The road to the Google Hangout with TWT co-author and author of Every Child Can Write, Melanie Meehan, was not a smooth one.
The idea sparked in the fall when Melanie's book was publishing. I thought it would make a great choice for a professional book club in my district. And I thought that having the author talk with the participants would be an awesome end to the book study. I asked Melanie if she would be willing to do a Google Hangout or Skype with teachers who study her book and she was so willing and generous. The next step was to see if my district could purchase the books for the teachers. I know (first-hand) that teachers are very pressured for time and often buy a lot of supplies for their students. It would be so enticing, I thought, if teachers could be given the book instead of having to buy it with their own money. There were several hoops to jump through in requesting the books, but my district very kindly did donate 15 books for our book study! But right at the time the books were donated, the Teacher Center ran out of funding for any new classes. So now, books were being ordered, but there was no money to pay the instructor (me) or the participants taking the course for payment. Once again, this led to a flurry of emails and requests, but it did workout that my district would fund the class since the Teacher Center was unable to fund it. Okay- so the class was in place and teachers signed up! For about 8 weeks, we had fabulous conversations about the practical and do-able strategies Melanie suggests to reach the striving writers in our classes. Yesterday was the last class and our Google Hangout with Melanie. But, the technology was not so easy to figure out. I have a new Smartboard this year that isn't attached to my computer- it is its own computer. Try as we might, we (Ron, our tech support) and I could not get Google Hangout to work through the Smartboard. There were many attempts. We thought of Skype, but again, this wasn't an option. There seemed to be no camera on the Smatboard. Then, Ron suggested we hook my chrome book up to the Smartboard since I can and have done Google Hangouts with Melanie through my chrome book. This seemed to be the magical solution. Ron set it all up for me days before. But yesterday, when it came time to get ready for the Hangout, my chrome book died right as I was plugging it in. Okay, I tell myself. You can use a student's chrome book and just log in as yourself. So, I did that. But then the chrome book wasn't showing up on the Smartboard screen- it was just showing my background and not what I was clicking on in the chrome book. I Googled this on my classroom computer and realized that I had to click a button my settings to make the chromebook appear on the screen. Crossing my fingers, I clicked the button and VOILA! The screen came to life. As the teachers filed into my classroom, ready for the Hangout, Melanie and I attempted the call. Except when she called me on Hangout, there seemed to be no way to answer it. We tried a different email address. I tried calling her. Multiple attempts and it wasn't working. We tried Facetime on my phone as a last ditch option but even that seemed to not work. I couldn't believe all of this work leading to this moment and the Hangout wasn't going to happen. But then, all of a suddent, somehow, magically Melanie Meehan was on the screen talking to us!! It worked!! We told Melanie how much we loved the book and how many strategies we've been trying with our students. A few teachers had specific questions for Melanie about their striving writers and how to transition students from post-it writing to larger pieces of paper. When the Hangout ended, one teacher told me how impressed she was by Melanie and how she wished she could be a staff developer in our school. She is so smart and full of ideas and really lives the work with teachers and students. Making this book study and Google Hangout a reality was an exercise in persistence, for sure. It made me think of the theme of Every Child Can Write and the whole idea behind the book- that persistence really is needed by teachers and students to move forward as writers (and maybe in everything!). We have to believe that we will reach our goal and try multiple ways to get there. One dead end doesn't need to mean the journey is over. And people who can help us on our path make all the difference. Thank you so much to the Farmingdale School District for donating the books and funding this book study. Thank you to the dedicated educators who took time to read and discuss this professional book with such reflectiveness and commitment to your students. Thank you to Ron for helping me figure out the technology after all. A huge thank you to Melanie Meehan for writing a book we need to read and being so thoughtful and generous to talk with us!
1 Comment
3/11/2020 04:20:31 am
Ermehgerd! The struggle is REAL for technology and PD. I could feel your pain and persistence- I applaud you for pushing through will all of those challenges and so glad you got to 'hang out' with Melanie. Again-you are demonstrating by example how to be a teacher leader!!
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