Week Four Personal Post
This week's technology use did not go as planned.
This time each year, the assistant principals and I need data to make adjustments to class assignments. We strive for best fit between our 15 English teachers (average experience - just over 20 years) with the 70+ timeslots that cover our 21 different required English courses. To involve our teachers, we use an ages-old paper form to ask teachers' preferences for next year's classes, out-of-class duties, and extracurricular involvement.
The problem I've found with this preference sheet over the years (aside from no one wanting to teach sophomores!) is that very few teachers name courses besides the ones they currently teach.
This year, I got permission to update the process through my assistant principal, and sought feedback from other department chairs and the more willing members of the English department.
Looking for a new format, I first began a google form. I was dissuaded by a handful of my peers when they saw the clunkiness of my design and suggested I stick with paper. So I created a google doc to improve on the formatting and specificity, asking each teacher for at least six courses from the range of available offerings. I was very proud of myself when I attached the share link for all of my colleagues...
But I had failed to account for the array of technology comfort we have among our team members. Less than half use any sort of google document or storage functions, and those that were familiar still managed to alter the file for all users, or did not know how to save and share with me versus the whole group.
So I dutifully printed my updated form, stacked it in their mailboxes (on top of the old, school-wide form), and shuddered knowing that I'd just put them through a failed attempt at what many of them probably thought was redundant anyway.
I asked to have them all back by the end of this week, and will update the blog once I know more...
I'm excited to dust off some successful tech for next week!
This time each year, the assistant principals and I need data to make adjustments to class assignments. We strive for best fit between our 15 English teachers (average experience - just over 20 years) with the 70+ timeslots that cover our 21 different required English courses. To involve our teachers, we use an ages-old paper form to ask teachers' preferences for next year's classes, out-of-class duties, and extracurricular involvement.
The problem I've found with this preference sheet over the years (aside from no one wanting to teach sophomores!) is that very few teachers name courses besides the ones they currently teach.
This year, I got permission to update the process through my assistant principal, and sought feedback from other department chairs and the more willing members of the English department.
Looking for a new format, I first began a google form. I was dissuaded by a handful of my peers when they saw the clunkiness of my design and suggested I stick with paper. So I created a google doc to improve on the formatting and specificity, asking each teacher for at least six courses from the range of available offerings. I was very proud of myself when I attached the share link for all of my colleagues...
But I had failed to account for the array of technology comfort we have among our team members. Less than half use any sort of google document or storage functions, and those that were familiar still managed to alter the file for all users, or did not know how to save and share with me versus the whole group.
So I dutifully printed my updated form, stacked it in their mailboxes (on top of the old, school-wide form), and shuddered knowing that I'd just put them through a failed attempt at what many of them probably thought was redundant anyway.
I asked to have them all back by the end of this week, and will update the blog once I know more...
I'm excited to dust off some successful tech for next week!
It is never fun when something like that doesn't go as planned. Hopefully, you can continue to expose them to different types of technology that teachers can use and they will be open to it. Sometimes you just have to push it enough for them to try and like it. I wasn't a fan of Google Docs at the beginning of my time at Bellarmine, but through repetitive use I have found ways to use it that I like.
ReplyDeleteKristin