Coffee, Anyone?

August 29, 2016December 31, 2020 Tamara

During summer break, teachers have to pack up most of their classrooms and either find creative ways to store everything along the walls and on cabinets, or they have to take items home. This means the first day back is a time of hustle-and-bustle, with everyone moving things back in, unpacking, rearranging furniture, setting up.

Several teachers stopped by the lab today as I was bringing in my curtains and coffee maker, asking questions about the Tiny Tech Cafe. It was fun to share my vision with others, especially those who aren’t on Facebook and had no idea what I was trying to do!

Our principal’s presentation this morning focused on three themes for the year: Relationships, Equity, and Relevance. It made my heart so happy to know that my mission for the Tiny Tech Cafe aligned with her mission of strengthening relationships! How cool is that?

Then it was time to get nitty-gritty in the lab. Since this isn’t a traditional classroom, it’s often used as a storage space for items that won’t fit in other places. I opened my door to see dozens of computers stacked on a long table; my teacher’s desk buried under bags and boxes.

It was a little overwhelming to say the least! Thankfully, our sysop had spent time in the room before me and had the student laptops arranged on the other tables (Thanks, Brenda!)

As I started to move things around, a few more teachers stopped by to chat. Two teachers, Carrie Sutton and Jennifer Madison, both offered me easels, which was listed on my GoFundMe wish list! So awesome!

One of the first things I desperately wanted to set up was the coffee/tea station. About a month ago, I had purchased a little table stand at a yard sale and repainted it in a light mocha color with coffee swirls for added decoration. The coffee swirls matched the ones I painted on my canvas, too!

Shelf1 — Transforming the stand from canary yellow to mocha cream.

Shelf2 — Mixing paint colors to make coffee swirls.

Shelf4 — A closer look at the detailed coffee swirls.

I couldn’t wait to set up my coffee/tea stand, but I had some major hurdles ahead of me. See, the coffee maker, which would go on this stand, had to plug into the side wall. The wall behind the table with all the computers, which was buried four rows deep.

It took nearly 4 hours to clear everything out of the way (which included me giving away that long table and my oversized teacher’s desk), but the result was totally worth it! Look how cute the space is now!

And here is my favorite coffee/tea stand, ready for service:

I AM SO EXCITED!! Who will be the first guest in the Tiny Tech Cafe?

My joy today was compounded when I checked my phone and discovered that three more donations were made to my GoFundMe account since my previous post last night. WOW! A special thank you to Lisa Lockhart, Colleen Herrera, and an anonymous donor! Your generosity has pushed this campaign to $260 which is enough to have GoFundMe add another $50 to the fund!

Oh my goodness, such JOY!!

My next steps in making the Tiny Tech Cafe a reality include purchasing a sofa and bookshelf as well as putting up my curtains and decorating the walls. If enough money is raised through this campaign, I can add more joy with a rug, a floor lamp and some current books by my favorite educational authors, which will available for teachers to borrow.

Thank you, faithful readers, for joining in to support the Tiny Tech Cafe! If you would like to donate to this worthy cause, please click here or share this post and tag a friend! I appreciate each and every one of you!

More tomorrow!

kindness, Tiny Tech Cafe

Tiny Tech Cafe

August 28, 2016December 31, 2020 Tamara

Wow – where did summer go? With a blink of an eye, my summer fun with family is shifting into another season of school. Although I took a hiatus from blogging (lots of traveling with no laptop), my days were overflowing with kindness – given and received.

Now I’m embarking on another type of kindness and I’ll admit, it’s making me feel REALLY uncomfortable. As many of you know, I’m a technology integrator which means I help students, teachers, and administrators incorporate technology in their own learning processes. It’s an exciting job because technology is always changing, but it’s also a challenging job because… well, technology is always changing!

In my school’s computer lab, I have a desk in the back corner and for years (eight years, in fact!) I’ve always told people, “No, this isn’t my room – I just have this corner I work in.” But my corner isn’t really ideal for working with teachers OR students. If someone wants to collaborate with me, they are stuck pulling up a chair on the edge of my desk or, even worse, we have to scrunch up in between students who are seated at the tables with laptops.

My vision is to create a space that is open and inviting, comfortable seating and welcoming to everyone, kind’ve like the feeling you get when you walk into a Starbucks. I even have a name for this new area – Tiny Tech Cafe. I created a logo this summer, designing it digitally then painting it on canvas.

I didn’t want to get sued by Starbucks, so I made everything my own except for the green circles.

I drew the logo and painted coffee swirls on the background.

Which brings me to the uncomfortable part.

I have the space, I just don’t have the stuff.

The things I would love to have in my computer lab are actually pretty mundane. A tall bookshelf with some current educational books available for teachers to borrow. A few round tables and chairs. A sofa to sit on and collaborate.

Then my brain gets excited about the possibilities. I could have an area where I offer teachers coffee or tea! I could have another area where I can put up a green screen for students to create virtual reality photos and videos! I could have an area rug and a floor lamp, too!

Calm. Your. Self. Down.

All good things come with a cost and this is no exception. I spent most of my summer scrounging yard sales and online forums for low-cost items and I found some, but not enough to make my dream a reality. I saw an online post about GoFundMe and how they would donate $50 for every teacher’s campaign that reached $250 in donations before the middle of September.

So… I did something I’ve never done before.

I asked people to help furnish our computer lab.

You know that old adage, “It’s better to give than receive?” I will say that it’s 100 times EASIER to give than receive. Oh, how I hate asking people for help (even when there’s no money attached to it!)

