Our meeting today was very PC. Confusingly so. The Hawk directed the conversation, and did fairly well. Dowd, who probably had prompted the meeting because she wanted good old fashion writing - always comes across cryptic to me. I don't do cryptic well anymore. I can't read between the lines. I need people to just say it. I am a good listener, and I can really push adults through their points by repeating what they are saying and asking for clarification. Which I did for Dowd:
Are you saying technology is preventing good writing?
No. I'm saying they aren't getting the time they need to do good writing.
Because of technology?
They did not have the time they needed. Their end product was awful.
Dowd has 30 years experience and a Ph.D. She is fastidious when it comes to details, inexperienced in the middle school level, and a believer in pencil and paper. She says she supports technology, and I think she does ... but the way our year has played out - the technology has been a big detractor. It think that was her point, but she kept insisting it wasn't. I'm not so sure anymore.
Our technology director was a part of the meeting too. He's 50 years old an apparently has attended a lot of leadership conferences. He seemed to have been prepped on the problems and prepared a speech.
And he was a terrible listener.
He began his speech with his three factors to teacher frustration - frustration being the exhaust of anxiety (I wonder what conference he learned that?). The three factors were quite logical, I can't remember them - but something about not being equipped, not knowing expectations, and a third. Then he launched into a general sales pitch as to what the tech department is doing to counter that with a sidebar that he is going to Brussels next year and will no longer be the director.
I piped in.
I have two suggestions.
We are like technological schizophrenics. I understand this is our life now. But it is also a picture of this school - we are spread so thin: Google and all its functions - mail, hangouts, docs, sheets, slides, hangouts, commenting and assigning within documents, but we also use Moodle, and Edublis and eOkul. And some we use for the same functions. Calendars on Moodle and Google. Email on Google, Moodle, and Edublis. But, if school's closed, its announced on a totally different location: the public website (none of the aforementioned). This is leaving out WhatsApp and ClassDojo -parent and teacher favorites. I don't know about these things - but it doesn't seem logical to have so many avenues. I'm becoming more adept, but just because we have it, should we do it? Isn't it more logical to centralize this information? (No was the answer, this is the way of the world). Then, what if we could specify or clarify the avenues of information: administrative through Google, parent through Edublis, School Activities and dates through Moodle.
His answer was: We are a Google school. (I don't know what that means, nor do I care).
My second had to do with instruction. You've all done this last year. You've experienced the pitfalls and hangups - why isn't this information being passed on? This was a mistake. I have taught in a one-to-one laptop school in the ghetto. I understand hangups and unpredictables. But these - while I couldn't predict, you could have shared this with me - the most basic stuff! You say we are a Google school with pride, but our kids can't log into their accounts on shared iPads because no one taught them three vital steps. Steps that I didn't know were even an issue until coming across them. These issues are interrupting my teaching - interrupting English lessons in reading and writing.
His answer: I'm going to push back on that one. Technology will always have new problems. You don't even know about the skeleton problem.
Me: That's not push back. That's a different topic. My point is - these are issues experienced last year that could have been passed on this year.
People and their jargon. Yeesh.
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