Lunch discussion today!

While eating lunch with my colleagues today, one of the Spanish teachers was talking about some great movie trailer clips that she found to go with her lesson. Another teacher responded, "that sounds awesome! Lisa could you put those on the drive when you get a chance so we all can use them?" 

***happy*** It's great that my resource drive came to her mind right away as the place to put those video clips. OF COURSE I'll put them on there so we ALL can use them!! That's the point, if one teacher is using the movie trailer clips in her Spanish III class, the other Spanish III teachers should be able to use them too! I think this creates more consistency among the teachers of the same level! :)

My 1st "tech tip of the month"!!

Since the drive is really starting to run smoothly now, I decided to focus my time at our World Language department meeting on teaching a "Tech Tip" to my colleagues. In today's session I introduced the site Edmodo.com 

Edmodo is a great online communication tool, almost the "social networking of education". I started using it last year with my students and have really enjoyed it. I think my students really like it too, especially how it looks like Facebook and they can add a picture of themselves to their profile. 
I've used it to post assignments and reminders, ask questions/polls, and collect assignments. My students can post comments, responses, and turn in assignments all through the site. 

It's a pretty neat site, it's free, and it's supported by HCPSS. What's better than that!?!

Overall, I think my very first "tech tip" of the month was a success! I definitely introduced a new tech tool and offered to meet with teachers individual to help them with set-up if needed. 

I'll be the administrator

After the feedback from my colleagues and some thought, I've decided that I'd prefer to be the only administrator to the drive. My plan for adding new resources is:

1. At the end of each quater, I'll email the teachers and ask if they have created any new resources for the previous unit to be added to the drive.
2. They can either email them to me in an attachment, or if too large I'll take my portable hard drive to them in order to get the resources.
3. I'll add them to the appropriate folders of the resource drive for future use.

My colleagues of course will still be able to access all of the folders and if they want to make changes to a document, they can "save as" on their own computer. 

Since I really am concerned about the drive being user-friendly and well organized, I think this is the best method. I feel that if the organization starts to get messed up, it will discourage use of the drive because it will be impossible to find anything 

Survey results are in!

So since we've been using the Spanish Resource Drive for about a month and a half now, I wanted to get feedback from my colleagues on what they think of it. I used a GoogleForm to create a survey for them to respond to. The questions I asked them were:

1. Do you find the idea of the Spanish Resource Drive and sharing resources helpful to your planning? *

·         Yes

·         No

2. Do you find the Spanish Resource Drive to be helpful in any other aspect of your job besides planning? *

·         Yes (If yes, please explain below)

·         No

3. In the 1st month of school, how often have you accessed the Spanish Resource Drive? *

·         Never

·         2-3 times

·         About once a week

·         2 or more times a week

4. Do you like that the way Unit 1 for each level is organized? *

·         Yes

·         No (If no, please explain below)

·         Other:  

5. Do you have any suggestions about how to add resources to the drive?(Ex. Each person can add their own resources whenever they want to, people send resources to Drive Adminstrator who adds them, Adding new resources at the end of each quarter?)

It took a few reminders to get responses back from everyone, but finally they are all in!

To question:

#1: All 6 teachers responded YES!!!

#2: 4 teachers responded YES, 2 teachers responded NO 

    ***only 2 of the teachers that responded yes explained further. One person said that it has helped to use similar test/quizzes to other teachers, and the other said that it helped to get new ideas. 

#3: 2 teachers responded "2-3 times", 3 teachers responded "about once a week" and 1 teacher responded "2 or more times a week" 

#4: All teachers responded YES!!!

#5: Not everyone responded to the last question (maybe I should have made it mandatory!) Some responses were:

      -Send resources to the administrator to add them

      -Email out reminders for any new resources created

      -Update at the end of each quarter (unit)

Overall I am very pleased with the feedback from my colleagues. This helps me to determine that so far I feel like my resource drive is a valuable tool. I think accessing the drive about once a week is satisfactory, but of course the more the better!