February 24, 2009

Plan B is the order of the day because my plans for the computer fair were thwarted due to lack of participation by the two participants. Oh well, it gave me a chance to catch up on a lot of things. The IT department a la KP are finishing the CFF laptops for distribution. This will give the teachers an opportunity to integrate themselves into the use of the Promethean boards. I also worked with the embedded learning and did a class after school for some teachers who needed some help. The rest of the week is planned, and out of the 12 periods left in the week. I will be in the classroom 10 of those periods doing everything from Indesign to Photostory. Busy!!!!!! I also have back to school night tomorrow night. I think there is enough on the plate for this week, Be back tomorrow...........flick

February 23, 2009

Spent this day at the IU10 for training using photography. The district gets a free digital camera which will go to the elementary schools for their use. I believe we have enough at the secondary level, and they need to use the technology, too. The training was quite good in that it reinforced a lot of what I have amassed through the millenia of experience--in other words; I am old. The trainer is attached to Tool Factory, and he was quite good. He told the truth about the camera and the software. It was refreshing from that aspect. I despise people who come in to a training and make it sound like an infomercial. Of course, I had to deal with the school aspect and found out that tomorrow's computer fair may be off because of student initiative. It does not surprise me, but I am not happy with it. I knew I would have to deal with Janus, and I am prepared for that every day. That is okay because I have bought into this program and the people working on it. For all of my Portuguese readers.....Tchau........flick

February 20, 2009

The end of the busy week. It has been wrought with all sorts of interesting problems, but it has been a learning time, also. It looks like most of the virus problems are solved; notice I said most of them. I know how those boogers work, and it will be awhile before they are eradicated. I have been talking with teachers, and my next week is filled with Photostory and InDesign inclusions. The plans right now involve a small conference Monday at the IU and Tuesday a computer fair. I am also working with Janus people, etc. I also had to pitch in and work some tech problems to get everything as close to normal as possible. Well, I am off for a fun-filled weekend. See ya next week..............flick

February 19, 2009

I just received a phone call that made me smile so much. I have a new teacher who called and wants me to sit in on his class to watch his attempt with the interactive whiteboard. This is what I call daring, innovative, and out of the comfort zone. I know this teacher well, and this was a big move for him. This is what I am talking about--challenging the self and the students. I am headed there now; I will report. I am back, and it did work well. I love to see the utilization and the confidence increase. Great job C. Things went well, and we will be able to do some other things. He already asked me about it. I also love the part that he did not feel threatened by my being there. I am not there to judge but to help. I also worked some resource library magic today and did some other things. I have been in several rooms today just talking and getting my schedule in order for next week. It does look busy. Great... later.......flick

February 18, 2009

Back from the IU...internet up, email up, and now web work has piled up, and I need to get to work on that. As a matter of fact, this will give all of my anxious readers who thought I fell off the face of the earth a chance to get back to their daily reading routine and find out about the life of CFFFlick. Okay, so it is only a few million readers out of the billions out there, but I will cater to the loyalists. I worked hard to get all of the embedded learning material up-to-date as well the wiki and other things online. I also had a ton of email to peruse as well as other matters because we are still fighting the virus here at PV. I really think it is important to learn about virus creation so one can fight it better. I do wish those people who created these things would put their talents to work in a more positive light. We will get there. I have been out and about into the classrooms and am watching people do great things. I love it...........flick

February 17, 2009

Over the mountain and through the woods, off to the IU10 I go; yep, quite stupid, but you have to know where our IU is, and you might understand. I took teacher K with me, and she did a great job showing some of the things she did. I loved the questions she generated from the group of CFF coaches. There was another teacher there from another school (she also was a PV grad like K), and she did a great job on some of the things she was doing in biology. We had an oovoo discussion with Beth, who is from PDE, and talked about other ideas dealing with CFF. I am going to digress here and write bout two concepts from my soapbox. First, I am going to talk about K. I had no hand in her hiring, but I must admit that I am so proud to have her in my former position. She has great vision and is not afraid of dealing outside the box. I like her pizazz, and her ability to ascertain situations. What a great addition to PV and the teaching profession. She will create a great footprint on her students. Secondly, I am going to promote an IU10 regional conference for CFF. Do not get me wrong. I attended PETE&C and loved it, but I feel a regional conference hosted by one of the school districts would allow more people to attend and would allow more interaction among the participants and presenters. The important part to all of this I feel would be more collaboration among the schools and the teachers. We need to break down the barriers that exist and promote more with the internet 2.0 concept....For all of my Italian contacts.....Addio.....flick

February 16, 2009

Another week and still no internet, etc. I know that it will be fixed, and I am still catching up on other things. Again, it is still neat to observe my colleagues and their innovations. I love it. I have nothing new to report and nothing witty to say (I know that there is a first for everything). I have a CFF meeting at the IU tomorrow, and I am taking one of my teachers to it so I can share with the group some of the things she is doing. I love my teachers taking chances and going outside their comfort zones. I have done that for years, and no, not always successful. I sometimes have learned more from my failures than from my successes. Well, off I go..........flick

February 13, 2009

Like I said I am getting caught up. We had in-service today, and I did a presentation on Promethean boards. The main purpose of the in-service dealt with the looking at the data from the preliminary testing. The data looked good and that is a credit to a lot of people. My presentation could have been better. We lumped people who had experience with people who had none. This is not a good move, and in future in-servicings, I will separate the groups so I do not have redundancy for those who have more experience. I am also going to have trainings per department to help alleviate all of this. I know some people learned some things; therefore, it was successful. Hagoone' for all of my Navajo readers...........flick

February 12, 2009

As you can tell by the post date of this, I am far behind blogging. There is a good reason for this--our network has been down due to viruses, etc. The down time has given me a chance to catch up on paperwork, etc. I am glad that this has happened (I try to find a positive ion in all of those negatives). This has given me the chance to view how dependent we have become upon our technology. I postulated that the older teachers would be more resilient in crafting alternatives for their classes than the newer teachers. After spot checking various teachers, I had to revise that immensely. All teachers were able to cope well without it by simply going to Plan B. I was proud of all. I guess the surprise came at the district level. The district has become so reliant in its gathering of information electronically that it had a hard time adjusting to the outage. We as a society need flexibility to adjust to the these problems. Technology is a tool, and it is important to have the right tool to do the job. We still need to have the foresight to adjust and create other tools when forced to do so....later.....flick

February 5-11

As you can tell from the title of this entry, I have combined many days into one blog. Oh, there is a reason for those uniniated to my blog, and I am going to reveal this to you right now--I was conferencing. I had two conferences--both in Hershey. The first was one for football, and the second dealt with technology and CFF. It was a long time away, but I did have a good learning experience with both. This was my first time at the PETE&C conferences, and it was good; the problem is that it is huge. Some of the sessions I could not attend because the rooms were packed, and I had to rely on Plan B and Plan C--I refused to go to Plan D. I felt it I learned a few new ideas and sites; there are some things I need to add to my wiki. I am happy walking away from a conference when this happens. There were some probs back at the home school with the server, and to this day, they are not solved. All I will say is that could have been.......I will leave it at that. The Janus project is moving ahead well. I am preparing for in-servicing, and did some interviews for the elementary tech position. I just wanted to post all of this for ya, and I know that some of you have been waiting with anticipation for this update. There will be more. Be back later.....flick