The Waiting Game
October 14, 2008 — Vanessa RileyI got notice that the Ed. Tech. Department is following up with the podcatching issue and that I’ll get more information in a day or two.
My wiki is currently still blocked. Looks like worst case scenario is that I’ll be doing all the grunt work and uploading the content. My students have been working so hard and they are really taking this seriously, so I’m going to give them their voice. I just don’t know when I’ll have time to do it. I barely have time to grade papers, let alone transfer information from the LMS wiki to a public wiki. Using the wiki as an editing tool is going brilliantly, however! Students are choosing whether or not they are good at editing for content or editing for mechanics, and I am letting them utilize their strengths. In fact, I may split the class into two groups and let them deal with the wiki that way.
I’m scared that this pilot isn’t going to accomplish all that I wanted it to accomplish, and it makes me wonder what I could have done differently this summer to prepare. I would have pushed harder for a podcaster to have been approved earlier, but I really don’t know all of the steps that are needed for that process.
I’m now three months into the school year and haven’t started anything yet. I have created my own ramshackle curriculum because there is nothing available and the people who have the material aren’t responding to e-mails.
I tried to go to NECC last summer since it was in San Antonio, but there was no money in the school budget and I did not personally have the money at the time. I even offered my services to one of the people who helped organize the event in order to help cut down on the conference costs, and even though I was initially met with support, I never heard anything further.
No one really seems to know what it is that I am doing, and I am starting to feel a little lonely. I’m worried that my name keeps coming up at meetings and that I’m being seen as a troublemaker. Peggy (my principal) keeps reassuring me that the reason that I am having so many roadblocks is because I’m utilizing technology in way that has never been utilized in Klein ISD, but I never realized that this would be so exhausting.
