Reflections

media type="custom" key="3913157" A computer was something on TV From a science fiction show of note. A window was something you hated to clean... And ram was the cousin of a goat.....

Meg was the name of a friend And gig was a job for the night Now they all mean different things And that really mega bytes

An application was for employment A program was a TV show A cursor used profanity A keyboard was a piano

Memory was something that you lost with age A CD was a bank account And if you had a 3 1/2" floppy You hoped nobody found out

Compress was something you did to the garbage Not something you did to a file And if you unzipped anything in public You'd be in jail for a while

Log on was adding wood to the fire Hard drive was a long trip on the road A mouse pad was where a mouse lived And a backup happened to your commode

Cut you did with a pocket knife Paste you did with glue A web was a spider's home And a virus was the flu

I had an opportunity to watch my teachers as they received training and was rewarded with loads of equipment to enhance their instruction. I noticed excitement on my team members faces as they were opening up the box and exploring their new toys and gadgets. Ms. Witherspoon and Mr. Houze did an outstanding job of being patient and explaining how to utilize the many devices. All five members of the team began to discuss right away ways they can incorporate the technology within their classrooms. Some of the ideas that came out from the discussions were to take pictures of students as they did various presentations, student's displaying their work as they explain how they arrive at their answer or simply to be descriptive, and even using the microscope along wih the document camera to show the uniqueness of select items. I visited my teachers numerous days and discovered that all of them were excited and very mucj utilizing the technology. During the testing meeting for the Practice MSA, Mr. Myers used his ELMO to explain to the staff what to watch out for as students wrote on their answer sheets. In Mrs. Spriggs' class, she used her ELMO to highlight key information that students discovered as they read a passage. In Mr. Hunter's class, he displayed different ways students were adding their decimals and discussed with students which way was correct/incorrect and why. In Mrs. Doster's class, she took a picture of her entire fourth grade class and had it displayed in the front of the classroom to inspire her students that “teamwork does make the dream work”. Lastly, in Mrs. Newman's class, students were exploring the use of a microscope as kindergartners discovered how they can identify items that are real from fake. I utilized my ELMO and my digital camera during a recent staff meeting to display protocols that were being implemented school wide by the county. I also made sure to show some of the wonderful things that are happening at James Ryder Randall and the upcoming events that are heading our way. I also used my digital camera to take pictures at various events and posted the pics on our schools website to keep the parents abrest of events past, present, and future. In all, I am discovering that we as leaders of our school have to be just as enthusiastic of utilizing technology as our teachers and students are. I am happy that I selected the teachers I did because their innovation will inspire other teachers to utilize the great technology we provide at our school. I also realize that we, as administrators, must step up to the plate and utilize the technology tool.