Bri Dunckley's ITEC Blog

What a whirlwind of a semester! This week I put the final touches on my portfolio and I was truly grateful that I did not procrastinate on the extensive portfolio assignment. I still have this deep down fear (even though I have reviewed my portfolio about ten times) that a link I embedded won't work or that I misspelled a word somewhere in my reflection, but I suppose time will tell. While this portfolio was extensive and exhausting, I did enjoy going back and seeing all of my work I have completed over the last 2.5 years. This course has also allowed me to develop a deep and meaningful relationship with my school's Media Center Specialist and Technology Specialist. These two women have helped me, guided me, and mentored me throughout the last three months. Let the countdown to graduation begin! TOTAL HOURS: 4 Hours

This week has been a week full of Digital Citizenship. I finalized the plans for my Collaborative Digital Citizenship Unit on Friday and put my plan into action this week. I not only collaborated with a fellow 11th grade English teacher, but also our school METI. Our 11th grade students were about to write their first research paper this year and needed a refresher in proper and ethical digital behavior before they began their online explorations. On Monday, our METI delivered a lesson to the 11th graders on identifying "fake news." Students had fun trying to decide if an article about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus was indeed a real species (but it's on the Internet, so is must be real, right?!). On Tuesday, I delivered my Digital Citizenship lesson on avoiding plagiarism and properly citing sources. I enjoyed this assignment because I was able to send my Weebly lessons and module to their OneNote Class Notebook beforehand, so students knew what to expect. Also, even...

This week I have been working on cramming 6 days worth of work into 3 days! My dear friend from college is getting married this weekend, so my husband and I will be heading out of town tomorrow morning. My two goals for this week focused on the Technology Program Administrator assignment and finalizing my middle school observations. I have been working on collecting the necessary data for the Technology Program Administrator assignment--analyzing and evaluating the help tickets that come in to our METI and IT Specialist. The help ticket data proves a strong point:students and teachers both struggle with their technology, but it is because of two different reasons. Teachers are struggling to understand the basic technology errors such as disconnected Wi-Fi, login issues, and program functionality. However, the students' help tickets have a common trend: damaged or broken technology. Our students use Microsoft Surfaces which come with four accessories: a case, a charging block, a cha...

This week I have spent my time working on my Technology Program Administrator assignment and finalizing my Online Staff Development. I have enjoyed working on the Technology program Administrator assessment because I absolutely adore our Fulton County IT Specialist. She is so knowledgeable and helpful--I feel like I have learned so much just from the short time working with her. In addition to working on those two assignments, I have decided to create a committee at my school where I can gather a group of teach savvy teacher mentors. We will call our committee the Technology Integration Cohort--I plan on holding monthly meetings and sending these teachers to various training on coaching and mentoring.  I believe it is important to have leaders woven within the school; therefore, this Technology Integration Cohort will help teachers who are new to technology and feel more comfortable seeking assistance from teachers within their department. I am working with our school METI and admi...

This week was a less eventful week; however, it allowed me to get ahead on my grad school work  and school training opportunities. I met with my assistant principal and went over the data from my Face to Face evaluations. I noticed that most participants were pleased; however, some felt the session moved too quickly while others said it lagged on for too long. It is hard trying to please such a wide variety of teachers. Additionally, a few teachers said they were not able to complete their Office Mix within the 30 minute time block, so I am going to have to follow up with those few teachers. I began working on the Technology Program Administrator assignment and plan to finish it next week. TOTAL HOURS: 5 HOURS

Once again, why are 3 day weeks so much more stressful than 5 day weeks?! This week has been filled with all sorts of training, developments, and professional growth. I do believe I have spent more time in the last 5 days completing items for this course and my own professional knowledge than I have the last few weeks combined! I started out this week by finalizing by face to face staff development assignment in order to present to a group of Fulton County teachers. I focused on Office Mix, an amazing new Microsoft Add-In to Power Point. The teachers seemed to be very receptive considering it was technology that they were already comfortable with (Power Point) and it is a tool that can be used at all grade levels in all curriculums. It was very neat to see teachers from all grade levels in different departments learning from each other. I spent all day Thursday delivering this development. I will attach a few photos of this training. Additionally, this week I spent some time at Medlock...

Dressing up like the Scarlet Witch, ordering $200 worth of pizza, and accidentally locking myself inside the custodial closet--these were the highlights of my Week 7. And believe it or not, all three of these things happened were a direct correlation to me being an Instructional Technology Coach! We had an absolutely amazing student PD program come to the school Wednesday-Friday to help train out Gladiator Tech team. Students participated in different sessions covering leadership skills, communication builders, and project design. At the end of the training, students delivered a their presentation to a panel of administration and teachers. They did such a great job and I am so proud of them! I also spent a good amount of time working on my portfolio and face to face staff development this week. I have finished my staff development and all I have left to do is go back and proofread a few more times. I will actually be delivering my staff development next week and I am so nervous! I am...

Go Falcons! Go Braves! What a great weekend for Atlanta sports! Prior to this fantastic sports weekend, I had a very busy week at school prepping for two big events coming up in our instructional technology department. Next week, I will be assisting SLED/iSchool team members in training our Gladiator Tech team members. Our GladTech team at my school is so amazing and I am so proud to be their sponsor and coach. GladTech is made up of 19 students who have a passion and curiosity for technology. They are so eager to learn and make our students and teachers feel comfortable with technology in the classroom. They will go through a three day training this week where they will dive deep into troubleshooting, educational support, Office 365 tools, and so much more. That will take up a fair amount of my time this week and I will definitely take some photos for next week's blog. I am also in the process of planning my face-to-face staff development which I plan on delivering in the followin...

Hello (and goodbye Hurricane Irma)! Why is it that shorter school weeks are more chaotic than normal 5 day school weeks? After having Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday off due to Irma, I dove right into my busy schedule upon returning on Thursday. My main goal for September is to ensure all students have received their Microsoft Surfaces in order to make our innovative technology class run smoothly. We are currently having issues with students refusing to complete the Digital Citizenship course and sign the permission form; however, the biggest issue I am noticing (and the main reason we are delayed in our full deployment) is parents. It's quite unbelievable how many emails I have received from parents saying technology has no place in the classroom and "technology is what makes my child have bad grades" (that is a real quote from a parent). I am spending an exhausting amount of time responding to parents, explaining the benefits of technology in the classroom and the path o...