My First Day

My first day of work was not all that bad. We had a district meeting at 8AM so that all of the old staff could meet the new staff. We heard from the mayor, the chief of police, and the school board.

Then the elementary staff met with a visitor from Oklahoma. He told us all about some new technology we gained over the summer. It consisted of a Smart Board and something called an H.313 or something like that. It allows us to connect to any other computer anywhere in the world with to same video conferencing ability.

The uses of this technology are endless. It’s only limited only by our imagination. We can take courses from other high schools or colleges and universities. We can have cultural exchanges with classes from the other side of the world. We can visit the Smithsonian without leaving our classroom. And the best thing about it is that it is fully interactive. Sure, we’ll be sitting in front of a tv screen, but once the presenter has completed his presentation, the students can comment and ask questions. It will be so much more meaningful than watching a video or reading a book. I really hope the technology gets utilized in such a way that it broadens the students’ minds and helps them to get excited about this huge world we live in. Some of these kids may never leave this island, this is an awesome opportunity for them to see what the rest of the world has to offer.

My afternoon was terribly boring compared to my morning. I couldn’t accomplish anything I needed to because the new tech guy was busy with an inservice at the high school and I wasn’t able to access the programs I needed to enter student names into the test programs or barcode some new library books we received over the summer.

Tomorrow morning we have another inservice and then, hopefully, a more productive afternoon.

BTW, if you’re tired of typing up a long post and losing it before you publish, you should try the new Blogger Add-On for Microsoft Word. I just typed up this post, published it, and then opened it for editing all in Microsoft Word. I didn’t even need to open my web browser!