| School | Suggestions | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| York Middle School | ||
| York High School | we worked on department tech. project. | |
| York High School | We did not spend time at a secondary session / instead collaborated together in moving towards tech integration. | Thanks for the opportunity and time. Yours in education. |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | ||
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | ||
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | Continue to allow us to use time for practical purposes. It is great to be able to strengthen a variety of curriculum areas by collaborating with colleagues. Thanks | See aove |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | I loved the sessions I attended, but both were a bit too short to dig in and get something done. They whet my appetite for more, though, and I got some good overviews. | |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | I think that it would be helpful to have Eric Lawson available to consult with us as we worked rather than scheduled to teach a single break-out session. I very much appreciated the opportunity to work with colleagues to develop several lessons that integrated technology including Keynote and Timeliner. | |
| Village Elementary School | not make so much work to allow us to DO the work we wanted to do | not enough time given the intro and exit video and "report out" stuff. |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | Possibly plan a follow-up day to finish up loose-ends or to check back in with each other on how it is all working for teachers. Maybe the early release day should come after the inservice day. |
I really enjoyed this day and feel the time spent with colleagues was great. We were able to launch new things that we've been talking about and wanting to do for a long time. Thank you for this valuable time. |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | The preplanning stage before a day like today would need much more work. I had 9 staff members need a program installed or reinstalled in order to work on their project today. Some of them had not tried these programs all year and this could have been fixed just by checking it a week earlier. The breakout sessions were too short to present, discuss and showcase work to help staff members with the technology in the future. Many wanted some follow up sessions, but we do not have days setup in the calendar year to meet again for collaboration. |
The time to work on projects were great, but the overall feel from the staff members I worked with today felt that too much was being asked of them holding them accountable for their work. They felt that these measures hindered how much work they could actually get done today. |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | The paperwork requirements for this in-service were time consuming and took away from the purpose of the day. | |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | I would like to have a balance with days like this and days being given to school needs such as placement. Today was a useful way to spend my time. | I personally need more time to work and implement my web page. Bryan T is an awesome teacher. |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | I would suggest that a tech person be available for questions/problems arise while teachers explore and plan using software/tech new to them. I realize the breakout sessions need to be facilitated, so the suggestion may not be possible. | Personally, I thought the video in the AM was stating the obvious and delivered by a speaker difficult to listen to...but that may have just been me. It feels like when we plan these times to get a lot done, we whittle the time away with add ons and documentation. The doer in me wants to make every second of this valuable time to work towards enhancing childrens' experiences. The lessons we created need to be revised, implemented, reflected upon, and then revised again before rubrics are created. Best case scenario...the kids are involved in the discussion of what they should know and be able to do! Thanks for the gift of time today!! |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | The time to work together as a grade level is so extremely beneficial and worthwhile. I do have to be honest and say that with time so very hard to find, I do wish that the pre planning stage and post sharing part could be more streamlined so that our time is better spent on the actual task(s). I have no issue with saying what we did, sharing it, connecting it to what exactly students will be doing, etc... However, some of the things that we are working on will need to be tweaked as we implement them, see how kids do with them, etc.... Some of our work was using technology to help our instruction. While that doesn't directly involve student interaction with the actual technology, it does streamline instruction using the media we have available to us. This enables the students to use different modalities as they work through a lesson with their teacher. They are able to use their eyes, ears, and voice as they interpret the material shared by their teacher. |
Our particular grade level worked on so many great things today--immigration, research, math booklets, writing, memoirs, Timeliner, Pages, Keynote--integrating technology with many of our curriculum areas. The collaboration piece was wonderful. Having a significant period of time to work on ideas that we, as a grade level, decided up was very, very valuable. I know that our grade level felt like we got a lot done during these precious hours. Obviously, more time like this will always be productive and put to good use. Thanks, again. |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | It would be helpful to have tech support available as we were working. wish we not had to fill out all of the forms. The time together is what is really the most important. The time we had to spend writing up what we did and were going to do was time not spent on things that would really impact the students. Not sure that it was necessary. | |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | ||
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | The time to work with the other second grade teachers to create a website and blogging site was extremely valuable. We got a lot accomplished and it is ready for students to use! Thank you! | |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | I felt like I had to sit through some sessions that had no relevance to something I would be involved in - interesting, but nothing I'm likely to actually be involved in (e.g. sitting with a grade level talking about how they will use technology to assess). It would be more helpful if we were allowed to do work that is most relevant to our specific special ed jobs. | |
