Lori inspired me with her blog post with goals for 2009-2010. So I thought I’d share mine.
School hasn’t started for us yet. In Michigan, by law, due to economic reasons, we don’t start school till the Tuesday after Labor Day. So I still have a few days of planning left! In addition, my schools are busy prepping for MEAP in October, so the videoconference schedule won’t get really busy til Monster Match the last week of October. That gives me time for planning. I also front load my school year with professional development.
So, here are my goals for 2009-2010:
- More meetings via videoconferencing. This is being encouraged by the organization, so I need to be ready to help make this happen.
- Systematize and streamline my projects. The discussion on work flow helped me a lot; and I’m very pleased with how my project wikis are turning out so far.
- Work with low-use schools. For the last three years I’ve been focused on my RUS grant schools. Now I want to work with those who haven’t been using their systems as much and weren’t part of the grant.
- More people in CAPspace. This is the year I want to get all my VC coordinators and active VC teachers in CAPspace. They can arrange their own VC projects and holler when they get stuck!
- High School English. I have 4 high school English teachers from 3 districts who really want to VC. I plan to do two projects for them this year in Feb & April.
- Blog my research. I still have a few more series on videoconferencing research to share with you!
Now it’s your turn! What are your goals? Post them on your blog, or if you want, post as comments here. What do you hope to accomplish with videoconferencing in your area this school year?
When you are ready to dig into your high school English projects, I’d love to pick your brain and give you my 2 cents.
#1 – I have found that it is more difficult for teahcers in Lang. Arts classrooms to incorporate technology than any other content area. It is not as easy & confortable, so this group needs more support.
#2 – Secondary schools seems more attached to their bell schedules. That has been a hurdle in scheduling projects for those levels.
#3 – I have a literature sharing VC format that I’ve been working on that seems to work well. I’d love to get a secondary spin on the structure and see if it would work for them.
Hi Linda – interesting with your language arts comment. In my high schools I have mainly English teachers using VC; social studies connecting to our veterans & legislators; and science classes going to COSI. My English teachers have done author VCs, Read Around the Planet, skits, performance poetry, etc.
What I try to do for them is not ask them to change their schedule (except for authors – and then they usually use the class that meets at that time). I’m also more flexible allowing them to come to part of a session, swap classes and have the other class finish it. I know, we’d never let an elementary class do that, but if using VC makes HS teachers get yelled at by their peers they aren’t going to use it!
The projects I’m working on for my English teachers this year are poetry in April, something with the Harlem Rennaisance, and Chaucer Tale skits for November….