Teachers demonstrate a sound understanding of technology operations and concepts.
My Resume
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Laptop Care Powerpoint |
| File
Transfer Protocol |
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| Recently I struggled with
how to transfer a very large file to my website. It was a
Powerpoint show that was heavy in graphics, sound, and animation, and I
finally thought that I would have to resort to converting it to a pdf
file, which rendered all the animation motionless. I poked around
the Internet, and read about ftp, and found that my webserver supports
such file transfer. I was so excited when I learned how to
transfer files using ftp. What I know is only the tip of the
iceberg, but I'm perched and ready to learn more, and to be able to
share it with colleagues who are interested in developing curricular
websites. |
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Reflection: |
| Last year, when I
was coach for my site's E.E.T.T. grant participation, I did
demonstration lessons in each of the fifth grade classrooms.
Participating teachers received a laptop, a digital projector, and a
digital presenter for their classrooms. Between the 4 teachers,
we also shared a mobile laptop lab (18 computers) with a wireless
internet connection. Since students had never used laptops, one
of the first
lessons I did with them was a simple introduction to the mobile lab
set-up and some cautionary information about how to treat the laptops
when the lab was in the classroom. First, I showed them the small
Powerpoint presentation (link above) Then, students practiced
procuring laptops from the cart, and turning them on. After doing
some cursory work in order to acclimate themselves to the built-in
mouse, and the relatively small size of the keyboard, they also
practiced the logistics of returning the laptops to the cart, and
reconnecting them to the powersource. Students were delighted at
this opportunity, and took the responsibility of carefully
handling the hardware very seriously. Although these lessons were
very student-centered, I used them to serve as a model for their
teachers, as well. I tried to keep in mind the logistical aspects of
having that many laptops in a classroom, asking students to do
something new, and teaching material that was sometimes unfamiliar to
the adults as well. Something that I noticed was the difference in comfort levels of the teachers with regard to using the mobile lab. All of them became avid,daily users of the laptop, projector and presenter. However, the logistical challenges of the lab made it used less often by some of them. These admitted to not liking the "chaos potential" or what they thought was loss of instructional time in getting the laptops into the hands of the students. Because it was a shared lab, the decision of how best the lab should be used was difficult. One teacher was adamant about having access to the whole number of laptops at a time, because of how she used them during her language arts time. Another held equally as strong a view that the set should be divided and dispersed among the participating classrooms so that she could have regular, all-day access to a smaller number of computers that she would then use as a lab. Both of these ideas hold merit, and I feel, in retrospect, that, as the coach, I should have worked harder to help the grade level come to consensus. I also feel that if I'd done more frequent demonstration lessons in the classrooms where the lab was regarded with less enthusiasm, it may have been used more often when I wasn't there. |
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