The first week of school consisted of three days of training with just new teachers and two days of orientation with both new and returning teachers combined. I found myself repeating my job title over and [...] No related posts. Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.]]>

I have a fantastic opportunity ahead of me this school year. I am a Technology Integration Specialist.

The first week of school consisted of three days of training with just new teachers and two days of orientation with both new and returning teachers combined. I found myself repeating my job title over and over again to everybody and anybody who would listen. They would say, “oh, you’re the new tech teacher” and I would reply that I was the new Tech Integrator. The two positions are completely different and I would say that many if not most of today’s teachers still possess what I consider to be an archaic view of what the true role of the tech teacher is within the school setting. My school has been making steady progress over the past year regarding technology in the middle school. They have stopped pulling kids out of class to teach them tech in the lab and we are starting year two with the same set up of push in technology.

There was resistance last school year and many, many teachers still took their kids to the lab to be taught by the tech teacher. I’m moving away from that completely this year. When we had our icebreaker session with the 50+ teachers, everyone stood and said what they taught. I stood and said that I was a co-teacher who taught math, science, humanities, art, music, PE, global languages and art. I said that the lab was not my home and that it was a Digital Learning Center for teachers ands students. I will be spending my year pushing into classrooms with forty Mac laptops and sixty PC laptops. Next year will be even better when we go 1:1, but that’s another post!

I should’ve worn a pedometer on Thursday and Friday when all teachers were back in school. I spent my days doing laps around the school, visiting teachers classrooms over and over again asking them what they needed. I set up Gradequick accounts. I set up Edline accounts. I trained teachers how to use the school’s new portal. I explained what to use each drive for on the server. I got teachers computers who did not have any computers. I installed networked printers. I reset teacher passwords to Novell. I reset Atlas passwords. I talked about the upcoming Powerschool adoption more times than I remember. Now, does that sound like I’m making great strides towards changing teacher mindsets about the true role of the tech teacher? ….I didn’t think so….

With that said, I also particapted in core and specialist team meetings where we set teacher blog accounts up and truly outlined how they were going to be blogging with their students this school year. We started our initial planning for the fall Student Led Conferences because virtually all teams want to make them digital. I talked with the music teachers about making SmartMusic work for them this year and planned out when we would start recording individual students playing their musical instruments for the purpose of reflection. The teachers are in fact helping me set the agenda for the year.

So I don’t mind helping all teachers get set up because it makes them happy and we all know that happy teachers with less stress put their guard down and are more willing to change the way they teach. I’m going to push them this year to do so and I can already tell that many of them are going to push me!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.