Okay, so here's the deal....

See, when I set up this whole "assistant sysop" thing,I was operating under the assumption that I would have a planning period almost every day. HA! Talk about naively optimistic. What actually happens is that we have PLC (professional learning community) meetings for each subject, every week. To begin with, we had LA on Mondays, Math on Tuesdays, Science on Wednesdays, and Social Studies on Thursdays. Friday was reserved for grade level meetings. Which was fine for the people on four-man teams, who had only one subject apiece. My partner and I, however, had two meetings each week, along with the prep and data analysis that went with them. I thought it would work out, though--I mean, my teaching partner was unavailable two days a week, so I thought I'd do the internship stuff then, and meet with her in any remaining time. Problem is, there wasn't any remaining time. Even though the PLCs are supposed to be 45 minutes, they always ended up stretching for 80 or 90 minutes--or longer! Several times I've had to leave a meeting at the bell to do my bus duty, and the meeting was still chugging blissfully along without me.

Then they changed the PLC schedule, putting math and LA on the same day, and science and social studies on the same day. In theory, that freed up two days a week for our team. However, it turns out that we had about sixteen 504 / PEP meetings we had to set up with parents, so that took all of our "extra" time for about five weeks. Whew.

Then I thought that maybe I'd have some time during planning occasionally to go down and work with our sysop. Turns out that a whole passel of required inservices and trainings (including training on PLCs!) got scheduled during those supposed free times.

Then I got sick.

Then my mother got sick and had to have surgery.

With all that, plus switching subjects, switching grade levels, switching team partners, adding 35 minutes of active teaching time along with the need for an additional prep, and having to cram in TRICKS make-up training after school for many days--well, let's say my available time has been greatly reduced. Since the library doesn't open until 7:50 (the time of the first bell), and since the librarian/sysop has no reason to stay past 3:30 most days, there has been a severe limitation on the amount of time I could actually spend in Mrs. M's presence.

Now, this is not to say that I have done nothing. I have spent a good chunk of time doing the things that a good little assistant sysop might do at our school. I snagged Curtis one day after school, and followed him around for perspective on the hardware end of our network. He took me into the server room, and we figured out why the ethernet jack in the front of my room has never worked. (The fact that there was no cable in that spot on the server was a big hint.) He fixed it, I tested it, and happiness abounded. I have solved any number of small, irritating tech problems that our librarian/sysop would otherwise have had to deal with. It is a rare week when nobody stops me in the morning as I arrive to ask, "Hey, can you take a look at this [whatever piece of technology is misbehaving]?" Sometimes the call for help goes out several times in one morning. I have been called down to other teacher's rooms during planning (and once during class) to try to fix whatever's gone wonky with their SmartBoards or projectors or clickers or printers or presentation TVs or whatever. However, none of this has been in long, sustained clumps of time.

Soooo...as a result of this time crunch, our sysop and I agreed that maybe our interests could both be served if I took on some task related to our network and worked on it during my own time. I remember seeing a presentation during one of our App classes in which the teacher set up podcasts of book recommendations, linked from the library website. I thought that was pretty cool, and since I have not only language arts students but also drama students this term, I decided we could very nicely provide Holbrook's students with a series of Book Bytes (or Literary Minutes, or whatever)that might help them choose a book to read. I'm working on getting up to speed on our web page thingy (SharePoint), and my kids are working on scripts. Kyle has given me advice for the podcasting end, and I'm working out layout and hosting right now. It should be interesting.

On the hardware end, Curtis, one of our county tech guys, has told me that I can "stalk" him any day during my planning. I'll call or email him when I have a day free, and at 1:40 I'll simply go to whatever location he's working and shadow him through his work.

Of course, I'll still meet with Mrs. M whenever I can during our overlapping hours. I've just rediscovered that, as a middle school teacher, once again the watchword is "flexibility."