Chat Session

I just completed my first chat session for this technology class. What a great discussion we had. It was nice to feel like I could actually "talk" with the people in my class and get to know them a little better. Thanks Dr. Morgan!

NETS & 21st Century Tech

How exciting that my school district is focusing on NETS and 21st Century Learners. Teacher and student standards were just introduced to staff at a faculty meeting and more PD is being offered through RCET this month to administrators. Good timing for this course.

SEM

My husband works for a company managing their SEM or Search Engine Marketing. Search engines help people find information on the Internet quickly and offer advertisements. SEM is currently growing much faster than traditional advertising and other channels of online marketing. I find it very interesting. It learns the way people find and use web sites and gives you valuable insight into how to guide your marketing campaigns and what to do with the data you gather. My point to this with education is that I think there could be a similar program made which analyzes opinions on parent/community views on local education which gives you valuable advice in guiding community needs within the schools.

Tech Thoughts

I had quite an interesting thought today...What would we do without technology????
As an administrator, teacher, and human we use technology in just about everything we do. From communicating through email, blogs, and Face book to educating ourselves through online courses, web casts, and portals we are completely dependent on technology. We make purchases and pay bills online, visit with long distance friends through live video streaming, watch news anchors interview someone that is 1000 miles away, stop at a red light, find recipes, read books online, and monitor world-wide security through high tech software. Amazing! It makes me wonder what huge advances are to come due to the ever changing world of technology...

No More SASI

Our district has made a change from operating with SASI to Power School. All teachers complete grade cards, attendance, etc from this system. Administrators and office personnel enter and receive reports on discipline, attendance. enrollment, scheduling, lunch, and more. It is so fitting that I am taking a tech course that focuses on the NETS-A standards and how difficult change and keeping progressive with technology is. It is very time consuming when everyone's system is changing, not just a small group within the district. Questions are running rampant from all users and I am beginning to see that it takes a bit of time to work out all of the kinks. There is no way to foresee all the fumbles and trials until you begin. As you implement and actually use the technology, you start seeing where changes are still needing to be made. My thoughts are with the programmers and the newbies feeling unsure. I know it will take some time, but soon enough we'll all be pros when in comes to using Power School.

Picture Problems

Wow! I just about thought I would never get my picture posted to my SBU account. Please don't laugh...I'm sure many of you know how to do this but I did not. All my pictures from my cameras were way too big and the site would not allow them to be added. Thank you Dr. Morgan for the suggestions. To those of you who can't get your pic posted because of size...open your pic, go to the picture manager, and COMPRESS it for web or email viewing. I had to compress mine twice. It was that simple, as are most things tech, it's just knowing where to go and what to do. I will chalk that up to my first big tech lesson! Now I'm working on getting the silhouette picture to go away that is beside my picture. Wish me luck! (Or feel free to offer me some advice. =0)

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog. This site will be used for my Educational Technology class at SBU. I am working toward a Specialist degree in educational administration and I will post comments about technology in education as it relates to being an administrator.