Co-Teaching Workshop at Community HS District 155
Last week I presented a co-teaching workshop at Community HS. Murphy’s law was in effect. Did you ever have one of those mornings in the classroom where the technology did not work?
GPS Has Me Going in Circles!
Well, my GPS got confused on the way to the school. For some reason unbeknownst to me, it had me going in circles back to the hotel. I checked the address three times and all three times the address was correct, yet, it had me going in circles. Finally, I looked for my paper copy of the directions.
The paper directions were from the wrong hotel to the school! Ok, lets go to the basics. Check the map the old fashioned way. My folder only had a map of Chicago. I was an hour out of Chicago. Ok, let’s try the GPS again and voila! It had me moving beyond the circle.
So we are on our way, a ten minute drive is now at half an hour. There’s construction! I sat another 10 minutes in traffic! Finally, I arrive at the school and all appears to be going smoothly. It’s the second time I plan to use video in a presentation. I tested it and everything played as it should. All appeared to be working, including the co-teaching video, until ten minutes before start time. I look over at my computer and I have the blue screen of death! Nothing would revive my laptop….After three restarts we plug into a MAC that happens to be available in the room. I never use MAC’s. MAC’s are like a foreign language to me. Now, I’m always prepared with a back up of my presentations on a flash drive. I packaged the co-teaching workshop up so that it would work with the video ‘right out of the box”. I even tested it at home. MAC didn’t recognize the links to the video. Well, the show must go on and I managed to get things going. At the first activity, Jake, one of my participants, saved the day with a PC laptop ready to go. THANKS! Jake. He switched out the computers replacing the MAC with the PC and the rest of the day went smoothly!
Thanking Wonderfully Patient Teachers
I want to thank the teachers from Community High School District 155 that attended my co-teaching workshop for their patience and understanding through the technology struggles. Several just smiled and empathized. They explained that they go through the same thing themselves when using technology in the classroom. It happens. Community High School District 155 were an awesome audience. Mandatory meetings can be rough, yet, this group was with me in body AND mind all day. Life is good. I got to work with a great group of teachers and try out co-teaching video in my PowerPoint — and all was well in the end.