Ok, so its not the British Red Coats, but to the staff at my school, it may be just as bad. Our district is implementing a new mainframe for next school year. This mainframe is an all-in-one system that encompasses the teacher gradebook, attendance, student records, pay-roll, and more.
Why then, am I telling everyone about this? Because I have been selected, as well as a few others around the district, to pilot the grading portion of this program for the final nine weeks of this school year.
Being well versed in the arena of technology, I encourage new and exciting ideas, but this is not the case for most at my school. For example, when I mentioned to my team leader that our new grading program will allow us (the teachers) to create quizzes online and allow the students to answer them right inside the grading program where the program will then score the results and enter them directly into the gradebook, my colleague said (and I'm not exaggerating) "What's so good about that? I don't think I'm going to like that because then I can't how my students are answering the question."
When I asked him if he ever gave multiple choice questions, he responded with a resounding "yes." So I asked him what the difference was in seeing the student's circle or bubble and a computerized check box, and he told me it just didn't feel right."
At any rate, I'm excited to be a part of this pilot. The only difference that I've noticed between our new grading program and a typical LEM is there does not seem to be a drop box functionality or a discussion board. However, students will be able to send and receive messages and our IT department is working on interweaving email into the program...so we'll see.
Anyway, this is going to be an interesting final nine weeks to say the least!
-Jack
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Good luck Jack. I know you will be fighting an uphill battle. Some teachers just don't want to change and I think that is unfortunate.
ReplyDeleteHmmm...this reminds me of the video clip I used in the Emerging Technologies module - the one about the new invention, the match. There will always be people who are laggards in technology. That's why we need people, like you, who are early adopters. :o)
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the rollout!