Engrade

This week I have spent 5 hours upgrading our school-wide grading system called Engrade.  I have been given the task to go through and make sure that new students were added and that seniors were deleted.  That is what I have been doing.  I have a student roster with student name and ID number.  I went through and deleted seniors.  And began to add the 6th graders.  My goal for the rest of the week is to finish the 6th graders and then delete duplicate accounts.  We are hoping that this will make Engrade better for everyone by having a universal system for each name and ID.  This should make printing progress reports easier and remedy the duplicates that existed in the past.

Inventory

On  Thursday, I spent 3 hours working at the school.  I spent an hour on inventory at school.  I had to go to each room to check to see if all classroom technology had been secured for the summer.  I also spent an hour updating my principal on Star Portal.  We are rolling over to a new system in a few weeks.  The new system is much easier to use than Star Portal.  However, we need to save copies of all of the scheduling we have done the last few weeks in case there is an issue when the new system starts in July.  I ran the system and gathered all of the documents she needed.  I saved them all as PDF's on her computer.  I also showed her how to compress the files for sending.  All of this was simple, but she was very appreciative.  It was one of the first times I saw the real value of being able to show other people how to do things on the computer. 

Getting Oriented

Last week was not quite as successful as I would have liked.  Our principal was away at administrator retreat with others from the district.  I did, however, get in a few hours with our building tech coach.  Before school got out we spent an hour working on technology inventory for the school.  Every year we are told to turn in a list of technology into the tech coach.  There is very little order to this request.  Each teacher types (some even hand write--the horror) a list of the technology in their room.  This typically includes any computers, laptops, projectors, etc.  Most teachers don't know the names of their technology and hardly any know to put the county ID number down.  After helping our tech coach with this situation this year, one of the jobs I have been assigned is to create a universal form.  I am going to do this on Google docs so that all staff can fill it out online and turn it in there as well.  To go along with this form I am going to create a step-by-step tutorial for our staff members who are still very low in basic skills.  I am going to check to make sure that all staff secured their classroom technology this week.  This will be difficult with the inventory forms that were turned in this year, but hope my work this summer will help alleviate this problem next year.

Before our tech coach leaves for vacation for the next 3 weeks, we decided on the following tasks:

• Create classroom technology inventory Google docs form.
• Create lesson on Internet safety to present to teachers and students this year based on new regulations by the State.
• Update Engrade (school-wide grade portal).
• Check for security of classroom technology.
• Create Engrade tutorial for new teachers.

I am excited for the work that I will be doing over the next few weeks!