More Than Devices

In last week's post, I ended with a shout out to Laura Warmke for helping me work through some new ideas to replace an old project.  This week, I thought I would share about Laura and her role in our school because it might be unique.  At the very least, it is rare; and it should not be.  Laura has made us better teachers, and I'm not sure I can give a higher compliment than that.

Let me start with a bit of history.  When I started at GRACE fourteen years ago, teachers were calculating grades with a calculator and a pencil.  I created a spreadsheet, and I think my colleagues viewed it as sorcery.  During the years that followed, our school slowly grew in technology by allowing students to bring their own devices and encouraging teachers to learn new things.  As new teachers were hired, they brought new skills and ideas.  The whole time, we were encouraged by our IT Director, Diane Scro.  She supported, taught, trained, and cheered us on in our efforts to come forward.  She even convinced our head of school to start implementing Smart Boards in our classrooms.  Big SHOUT OUT to Diane for pulling us forward.  Diane was joined seven years ago by Sean Blesh, and that team was the force behind our one to one program.  Together, they held teachers hands as we learned Mac and began to implement technology based lessons into our plans.  They both understood that they were dealing with teachers across the spectrum of skills and fear when it came to technology and were able to move everyone forward.  Big SHOUT OUT to both Sean and Diane for the way they led us during this time.  They couldn't have been better resources.

Five years ago, our librarian moved to Tennessee.  That's when we hired Laura.  If you are over thirty, you probably think of librarians as older women who tell you to be quiet, lest you disturb the books.  That is wrong.  They are now media specialists.  That's not just a PC term like "administrative assistant."  Media specialists will still lead you to the book you need, but they will also help you find information from credible internet sources, connect you to visual media, make sure you are staying within fair use guidelines, put it in a perspective of research, teach your class to do more than google, and possibly connect you with an expert.  It's not just about books anymore.  Laura is all these things, but she is also someone who cares deeply about teachers and helping them make the best lesson possible.

Two years ago, Laura's husband finished his PhD and got a job in the Midwest.  For some reason, Laura wanted to live with her husband, so she had to move to Indiana or Illinois or whatever too.  I was not okay with this; but as He often does, God made it work even better than we knew.  We now have a wonderful new media specialist, Daniel O'Brien (Big SHOUT OUT to Daniel for implementing Maker Spaces and our 3-D printer), but we also didn't lose Laura.  She became a telecommuting technology coach.

Let me say that in different words.  We have a faculty member who lives over a thousand miles away!  She provides all the support and love she always did, but she does it using Google Hangout (while staying home with her babies).  Every quarter, I have at least one meeting with her just for the purpose of talking through new ways to integrate technology and create more depth in our lessons, especially challenge based learning projects.  She is also available by e-mail, and we share some google docs for things that require more extended collaboration.  She physically comes in for teacher week at the beginning and end of the year and for the North Carolina Technology in Education Conference; but most of the time, we just see her head.  This happened because GRACE understands the need for teacher training in technology.  No matter what devices a school has, without teacher training they might as well be a chisel and stone.  All schools should have someone like Laura (NOT Laura, she is ours), someone who is looking out for the deeper application of technology rather than just the use of it.  It's the way to make your one to one program more than devices.