My Journey into the World of Elementary Tech

It’s hard to believe my first year as tech teacher is almost over! With the end of the year just around the corner, I think it’s time to reflect on the year.

Dissapointments

• One of my goals was to get the classroom teachers into the lab more on the days I’m not there. That did not happen. There is not time to meet with teachers and help them find ways to use the lab and technology.
• I tried holding monthly mini lessons on a variety of topics after school. I tried to keep them short and held them in both schools so no one would have to travel. The most participants I had was 3 and no one showed up for the last one. I am going to try one more the last full week of school. It will be aimed at teachers with young children/grandchildren. I will show them new educational sites they can use on rainy days and of course they’ll be sites they could use in the classroom as well.
• Projects take at least twice as long as I think they will. I’m sure some of the classes were tired and bored with the projects by the time we finished, I know I was! Note to self-no writing books next year.
• I have a difficult time remembering names and trying to remember over 700 is extremely hard for me. I made seating charts with pictures this year. Next year I’ll expand on that idea and add a spot for a daily grade/mark. I may also make a card with the names of everyone that sits at a computer on a given day to hang on the computer so as I move around the room I can call people by name instead of having to ask names or look at my sheet. I hate it that I don’t know everyone’s name yet.
• I tried to get my building principals to use a Google doc. Neither one of them tried it.
• I wanted to support the learning going on in the classroom especially with science or social studies on a regular basis. This did not happen too often. Even though we have curriculum maps teachers in the two buildings are not teaching the same thing at the same time. Trying to do two plans for the two schools was not in the works for the first year.

Successes

Inside the Classroom

Hightlights

• The kindergarnters made 3 class books and all of them turned out well.
• The fifth graders made brochures for the incoming kindergartners. They worked with a partner and decided what to include and how to design it. Other than it being a long project and a few students did poor quality work they turned out very nice.
• The first graders wrote autobiographies. It was another long project but the final product was good.
• Most kindergartners and first graders can log on to the computer independently!

Outside the Classroom

• I attended NYSCATE in November. That’s where I learned about blogs, wikis and the world of web2.0.
• I will be attending my first NECC in less than 3 weeks!
• I started a Ning for elementary tech teachers. We have 47 members and a core group of teachers that share on a regular basis.
• I’ve been blogging on a fairly regular basis since late November.
• I wrote my first grant.
• I won a scholarship award from Kidspiration.
• I participated in Open PD.

What I am Looking Forward to Next Year

Our school will be part of a grant program next year in which our students will be learning about Chinese culture. Instead of adding more to the classroom teacher’s busy plates the special area teachers will be doing the teaching. I will miss the training due to the fact I’ll be driving back from NECC along Route 66 with my husband, but they plan on taping it for me. I am hoping to find a class to work with on some collaborative projects. There should be many ways to integrate this project into the computer lab.

I hope to start a Tech Club for a group of interested teachers. I’m hoping we’ll meet once a month to discuss tech and how we can use it in our daily lives and then carry it over to the classroom.

I don’t have to write all my plans from scratch! Sure, I’ll toss some and tweek others but at least I have a base to build on now.

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