A Tribute to our Technology Coach

I have mentioned Laura Warmke, our technology coach many times in previous posts.  Since this is the last month that she will be employed by our school, I'd like to take this chance to make a post solely in tribute to her.

Laura Warmke came to GRACE as the media specialist.  If you are over forty, this is the person you would have called the librarian; but the job has grown significantly enough to change the title.  She was fantastic at the "library" part of the job.  I don't think I've ever mentioned a book she hadn't already read.  She could converse as easily about young adult literature as she could about historical fiction or books or medical history.  She encouraged reading for pleasure in our students.

Laura also noticed a need in our school.  The year she joined us was the second year in our one-to-one program, and we had hit a bit of a plateau.  It was clear to Laura that we needed cultivation if we were going to continue to grow.  While at a conference, she heard about a professional development program that another school had used with their teachers.  Along with other members of our IT department (Shout Out to Diane Scro), Laura developed a program for us called Level Up.

Level Up was about learning and adopting new tools for people at different levels.  When adopting a new tech program, it's important to realize that some of your people are savvy and others are less so.  We are also a K-12 school, so how each teacher implemented technology in their classroom was going to be pedagogically different.  Recognizing this, Diane and Laura developed missions for different grade levels and different tools.  Each teacher could choose which mission they wanted to accomplish.  Some were as simple as watching a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson; others were as ambitious as flipping your classroom.  There was a wide range in between of just trying a new tool (Animoto, Canva, Storybird, etc.) with your students.  When you completed the mission, you went into a discussion board on our school's LMS and posted.  I really enjoyed looking at the posts of other teachers as well because I work with creative people.  For every tool, someone had used it in a way I had not thought of, and I was able to enhance my use of it as a result.  After completing the discussion board post, the teacher was given a badge on a poster board in the teacher's lounge.  I know that sounds a little elementary school, but I found it motivating.

When Laura moved to the midwest because she wanted to be with her husband or something, we didn't have to lose her awesome influence.  She continued to be our technology coach, meeting with each teacher once per quarter to discuss the integration of technology, talk through project ideas, help us look for a management tool or website platform, or help us process what we learned at a technology conference.  Level Up was difficult to maintain at a distance (and because she was raising two kids or whatever), so Laura changed things up.  She set up a schedule for teachers to present short presentations on tech tools during faculty meetings.  Each week, we got a 2-3 minute presentation from a peer on some tool that either had used or planned to use in their classroom.  Through these presentations, I've learned some new mind mapping tools, a digital museum tool, and Quizzes (a great replacement for Kahoot if you are no longer find that a valuable review tool).

After two years of distance coaching, Laura has decided it is time to invest in her local community and have some local here at GRACE.  While we understand that logic, we will miss her influence greatly.  I have said it before, and I'll say it again.  She made us better teachers, and I have no higher compliment to give.