EDL599B+Summer+School+Blog

05/13/2010 - I drove from Franklinville to the BlueBird Square BOCES offices and prepared to meet with the Summer School principals and interns. I was excited yet apprehensive and not sure at all how I would fit in. Going into this meeting I was somewhat at ease because I have never been a principal and was quick to point that out to my supervisors. However, with their encouragement I eventually began to contribute to the activity and by the end of the afternoon and evening I felt very much at home and I believe that I was contributing to the meeting. I look forward with great anticipation to our next meeting on June 9, 2010 with the summer school faculty which will occur at the BOCES training room on Windfall Road in Olean. Tonight's meeting was so cool on so many levels that I just need to write more about it. I really walked in feeling overwhelmed and when I left I felt that I had really contributed. The secret to my success was in feeling green and humility. If only I could keep that "being green," attitude. I also forgot to mention that Tim Cox asked me to present at the IT conference at Holiday Valley on July 28. I just feel so very grateful and don't know what to say. For a long time this year, I've been apologizing for going to St. Bonaventure and signing up for this School Leadership program, but after tonight I really feel as though I have something to contribute. I have to write more, but tonight was a much a spiritual experience as a learning experience.

5/17/2010 -- I drove from Franklinville to Olean for the "kick-off" meeting between Dr. Gibbs and Mrs. Cindy Crandall. When I got there I/we discovered that Mrs. Kathryn McFarland was there too. So, I got both the Summer School Assistant Principal and Curriculum Director internships going. I designed both a Summer School Principal and Curriculum Director form within Google Docs and have begun entering activities that I completed.

5/18/2010 -- I met briefly with Mrs. McFarland today to discuss elements of my internship and plans for the future and I also met with our School Psychologist, Met with Franklinville Central School Director of Special Education, Jessica Schirrmacher-Smith; School Psychologist, Sharon Danna and a student and parent who were anxious to obtain the necessary certification to become part of the Bookshare program. I had to work in a matter that respected not only that student's confidentiality but also the confidential rights of other students involved in the program. I enrolled the student in the program, created an email account for him, downloaded the "Read Out Loud Software" and "burned it" to a CD-ROM and gave it to the mother. I also took a sometime to train the mother and student how to access Bookshare at their home once the student is validated.

We need a community accessible website that can be a resource for parents, students and teachers who are using Bookshare.org. I created a special section of our Moodle server which allows for guest access that will provide such a site. I also needed to increase the maximum file upload size for the site and I researched how to do that and edited the necessary files on the webserver and restarted it. I downloaded a file about the Bookshare program from Youtube and converted it to flash video and uploaded it to the Moodle server. It works well and this is just the beginning of what I believe will be a very good resource for parents, teachers and students.

5/19/2010 -- I received an email from our Superintendent Michelle Spasiano to collaborate on a video presentation that would be used to highlight the work of Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES Human Resources person, Mallory LaForge. Ms. LaForge would be unable to present her report at the Board Meeting on Thursday due to other commitments. Working together with Mallory I showed her how to use a Flip Camera and with the help of Mrs. Soulvie she compiled a 6 minute video presentation. She gave me the presentation along with 6 Powerpoint slides which had been exported to JPEG files.

Using Google and resources from Apple Computer most notably i-Movie and i-DVD I put together a 6 minute edited video which was then compiled to DVD format and will be shown at this week's Board of Education meeting. I really enjoyed working with Mrs. Spasiano, Mrs. Soulvie and Ms. LaForge.

I came across an interesting link as I was designing and building a Moodle web site that will be used to help students, teachers and parents use the Bookshare program more effectively. The link was for a Youtube video of a program I had researched earlier called Read OutLoud by the Don Johnston Co. I sent the link to Special Education Director, Mrs. Jessica Schirrmacher-Smith for her consideration. She was very excited about what she observed in the video and asked me to obtain more information and specifically pricing about the product.

I contacted the company and receive a preliminary quote which I forwarded to her. She was delighted with the pricing and is eager to obtain the software.

I spent sometime updating and improving the Moodle site that I have designed thus far which highlights video I have downloaded from Youtube and Bookshare which helps explain Bookshare to parents, teachers and students. I also found some additional links and discovered how we can send away for additional printed resources we can distribute to parents who are interested in the Bookshare program for their students.

June 9, 2010 -- Attended a 3 hour teacher/administrator staff development activity at CA BOCES in Olean. Tim Cox asked me to present on "What the World Needs Now" at the upcoming IT Conference at Holiday Valley in Ellicottville on July 29, 2010. Very flattering!

June 29, 2010 --- All day staff development at CA BOCES. I learned about assessments both summative and formative. I also helped teachers login to Moodle and reset passwords for those teachers. Greta asked me to come up an easy set of links that could be used for administrators to access frequently used web links.