A One-Off Year

Teaching Technology

This year, I am out of the "maker space" teaching. Instead, I am teaching technology classes to over 600 students in grades 2,3, and 4. 

Staff Support

Our school has over 1,000 Chromebooks and hundreds of devices like monitors, Interactive Whiteboards, Windows PCs, doc cameras, and much more. I lead a small tech support team.

Company Security Specialist

My current school is part of a very large oil company. Besides teaching, I am the Assistant Information Security Analyst (AISA) for my school. 

Classes Website

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Click on the picture to see my live website set up mainly for students. Each class I teach is then screencast and posted.

My Google Screencasts are accompanied by Google Translate transcription support!

A Busy Year of Three Jobs

A busy day is better than a slow day. Due to staff cuts and increased student numbers, this year's teaching schedule had to be redesigned. We couldn't afford to have three of each specials. This worked out fine for me. 

There was a restructuring of the technology positions in our school (and parent company). Instead of three AISAs in our building, I am the sole survivor. The tech role was so heavy with teaching, tech support, and company AISA, it was historically split between three individuals. 

My current principal decided the solution was to split my days between a focus on teaching and a focus on the tech support needs. I teach every morning up until lunch and fulfill my tech roles (both company and school) in the afternoons.

It works. As I write this in the beginning of the school year, "So far, so good." Next year's plan is to put me back into the "maker spaces" teaching.

I'm wishy washy though. Both the students and the rest of the staff feel my tech classes have been filling a huge gap in learning this year. We are a tech-heavy school and mainstream teachers find it difficult to find time for weaving tech into their classes or knowing how to weave it in. Oh, the conundrum!