Catching Up...5-1-09

This week, I attended a make-up work session at Seabrook ES for the one I had to miss due to my mom’s hospitalization. At first, I thought I didn’t really “need” the work session because I felt that I had a good start on my projects and an understanding of what I had to do. Come to find out, I have quite a way to go. I learned that the widgets on our Wiki are supposed to be different types. I had a few TeacherTube videos embedded; including one that is a PowerPoint in VoiceThread type format on different genres in reading. Now, I have to decide how to include two more different ones. My only concern is finding something to put up that is applicable to the page and doesn’t appear “forced” or “meaningless”. I have been struggling to find the time to have the students post more of their reviews. They are slow typers, and have been losing computer time as a whole class due to the 5th graders taking the Science MSA. I may have to intervene and type in some of the remaining ones myself. I want to have this done ASAP so that they can go on and post some discussion thread comments. This is going to be another obstacle in terms of time. Is there ever enough???
One good thing has happened at the beginning of this week. Ann Starr, our technology teacher, was able to help me locate and download a 30-day trial version of the program, WS FTP Pro, which allows me to upload the school website onto our county server. This buys me time for the next month, but not the rest of the school year. Since we just explained to parents in the last newsletter that the site would be down for the remainder of the year, my principal and I felt it would be better not to announce that some updates will be made for the next two weeks. It appears now you must download the software each year for a fee. A decision is going to have to be made whether to purchase the software program. This decision is not to be mine.