Things to Accomplish – Reflection
Many of the things I wished to accomplish this school year did not come to fruition: Google Apps usage by our students, podcasting in my classes, etc. I did accomplish finishing the classes I needed to earn my clear credential. There is something to be said about having a teaching position to be able to try these things in my classroom.
Teaching podcasting was something I wish would have happened. The necessary tools (headphones/microphones) was cut by the district. The purchase was denied even though I put in the purchase order before any School Improvement money was frozen. Now that I have moved into my new computer lab classroom I’ll may have the ability to start my students podcasting. The computers in the lab were purchased by the adult school that uses our middle school campus at night. The only use of the computer lab they have is for their adult ESL classes using language aquisition software. Amazingly there are now a set of 36 headphone/microphones in my classroom. I just need to ask the adult school if I can use them a few times per quarter.
Google Apps is another story. I don’t think my district IT department quite understands this web app at all. First they do not realize that one can sign up for this with their present email address. My district IT department thinks this is Google’s way of getting everyone to use Gmail. The latest roadblock thrown up against using Google Apps in the classroom is the Chat feature of Google apps. Correct me if I’m wrong, and I don’t think I am, the feature can be disabled. I know this because I have done it on the test site I set up for my school. Maybe the budget crunch will force the district to look at alternative ways to deliver Office-like applications at no cost. I can’t imagine how much my district spends on licenses for Office.
I do get to work with my IT department with bringing an Online Gradebooks to the rest of the middle school teachers in the district. This should give me the opportunity to show them that all web apps are not evil. Nor are they prone to virus/worm attacks as they say they are guarding us against. The district is moving to an online SIS in the 2010-2011 school year. I can’t imagine how this keeps them up at night with nighmares of network crippling attacks. Or bad dreams about not have absolute control over the servers the info is stored on. Eventually they will come around and I’ll get them to allow teaching staff to use web 2.0 tools. Maybe even before web 3.0 tools become commonplace in other classrooms around the world.
June 8th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
1. Google Chat can be turned off for sure by the administrator of the site. This is a click of a link.
2. There is a lot of power when we reflect on why things don’t happen. Thanks …