Freaky Friday.

No adapters for early adopters.

On Monday I attended a board meeting where an administrator from the central office proposed spending a quarter of a million dollars on a pilot program of technology coaches in three of our buildings.

Why I think this is a goofy idea in just a moment.

This week, three of us, all teachers, each purchased an iPad2  with our own money (I don’t know how to write the plural of an iPad2). Today, when one of the teachers wrote to the same administrator requesting the district purchase three $35 adapters so that the iPads can be connected to our Smartboards, the administrator wrote back:

I did receive your request and am discussing this issue with others to determine where the district stands in relation to supporting personal devices on the district’s network and for providing peripherals for those personal devices.

I will get back to you as soon as I can. These adapters are not something that we keep in stock, so they would be additional expenditures for the district.

I wrote this email to the president of our board of education:

I can’t help but be struck (dumbstruck perhaps) that following a presentation to and discussion by the board on technology strategic planning on Monday, which included spending a quarter of a million bucks on technology coaches, that on Friday we get told it would take almost an act of Congress to find $100  for three iPad adapters.

A model of support to teacher early adopters?

Not, “Let’s find a way?”

Rather, “We need to discuss policy.”

Hey. If you guys need a loan, let me talk to Anne.  Maybe we can come up with the $100 to loan the district. As for the bureaucratic response, I’m afraid Anne and I can’t help much with that.

- Fred

Sent from my iPad

Technology coaches? Do teachers really need another layer of non-teaching employees to say no to teachers in classrooms?

A moment of contemplation…about the royal wedding.

Just before the start of the school year, the Illinois legislature passed this:

(105 ILCS 20/0.01) (from Ch. 122, par. 770)   
    Sec. 0.01.  Short title.  This Act may be cited as the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act.
(Source: P.A. 92‑832, eff. 1‑1‑03.)     
 (105 ILCS 20/1) (from Ch. 122, par. 771)   
    Sec. 1. In each public school classroom the teacher in charge shall observe a brief period of silence with the participation of all the pupils therein assembled at the opening of every school day. This period shall not be conducted as a religious exercise but shall be an opportunity for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day.
(Source: P.A. 95‑680, eff. 10‑11‑07.)

They had tried an earlier version and the courts said no. But now Illinois schools must provide 15 seconds of silent prayer or reflection.

Not in my school. So far this year we have been asked by the principal to contemplate the weather, the Blackhawks, the “tsunami in Toky0″ (I know. There was no tsunami in Tokyo.), and yesterday the royal wedding. This morning? The prince and the princess.

I’m pretty sure that this is not what the right-wingers who pushed this bill had in mind.

The non-believer in me appreciates the mockery and ridicule that this has produced.

The teacher in me winces.

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