Twelve and a half hours later, day one is complete. Teacher's always joke that you can get so much more work done without any kids. But, a school just never feels right until you have masses of students moving, laughing, talking, and maybe even learning in it.
The 12.5 hours might seem a little long until you take into account the 75 hours I spent last week getting ready. I really enjoy learning how to use technology to make people's (read teachers) lives easier. Building a middle school's and a high school's master schedules is a daunting task. However, the middle school teacher's really wanted to keep their 7-period day while a 4-period block works better in high school. The trouble for a small school district (like where I work) is that the schools often share faculty members. Matching the teacher schedules, providing electives, placing students in their correct core classes, and balancing the class loads is the very definition of daunting.
I spent at least 200 hours throughout the summer working through the master schedules and setting up the Student Information System (SIS) on the network. Everything was great until the higher-ups stepped in with requirements that they had failed to mention in the beginning, when the fixes would have been simple. We had to move classes with less than 2 days to go. Then we had to rebalance both schools. Forty new students entered the district with various levels of documentation and they had to be registered and scheduled. At least 100 phone calls, requesting changes, came in on the first day after we mailed preliminary schedules home last week.
To compound the scheduling woes, our regular high school secretary was not around at all this summer. Her son was and is very sick with an infection of West Nile. Anyone who works in a school understands how crippling it can be to lose an extremely experienced secretary.
Merge scheduling responsibilities with volleyball coaching and computer system training/troubleshooting for the rest of the staff and you end up with 75 hours of work with less than 2 actually spent preparing your classroom and lessons. Therefore, I have to log off and spend some time reviewing and upgrading my chemistry notes for tommorrow.
PS - I doubt anyone will find any of this of interest but I still feel better for having written it.
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6 comments:
arrrrgh.......... I feel your pain. I am teaching a Core class (all freshmen) and the university is really pushing us to integrate WebCT in our curriculum--which on its face, sounds reasonable: putting syllabi, assignments, handouts, etc. online.
The trouble lies with WEBCT. It is completely ineffective. I know, because I have taught online (two International Hong Kong English classes and various others) and have seen actual, honest to god, simple technology that makes webct look like something from a Stanley Kubrick film.
Moreover, today on campus a number of my peers nearly went blind trying to upload rosters, format pages, etc. with a system that would freeze, crash, or crap out at the drop of a hat.
So, call me old fashioned, but I have shit-canned online stuff. Socrates didn't have WebCT (or any other time-sucking technology designed to, ahem, save time) and he seemed to have done well enough.
Suffice it to say, I'm a bit weary and skeptical when someone says, "You should try this. It's so easy/cool. It will save you lots of time."
VandalHooch, you were always good with math, so let me run this by you. Isn't really a matter of a simple ratio? Example---Time spent working on something that is supposed to save you time: time actually doing the thing that needs to be done. Once that first term becomes greater than the second term, shouldn't one pause and reconsider their time investment? I dunno. Maybe it's me. And I'm cynical anyway.
Oh, and speaking of cynical, if anyone ever says the word "webinar" (as in seminar, but, you know, over the web) in my presence, I will punch them in the throat. Really.
I'm completely exhausted and have to prepare for tomorrow's onslaught. The joys.
I remember WEBCT from my ISU Education College days. That thing is atrocious. It tries to be everything and ends up as nothing. Why won't they let you simply use a blog with server space?
The hope with your ratio math is that initial investment is high but long term savings balance the book.
Last year we introduced an electronic gradebook accessible to students and parents through the web. At first the teachers disliked it. After one year, even our swamp monsters (technophobes) are asking me how to make it do more than simply record grades. What you need is a system designed to be flexible and well supported. WebCT is definitely not in that category.
Colbert is on and I always go to sleep after "The Word". Good luck.
PS - I have a certain sense of pride knowing that you teach at my alma mater. There is a good chance you will have one of my kids this fall!
True. The hope is that you invest the time upfront and await the long-term payoff. But in my experience the long-term typically involves students who perpetually can't download the syllabus, can't login, can't do this, and can't do that.
When I taught at Utah State they had a platform called syllabase that was so simple a monkey could use it. It was amazing and actually functioned in the way these things are supposed to: it actually saved time and paper and streamlined a lot of busywork (on the teacher's part). WebCT is bunk.
The thought occurred to me last night that I might end up teaching one of your students. We draw a lot of students from that part of the state.
I know of at least four students who will be freshman this year at the U of I. I'll have to check with them during Thanksgiving or Homecoming to see if any of them end up in your class.
For the first time I can relate. I never realized how much teachers actually worked until the past couple weeks or so. My girlfriend Jen teaches 4th grade in Spanish here in Texas, and she has probably logged about 75-80 hours the past two weeks just getting ready for the kids.
make that "75-80 hours PER week"
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