That First Year

   As I mentioned before I am 2+ years into the technology teacher position. The first year I began, I was inheriting a position that had not been filled for at least a year, the former technology teacher had moved into a classroom position. The actual position was originally a library-media specialist and a paraprofessional was assigned to assist. But that past year only the paraprofessional was running the library and the technology program. I believe the students only received typing practice. 

   Now that I held the position I became responsible for planning and creating lessons for the library classes as well as doing the same for my own technology classes. My amazing paraprofessional would continue teaching the library courses. Our case load was a one in 8 day schedule serving at the time 36 classes, 800+ students. With 6 classes per grade level, we would see one class each trimester twice. On paper, by the end of the year all classes would have the same amount of time in both courses (as well as music, art, and physical education). The only things that change this theory were the half days, snow days, field trips, assemblies, and all the other tidbits of elementary calendars. 

   The first real obstacle I encountered was that I was not offered any budget. Our school budget for the each fiscal year is created in the fall of the previous year. Since this responsibility of a budget is  for an administrator or teacher, and no teacher was assigned to these courses, the budget from 2 years ago was extended. No new Apps, devices, or software were bought for the technology classes and only books, subscriptions, and such were purchased for the library ones. The one subscription that had been and still continues is the Discovery Education's United Streaming. This site allows the district users to view, stream, and download various images, videos or segments, and other resources. They have quite a collection and have developed more for lessons. Teachers can now create lessons and assign them to student users, who can complete the work via United Streaming or in partnership with Google. I will explore this idea in an upcoming post,  I need to create a training for staff so that they may better utilize the site.

   To create the lessons I based the library on the MSLA (Massachusetts School Library Association) Standards. I used a lot of free sites, the Complete Library Skills books (copyrights about 1994), the Massachusetts State Standards for ELA (English Language Arts), and what I could afford on Teacher's Pay Teachers. In my teaching resume, I have taught in one capacity or another all of the PreK-5 grade levels, my experience helped to judge what materials were appropriate. Trial and error helped as well. As the year went on I had a basic scope and sequence for each grade level that could be adjusted as needed.

  

   Technology was a bit different. I have a computer lab (in the same space as the library), at that time 24 computers (including my station). The bandwidth at the school at this time did not allow a lot of individuals to stream at the same time, so only teacher access points allowed for this option. To show videos, segments, and such a teacher had/has to present to the whole class. This limits, some differentiation opportunities as students could not completely move at their own pace. I did not have any software available except Microsoft Office and other pre-installed software. Google For Education accounts was just that year given to Grades 3-5 students, and it became my responsibility to introduce the Apps to students. After a bit of research and trial and error, I found a few Free (ah that magical word) programs to use with most if not, all of my students. 

   There is no set curriculum for technology out there. Or if there is I never found it. There are a few instructional technology teachers or library media specialists, who have put online for a minimal cost their scope and sequence and their created materials. I bought a few to get a better look at what was available, but to be honest except for a few ideas that helped to generate more ideas, I found I used their format on how to justify a lesson (objectives, standards, materials, etc) more to organize my reasoning on what I chose or created. To guide my choices on what curriculum to use or create, I followed the Massachusetts Technology Literacy Standards and Expectations (April 2008).

   The first application I decided upon was Typing.com. This wonderful site is a pay-for site, if you can not stand the Ads. The students and I have found that the Ads are not truly in our way and we began using this site by testing our time throughout the year with the test page. I did not create accounts for the students that year, as I was still exploring options. We would use this site in conjunction with the BBC's Dance Mat Typing. There are several levels and I found my K-5 could handle using these various levels. Kindergarten did not begin this skill until November.

   

   Another online program I explored and used was Code.org. Having used the Hour of Code in my grade 5 classroom, I had already experienced the power of teaching students how to program. Code.org allowed the students to try a Blockly style (Java-based) language to get familiar characters (Angry Birds, Star Wars, etc.) through obstacles. Students in grades 2-5 were the most successful at the time and I used Kodable, the free version via the Hour of Code, for my Kindergartners and First Graders. Though Kodable did not save their progress, the repetition of starting over made many students quicker and allowed them to move through harder levels with more ease. 

  For Documents, Presentations, and such, I had to rely on the Microsoft Office Products for my K to 2nd students. Word and Paint were the main focus that year. I also used my own Adobe Pro account to create Word documents that allowed practical typing practice. Students in first and second grades learned how to choose Font styles, colors, and size for simple poems I found on the Internet, and they came to me when that work was completed to insert a picture that helped to illustrate the theme. 

  The 3rd through 5th grade students began their exploration into Google Apps for Education (GAFE). I utilize Google Classroom and the Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings Apps to begin showing student how they can use these tools to create better, more in-depth projects, papers, and such. The hardest part in this process was the actual logging-in the accounts. Our student address is a bit lengthy and since they were logging onto PCs and not a Google device they had to log in using the entire address. It is amazing how we humans do no pay attention to what we write/type down (myself included). Typos with their name or the name of the school's town were frequent. The students did have a bit of an excuse-- there is a "R" in the middle of the name and the students have a Bostonian accent, where we drop our R sounds in several places. Alas a simple name as Carver becomes CAVER very quickly!

  I used the Smart Sync system, to be able to view all of the students via my PC. It also allowed me to take over their computers when I needed. There is a glitch though when I first start up, the program sometimes does not read the student PCs. It has to do with our switches, etc. So I found I had to turn off my own PC and try again until the program finally grabs all of the students PCs. But with a very fixed school budget, it is better than nothing and allows me to help more students quickly.

  To tie all of the grade levels in and to have one easy location to enter my classroom, I created a Google Sites- website. I listed all of the Grade Levels- teachers for each, access to the current curriculum and pages for things like Mouse Practice, Keyboarding Practice, and other resources. I added the link to the title bar so students can just click on it to begin. I blended the site to link to my Google Classroom, (That year 18 classes to manage.) so I could send out one copy of a lesson to each grade level (3-5).

  I also offered some basic after-school training for staff. It was free and a handful of teachers attended. Some teachers were able to begin using the information more in their classes, some just had a better understanding, and one did tell me that there was still confusion. Just like students it is hard to differentiate skill level in a small amount of time. 

 Over all the year went pretty well I learned what worked, what I needed to tweak for the next, and what I really needed to avoid. I spent the summer working on making the needed changes- really we all know we never stop working or thinking about school- and preparing to have a stronger second year.