For the first time since June, I woke up to my alarm going off
before 6 a.m. because of a school related function. By 7:05 a.m. I was on the
road for the 20-mile trip to the Institute venue at the University. I stopped
at a Burger King drive-thru for breakfast on my way. Stopping at that Burger
King brought back memories of the four years it was my daily breakfast stop
when I used to commute to this college town to teach at the local middle
school.
Even with the stop for breakfast I arrived early for registration.
The Institute staff was hard at work getting things setup to start checking
people in. I didn’t have long to wait before I was logged in, had received my
catalog of courses, and was seated in the auditorium for the opening program.
As you might expect, the opening program consisted of several welcoming
speeches. Mercifully, each of the speakers kept their remarks brief. Even our
new Superintendent kept his remarks to a minimum.
Festivities were kicked off by one of the District’s high school
choruses performing the National Anthem and “America the Beautiful.” Indeed,
the kids sang beautifully.
Our new Superintendent, in addition to welcoming participants to
the Institute, focused on two key areas. First, he reminded teachers to
remain aware of the challenges many, if not most, of our students face due to
their home and community circumstances. He asked us to have compassion and
practice patience. On the brighter side, our Superintendent also highlighted
many projects in infrastructure improvement, and school
renovation/construction.
The President of the University hosting the Institute made a few
short welcoming remarks, as did the Chairman of our School Board. The MC for
the morning then introduced the panel for this morning’s presentation of Autism
in the Classroom.
Having taught autistic children, and having a self-contained
class for autistic children just down the hall from my class room, I already
had some familiarity with the spectrum. I’ve also had an interest in the
condition since I was in high school and saw the movie “Son-Rise: A Miracle of
Love.”
The panel speakers included an Exceptional Children teacher, a
parent of autistic twins who are now successful high school students, a
Principal and Assistant Principal with many combined years of working with
autistic students, and an autistic student who recently graduated from one of
our high schools and will soon be attending college.
Much of the information the panel presented wasn’t new to me,
but I could tell from my position in the auditorium that some of what the panel
presented hit home with some of the folks in attendance, especially the younger
teachers.
Once the morning group session was over the attendees disbursed
for lunch, returning at 12:30 p.m. for the first of 3 afternoon breakout
sessions. Each session was scheduled to last an hour with 5 minutes between to
get from one class to the other.
My first session was about how to safely and effectively use
social media in the classroom. Our facilitator covered the Board Policies
relevant to using social media in the classroom, and there are several, and informed
us we would have to complete a 1 hour online course, pass a test, and file a
request with the Principal in order to qualify to use such platforms for
educational purposes. The red tape seems a bit much but with all the mischief
students can get into online I certainly understand the abundance of caution
the District wants to employ.
Getting to my second session didn’t take long. The room was
right across the hall from my first session. This second session was an
overview of the Google Education Suite our District has been using for several
years now. The session was titled “Google Caboodle,” and was meant more for
teachers who had not learned some of the very cool things using the Google
Suite allowed regarding collaborative work and student assignments.
I have been using Google Docs and Google Sheets for a few years,
ever since our District switched over to a Gmail based mail server and the
Google Suite became available. My favorite part is being able to start work on
something at school and finish it at home without having to keep up with a
thumb drive because the files are stored in the cloud.
Today I learned about Google Keep and am going to give it a try.
I’m not sure it will take the place of Quick Notes since Keep doesn’t have a
handwriting function, not that I can find. What I do like about Keep is the way
Reminders flow automatically to my calendar.
A follow up session to “Google Caboodle” followed immediately
after, in the same room. It was titled “Google Extended.” This session delved
deeper into some of the add-ons you could apply to Google Chrome, the Google
Drive apps, and some of the filtering and labeling options in Gmail. There was
so much good information. I’m glad I stayed for the last session of the day.
Now I need to think about calling it a night because I’ve got a
full day at the Institute tomorrow.
As always, I remain,
The Exhausted Educator
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