But you know what? When you ask for help, people step up to do just that. They help.

So far I’ve had 7 people donate money to my Tiny Tech Cafe campaign. I even had one of my school’s parents offer to buy some Command hooks for me so I could hang all the pictures and canvases I purchased over the summer. Oh, I am so blessed!

I still have quite a ways to go to earn enough money to get the things I need, but I wanted to take a moment and say THANK YOU to those who have made a donation. You have truly warmed my heart and your kindness and generosity will be felt by all students and staff at Mechanicsville Elementary!

I would love for you to join in on the fun, too, and be a contributor to our Tiny Tech Cafe! Would you consider donating to our campaign or sharing this post? When they say “It takes a village”, it’s so true! In the coming days I will post updates (with pictures!) so you can see how I transform my boring little corner into something spectacular!

I hope you find simple and small ways to bless others with kindness. For me, I am blessed to have you as a faithful reader as we kick off a brand-new school year!

education, ITRT, kindness, Tiny Tech Cafe

Tiny Tech Cafe – Rationale

August 28, 2016December 31, 2020 Tamara Letter

Our official work week began last Thursday and I could not wait to get back in the groove! Don’t get me wrong – I adore my three children and I can assure you that I have literally poured every ounce of stay-at-home-mom-mode into their summer experiences! But there is something about a new school year that brings joy to my soul like nothing else!

New beginnings. New classes. New joy!

As a technology integrator in an elementary school, my main purpose is to provide training and support for students, teachers, and administrators who want to use technology as a part of their learning process. This looks very different from person-to-person, class-to-class, so as you can imagine, I stay pretty busy during the school year! Last year I shifted my mindset to move away from the “one shot” professional development sessions to a more personalized PD approach where I tried to provide training on what teachers wanted to learn and provide quality support throughout the entire year.

With more than 40 educators on staff, this was challenging, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I began the year by asking teachers to complete an in-depth survey identifying areas of interest, then I offered numerous training sessions on those topics throughout the year. I also made a point to do “check-ins” where I asked teachers how it was going and provided additional support/resources if needed. For me, the exciting part of this process was getting to know my teachers on a deeper level, strengthening that relationship, and watching them succeed in learning something new. When they became confident enough to continue the learning without me, I knew this was the right way to provide professional developmnet.

It was like watching a caterpillar spin a cocoon and emerge as a beautiful butterfly. Fascinating!

This process of providing personalized PD made me realize that I need to offer more opportunities for teachers to build relationships – with their students, with each other, with me. I quickly discovered that having teachers collaborate with me in our laptop lab was less than ideal. I have a desk in the back corner, with no additional seating unless a teacher moved items off a table. Teachers would come and pull up a chair beside my desk, its sharp angles poking at them as they tried to look from their laptop to mine. If we were collaborating while another class was using the lab, it was difficult to hear and focus on our training.

Even working one-on-one with students was frustrating. If I was helping a third grader with their digital writing, I would have to scrunch down beside them, trying to whisper so as not to distract the other children nearby. When students worked on collaborative projects, such as our fourth graders creating Google Slides presentations about Regions, there was no area of the room that invited them to sit and chat as they worked out details for final publication.

In addition, several teachers showed an interest in learning more about using a green screen with their students (where we photograph or record students against a green background then use technology to insert images making it appear they were in that location, similar to what you see on a traditional weather report.) Unfortunately, there was no place in our lab to hang a green screen curtain with our furniture arrangement of long tables, laptop carts and overhead document camera stands. The computer lab was just that – a sterile lab that was functional, but not inviting at all.

This summer, following the ISTE Conference in Denver, CO, I noticed a trending hashtag on Twitter: #StarbucksMyRoom. It showcased classrooms stepping away from conventional desks and chairs to offer students a more flexible seating arrangement, much like what you might find in a Starbucks cafe.

The concept got me thinking. What if I could somehow transform my little workspace in the corner of the computer lab into a Tiny Tech Cafe? Immediately my creativity kicked in and I imagined a space that was warm and inviting, maybe even offering coffee or tea for the teachers who might want to collaborate or receive personalized training. I could even picture students using the Tiny Tech Cafe to work with their peers or conference with their teachers on their projects. I would love to have a collection of new-release books available for teacher checkout, written by some of my favorite educators and administrators whose innovative leadership makes learning fun, empowering, and impactful.

With that vision in mind, I decided to jump in and make it a reality!

I started with baby steps – designing a unique logo and scouring yard sales and online forums for low-cost furniture. I quickly discovered that my grand intentions didn’t quite match my meager budget! Eek! We all know that teachers have to purchase things our of their own pockets to outfit their classrooms; however, I wanted to create something our school would be proud to use and showcase to other schools as an example of an innovative learning environment for teachers AND students.

This is when I realized I couldn’t do it all on my own. I needed to reach out for help.

My next few posts will showcase the things I have made and purchased to make this dream come true, but I could really use your generosity as well! Please visit the Tiny Tech Cafe GoFundMe page and consider donating or sharing with your friends. No amount is too small and every person or company who donates will receive recognition on social media (Twitter, Facebook, and my blog) as well as have their name displayed on a sign in the Tiny Tech Cafe. Together we can make an incredible impact on student and teacher learning, by providing a space that is open, engaging, and productive!

Check back soon or subscribe to this blog so you can be kept up-to-date and see how the Tiny Tech Cafe progresses. I can’t wait to share it with you all!