Concession Room Set-up for First Home Football Game

Well the room is set up and ready for our first event on Friday.  Today I had to make sure that the candy was put away and ready to sell.  We put the candy in containers so every candy starts with 30, this makes it easier for clubs to know what their starting amount to calculate how much they have used at the end of the night.  I did receive an order for candy/hot dogs/nachos.  All the items get just left in the middle of the room so everything needs to be put away.  I also use this time to go through and dispose of items that are just left in the room from outside organizations using the room.

I was also lucky to haul down to the room 16 cases of water and 9 cases of Gatorade.  Once in the room I had to load up the cooler to be sure that they were ready and cooled for sale.  I was lucky to have a student walk by and ask if I needed help and I said "YES".  He brought the Ice Cream cooler back to the room and the Nacho Machine.  This saved me 3 separate trips to just get all the equipment in the right spot.  If he had not asked it would have taken me at least an additional 1.5 hours of work !  THANK YOU!

I did also fill out paperwork to pay the three different businesses that I received inventory from.  It is not hard but just takes a lot of time to do it all.  I know our auditors like how we do it, but it is cumbersome for the large amount of paperwork I do for this task.

I am find this job duty very thankless.  I work very had to maintain a high level of accuracy in billing and receiving of inventory but leadership and colleagues nit pick everything that is done without a thanks or appreciation.  I don't need constant positive reinforcement, but all I hear is the negative and it is getting very old.  I am seriously thinking of retiring my running this additional non-paid responsibility.

I know students get a lot out of running the business, but they also do not get respect from people.  I will be doing a lot of reflecting on this a lot this year.  Let's see how the school year goes.

32 Ways to Use Google Apps in the Classroom - Webinar

Working at school and I attended a webinar in which they discussed ways to use Google Apps for classroom teachers.  I am working with the high school for them to become a Google Apps school and my role is going to be to help roll out how to implement it for the building.

I had troubles getting into the webinar and having audio.  I tried for over 15 minutes to call into the conference call number but could not get it to work.  Very frustrating for me because I was so excited to listen to the ideas.  So here is a list of some of the ideas I got from the webinar

Google Docs

Journals, instead of bringing home

Translate Letter to parents in a different language

Parent Sign up Sheet

Science Experiment, then used a motion Chart as a Google gadget, Google lookup 

Flash Cards (Google gadget), use a center for classroom.

Forms:

great way to collection information, give immediate results.  Get some pre-assessment and the results and can use fluburu (? spelling)  to grade forms and Google spreadsheet.  They do recommend changing the template to make it more exciting.  

Ways to use forms:  student surveys, observations, online reading records, discipline referrals, collect information from parents/teachers, spelling tests or multiplication test, collecting science data, 

Calendar:

Sending invitation for meeting and including a Google document, show standards mapping, add fun calendars such as Brewers or Packer's schedule.

Gmail:

Methods translation to work with parents who are not using the same primary language, global pen pals, 

Talk:

Doing a video chat to bring in guest speaker or conference.  Meet with students to help with work.

Sites:

Website creation tool, you can edit and publish it live instantaneously.  embedding calendar, calendar or any other  apps is easy.  Can create e-portfolio, can create projects and reports, curriculum sharing.

Blogger:
Run classroom and use  for lesson plans, easily intergrates with forms and documents.

Google Moderator

Reflect on daily learning.  Students can read each other's reflections and vote up the responses that they like the best.

I will be going back and rewatching this webnair to get all the tips and you may see another post on this area.

Freshmen Orientation

Today was the day that all the incoming new students at Seymour get to obtain their schedules, pay their fees, get their picture taken.  Also perfect opportunity for new members for Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA).  I had been working with my state officer in preparing a speech to give to students and parents about the importance of being involved in activities while in high school.  We specifically do not tell them to join FBLA but what they can get out of being involved, this way every club in school is not trying to give a speech for them to join.

I went to school two times today because there was orientation at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m.  We had a display board to promote FBLA and handouts to encourage people to join.  We had  4 to 5 officers there to help answer questions and encourage students to join.  I did not have to do much but help the state officer practice her speech with a microphone and just facilitate the FBLA booth.  My husband was out of town so I brought my two young boys with and that always means for interesting times.  My oldest who has helped out with activities was walking up to parents and students handing out packets and telling them to join FBLA (as you can tell he is not shy), the younger boy was just content to run and play in the hallways.

It was about 5 hours of at school helping to get student involved in FBLA which is good exposure for the club.  Hopefully it will pay off at our first meeting.

Freshmen Orientation Speech

Future Business Leaders of America (FBLA) is active at my school because I feel students can get so much out of that organization.  Today I was on the phone and texting my state officer getting her ready for the speech she is giving to the incoming freshmen to our school.  This speech is highlighting the importance of being involved in high school not just a join FBLA speech.

