3rd Year and 2 Months Behind

Who would have thought that going into the third year of CFF would require so much work? We have no new teachers to introduce to the program, as all of our core classes have access to the equipment (which is also why we did not get any funding for equipment this year...it would have been nice to equip some other classes, though). With that in mind, you would think that our staff was getting more comfortable with working with the equipment and would not need to call on me as much as they used to.

WRONG!

Since they are getting more comfortable using the equipment, they are working on new ways to integrate it, meaning they need me even more! I have already worked with two middle school math teachers, a Spanish teacher, our librarian, two English teachers, a math teacher, our electives teacher (yearbook, journalism, etc.), two social studies teachers, and our administration. I have a meeting with another English teacher later today, as well.

This makes me happy. It means that CFF is really having an impact. I have noticed that, overall, the students are more active in their learning. Many teachers have that extra bounce in their step from being reinvigorated. I am seeing teachers taking risks where they would not have before. I get emails that show teachers are reflecting on their instruction, learning from what works and what doesn't.

How could I be more satisfied with my colleagues? I wish they they would allow their students even more access to technology. I wish they would share theri wikispaces with their students to allow them to contribute to the learning. I wish they would see the possible benefits of cell phones in the classroom (our student news team interviewed me about that today, as they learned I used Poll Everywhere in class the other week). I wish we had our server set up so that we could access the blogging, wiki, and podcasting features of it.

I can see when many of these wishes will come true in the future. Some might be this year. Others might not be until years down the road, but I can see the shift happening. The toughest part of it all is the time constraint. My number one issue is how do I accomplish that which I have set out to do when I am still only a half-time integrator? How can I help those teachers in my school where I don't have a common time to meet with them? How can I help my colleagues learn how to balance their use of technology with traditional teaching methods, all while determining which will work best?

And of course, I'm working on all of this while I still have to go through information from NECC, sort through email and voicemail, as well as hit all sorts of other things on my to-do list (resource gathering/organizing, anyone?).

Ah, the challenges of CFF. You always keep my on my toes!