(Read about the whole week: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5)
It has been an absolutely insane week. But, there is light at the end of the tunnel since we don't have school/work on Tuesday. So, I have work all day tomorrow and then class from 5-8pm. Saturday class from 8-4 and then we go to church from 4:30-6:30. Sunday we have off but we have a "Family Feud" night with our young marrieds group in the evening. Monday I am running 5 1-hour workshops that have surprisingly great interest for a "teacher workday completely optional workshops". Then Tuesday. Oh Tuesday. The light at the end of my tunnel :)
For the first time in I don't know how many days (probably only 4-5 but it feels like forever), Grayson slept through the night ... and I got to have 15 minutes of play/snuggle time before I left for work! That always just starts my day off on a good foot.
So... here is day 4.
7:25 arrive on campus
7:28 AP needs to know if I can help teachers who can't submit grades on AERIES. I tell him I was going to put together an instruction document this morning and will send it his way. Grades are due tomorrow...
7:30 start work on instruction document for submitting grades. I actually really like making these. I have a template I use in Microsoft Word and I use Awesome Screenshot to take pics and annotate them as needed.
7:40 call from teacher I'm supposed to meet with at 7:45 saying she won't be in until 8. I love it when people are respectful/responsible like this!! I tell her we will meet after I meet with another teacher, and just switch their appointments
7:50 instruction document finished and sent
7:51 Quickly look through emails
7:55 head out to work with teacher on Illuminate testing issues. Have to visit one of my fellows to see how she resolved some issues. We figure it all out and the teacher is doing a test run today. This is the very first time the "Checkpoints" are being given fully online, so it's all new for teachers and students.
8:30 Back to the staff lounge to meet with the original teacher. We check out her Haiku assessment and then double check to make sure everything is good. I clear her rosters and re-add them since they were not linked correctly at the beginning of the year. Another reminder that I need to really consider how I am going to approach the end-of-year and beginning-of-year Haiku maintenance. There are tutorials online, but some teachers just need that in person reminder... even if it's an in person reminder to follow the steps listed online. My hope is that once they do it correctly once, they will at least have that in the back of their mind for the future. It's always tough when it's stuff they only do once a year. Submitting grades? They do it at least 4 if not 8 times a year (this school submits informal progress reports halfway through each quarter as well). Loading Haiku Rosters? Yep, just once a year.
8:45 upload 3 AERIES instruction documents to the district AERIES Haiku site. Mass Emails, Loading Grades, and Quick Data Entry.
8:52 Email time! Our storage limit on our inboxes is ridiculous. I've been here 2 months and have already been told twice my inbox is full and I have to delete more stuff. Argh.
8:55 Teacher pops in for help with importing ExamView questions into Haiku quizzes. We schedule a meeting for next Friday.
9:00 Email reminder to teachers about Monday's tech workshops. I have a good group for each of the workshops - should be great. (Now I just have to finish my slides...). (End of day note - my attendance basically doubled after sending out this reminder. That's good and bad. I have 2 workshops that have 18 teachers each, which is a little bigger than I wanted. I had to move them from the counseling conference room to the library. Hopefully it will all still go well)
9:03 Out to my fellow's to work on the Socrative quizzes! We are going to do three different lessons with Socrative over the next 3 school days (Friday of this week, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week). We started it yesterday, and then I built one whole quiz for her today. She will be building the last one over the next week.
10:30 library for break time tech help. Lots today! There was a student who just kept his laptop in his backpack with no case or anything. Didn't buy the insurance, and now his screen is all messed up. We handed him the insurance paperwork and sent him on... Some students will only learn from experience.
10:48 back to office to get caught up on everything from the last 2 hours! And eat lunch.
Monday's PD, scheduling,replying to emails
11:31 out to continue working with my fellow on developing Socrative activities
12:20 Met with one of my math fellows (I have 5 math fellows, 2 English, 1 history, and 2 music... and then I support the whole staff of 94 teachers as well). She has been using Khan Academy in her Algebra 1B class as extra practice and support. The students will work on it the last 10-15 minutes of class using the "coach recommendations". She is fairly happy with it and saw great progress on the last test since she had them practicing skills that would specifically help them with the test. However, we are going to try to have more of a "competition" tomorrow where students are trying to gather the most energy points throughout the period, while practicing the skills she assigns. We will see if that increases motivation. If anything, it should be a more "fun" day leading into a four day weekend for students.
12:53 back to my office! A few more minutes for emails and scheduling for next week
1:00 Realize that there are 10 chairs in the counseling conference room and 2 of my sessions have 17-18 teachers signed up. I need to find a bigger place. One of the secretaries helps me and we figure out that the library is probably the best bet.
1:13 Got stopped to help with checking a BYOD to make sure the specs meet the requirements. Gosh, I really have learned a lot about basic troubleshooting and techy stuff and everything in this job!
1:23 head out to another math fellow meeting. She has been doing well with Haiku assessments but wants to try Google Forms. So, we created a Unit Circle quiz using G(math) for forms to input the questions. Then, we ran flubaroo for autograding. She is going to try it out and see how it works and if she likes it as an option compared to Haiku assessments.
2:32 Get back from fellow meeting. I realize that I'm starting to get a little sick with a stuffy head and runny nose. Argh. My whole family is sick right now. The lack of sleep isn't helping.
2:38 Chat with AP for a few minutes about Aver Doc Cams. Teachers either have an Aver, Samsung, iPevo, or none. The Aver can do some awesome things and there are some teachers who want to use those features who have Samsungs and some who don't use the features that have Avers... now trying to figure out a way to redistribute them is the fun part...
2:42 Met with Chinese teacher trying to set up Google hangouts through calendar events since G+ is blocked. It worked when I tried it with my supervisor yesterday... and guess what? It doesn't work now! I'm so confused. It used to be that Google Plus (and thus hangouts) was blocked completely on the school network. This includes my personal G+ and the school G+ (which I don't even have set up). Then today, I can fully access my personal G+ page and hangouts from my office desktop. I try to do the same on my school laptop and I can access hangouts but my G+ page is blocked. It's frustrating when you plan for something and make sure it works and then when you go to show somebody it doesn't work anymore.. and you can't figure out why it works sometimes and not others.
3:08 back to office. Play around with G+ options and then email my supervisor about issues w/ Google hangouts through calendar. Hoping we can figure out a solution.
3:24 Finish things up for the day. I'm definitely getting sick :(
I hope you've enjoyed my Day in the Life posts. My job is crazy and busy but I absolutely love it. I've been asked very often in the last couple of weeks if I like my new position (mainly by teachers on campus here) and my answer is a resounding yes. I love what I get to do. I love working with teachers, helping them, training them, sharing ideas, making tutorials, always learning... I am so grateful how all the right doors opened up to bring me to where I am now!
No comments:
Post a Comment