Looking Back, Looking Forward

   Jump back about six years.  GSB was getting ready to roll out an Intranet, a password-protected set of interconnected websites including sites for every class. Though Intranets were standard fare among colleges, they were far less common at the K-12 level.  Edline was our provider.  After a school wide contest, our Intranet had a name: KnightSite.
   Over the ensuing years, we've been charged with learning and using a variety of new web-based systems.  Instant Alert, also about six years old, became the tool we used to notify the GSB community about emergency closings and delays and other announcements of importance. The following year, Pick-A-Time was brought online as a scheduling tool for Parent Conference days.

   As teachers and students increasingly became dependent on KnightSite, its functional limits became more apparent.  At the same time, a decision was reached that it was time to refresh the look of our school's public website. We switched providers to Whipple Hill for both our public site and for KnightSite.

   Over the next couple of years, Whipple Hill was actively engaged in revamping and upgrading the look and navigation of its software.  This meant that annually, teachers needed to learn how to use new features.

   And of course this year, with the roll out of Office 365, there is yet another system to learn. Office 365 will replace our email system with a more reliable system. But it offers far more: a cloud-based set of creation, sharing and storage tools for information.

    Depending on your division or specific job, you may also have had to learn one or several of the following systems over the last six years: Accelerated Reader, FAWeb, Discovery Education, Destiny and Naviance.
    Though we work in a school and call ourselves teachers, it might be more accurate to say we work in a school and we are both teachers and learners.  It is simply impossible to opt out of learning these new software tools. They are part of our profession the way a chalkboard was 50 years ago.
    More than most, I appreciate the way our faculty and staff have taken on the challenges of learning and using new systems. They can facilitate organization and communication, but also require time and perseverance on the part of new users. It might be worthwhile to take a moment and appreciate not only what you've taught to so many students, but what you've learned as well.