light at the end of the tunnel

I have certainly been neglecting my blog, as well as my teammates.....please forgive me. Darn Catholic guilt...I feel like I am in the confessional...bless me Father for I have sinned...it has been many weeks since I have posted....

I have been nudging my participants in my TIP to keep trying the different Gaggle features. I trained them one-on-one as needed and provided suggestions for curricular uses and differences for the tools. Especially blogs vs message boards. Lastly, were the chat rooms. In January, I tested the chat room and they worked fine. In March, well, they didn't work. It seems Gaggle updated their Java and DoDEA did not. Ughhh! I had to go through the red tape, begging and pleading to get permission to have the computers updated so we could take advantage of a tool they were paying for.

The teachers and students loved chatting! We used the chat room for a Jeopardy like review game. Students were to use proper grammatical conventions as well as their speedskins when supplying answers. Having good keying skills did make a difference. Many students had never chatted online before and were amazed to see their teacher as well as their classmates all responding. I was amazed at how quiet the lab was...

This week my teachers will take the post survey and I will question the students as well. Next week is Spring break....yeah! I have made no plans and will be spending the majority of my time writing my paper as well as creating my delivery platform....I'm thinking photostory!

Reality

My grandmother, 97 years of age this past January. When I was speaking to her on the phone she reminded me not to take too long to come back and see her. Less than a month later, her liver is failing and she was not expected to survive past Presidents' Day. I rushed back to the Philadelphia area to say goodbye. The hospital sent her home with hospice care. I stayed and helped my parents (not in good health either) take care of her. "Mom-mom" as we all call her is still hanging on despite her DNR. God Bless Her! My sister who had a brain aneurysm removed last fall was back in the hospital with a staff infection in her incision while I was home. Scary moments. As you can imagine, I am physically back in Japan, but emotionally still in the states.

To ease my burden, I decided to drop 2 of the 5 teachers I have recruited to work with Gaggle. They are from the high school. I have found that with different servers and class schedules, I was having trouble scheduling training times and gathering artifacts. I do not know how effective and reliable my research will be with only 3 subjects....time will tell.

stumbling...

So this week was a killer....Started with SuperBowl Monday, last minute preparations for the rest of the week. Tuesday, I had to swap out our intranet server, this included taking down the present one to setting up and configuring the new one. It only took about 8 hours! On Wednesday and Thursday I held technology training for 7 select teachers from 7:30 - 3p.m. This was a coordinated effort with the IS. Teachers came with a lesson/unit plan in hand and we collaborated in locating resources, backwards design, Dodea standards, information literacy, and so on. I took advantage of the opportunity and used Gaggle as the platform for reflection and document storage. I introduced the digital locker, blogs and the message board to 5 of the teachers and the IS. Two of the teachers are in my initial research group. I will follow-up....Friday was Project Safe, a huge undertaking that I had very little experience or help with. I should have stuck with Internet Safety and left it to that! Instead I felt the need to include fire/crime/dental/bicycle, etc. and our school improvement goals (read aloud). We had the parents trained in internet safety in the evening as we moved the students through classroom "centers". During the day, the students were presented with internet safety as they moved from bicycle safety, fire safety and a K9 presentation....I was home in bed by 9 p.m.! Ok I'm not as young as I used to be...I slept in and had a down day on Saturday. I hope I never have another week like the last. I am so grateful not much was going on in Angel...I would have missed it all.

and turns....

I have unofficially taken surveys with the students in 3 of 5 of the classes. The majority of the students have not even used email. I am inputting the results on an Excel spreadsheet which will be posted to my TIP website. I am having a terrible time creating the teachers initial survey. I attempted on zoomerang, then on another site, to still not have the online survey completed.

I demonstrated how to change the Gaggle color scheme and suggested the students complete their profile. In one class I was also able to demonstrate the digital locker. I had my class of 4th/5th graders upload an essay they had previously written. As I walked around the room, one student read another student's essay and was writing an email to the other student. It was a wonderful comment, the student was telling the essay writer how much she enjoyed the essay with specifics on the particulars! WOW! Thought provoking and considerate without being assigned. Their teacher was so excited, her statement to me was "just like taking a class online!" Everyone was thrilled with being able to look at each others' work.

As the journey turns.....

My TIP (using Gaggle) has never been far from my mind since last summer, but I admit it has been mostly on the back burner as life as guided me in other directions. (New city, school, home, and age group.) I moved into my new home in late September, my last shipment (with many damaged items) arrived the day before Thanksgiving.

I have been spending 70 percent of my day actually teaching students, mostly keyboarding. DoDDS is in their third year of a Keyboarding Initiative and I found only 4 or 5 students who could key by touch at the standard. Online assessments in writing will be introduced in May for 5th graders. There has been resistance from teachers as well as students. I have very little time for actual collaboration and co-teaching with the rest of my time taken up with troubleshooting and planning events like Internet Safety and professional development.

Last year, my first year as an ET, was in the middle school setting. My main emphasis was not teaching the students. This year, I find that working with the little ones, I have been catching every flu/bug that they bring into my lab. I have taken to handing out wet ones and having them wipe the equipment down. I have gone on 3 separate three-week conferences. I have also discovered that primary & intermediate level teachers are not the same as middle and high school teachers. Not worse, just different. Life is good--never boring. I like that.

I received permission from my principal to do my TIP as my PGP (professional growth plan) and set off recruiting teachers. I practically hit a brick wall. I was able to find 2 elementary teachers....just two! Gaggle is perfect (in my mind) for 3rd-6th graders. The teachers feel they don't have the time to "learn" something new. ughhhh...So I set off to recruit from the high school next door. I hit a thicker wall, which frankly amazed me. The ET at the high school doesn't like Gaggle and discourages its use. I was able to recruit 2 new teachers...yeah up to 4! Just this past week, a fellow teacher took pity on me and volunteered...my total is now 5.

Can a successful, authentic, meaningful research project be performed on only 5 subjects?

I am scared to death, I am truly feeling overwhelmed, anxious and insecure. I worry I am in over my head. With those fears and insecurities, I find myself avoiding...I am too conscientious to slack off and I am not a quitter....so I will plow ahead, suck it up and make it happen!

I plan on having the teachers complete a survey...I need to create that today (from my informal verbal ones I've taken). I have already asked my teachers to meet with me once a week for group training as well as one-one-one and co-teaching. I like that the timing of this coincides with 3rd quarter/2nd semester. I will also take informal verbal surveys with the students beginning tomorrow. DoDDS (the military) will not permit others to survey the students or parents. The union frowns upon us surveying the teachers...the work around is that it is voluntary. Other work I need to get a move on includes getting on Google to create my website for compilation and delivery purposes and to start annotating and marking resources for the class library although I have gathered some rough resources. Lastly, to participate more in the discussion group. I have been reading and enjoying them but find I don't have much to say....although many of the comments make me smile and visualize the speaker at that moment.

Am I alone in being so far behind?

I look forward to working and hearing from my classmates and especially my teammates (Hi, Matt Klein, Jason and Charonda). I downloaded your TIPs and looking forward to reading them.

~Peace