Getting Every Teacher Trained for PowerTeacher for 2008-2009

I have been answering several emails daily for that last several days from teachers wanting to know how they can get trained on PowerTeacher now that all slots are full during the weeklong training in July. We originally posted 1000 training slots during that week of July 21-25. (As a reminder if you are scheduled that week AM Session goes from 8-11 and PM Session from 12-3 –parking is at a premium and buses will shuttle from Norman Smith Elementary parking lot to assist with the situation.) A few buildings have scheduled training near the beginning of school. We intend to get EVERYONE trained. In fact, you will have to be trained before you receive your username and password.

Now how do we get to those who cannot attend in July? We are training two Points of Contact (POC) from every school. They will in turn train those in their buildings who were not able to get into training. Yes, it will be slightly later than the others but EVERYONE will be trained. We will meet with every POC and provide them with the training outline and all materials they will need. With a district the size of CMCSS now we will always have new teachers joining us and teachers leaving throughout the year. Training will need to be ongoing. The POCs will also assist with troubleshooting as needed.

We are working on training material now. All necessary quickstart cards or handouts will be posted on the Sharing Server (www2.cmcss.net) in Technology in PowerTeacher. You will also be able to get all documentation you may need by visiting our Empower Students Wiki. The PowerTeacher program has a very clean, simple interface (look) and so far does everything this classroom veteran would ever want a gradebook to do. Teachers will be taking attendance electronically now so you will not need to send that student down the hall with morning attendance. We will provide instruction on how to do that as well. And, for those familiar with K12 Planet, there are no more .tsr files to copy over to the server. When you click “publish” beside a grade it appears on the students scoresheet which the parents can access on their portal.

Any teacher who has not signed up…there are NO WAITLISTS because we only train 25 at a time in 4 labs. But, check back periodically as when someone cancels a slot may open up. Once again we will get all trained one way or the other.