Tuesday- 1/12/10

Today was my first day of my job as Technology Coach. I shadowed B in a charter school in the morning. We pulled together a lesson for a 7th grade Science teacher on Acids, Bases, and pH. the lesson included an experiment to test the pH of 6 solutions using Vermier probes, a worksheet for recording data, and 3 video segments on the topic.

Bob showed me how to access my work email account, united streaming, Webx, and Educate bookmarks. He made certain to greet (and introduce me to) any staff members we saw. He also discussed the upcoming technology changes for the school. Currently they have only a computer lab and 1 Smartboard but a grant will allow them to purchase more.

After the charter school, we grabbed lunch and headed over to a parochial school. There, I shadowed N who is also a Tech coach. He spent the afternoon in the computer lab. There were 3 teachers who came in with their classes.

The 6th grade teacher had the students working independently on essay writing. While they were doing so, she discussed with N Technology lessons she would like to do. He suggested some websites for her to use, and topics such as typing, which might be helpful to cover with her studens.

The 2nd grade teacher used Study Island with her students to go over the concepts of place value and Odd/Even. N used the Smartboard to show students how to log in and they were able to use the same logins as for their Ticket to Read accounts. The students were very excited about the games they could play (when finished with the questions) to practice these concepts.

The 7th grade teacher came in prepared to ask many questions. Her students also used study island, but their lesson was on ratio and proportion. Students used the scratchpad included with the program to help them complete problems. While they worked N and the teacher discussed a unit on mesopotomia and how powerpoint could be used to have the students present in groups. He suggested breaking up the material so that students would each be responsible for answering one question on a slide.

We had a meeting at 3:00 via conference call. We signed into a computer and made a call on speakerphone. We discussed reorganizing the bookmarks on the educate website in terms of different categories.