Teachers and students love graphics.  Teachers refer to them in textbooks and use them in PowerPoints and other presentations.  Students would rather look at them than a paragraph of text.  Well-designed graphics can help convey a message quickly and easily.  This graphic, “In 60 Seconds…” by Go-Globe.com shows what happens online every 60 seconds.  I think I’ll use this next school year in presentations to both students and teachers.

In January 2010 I started work with York School District 1 in York, South Carolina as an Instructional Technology Coach.  I held a similar position (Instructional Technology Specialist) in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for 2 1/2 years.  In Charlotte much of the role was project management: coordinating installations of hardware/software, working with financial secretaries and media specialists to order equipment and software, and a small amount of training of teachers. There was essentially no work with curriculum, but I started sneaking some in during my last year in CMS.

In my new job, I get to do a great deal of what I like to do: work with teachers.  In the semester I’ve already been in York, I’ve already gotten into classrooms with teachers to work side-by-side and model technology integration.  I’ve lead training on Promethean software/hardware, wikis, and Web 2.0 skills.  I get to meet with the district’s executive staff weekly and get to help advocate for teachers as well as best practices in instructional technology.  In short, since it’s a brand-new position, I get to do a lot of what I think needs to be done.

There are, of course, downsides.  The position is grant-funded, so my position is only guaranteed until the end of the 2010-11 school year.  I have to administer two state technology proficiency programs within the district, neither of which I think are as strong (or easy to figure out) as they should be.

Just like I did when I created long-term goals for my classroom, I decided to write up my goals for this next school year.  Some should be fairly simple, some depend on the help of other folks.  I’ll update the status of these goals near the Christmas break, as well as at the end of the school year.

• Setup Moodle server (version 2) for district Professional Development use.
• Create 2 self-paced or moderated PD classes for Moodle.
• Recruit and provide support to at least 2 teachers to use Moodle in their classroom.
• Continue expansion of Wikispaces Private Label service within the district.  Expand use to 25 teachers with at least one class of students each.
• Implement self-hosted WordPress blogging solution for teachers and staff
• Work side-by-side with at least 8 teachers, from lesson development to implementation to review.
• Drive district to implement use of Twitter for parent and staff communication.

These are the big goals.  Not included are fairly typical things like providing traditional professional development in small groups and class settings, research best practices in technology integration, and more.

What do you think?  What am I leaving off?  Have you done any of the above items and have advice or resources?  Let me know in the comments.