October 24-29

This week was more about SMART Board issues. A replacement SMART Board was finally delivered this week. When SMART Boards were initially installed in the all the classrooms at the beginning of the year, a company was contracted for the installation. Now, it's the school's responsibility. This board had already been mounted at the beginning of the year so it seemed to be a quick install fix. Right before the board was starting to be installed, our ET realized the board is not the same size. They sent a smaller board than the previous. When talking to the company on the phone and explaining the situation, we figured it must be pretty cheap for them to make these boards. Instead of shipping the board back and them sending the correct board, they told us to keep it. This is probably because a person has to deliver each board when it's shipped or received. We also got the SMART Response system for our lower grades. This is SMART Board clicker system that students use to take tests with. All of these clickers had to have batteries installed and labeled before distributed to classrooms.  This does take awhile since you have 20 remotes for each class and the screws has to be taken out before you can insert the batteries. I know I will be working on this next week too.

October 17-22

This week I finished doing inventory on all the computers in my school. This took a lot of time since we have 5 different buildings that makes up our school. Also, I wanted to make sure I came when students were gone so I wouldn't disrupt anyone. I spent the rest of my time helping teachers with different technology problems (Smart board being unplugged, how to scan documents as a PDF email attachment through the copy machine, etc.).

October 10-15

This week we had no school due to fall break!!!!

October 3-7

This week I did more inventory, but this time I had to do inventory on all the computers in our school. I was able to learn the coding system used to identify the computers. For example, MES146X means it's a student computer in room 146 at Marshall Elementary. This year we have a new E.T. at our school. Our previous E.T. had been at been in the position for many years. Many of the computers were either in different rooms or not documented on the information our new E.T. received. He thinks this is because our previous E.T. didn't have to write this information down since she had been there so many years and remembered which computers she replaced or switched between rooms. I found many computers that were supposed to be in a certain room were not there and other rooms had more computers than what was listed on the inventory record sheet. In these cases, I made notes of which computers were missing and wrote down all the computer identification labels for the extra computers located in classrooms. Doing inventory on all the computers is a big task especially since many rooms have over eight computers. Also, we are a big elementary school. I will be finishing this job when I return back to school from fall break.

September 26-30

This week I worked on the program Aspen. This is the database our district uses for keeping student information such as contact information, student records, transcripts, and attendance information. We started using this in August. We got a quick 30 minute training on how to post attendance, but that's as far as it went. When students are withdrawn from school, teachers are required to post grades into the system. Our school had scheduled a training for this at the end of the week. However, students were being withdrawn before the training was provided. To help with this problem, Mike (E.T.) taught me how to post grades into the system. I went around to different classrooms and taught teachers how to post grades for those who had students who were moving earlier this week. At the end of the week, Mike trained the rest of the staff on how to post grades into Aspen. I helped throughout the training by walking around and helping teachers who came in late or missed a few steps along the way. I'm sure I will be doing this again next week because I figure some will forget by now and then!