| Select your school | This was a very beneficial day, we had the opportunity to learn new technology(Senteo) and to apply it to an assessment that we are already doing currently without technology. It was a very beneficial use of time and energy. | |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | ||
| Other | Most of it did not pertain to special education population. Afternoon inservice for Medicaid was helpful but that was not included in your questions | |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | It would be helpful to have the pre and post requirements more succinct. What we were asked to do takes too much time that would be better spent on the task itself. We spend a lot of planning time doing this, but then when the task actually arrives, nature takes it's course. The plan might need to change. | I think we often try to do too much in a few hours. It was nice to see Henry, Gregg, and Maryann checking in with us. It shows unity within the district. |
| Coastal Ridge Elementary School | Let's do this in the winter - not fall, not spring | Pearson will be very valuable down the road, especially for YHS and YMS! |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | I would like to see more time for the afternoon breakout session. | It was great collaborating with my colleagues at YHS and other teachers in the district. |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | ||
| York Middle School | I think we need more technology help and resurces. | |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | ||
| York High School | MORE | |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | ||
| York High School | Be sure to allow enough time to practice/experiment with what we have learned. | Very provocative workshop day...I have mixed emotions (especially regarding the video at the beginning of the day) but overall am happy to have been a participant. |
| Select your school | ||
| York High School | More often. | Good job. |
| Village Elementary School | ||
| York High School | ||
| York High School | Directions and final product expectations were not well defined, consistent, or useful. | |
| York High School | Great idea for today but to much time was spent having to filling out the template. I felt like I was just getting going when I needed to stop and fill out a bunch of forms. | |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | Please continue to ask the professionals what will be beneficial to them. Some of us need to work K-12 in our discipline and might even need to consult with others in a multidisciplinary manner. Student services plus nurses comes to mind. | |
| York High School | The follow up to our work today just seems over the top based on what we were doing. The idea for the day was outstanding, but many people were turned off because of the additional work that wasn't as directly related to working with our students. | |
| Village Elementary School | It was great to have time available to meet with my peers to work on integrating technology into our own specific grade level and our curriculum. | |
| Village Elementary School | Continued work in grade levels. | |
| York High School | Have time to create , collaborate and discuss plans with colleagues is invaluable and very much appreciated! | |
| Village Elementary School | We felt that the time was well spent and progress was made for our grade level because of the time and organization. |
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| York High School | More time is needed to work with and become more familiar with the technology. | |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | I would like more time to simply work with the new material while the presenter is present. This would enable me to reach a comfortable level with the material before being set out on my own to try and master it. |
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| Village Elementary School | The time spent working on projects with colleagues was great, having to write the documentation would have been appropriate if we were getting credit for this. Is there any way we can recert hours for this? | |
| York High School | I felt that the afternoon class was very well done and that Brian did fantastic but it would have been nice to have a smaller group by ability levels. It was frustrating for people who really needed individual help as well as for those who just needed the occasional instruction. Maybe having the classes run in both morning and afternoon and getting to pick one would have allowed for that? | |
| York High School | It makes sense to have time to learn how to use technology tools and actually incorporate them into our curriculum. | |
| York High School | I feel the presenter's did a decent job answering questions asked during the presentations. A handout at the end of the lesson that would be used when questions arise away from the presenters guidance would be useful. | The strength and insight of my co-workers with technology surprising and opened my eyes to who I could team up with on future lessons. |
| Village Elementary School | The time spent creating lessons was wonderful. The time spent writing the documentation was not. Next time, we should use that time to continue working and not writing documentation. showing the work we created should have been enough evidence that we did it. | |
| Village Elementary School | Having time to work on curriculum related activities as a grade level is quite productive and directly benefits our instruction and therefor the students. It would have been additionally helpful to have more tech people available for trouble-shooting (difficult I know because they were presenting)assistance for teachers who were creating tech. lessons. |
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| Village Elementary School | to be sure all applications are working properly and loaded on all machines including individual lap tops | It was exceedingly beneficial to work with members of my grade level and to split up to develop appropriate technological lessons for our units of study. The gift of time was sorely needed and appreciated. |
| York High School | The combination of collaborative time and individual time worked well on this subject. Follow-up activities, or at least the time to do more in these areas would be very helpful. | A worthwhile use of my time. I actually got the time to create something a little different from the norm. |
| York High School | Presenter- didnt rate... Disappointed in content of afternoon session- probably misunderstanding on my part! | hate having to choose grade level and SUBJECT -how many 9-12 library folk do you have? |
