Today I went to a training for Synergy, my school district's attendance/grading program. I've been teaching at Centennial for two years already, but when they sent out an email for new teachers to be trained on the program and said other teachers could come if they were interested, I signed up.
The training was to begin at 9 a.m. in the computer lab in the library at Centennial. I was glad for this because that's my school so I know where everything is. One of the quirks of "professional development" (PD for short) offered by school districts is that they are offered at random places in the district, so sometimes I have no idea where to park, where the library is, or how to find a bathroom. It's nice when those are not problems to take into consideration.
The other quirk of district-led PD is that often it is offered by people who are not professional presenters, usually because professional presenters cost more money than just paying the regular salary of people who know whatever thing is being presented. That was the case today. My class was taught by JP, who is one of the TWO people the district has tasked with knowing Synergy and keeping it running for all 39 schools. That is not a misprint: 2 people are responsible for and have to run down any problem that occurs with this system on the computers of roughly 1400 people (who have varying degrees of computer competency). Yikes! One of those "sure am glad that's not my job" moments.
There were 15 of us signed up for the intro to Synergy class for secondary teachers, although only 12 actually came. This is typical, and understandable--after all, this is happening during our summer, when we are not on contract and therefore not getting paid. Some people wake up the morning of a training and think "Nope!" And that is completely understandable. I believe the tally was eight teachers new to the district and four already-employed teachers who thought it might be a good idea to see if an actual training might be more beneficial than our previous method of "learning on the job."
The answer to that thought for me was "sort of." I learned a couple of tricks that might be helpful this year: how to enter an Extra Credit assignment without penalizing the students who don't do any Extra Credit, how to add personalized assignment categories instead of just accepting the District generic ones, and how to request a parent/teacher conference using the system instead of manually looking up names, phone numbers, and email addresses. I learned about setting up a seating chart, and a temporary seating chart (like for small groups). I learned that they haven't populated our classes yet, but probably will by next Monday or so. (This last bit won't change any of my planning for the year, but will tell me when I have my prep period and how many students are in each class). The class was supposed to end at 11:30, but didn't end until 12:04. I didn't have anything to do except go grocery shopping, so that wasn't a big deal.
None of these Synergy things will make a big difference in my classes, but they may help in little ways. Little ways can add up to big ways, and even after 18 years experience teaching, I can use all the help I can get. So although that was three hours of my life that I will not get back, I'm not mad about it.
The training was to begin at 9 a.m. in the computer lab in the library at Centennial. I was glad for this because that's my school so I know where everything is. One of the quirks of "professional development" (PD for short) offered by school districts is that they are offered at random places in the district, so sometimes I have no idea where to park, where the library is, or how to find a bathroom. It's nice when those are not problems to take into consideration.
The other quirk of district-led PD is that often it is offered by people who are not professional presenters, usually because professional presenters cost more money than just paying the regular salary of people who know whatever thing is being presented. That was the case today. My class was taught by JP, who is one of the TWO people the district has tasked with knowing Synergy and keeping it running for all 39 schools. That is not a misprint: 2 people are responsible for and have to run down any problem that occurs with this system on the computers of roughly 1400 people (who have varying degrees of computer competency). Yikes! One of those "sure am glad that's not my job" moments.
There were 15 of us signed up for the intro to Synergy class for secondary teachers, although only 12 actually came. This is typical, and understandable--after all, this is happening during our summer, when we are not on contract and therefore not getting paid. Some people wake up the morning of a training and think "Nope!" And that is completely understandable. I believe the tally was eight teachers new to the district and four already-employed teachers who thought it might be a good idea to see if an actual training might be more beneficial than our previous method of "learning on the job."
The answer to that thought for me was "sort of." I learned a couple of tricks that might be helpful this year: how to enter an Extra Credit assignment without penalizing the students who don't do any Extra Credit, how to add personalized assignment categories instead of just accepting the District generic ones, and how to request a parent/teacher conference using the system instead of manually looking up names, phone numbers, and email addresses. I learned about setting up a seating chart, and a temporary seating chart (like for small groups). I learned that they haven't populated our classes yet, but probably will by next Monday or so. (This last bit won't change any of my planning for the year, but will tell me when I have my prep period and how many students are in each class). The class was supposed to end at 11:30, but didn't end until 12:04. I didn't have anything to do except go grocery shopping, so that wasn't a big deal.
None of these Synergy things will make a big difference in my classes, but they may help in little ways. Little ways can add up to big ways, and even after 18 years experience teaching, I can use all the help I can get. So although that was three hours of my life that I will not get back, I'm not mad about it.
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