Journal 7

• What is a point that she made that you agree with?
• I loved reading this vlog because sometimes it is everything that I feel. I hate when admin tells us to make sure you give choice to students or differentiate learning. HOWEVER, in school meetings and PD we are usually being lectured at and all given the same info. This is not the best way to teach yet it is done. SO I loved that! 
• I also loved the fact that she said fight for us. I agree with the idea that things come down from above and we are caught in the middle. 
• What is a point that she made that you do not agree with? If you agreed with everything defend that.
• I really don't feel like there was anything I felt like I didn't agree with especially because it is all things I feel like I have said or thought throughout my education. 
• What is something we could do as EdTech Coaches to help Administration meet these (or at least some) criteria she laid out in her letter? 
• I think as an ed tech coach, we are the middle people sometimes. We are part admin in that we work with all people and adults in the building but still consider teacher staff. I think if we have a good relationship with our boss we can be good buffers that the admin can run ideas by before releasing it to the staff!

Journal 8

• Were your goals for this class from day one met (check your goals on blog one if need be)? Why or why not? 

• This is was my goal for this class:
• "I hope to learn new software and apps to help with younger students. I also would like to know what some of the requirements of technology that students should know for the 3-5th grade. How do I push for that in my district?"
• I feel that the apps for younger students were something that we did go over, especially with everyone's tech tool presentation. I found it strange that in all my classes, we never really worked with the tech common core standards and dug dip into them. I think it would be nice to have a course that works with the standards and developing curriculum. 
• What is something you wish you could have had more time with?
• I wish this class I could have done more exploring other blog alternatives since I have already used blogger. That would be nice to be shown a couple more!  
• What practices will you hope to bring to your organization or institution or your own practice? 
• I really think something I learned and would like to bring back to my district is google sites. We have not used sites a lot, but I can think of many ways a google site would be helpful in my school. 
• What is something you will be able to do now, or are more comfortable with, that you could not do before and how will it affect your professional practice?

• I think, as much as I hate it, I like the idea of doing screencastify and the video. I can easily get better at it and use it more in my school and teaching. I may work my way up to get comfortable with it! 

Journal 6

Bottomupteaching.com

• https://soundcloud.com/karen-roach-lcsw/05-3-simple-steps-to-regulate-a-child

• I listened to my first ever podcast. I picked my social worker in school because it directly affects what I am doing in my classroom. The social worker in my school is a certified therapist and used to own her own practice. I believe her husband still does. I choose to listen to her podcast because it is all about 3 ways to regulate students. I have some challenging students in my class and I figured I would tap into her resources. She also has a website called bottomupteaching.com. 

• So her whole podcast is all up-regulating a child when they are defiant, withdrawn, or disconnected with our teaching. She calls the 3 step method...Settle, Sync, Say.  First, Settle the emotions. Second, Sync up with the child - connect and get on the same page. And finally, Say what you need to - process, problem-solve, or get back to teaching.

• I really liked how she seemed so calm and casual and even the beginning where she says coming to you uncut. Letting us know she is just speaking to us. I will use that in mine.

Journal 3: Infrastructures

• What does your school or organization's infrastructure look like? 
• I work in a 3-5 school building. There are about 330 students in the school. I believe we have enough ban width to support all students and staff in the school. We very rarely have issues with connection.
• Where are there gaps in the system? 
• The gaps in our system come with personnel and transfer of support from when our old tech person left. He left with the system a mess and we are currently sharing a director with another school district. This makes things complicated when we need things done.

• What would be needed to improve it?
• I think if we have a good support system in place with the correct personnel and people with the background and education then this would fix a lot of the issues.

The director of technology in our district is a shared position with another district. This is new this year. I am not sure it will continue this way in the future. 

• What does your school or organization's infrastructure look like? 

Our infrastructure is designed using the "hub & spoke" WAN method. Lakeview serves as the hub, with Prairieview and Elizabeth Ide as the spokes. We are using Comcast for our district internet provider. We contract a connection speed of 500Mbps with them. PV and IDE also connect to LV with a 500Mbps leased-fiber connection. 

We use a Sophos firewall that also acts as the district's web filtering system. The switches in the district are all very old but do provide gigabit connections to the hardwired clients. Our wireless infrastructure is controller-based, meaning all of the wireless access points get their instructions from a single main controller. 

