Day 78 - Ambitious

I'll say it - the teachers I follow on Twitter intimidate me. A lot. They have projects and lessons and ideas that I only can dream to have. They sometimes get frustrated with themselves for doing a lesson with a 'plain jane' worksheet. They talk about SMARTBoards and 1-1 classrooms and using i-Pods in the classroom and other tech tools that I drool over, but can't have. I want to live their lives, and it frustrates me every time I realize that is just not a reality for me.

I'm the ambitious one on the staff at my school. I try things that appear 'crazy' or 'super high tech' to them. It's not easy at all, especially since I have to beg to use the computer lab every time I even attempt to try one of these 'outlandish' projects.

This week's new plan was to do a test completely online through Google Forms. I spent about a week thinking the idea out and two days putting it together and trying to make it user-friendly enough that my rather easily-confused 7th graders could figure it out without asking a million questions. I asked around and got the kids in on Wednesday to do a tech lab on using formulas in Excel, and it worked out with a reasonable amount of success, so I checked in again with the staff to block out the time I would need today for the kids to do their test in the lab.

Talk about a stressful 45 minutes. I grossly underestimated the kids' ability to even figure out how to open a new tab to use to view the pictures that were linked to the test. Thankfully I'd had the foresight to put all the pictures on flickr so that they could just click the 'next' button instead of having to open all the links. However, it took roughly 10 minutes for all the kids to really get a handle on what they needed to do.

About 15 minutes into the time, a group of 5th graders come around the corner, followed by the literature teacher. "Do you mind if they do some typing?"

Umm... okay. I had tried to get the kids to sit so that they weren't right next to each other, but with 24 computers and 16 kids taking tests that's only going to work so far. Now I had three 5th graders juggled in between them.

The lit. teacher asks what we were doing. I told her they were taking a test, and her eyes bugged out of her head. "HOW?!" I tried to quietly, briefly explain what they were doing, but I think about 70% of what I said was lost to her.

She leaves to tend to the rest of the 5th grade class, and in walks the science teacher with a distressed look on her face. "Are you going to be in here the whole time?" Yep, they're taking a test. "A test? On the computer?" Yes. "Well, can I send in some of the 8th graders to do some research?" I've only got a couple open computers, but, I guess so. At this point I was wondering why exactly I'd bothered checking with everyone to make sure that I'd be alone in the lab, since apparently no one had bothered to pay attention to my request.

The 5th graders had come in, sat down, and started typing. The 8th graders came in, sat down, and started talking to the 7th graders to see what was going on. Not okay. I now had 25 kids bouncing around on 24 computers, and at that time 14 of them were still taking a test! At that point I was ready to throw my hands in the air and declare the whole thing a disaster. The kids that were getting finished wanted to know what they needed to turn in (notes and your excel spreadsheet), some of them hit 'submit' on their test and freaked out when it went away, convinced that their answers had been erased, and some were still trying to figure out if r^2 meant r*r or r*2 (If they don't know by now...). I was moving the entire time trying to answer questions, keep non-test takers quiet, and stay patient so I didn't flip out.

I can't fathom why I'd want to put myself through this again. I haven't even graded it yet, but I did open the spreadsheet to see what the kids had written in the comments section. Here are a few random answers:

'It seems easier than the other tests and it makes it more fun and enjoyable on the computer.'

'I had a lot of fun on this test because I didn't feel as pressured.'

'My opinion on the test was that it challenged the children and yet helped them. It was a very good idea and I wouldn't have a problem doing it again this way.'

'I think it was a lot easier because all of my answers were not running into each other so then I didn't get overwhelmed. I think that we should have tests on the computer every time.'

Okay, so maybe I could see a reason or two to do this again sometime.