16th
Thank you THS!!
I had a great time with you all today! Thanks for letting me start that conversation with you all. I have started working on your suggestions and ideas. We will be offering some great training from now to the start of next year.
On Thursday and Friday of this week, I will be out-of-district attending some trainings and regional meetings. I believe I can use the time in some of these to find some answers to your questions.
Here is a list of the comments I had so you can see how the conversation developed throughout the day:
Some quotes from teachers:
“I see projects!” (after showing some of the tools on the sites)
“I want to see it work!” - describing how technology fails
“I need tools that work!” - again describing the need for better support
Suggestions I will be looking into:
1) Look into why the shared drives are open to anyone. Teachers described situations where access to certain department folders was open to everyone. Some expressed that files were deleted by others. They don’t want access to where anyone can open and delete their work.
2) Many teachers want a solution to freeze what the screen is projecting so they can do attendance instead of turning projectors on and off. I will look into a solution. This was brought up in three different groups.
3) One group discussed that they had an old copy of a program and wanted to install it on their computers. Of course, they can’t install it but not for the administrative reason that we thought. It could be an older version of software that worked on Windows 98 but not on XP.
A suggestion I have for this is for my department to inventory all the software by age and license. We need to be sure we are compliant with software licensing. Also, I can find information on updated software and make recommendations to departments about specific applications they may want to look into. I think we can work together on this one as a group.
4) Teachers want rights to install what they want and when they want. “We are trusted to teach children, why can’t we load our own software??”
5) Would like to change settings for screen savers. The screen savers turn on during presentations.
6) Don’t understand why they don’t have speakers in their rooms for showing videos.
7) I need to inform technicians not to take control of someone’s computer until they notify that teacher. Teacher says her computer had someone taking control of her computer while she was teaching. Could be a technician but what if it isn’t? What if it is a student? Will look into this.
8) Slate training is in high demand. But making sure the slates work for each person is also in high demand. It is high demand for all campuses using them right now. I think the best solution may be to hire a slate-trainer to come in for a “Train-the-Trainer” day with teachers from the campuses using them.
9) And always - we need faster Internet and access to streaming media.
A great quote from a teacher about the technology: “It all has to do with the power behind it.” I loved this quote and it is SO RIGHT ON!
All in all, I think it was a great day. It was a great conversation. It was good seeing people who are passionate about education and teaching and their students! I really enjoyed my day at the high school and look forward to many more!!
