Donaldson

During the first semester two Smartboards were ordered & it was determined that projectors that were not presently mounted needed to be. The Smartboard to be installed in a gen. ed. teachers classroom will be installed in the next week or so along with some of the projectors. The Smartboard for the Computer Lab appears to be taking longer to install as it is in a portable & several roadblocks came into play. The first Smartboard inservice I was to give was cancelled when I had eye surgery that day. I have yet to be able to reschedule on an early out with Excell/TIF meetings & curriculum Mapper having slots. It should occur in the next several weeks. I have met with teachers to help with Webpages, signing up for IDEAL when they ran into roadblocks or had other issues.** During the last week in January, two additional Smart Boards were installed at Donaldson. One was in installed in a 1st grade teacher’s classroom & she has jumped in with both feet as she had been working closely with another 1st grade teacher with their research on how use of the Smart Board tools impacted 1st graders learning of decoding & early literacy. The other One was a complete surprise, as we had only expected for our 4th grade teacher’s projector to be mounted & instead she received a new projector & Smart Board. The Smart Board for the Computer Lab has yet to be installed. I am unclear when it will actually be installed. The in-service training for the Smart Board was delayed due to Excell meetings. It is set to occur now either the last Wed. in Feb. or the first Wed. in March. I will be teaming up to preset this info with another teacher that has had been rather creative in her use of the Smart Board. //Implementing your Technology Professional Development Plan// We had one Smart Board in-service training. It worked out that I had four different teachers present Smart Board lessons to the staff. It was great to see how the interactive whiteboard is used in various grade levels & settings. Teachers saw sample lessons & became excited about the opportunity to have one in the computer lab for all of us to access. Unfortunately, it's taken longer to get the computer lab's Smart Board to be installed. It should happen any day now. Teachers are stating that they plan to sign up for some classes now that they will at least have the option of using it within the Computer Lab. We also have discussed the idea of classes going into classrooms that have Smart Boards, while those classes are out of the room @ at Specialists. Decisions for whom & how many Smart Boards will be purchased for the upcoming year has yet to be determined, but I can share that many members of the staff are eager to have one in their room. we have discussed that we need to utilize our early outs differently- as it realtes to Technology. We have discussed having a designated timeblock for our whole staff that's devoted to either learning something new in the area of SmartBoards, etc. or revisiting skills & strategies that need refreshing a minimum of once per quarter, but perhaps even more often at the beginning of the year. //As for building capacity//, I can share that we have x folders were created on our server that teachers may regularly access for UnitedStreaming videos that have been downloaded, Yearbook pictures, AIMS testing info, AHAA, MAP Tools, report card forms, Shared Scans, Staff Handbook, etc.. I did share info on Delicious, but I would like try generate more interest for its use in the upcoming school year, As for IDEAL, many teachers are now using DiscoveryStreaming, but have been repeated frustrated with login issues. I don’t believe they consistently login through IDEAL, so we will need to discuss why it’s important again to log via IDEAL, but I do hope that some of IDEAL’s roadblocks will be dealt with over the upcoming the summer months so that staff will be able to more easily document its use. I understand their frustrations with logins, as it can be working at one point in the day & not later. Donaldson's technology when looking at our survey responses would make one think they had dropped, but I don’t actually think that it’s the case. I think people are becoming more aware of what they know & actually need explore. Some may have had an inflated view of themselves & their knowledge/use & may be are accurately reflecting what they know/do. We have continued to have our daily announcements broadcasted by 5th graders started under a previous administrator. Time is taken to report general info (weather, birthdays, safety concerns, upcoming events, etc.),& recognize quality work/behaviors of students. It’s helped with our school’s sense of community. This spring one of our new teachers stepped up & took 4th & 5th students to one of the local stations on a field trip & created lots of interest that should positively impact next year’s news team so I can only see bigger & brighter things in the future. We also have had at least two teachers that have taken blog classes & created blogs for others to review & comment on. One of these teachers also has a blog for her students to utilize. Our hope would be that next year more teachers will respond to these blogs & perhaps more teachers will have their students communicate with other students via blogs or wikis.
 * 1st Semester Report
 * 2nd Semester Report - Donaldson**