One @ one month, one @ three weeks and one that's BIG!

The last week or so have been very long ones for L. School started on August 20th, but that doesn't mean the secretaries and teachers have summer vacations until then. Far from it! A lot goes on behind the scenes to prepare for thousands of kids storming the building!

I had been asked by one of the administrators to teach three breakout classes during Professional Development Day at the high school. Teaching teachers is very intimidating! And expecting those under-paid and over-worked wonderful people to take on one more thing like creating and/or updating their own webpage on the school site is hard. But our district created a Content Management System where they don't need any special software, just some training, and they can work through the school district network to do this. There are benefits and negative aspects to this, but in the long run, if the teachers become responsible for their own webpages, not only is their information available to their students quicker than me updating their pages, but their pages are unique to them and their classes.

So for several weeks, I spent many hours setting up 100 + pages and groups for teachers. It's complicated to explain, but it was a HUGE job. I then used a screenshot program to capture images on my monitor screen and used them to make step by step tutorials which I copied and provided to the teachers for reference.

Anyway, the classes went reasonably well. Teachers are like their students. Some are better learners than others. Believe it or not, some make noise, don't pay attention and are not prepared. Then there are those who are excellent students. You can tell who is a better student by going to http://www.alpine.k12.ut.us/phpApps/genericPage.php?pdid=1722 and clicking on a teacher name.

The days that followed before school started included 12 hour days while helping T deal with his nasty illness. On Wednesday I got a great spontaneous surprise when A and her new baby and his BIG brother dropped by at the school. She knew I had been missing the kids so much and treated me to a visit. Within minutes M and S and their new baby girl came to the school as well. It was a real treat. However, it's hard to get pictures of both babes awake at the same time, so I settled for a photo of the two little ones peacefully sleeping and BIG J who had plenty of energy, as usual!

Thanks, kids, for making my day!