love about this blog is that she acknowledges what teachers have gone through this year, and thus her number one suggestion for the summer is to "HEAL".  How simple yet profound?   This simple message of caring tells teachers that while we do need to grow, we first need to acknowledge the mighty challenges we have experienced this past school year.  How many times do we get directives for professional development from "higher ups" that don't acknowledge what we have gone through as teachers?  This blog also speaks to me particularly in light of what I have endured the last few weeks.

The second blog is a plan of action to address in a small yet effective way the attacks on teachers that seemed to have "snowballed" during the last year:  http://lib-girl.blogspot.com/2011/06/2000-hours.html
Here, Jennifer is planning to document the work she does outside of school as described in this blog by a teacher named: Charles Ripley  http://2000hours.blogspot.com/2011/06/hello.html .  Charles plans to video blog all the things he does this summer as a teacher that are professionally related in an effort to counteract the myth that teacher sit around doing nothing while the rest of the wold works during the summer. I think any teachers out there will find themselves shaking their heads as his first video really speaks to many issues that teachers are feeling right now.  I have started my google doc, and have already logged four hours this weekend.

This documentation is in fact something I already started this past year in an effort to highlight my daily job for a new administration at my school as well as for representatives in our state legislature who seem to think schools do not need technology facilitators at the building level.  I am going to build on this google doc with the summer work I do.  I hope you will join me, and send the message that teachers should not be taken for granted.  We should not allow ourselves to be sheep whose profession is under attack by "the wolves" who recently swept into power and apparently feel they have a mandate to destroy public education.