CEDO 599 Weeks 2 & 3

I'm not sure where the time has gone and realized that I missed my blog post for Week 2 so I'm doing double duty with this post. Since the last post, I've been working hard on my project. I first had to coordinate a date with administration to do my Family Tech Night. After a few emails back and forth, we have set the date for November 8th. I have created a wiki that will house my resources for the night. I also created a Google Form for people to fill out to register for the event. That way I'm able to see how many people I can expect that evening and how many handouts I need to prepare, etc. I've had quite a few emails of questions (especially regarding the ability to sync Google Calendar with iPhones). I don't have an iPhone so I started doing some research on this so I'm able to explain this to participants on the 8th. I'm glad those individuals emailed me ahead of time so I'm able to do the research/work ahead of time and be prepared. So far I have 20 people registered. All of the principals K-12 have put it in their weekly newsletters, a Constant Contact email announcement will be sent out next week, a note put in parish bulletins, as well as a press release to the local news paper to help advertise the event. I'm excited to see the interest from people! The Director of Admissions also sent me an email today letting me know that many parishes had responded back to her asking if I would do a presentation on Social Networking, specifically Facebook & Twitter. I'm guessing that some of them would like to start utilizing these tools but don't know exactly where to start. I am in the process of setting a date for a social networking (Facebook & Twitter) presentation like the one I'm doing on 11/8 for Google Docs & Google Calendar.

The planning of this project is taking much more time than I anticipated. I am spending time responding to emails, and as you can probably expect, the time to respond is much more than if I were able to talk to someone on the phone or face to face because it takes so much time trying to figure out how to word something so that it will make sense to the person on the other end, especially the parent emails that I've had so far.

It is also such a CRAZY time right now, with only 2 days left of our term and finals around the corner on Monday and Tuesday of next week. I feel like I don't have enough time or energy to get everything done that needs to be done. I know I can get all of the work and preparation done prior to the 8th when the Family Tech Night is being held but feel so much pressure to get things done by the end of this class. Right now I feel like I'm not being very good in any of my roles - teacher, wife, mom, student, parent volunteer at my son's school, church volunteer, etc, etc, etc. ....If only there were a few more hours to each day OR an option to freeze time for at least 24 hours but the ability for me to still continue to get my work done. :)

CEDO 599 Week 1

I couldn't make this week's class meeting due to "Preview Night" which is one of our large recruitment nights for perspective students and families. I had to represent the Business & Information Technology Department and show off our courses and related student organizations. After viewing the class recording, it is just what I had expected the class to be. I'm excited about the planning and implementation of my culminating experience. This year has been full of staff development in regards to technology but for my culminating experience I want to expand my audience beyond the staff I work with on a daily basis. I want to reach the parents as well as students who I don't have in class to share some of these great technology tools. The first tool I'd like to share information on is Google Docs. Our system adopted Google Apps for Edu this year and I've been slammed with questions from students as well as emails and phone calls from parents who aren't familiar with Google Docs and some of the other Google tools like Calendar. By providing some training to parents and students who I don't see in my classes, I'm hoping the students and parents can be more educated and use the tools to the extent that they can be. I'm also excited about sharing some other Web 2.0 tools with the teachers besides the tools that I am able to share during my visits. I'd like to highlight a tool that can be used as well as give examples (real classroom ideas and examples) of how the tools are being used so teachers can see the application and hopefully inspire those "ah ha" moments. I can't believe this program is coming to a close. It really does seem like yesterday that the first course started.