In my Thursday blog post to my teachers I mentioned to them that if they didn’t have the Teacher Handbook as an icon on their desktop yet that it would be pretty “rewarding” for them to have displayed by Friday. I was going to come around check. Doesn’t that sound better than, “Have your icon displayed or else!”? (For my teachers who read this blog this is where I want you to close your eyes or scroll past this.) I like to buy treats and things for the teachers whenever I can so I had planned to give them all a treat regardless of whether they had the icon. I just wanted to see who or how many would at least make the attempt. Little did I know…………..
I started to download “Jing” the night before so I could even send a screencast of how to it. It took forever to download so I had to get home for dinner. So basically I just emailed what I thought were simple directions. Let the games begin!!!
I sent a reminder email Friday morning and gave them about an hour(not really, they had students but some could attempt) Got to the first classroom, no icon. Next classroom, no icon. 3rd classroom, brand new K teacher ICON success. By the time I got to the 4th classroom magically all the files disappeared from the server. I immediately realized that some had “moved” the icon rather than create a shortcut. No problem, back to my office replace the file. By the time I got down the hall to the next classroom everything was gone AGAIN!!! It was actually comical because I knew what was happening.
Bless their hearts they were trying to do it and by now I am sure they all knew that I was bringing around candy bars. I finally had to go to my office and email them all to STOP trying to get the desktop icon so I could get around to all computers and make sure it was there or put it there for them. I emailed them all at the end of the day and told some of them and they got just as big a kick out of it as I did.
Lessons learned:
- Make sure to create screencast next time no matter what.
- Rewards are better than ultimatums.
- Even the simplest tech task is not simple for EVERYONE.
I don’t know who kept “stealing” the teacher handbook but was a fun adventure for me and I think by now my teachers can create a desktop icon. What will my next task be????