| Village Elementary School | Continue to offer time for grade levels to work together to develop materials/assessments/rubrics etc to support curriculum Offer time to work on RtI topics(target areas,groups,lessons, assessments, reflection and data mining) pertinent to grade levels |
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| Village Elementary School | Time to develop needs pertinent to area we work in. ie. health. Was able to complete 3/4 of work today that was scheduled around technology. | |
| York High School | Smaller groups are helpful for me. | I will have to meet one on one with Bryan for additional help on web page development as there was not enough time for everyone in the class to get individual time. |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | I signed up for the iWork which was cancelled and it was a REAL blessing in disguise... my colleague and I worked the whole 2 hours developing and designing the online assessment we developed conceptually in the morning. THIS is what made the day a real success for us: morning work to develop ideas/applications, afternoon implementation/design of 1 or more of those initiatives. | This was one of the best inservice days I've had in 10 years at York. Thank you!!!! |
| Village Elementary School | I could have used more time in the web pages class. | |
| Village Elementary School | While we enjoy working together with our grade level, we still feel like our voices are not heard about the work we would like to do. We had an entire day working with technology that we will not have access to in the future because of budgetary constraints. We also felt the presentation this morning was more discouraging than anything. That is not how the day should have started. We should have had something to show what is currently happening and what we could be doing. | Teachers were very upset with the amount of work that this day required. Classroom teachers have assessments, report cards, and conferences to plan right now. This was a ridiculous amount of extra work that was not necessary. There was a lot of work before, during, and after this inservice day. We were lucky to have a team that was able to divide and conquer. Also, while we wanted to work on a team webpage, we were told this would not be approved so we decided on another activity to only find out that other teams were allowed to work on their webpage. And did every team have to fill out the project report? |
| Village Elementary School | ||
| Village Elementary School | This was EXTREMELY valuable in allowing us the opportunity to have the time to work with colleagues on creating wonderful technology based activities. I hope we can continue to have this same format for future inservice days. | |
| Village Elementary School | The time spent with my colleagues was beneficial but I felt like there was too much that was trying to be packed into the day. Starting at 8:00 and only having 30 minutes (even less if you were traveling between schools) for lunch didn't seem fair. | |
| Village Elementary School | I suggest that the time spent doing the write up of the plan could have been better used working on the technology with my collegues. We also needed tech help during the session and all tech experts were busy, understandable, but it would have been helpful to have a resource available.. | |
| Village Elementary School | It was interesting being with the first grade teachers and helping with the smart board/word work activities. Most of my fellow literacy teachers left at lunch since they are ed. techs so afternoon work as a unit was impossible. I am just reporting the situation. I did offer several suggestions for word work for grade 1. | |
| Village Elementary School | In the future, I prefer not to have the day broken up into so many segments each with it's own set of new ideas, learning and applications. Although it is important to be informed, the afternoon time to work with my grade-level colleagues became very short-just an hour and a half. We were asked to submit our plans ahead of time but not given enough time to get very far. | |
| York High School | ||
| Village Elementary School | Provide enough room in break out sessions so even those who decide late can attend(i.e. making a web page). |
I liked working on different goals in small groups this morning so that much subject area was covered. |
| Village Elementary School | Writing a plan for the day and the final documentation took a lot of time. It is rare that we get chunks of time together as a grade level - (with the ability to choose how to spend the time). It was very valuable - but hard to use a chunk of that time for documentation. |
Time with my co-workers to create lessons is always valuable. We accomplished a lot. |
| York Middle School | Anything that takes us away from accreditation work for at least one day is wonderful. | |
| York Middle School | I needed more time to finish the morning session, but really wanted to attend the Smartboard session. I'm leaving feeling like I have a big chunk on my plate. I guess I wish we could have a day for sessions and a day to work on our own stuff. Overall it was a good day with time well spent. And nice to see colleagues from other schools. | |
| York High School | Just need to provide regular opportunities to collaborate with fellow professionals. | |
| York Middle School | ||
| Village Elementary School | Perhaps make it "user" friendly - the requirements seemed like a course work. I like the format of identifying a need... having instruction around the need and then having time to practice or implement. | Time spent with my grade level was productive and worthwhile. We are all working together to improve instruction for our students. |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | ||
| Village Elementary School | I find that opportunities to meet with my grade level and/or cross grade level are the most valuable of all. | Thank you for allowing us to create what we wanted to do for the day. While I think feedback is important, I resent having to take the time to justify what I am doing and to fill out more paperwork. If I am correct, all the information (on the matrix) that we now have to do is being compiled for a district wide resource. I question if this is the best use of our time and if it will be valuable for staff. |
| York Middle School | I think we should continue to work together to create lesson and to infuse great ideas. | |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | Let us have time to work on more individualized topics not just tech. | It was good to work with my colleagues and really come up with something we could use. |
| York Middle School | None | none |
