Notes from Millie D

In a small way today was one of those days I will remember as I felt the positive impact I was making on the hardest group to impact: teachers. Last week I was able to put 19 laptops into teachers’ hands and in a very fast 2 hour presentation got teachers started on a project I call SAW IT (Student Achievement With Innovative Teaching). Anyway there has been a lot of buzz about some of the things teachers have been able to accomplish. I will admit teachers are a lots of different spaces with their uses of technology but their excitement has been contagious.

My morning started off with a kindergarten teacher who popped into my room to tell me she had used Skype last night to talk to her brother (in China) and that her son was able to see his Uncle for the first time in months. Her dad also works at the school and told me he was very grateful and that the whole family will be gathering this weekend at their house to host a Skype party. Way cool!

I then went into the library where the art teacher and I were talking about the positive response the PTA gave to me from the night before when I approached them about adding some projectors to our arsenal of tools towards impacting student achievement. Well the art teacher couldn’t contain herself as she blurted out, “I’m going to Japan in October!” She was notified last night that she was a Japan Fulbright Memorial Scholar! I was so proud of her. The part that I was excited about was the fact that I helped her write up her plan and we filled it with Web 2.0 tools (blogs, podcasts, Skype, flickr, just to name a couple) as her way of sharing her experiences instead of a standard Web 1.0 static webpage. We’ve got a lot of work to do in order to get her ready in time. Way cool!

As I walk the hallways the last few days I have teachers stopping me telling me how much they are loving their new technology and some of the things they’ve already accomplished. I ran into a first grade teacher who really wanted to learn PowerPoint. She started playing around with it last night but ran into a technical issue. After a quick re-assurance and some additional resources she went at again. She stopped by later in the day to say that she had already made 2 slides and was well on her way. Way cool for pushing through an initial barrier!

I also worked with our music teacher as she wants to record beginning band lesson, archive it, and at the end of the quarter burn a CD to allow parents to hear the growth in their musical ability. She went right at it and recorded one of her saxophone players yesterday. I helped her take the audio in Audacity, convert it into an MP3 file, put it into iTunes so we can later on create smart playlists by student to make life easier when it comes time to burn the tracks onto a CD (I also showed her how to use the rating system in an assessment. Way cool for being innovative!

At times I’ve wondered if I had taken technology as far as I could with the staff I work with on a daily basis. Today I’ve realized that I’ve only scratched the surface and Web 2.0 tools may be the way of making the necessary inroads. I know that not every day will be this amazing but it allows me to keep pushing the envelope with teachers so that our students (in an elementary setting) move closer towards achieving 21st Century Skills.

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