Technology Tuesdays

Technology Tuesdays are a new tradition at my school. It's a simple and great idea that any school can do. For the first meeting, I brought Starbucks Coffee and Donuts and had an informal discussion among teachers that use technology and those that want to incorporate more into their repertoire. From the initial meeting, we identified some areas for future meetings. Today we had an innovative session about Online Calendars, which I called "pick your own" staff development. I based this idea on those old "Choose your own adventures" books.

I'm really proud of this concept, even if I need to work on the implementation. As, the "pick your own" title suggests, I tried to individualize the training based on the orientation and comfort level of the participants. More importantly, this approach allows me to market technology training in a far better way. Instead of a generic, geeky sounding topic like "wikis" or "blogs," I can focus the description in more human terms. For online calendars, I promoted the tool as a solution for 4 different customer segments:

1. Busy people that are looking for a way to stay organized and on top of their work and personal lives
2. Club sponsors and extra-curricular organizers that need to communicate with students
3. Classroom teachers that want to help their students be more organized
4. Coaches and sports fans.
   

The response among the staff here was great. While 6 attended the morning training, many more expressed an interest in learning the skills at a later date. If anyone is interested in the materials, let me know. I'll try to post them soon.