| York Middle School | More time to work on curriculum! | |
| York Middle School | Nice to have time to work on an activity that we will then be able to go back to our classrooms and use. | |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | I enjoyed the day and appreciated being given the time to work on an actual lesson plan. | |
| Village Elementary School | I enjoyed having the time with my colleagues to work on what we did. But I did not feel that the write up before and after were helpful. We are professionals, and if we are asked to work on something we should be trusted enough to work on it rather than filling out a form before an after explaining how we are using our time. We shouldn't have to justify what we do with our time. |
Now what?...you have asked us to start these project and we are given time. Then we don't finish. While the work we did was valuable it's inappropriate to think that we are going to continue this work on our own time. Therefore things are left up in the air and often without completion. We all have busy schedules and finding time to connect with all of our colleagues is very difficult. Having professional days shouldn't mean one time working in curriculum committees, then technology, then talking about writing. Perhaps several professional days should be dedicated to one topic so that we have enough time! We are always being directed to do certain things, how about some days where we decide what we would like to work on. |
| York Middle School | I feel that this time did an excellent job of giving the time needed to create a very specific assignment and assessment for the work that I do and I created something I can use on a regular basis that aligns with the Maine Learning Results. It was a great chance to meet with colleagues and come together to create something useful in our classrooms! | |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | More time needed to create a valuable lesson plan with rubric that makes sense. | Enjoyed the time with colleagues exploring technology art program offerings. |
| York Middle School | Prior to session, set agenda with opportunities for all participants to submit suggestions | |
| York Middle School | I think today's inservice was fantastic. The opening video we watched provided a great springboard for the day. I appreciate the planning time that we had and then the break-out session was informative. | Thanks All. |
| Village Elementary School | I would appreciate being asked what my needs are rather than to have it dictated to me what I should be doing. I also did not appreciate the format that gave me the strong impression that the Central Office staff does not trust us to do the work. In fact, it was stated during the day that Maryann said right out that she does not trust us; therefore, the survey and the attendance of one of them at our morning and afternoon sessions. This was very upsetting to me. I hope it is not true that she would say such a thing, but that is what is being said. I also thought the video we watched this morning was very depressing and confusing to me. If Central Office feels the great need to have schools that educate students for the future in the way presented in the video, why do they also make test scores the litmus test on how our schools and individual teachers are doing? This is a dicotomy that I can't resolve at all. I feel that Central Office has lost touch with the teaching staff and with student needs and I am frightened for our schools. I heard over and over today that people are distressed by the lack of trust that seems to be apparent from Central Office. This is so harmful to our school climate. I feel we are regressing as a district and it makes me so very sad. I would urge Central office to reevaluate priorities and begin to bring the focus back to children. | I did have a very productive day upgrading my webpage and am pretty excited about it. |
| York Middle School | I loved the freedom to choose what options would be valuable to my classroom and my role as an educator. It was great to have these options to make the most of my goals for what I'd like to develop in my classroom. | Thanks for this opportunity, and I hope we can use this format again in the future. The chances for creative collaboration like this are too few and far between. This was a great and inspiring day! |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | I really enjoy having an in-service day dedicated to designing lessons with my fellow colleagues. I would love having more days like this! | |
| York Middle School | As a special educator, the group I chose to work with didn't fulfill as many needs as I thought it would. | |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | Bryan Thompson did a great job with the webpage design, considering that he had many levels to work with (some had some webpages, some were just starting). He also offered to arrange time to work with him afterschool or at a different time outside of class. | |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | I would love to be able to connect with other teachers in the district to discuss K-12 Curriculum...Actually-discuss what we do in our classes and how we can each connect with the concepts and the teachers. | I wish that people wouldn't yell at our meetings! It makes for a very uncomfortable meeting. I am all for group discussions, but some people get to have free range of what they want to say. |
| York Middle School | There were too many things packed into the day. While I know I had the option of not going to the break-out session, by the time we got to the Pearson Inform session, everyone was grumpy and testy. | |
| York Middle School | ||
| York Middle School | I was in the team room technology program. It was very helpful and worthwhile. There is nothing here to show that what I worked on today was appropriate, but it was all great and I gained a lot of skills. Thanks for the time. | |
| York High School | I think it would have been better to have the afternoon sessions scheduled first in the morning. |
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| York Middle School | Open the choices so that we're not limited to just tech. Allow us to work independently. Begin the year with this day. That is when many teachers have and want to implement new ideas. | I was reluctant and a bit frustrated about today because the NEASC task we have ahead of us. But now that the day is over, I can say I found it helpful and useful and very applicable. Thank you for this opportunity. |
| York High School | ||
| York High School | ||
| York High School | The afternoon breakouts really needed more time to be effective. | |
| York High School | Need more machinery to support true development of skills; hands on is more effective. |