Now it's Really Over

After numerous drafts and a few tears, my Masters program is done. I can' believe I did it, very proud, and very relieved. Where do I go from here? Well I recently took a position of Vice Principal at my high school and.....registered for my second Masters program, this time in Spec Ed. I know, I know, why would I want to go through that again? The fact is that I enjoy learning. I moan and complain while I'm in the thick of it, but deep down I love it. Every time I finish a course, I am surprised at my accomplishment. Guess thats more of a confidence issue rather than an academic one. A second Masters may also open some doors for me down the road. My biggest challenge at hand is the new VP position. What kind of administrator will I be? What kind of administrator do I want to be? It is a daunting challenge, one that I hope I am prepared for.

I think that I will still focus on technology. I have already volunteered to take over the schools web page. It can be better, a lot better. Planning of school goals also interests me as well. Odd I know, but though grad school, I came to realize that not only am I a geek, I am also a researcher. I find my grad course work leaking into my day to day classes. I try to engage my students with interesting topics while infusing some cool technology. On more than one occasion, I have had my students research a topic and reference where it came from. I'm not so worried about APA or Chicago style referencing, just enough emphasis that the kids know it's important to acknowledge the owner of the work.

I would like to be a connected administrator, just not sure how that looks or works. I follow a number of administrators on twitter and in google reader. Spending a day or two with them would be an enlightened experience for sure. The whole purpose of being connected though is to inform. If no one is paying attention online, then what's the point? There it is, how do we get parents connected to the school, how do we get teachers connected to Web 2.0? How do we engage students? The number of questions seems to only grow. Which one do I try and tackle first?

Once a geek...

It's over!!

I survived the 90 minute presentation! After the first 5 minutes, it was quite easy. Talking about something that you love for any extended period of time is a rare opportunity. I was at ease and felt that I fielded questions confidently and accurately. In hindsight I don't know what I was worried about. Every geek approaches technology differently. And presenting on my tech the way I was comfortable with was a great experience. I have teachers asking me for tools all the time, rarely am I given the opportunity to talk about it for more than 5 minutes. I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed lecturing on my research and how I felt about it.

I took the last 20 minutes of my presentation to discuss the three webtools that I use on a daily basis, twitter, google reader and diigo. For me it is difficult to discuss one without the other. You find information on twitter, save it on diigo, and read the updates on google reader. Makes sense to me, hopefully to others as well. I was surprised to see how little technology the grad students used or even discussed in their presentations. Isn't it the focus of all education right now? Oh no, thats just me. :) One presenter uses a wordpress blog to hold all assignments for his math class, he also fields questions from students there as well. I think this is a great medium to use in terms of technological communication. I use wiki, and all of my students have a wiki as well, and that is where they keep their work and where I can comment on it. Everybody uses tech differently and becomes an expert with some form of it. That is the key to tech usage, become an expert with one or two webtools, and then branch off from there.

Once a geek...

Big Week

OMG completing the last part of my Masters journey this week. Hopefully I can pull it off. I've been losing sleep for about a week, worrying about the 90 minute presentation I have to do in front of classmates and profs. Yikes! I've spent the last 2.5 years researching successful integration of technology into the classroom. I think I have it figured out, now if I can only talk about it for 90 minutes. It's not the paper, it's not the 50 annotated bibliographies or the portfolio. It's the 90 minute presentation. From my research, I have found that it is teacher pedagogy that will most greatly influence successful tech integration. Pedagogy is not the only factor, but appears to be the most important one. Leadership also has a huge impact on tech integration. Without a supportive, tech friendly leader, teachers will not have the support or financial backing to integrate technology. As with most things, a financial aspect is always present in the decision making process. And in a school, the leaders make the financial decisions. So, if your leader doesn't buy into the importance of tech, it will be very difficult to incorporate it adequately into your classroom.

I was on twitter recently and came across this excellent TED video on leadership.It can be applied to leadership in the school.

It's been a while....

It's been quite a long time in between posts and I have to be more vigilant when blogging. The new semester has just begun and things are fresh and new again. Students and teachers are always ready for the change come end of January.

I teach in a computer lab with 25 desk tops. For what ever reason, there were 27 students registered. Thankfully, things change and I'm back down to 25. All three of my ICT classes are big, 25, 25 and 21 students. Computers break down and IT can't come immediately to fix it and you are in a pickle and fast. My lab has been pretty dependable and rarely do we need tech support. The other lab however, houses a different model of towers and there have been a total of 9 computers go down this year. Mother boards were replaced on the first 7, but new towers are being looked at now. These towers just came off warranty this past August and they started crashing in September.Not sure what we are going to do just yet. Part of the problem is that only one class a day is actively scheduled and the other 4 periods are available for booking. There is no constant supervision in the room. I power off my lab every night. I don't think the other lab gets powered off because no one is guaranteed to be there at the end of the day. Maybe that is something that I should be doing.

Some of my geeking is starting to rub off on others in my school. One of the math teachers now has an active wiki where he posts units, videos and helpful websites. He recently came to my room and showed me some things the mimio can do when writing on the board and saving notes. I had a brief sit down session with an English teacher showing her how to utilize google docs, and had a how to session with the Art teacher on setting up a wiki. The science department has a new teacher that uses pbworks so most major departments have some kind of technology integration occurring.

I am in full half marathon training mode right now.Long runs are getting up there but all is going well. I just finished a bootcamp last week and happy to be done that. Three days a week at 6:30am, busting my butt. Good workout but super tough.I am in my last class of my Masters program and which is also lots of work that usually kicks my butt. Come May I will be coasting into the summer with nothing on my plate but lying on the beach and golfing. Can't wait :)

Once a geek...

Surviving the holidays

We survived the holiday season with little or no injuries. I did manage to geek almost everyday. I found a website that made me cry because it was so funny. I am always up for a laugh or two, especially at someone elses expense. I am toying around with getting rid of my class wiki and replace it with a googlio. Using the googlio would allow the students access to google reader, blogger, gmail, calendar and the class website with one username/password. I will not try it until the second semester starts in early February. I have started the googlio site, adding a few things here and there. It is set up basically the same as my wiki but again, will save the kids some headache(my headache ultimately). I am hoping that they can add it to their readers and therefore will be notified of any updates. Will see how it goes.

I recently completed my second last Masters course, it was a tough go at times, but I got an extension and emailed my prof the last of my work today. I committed to a bootcamp for 6 weeks, starting tomorrow at 6:30am!! And if that isn't enough, I am registered for a half marathon May 1 and will start my last Masters course on Jan 12. Busy busy, just how I like it. I've recruited two others to run with me and someone to come to bootcamp with me too. I am nervous but excited.

Once a geek.....