This will be my last post here at blogger.com. My own district is blocking it which makes it difficult to post here. From now on I will be posting at Discovery Education site.
Please join me there to continue our learning journey together.
~Anne
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Saturday, January 19, 2008
FETC Bound
I am so excited. I have been on a roller coaster of a ride lately at work. Getting really excited about all of the proposed changes and then slamming back to Earth when I hear about budget deficits. *SIGH*
This week I am about to get ramped back up to running on adrenalin as I was lucky enough to be allowed to travel to Florida for the Florida Educational Tech Conference. I am so pumped up because of all the learning that I know will be taking place. This is the first conference in years that I am "going" to and not "presenting" at. I am also supercharged because I get to meet up in person with several of my DEN buddies that I have not seen since the DEN Academic Excursion I went on last summer. I can't wait to share all of the amazing things I will learn! Florida here I come!
~Anne
This week I am about to get ramped back up to running on adrenalin as I was lucky enough to be allowed to travel to Florida for the Florida Educational Tech Conference. I am so pumped up because of all the learning that I know will be taking place. This is the first conference in years that I am "going" to and not "presenting" at. I am also supercharged because I get to meet up in person with several of my DEN buddies that I have not seen since the DEN Academic Excursion I went on last summer. I can't wait to share all of the amazing things I will learn! Florida here I come!
~Anne
Thursday, January 10, 2008
A Healing Wound
Two years ago my grandmother hurt her leg, since then she has had an open wound. The healing process has taken a very long time and was finally achieved in baby steps, but not without a lot of heartache and back steps.
This long healing process feels a lot like the battle with technology in my district. For a long time, things have not changed. Everyone has done their own thing with budgeting, purchasing and inventory. We now have a new dynamic tech leader who sees the big picture. He is not concerned with the politics as much as he is the learning in the classroom and the differences the appropriate tech could make in our classes.
We have had many "band-aid" solutions through out the years but every time we think things may be "healing" more "blood"seeps through the bandage, just like my Gram's leg wound.
I just want to jump ahead in our tech plan and heal everything already, but I am starting to realize that it will take many baby steps and lots of setbacks before things will be good. The speed at which technology changes adds so many challenges. This month we have been dealing with a virus that attacks Symantec (sp?) which was our AVS of choice. We have been cleaning up for 3 weeks solid. Just this week our district's network was attacked by an outside source, and our admin team had to make the decision to cut off the network to try and protect our information. This meant no internet, no servers, no email, no printers, no electronic IEP. In a special ed district especially this was simply a disaster. We are still in the process of cleaning up the mess. The only good thing to come out of this, is that the admin team is now considering the option of Macs across the board when we do updates next year.
We are taking small baby steps and as frustrating as this is to me as the tech integration specialist at least we are moving in the right direction. Three steps forward and two steps back, it doesn't feel like we are getting anywhere at all, but I must be patient. We will get there just like my Gram did.
~Anne
This long healing process feels a lot like the battle with technology in my district. For a long time, things have not changed. Everyone has done their own thing with budgeting, purchasing and inventory. We now have a new dynamic tech leader who sees the big picture. He is not concerned with the politics as much as he is the learning in the classroom and the differences the appropriate tech could make in our classes.
We have had many "band-aid" solutions through out the years but every time we think things may be "healing" more "blood"seeps through the bandage, just like my Gram's leg wound.
I just want to jump ahead in our tech plan and heal everything already, but I am starting to realize that it will take many baby steps and lots of setbacks before things will be good. The speed at which technology changes adds so many challenges. This month we have been dealing with a virus that attacks Symantec (sp?) which was our AVS of choice. We have been cleaning up for 3 weeks solid. Just this week our district's network was attacked by an outside source, and our admin team had to make the decision to cut off the network to try and protect our information. This meant no internet, no servers, no email, no printers, no electronic IEP. In a special ed district especially this was simply a disaster. We are still in the process of cleaning up the mess. The only good thing to come out of this, is that the admin team is now considering the option of Macs across the board when we do updates next year.
We are taking small baby steps and as frustrating as this is to me as the tech integration specialist at least we are moving in the right direction. Three steps forward and two steps back, it doesn't feel like we are getting anywhere at all, but I must be patient. We will get there just like my Gram did.
~Anne
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
My 2007 in Review - Part 3 (Final)
October sent me to the Closing the Gap conference where again I was reminded of the power of Twitter. One of my friends on Twitter noticed that I was at CTG and so was someone else she followed so we set up a meet at the "top of the stairs" in the hotel. Which is when I met Karen Jankowski. We had so much in common and we never would have met if it wasn't for Twitter. I was also introduced to several new blogs which I now follow: Free resources from the Net (for Spec Ed) being my favorite. During this conference I was also blown away my some assistive tech devices and software I saw. I joined my first ning: Assistive Tech. Shortly after that I joined a couple of other nings: Il-TCE, and SL in Education. The other tool I finally started using was del.icio.us. It finally became clear to me as I sat in session at CTG how I could use this tool to benefit my district and colleagues. I created an account and tagged all of the sites I was introduced to in sessions as CTG, so my colleagues could benefit from my account.
November led me to the discovery of Google Groups. Now I realize that this is old technology but it was the first time that I tried to use them in my school district. They worked very well for what we needed and showed the admin what we could do if we were able to collaborate more.
December was a mash up of so many tools. Every time something new comes across Twitter, I feel compelled to check it out. My friends there seem to have a lot more time than I do to surf and find the "cool stuff". My newest discovery via friends on Twitter is twhirl. Twhirl is a twitter interface that sits as a separate application on your computer. It runs in both Mac and PC. I like this much better than TwitterFox or Twitterific, both of which I have tried and discarded in the last year.
This brings me back to January. It's hard to believe another year is behind me. Apparently I can't even catch my breath before my next adventure begins. It is January 1 and I am already starting to learn new things!
Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me...see you again soon.
November led me to the discovery of Google Groups. Now I realize that this is old technology but it was the first time that I tried to use them in my school district. They worked very well for what we needed and showed the admin what we could do if we were able to collaborate more.
December was a mash up of so many tools. Every time something new comes across Twitter, I feel compelled to check it out. My friends there seem to have a lot more time than I do to surf and find the "cool stuff". My newest discovery via friends on Twitter is twhirl. Twhirl is a twitter interface that sits as a separate application on your computer. It runs in both Mac and PC. I like this much better than TwitterFox or Twitterific, both of which I have tried and discarded in the last year.
This brings me back to January. It's hard to believe another year is behind me. Apparently I can't even catch my breath before my next adventure begins. It is January 1 and I am already starting to learn new things!
Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me...see you again soon.
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