• Where are there gaps in the system? 

Our WAN has no redundancy in case of a fiber problem such as a severed line. Our switches are 10 years old and do not provide power of ethernet which would then power our wireless access points. Instead, we use power injectors which are costly and take up a lot of space in our network racks. The internet connection we have with Comcast needs to be increased based on traffic analytics and usage during the day. The same is said for the leased fiber connections between LV and the other two buildings. Our wireless controller is old, with no redundancy, and very old access points. On top of that, the network access policies are so tight that it hinders anyone from trying to use our systems without planning everything in advance. 

• What would be needed to improve it? 

We are undergoing a complete redesign this summer. We will be replacing the wired and wireless infrastructure from the ground up. New routing protocols will be used to ensure redundancy and reliability. Our internet bandwidth with Comcast as well as our leased-fiber will be doubled to 1Gbps. Servers systems will be virtualized and most likely replaced with instances that live in "the cloud" on AWS (amazon web services). We will begin looking at ways to remove roadblocks to network access while maintaining a high level of network security. To top it off, we will have a monitoring system in place that will keep an eye on things and alert us to any network anomalies. 

Journal 4

The classroom tool I choose was Kahoot!. I choose this tool because it is kid-friendly and easy to use. After doing more research in the program I found it to be very compliant with ADA and others. It is designed for all ages but I have to be extra careful with children under 12. 

As far as my own AUP, I have a very general and child-friendly one. It basically outlines using the technology appropriately and not using sites that are not on their symbaloo. This program is on their symbaloo so it is covered in my AUP.  I do not have any issues with the future use of Kahoot!. 

Journal 5

• What was a technical problem you had to plan for when crafting your presentation?
• When I was crafting my presentation, one technical problem that I planned for was not putting too much on a slide so it would not take to long to upload during the presentation. 

• How did you plan for it? What is your favorite thing about the technology resource that you presented on?
• My favorite part of this presentation was actually almost all parts. I liked diving deep into the program and it helped me learn so much more about what the program can do...even more, than I originally thought. I also was interested in the cost part because iI thought it was free. But there is more to it. I, of course, liked the creative piece to this as well.
  
  
• What is your least favorite thing? Elaborate on both parts.
• My least favorite part of this presentation was related it back how it is used on an LMS platform. I wasn't sure what that was asking? Like can it be played in the Classroom? That was the only confusing part to me. 

• What takeaways from your presentation do you have? 
• 
  
  • What went really well?
  • I felt like I was very prepared for this presentation. I really put a lot of work and time into the slides and I like to make it appealing to the eyes as well. I think it is visually appealing.
    
  • What went really bad?
  • I am not sure anything went really bad. I think I could have put more information in my presentation. Maybe make the slides more bullets. 
    
  • What changes will you make for next time?
  • I would make the slides shorter and more simplified about the information. 
    
  • What did someone else do that you really enjoyed?
  • I really likes how Joslyn went into detail about the UDL and ADA. I copied the rights but did not show examples. 
    
  • How can you improve on your delivery of information to best serve your users?
  • I think it depends on who is the audience. If I were delivering this to teachers, more of my slides would be why to use this app and how as opposed to the policies.

Journal Entry #2

When users want to use an LMS, one of the biggest things is it needs to be user-friendly. Research says that when sites are too complicated, users won't return. I also think that when creating a LMS, it needs to be visually friendly and easy to read. If things aren't visually appealing and organized it will be harder for people to use. 

One way we can fail our users is by not using a consistent and easy to use LMS platform. This will make it difficult for users to navigate and eventually not use the platform anymore. Another way we can fail our users is to constantly think about what is the purpose and who is using this. Is this a platform for just sharing information? If so, maybe we need to use an easy to use platform. I think educating users on this is important so they know what to use and why.

My experience through Lewis has been blackboard. I think this is very difficult to use and not effective! As for my district I have uses a couple of different platforms. I have used google classroom, Powerschool, and blogger. All of those platforms are easy to use and have been easy to navigate for me. I have been able to figure them out easily without any PD. I have a tendency to figure out how to use things by trial and error with the sites.