Michael C. Warren

This month was very busy, with our new system coming online, a scheduled training for campus technology assistants/teachers who would be helping their campus with eChalk.  During this time, we had 3 people from our campus attend. Karen James and I are both part of the Lamar University Technology Leadership Program and have been working on the web stuff off and on together for the past year.  After talking with her, I have let her be our gatekeeper in regards to how many things are managed, while I focus on more detailed research regarding some of the tools and deeper technical issues for the school.  During in-service we co-trained our fellow teachers and staff to begin using the new eChalk system. Karen worked in a larger group setting in her training while I focused on helping those that needed one-on-one training.  Some of the more in depth research I did was to see how the student accounts worked, what they could see and what limitations they had. In addition I setup a way for parents to create their own account in the system so they could monitor their students work, and I created an online form for dress code infractions.

This new system has finally broken down some barriers and we have more people involved with keeping up the schools website than ever before. It is changing on a more regular basis and we are having fewer problems than before.

I still feel that we should be sending out letters to parents by the 3 weeks mark, but I have seen in the past that the school often puts technology into place and it will take from 6 weeks to a semester before information is sent out.  That I do not know how to fix, but I know that the kids are excited, and many parents have questions, but we are only getting a small amount of the school and parents involved at this point.