Yes, the little “i” is correct, it’s the way we do things here in SK…
Over the past few months, I have had coworkers, family, and friends all ask what I do everyday. That is one of the hardest questions for me to answer. During my work day, I do a wide range of things that run the spectrum through technology, teaching, and administration. Instead of trying to answer the question, I am going to walk you through one – mostly typical – Monday.
On Monday mornings, I start work with a 45 minute session called C++ (Coffee, Computers, and Conversation). This particular morning, I was running a bit behind and decided to stop for coffee on the way to my office (a “pick-up” breakfast means Gimbab – similar to a California roll and an Americano – drip coffee is hard to find in coffee shops in Korea).
C++ is designed to give members of the Staff an opportunity to voice their concerns and ask for training. I consider that time on Monday morning to be my open office hours. Faculty members are encouraged to stop by on Monday and get help with any technology issue they are having or just chat with members of the IT Staff. This morning, I had one Teacher in the office asking me to help him with his online banking. It sounds ridiculous, but online banking here is like breaking into Fort Knox. The staff tends to joke around that Korean banks prevent internet banking fraud by preventing internet banking. As an example: in order to transfer money to the states, we have to input 3 separate passwords and pin numbers, download a spyware detecting software program, and use a security certificate that we download onto a USB. For the technically deficient, it can be a struggle just to log into the system. After a few minutes, I got the teacher into the system and transferring money. When C++ ended, I grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and headed to my office (next door). You can see my office in the picture below:
I sit in the first desk on the left. I have two Korean office-mates who sit at the other two desks.
When I got into my office, I had an eighth grade student waiting for me. I had gotten an email on Friday from the school boarding specialists about a student who broke our technology policy while in the Dorm. He was required to come to the IT Office and turn in his Macbook for discipline. After a short conversation with the student, a log sheet, and some consequences, the student left and went to class. Finally, I had a minute to breathe, and I struck up a quick conversation with my two office mates – Matthew and William. They were both bummed because the Business Baseball team lost this weekend (they both play on the team) and they jovially blamed me for losing since I could not make it to the game – they need me as a cleanup hitter. After our short but engaging conversation, I had a slew of issues piling up that needed to be dealt with:
- I had a new student come in who needed to be setup with a new Macbook, access to his Gradebook, Gmail, and Class Websites, as well as a short discussion about the Technology Use policy.
- A Teacher came in to get help with setting up a new iPad and how to use it with the systems we have in place.
- A Counsellor emailed me to change several students names in our School Information System, and inquire about why she did not have access to scheduling – all of which I fixed.
- Another Teacher emailed to find out why he had extra students on his roster and I informed him that he would meet them today since they were just enrolled and today was their first day.
All of that work, and I was jonsing to get some of my work projects done. On to my second cup of coffee, and another student walked in asking for some technology help because his computer would not connect to the wifi. Solution: restart the computer. Our students do not realize that computers are not designed to be on 24/7 and some of them will go months before they shutdown their computer. After a quick reboot his computer was working great and he was on his way to class.
Now, with only 15 minutes to spare before a meeting with the school Leadership Team, I started to dig into my email from the weekend. We are in the process of working out a pilot to become the first Evernote School, so I sent off some correspondence with the Evernote reps. I am also working with a number of Learning Management Systems (course websites) for teachers to use and one of solutions is using iTunes U from Apple. It has taken them more than 10 days (even though they publicly say five) and I still have not heard about our submission for a Public iTunes U Page. To speed things along, I sent off another email asking for more information.
A quick bathroom break and I dove right into the Leadership meeting… One of the many things that I have learned, over many meetings, is that when they schedule me for 1/2 hr, I should plan on attending the entire morning. This morning, we covered another large range of issues in my 90minute long “30minute” meeting:
- Purchasing an Evernote Premium Academic Subscription for the school to standardize our note-taking school wide.
- Updating our Progress report and Transcript reports to show standards based grades.
- Creating a new LMS using WordPress (with some very cool integrations from Woothemes).
- Integrating a 1:1 iPad program for Grades 2-4.
- Using iPads for Administration, Technology Integration, and Physical Education school-wide.
- Purchasing School Cell-Phones for groups that are traveling.
After the long but productive meeting, I ran about 20 feet to my office. When I got there, it was about 11:50am and I was just sitting down to do a little work! My Mondays just fly by! As soon as I sat down, more students came into the office, and I helped three students who were having computer trouble. Finally, after all morning of running around like the proverbial headless chicken, I sat down and began the process of creating our LMS and installing a number of features on our new WordPress site to allow teachers to create and manage their own pages. Then lunch happened… It sneaks up on me more than I would like to admit. I tend to eat late lunches (around 12:45pm or so).
Our school lunches are always great! We are always given two options, Korean and Western menus and today I chose Western. Chicken in an anchovy sauce over rice with sautéed pumpkin… yum!
Feeling refreshed, I returned to the office. Luckily, my 2pm meeting got cancelled and I had some time to just relax and settle into some work. This afternoon, I spent some time working to edit our report card templates. The report cards are written in a Object Reporting language that makes you define large numbers of characteristics in a somewhat counter intuitive way. After fiddling with what my predecessor has left me, I finally managed to get some good changes in place that would simplify my work over the coming year.
Another hour at my desk and I get a popup that tells me I have a 3pm meeting with one of the Counsellors. I run up to her office and start talking about making changes to the system and getting her more training and information. Just as we end our meeting, the bell rings, and I am headed back to my office.
A whirlwind of a day, but one that keeps me busy and on my toes.
That, is what I do every day… The content changes, but the crazy always is there.