The entire officer team for Seymour FBLA will be there to help but our state officer is giving the speech in her uniform to make more of a presence.  I had not heard the speech in its entirety so on my way to and from Milwaukee today I called and listen to it over the phone.  I gave her some edit revisions and then set a time for later to have a Skype meeting to see her give the speech.  Again we tweaked the phrases and highlighted important details.  This use of technology is great for students to see business applications not just the social part of the tool.

Monday will be a big day for FBLA getting to meet and great the incoming Freshmen.  I hope we get some students excited about it.

Aplia - Online Working Papers

I was on a Webinar today to review the use of Aplia online working papers for Accounting.  I would say that I love using the online working papers vs the printed workbook.  The use of online papers has made the teaching and assessment much nicer for students and me.  When I give an assignment it automatically grades the assignment the moment the due date.  This immediate feedback is great because students don't have to wait for me to grade their assignments to find out how they did.

One part that I constantly am concerned about is if students go back and look over their work.  As a teacher I always felt better when I passed back papers to students because they then had an opportunity to look at what they did.  I know student can do that online but they often just look at the grade and not necessarily what they did incorrectly.  I think I need to just get over it, but one why I give power back to students is if they disagree with how Aplia graded their homework, they can print their work and write out using accounting terms of why they should get points back for their work.  Often students will do this so I know they do look at some of their work.

This webinar was a review for me of the basic setup and use of Aplia, but it is good to go over the basics that you might forget.  I am also giving a workshop at Wisconsin Business Education Association (WBEA) fall conference on using Aplia in high school accounting class in conjunction with Cengage representative.  So I now know I will have more information for this presentation.

This webinar lasted over 1 hour.

Google Webinar - Google Apps for Education

I watched a webinar today that was advertised through Wisconsin CESA as help for school to roll into the use of Google Apps.  I have watched one previous webinar and had our Tech Guru watch the integration one.  The one I watched today was truly an overview of what Google can offer a school.

One of the best points I got out of it was: Why not go to the cloud.  This is an interesting point, I have been moving to the cloud for a while, just for the pure fact that I don't want to carry around a flash drive, burn a CD, or email back and forth a file and remember which email as the most current version.  I have to take a backseat and think about the rest of the people in my building.  I need to think more like them, but it stumps me.  I just love to use technology to make my life easier.  I know I sometimes get sidetracked trying to find an easier way of doing a job, but in the end I will do tasks more efficiently 

Just this week I met the new Principal at our elementary school.  I got a quick introduction and then she asked the Tech Guru a question on how to link files from the server to her Ipad, she got the response of it can't be done.  Then I  pipped up and said, use dropbox.  It is free and works great.  To me this is second nature, find a solution to the problem.  With my new role of tech integration at the high school I will need to consider lots of fears that people have in technology and embrace the role of bring them along.

Also in the Webinar I got an overview of all the apps that are available, but one of the nicest features with Google apps is the single sign-in.  It alleviates the issue with student not remembering username and passwords.  They will always have access to their files instead of saving it to the network and not being able to work on it at home because they don't have the file or don't have the program.  The only limitation is they need to have a device and have access to the internet.  I did a survey with our school to see how much access we have to the internet, of course it is not everyone but it is getting better.

My next step in rolling out Google Apps is going to be looking over the agreement with CESA.  But I really don't see why we need to go with them when we are already signed up.  Again more research.  Anyone out there know why I should sign the Wisconsin state Google agreement vs just keeping with registered domain name I setup last year?

Concession Stand - Start of school year setup

Have you ever thought about the popcorn/soda or candy you get when you go to a sporting event?  I do, all the time.  One of my jobs that I do during my teaching day is to organize and stock the concession stand for the high school.  Our first home sporting event is August 26 (first day of school is September 1).  We have a home football game.  To me a home football games means about 200 hot dog/buns, and approximately 20 cases of water and G2.  Let alone the candy, soda, popcorn, ice cream etc.

In order for the room to be fully stocked I have to order at least a week ahead of time.  This is where the problem begins, because so many people are just use to items being available to them that they don't understand or just don't care to think about what happens behinds the scenes.  I work with 5 different vendors to get products in the room and the vendors deliver on different days.  But I usually plan on all my products being there by Wednesday of the week.  So planning events we look at the type of event football vs swimming and the teams.  The school closer to us tend to bring more fans than a school over 1 1/2 hours away.

I do have 1 student that helps me manage the room.  Every year I train someone new and I have had some wonderful student really take the initiative and do a great job of understanding the ordering and bill paying procedure of the school more than fellow teachers.  It is difficult to jump into this role in the fall for the students because it is so fast paced.  In one week we could have 4 different organizations selling which means we need to count inventory after each event, and prepare an invoice for bill and then get a new inventory count sheet for the next group.

I do all of this using Quickbooks.  It does a great job on tracking inventory (as long as students can count correctly) as well as a tool for purchase orders and customer invoices.  Prior to using quickbooks I did everything in excel with each event on a separate sheet and it worked, but not quite as efficient (I would never go back).

Well today was the day I went into school to get the first order ready.  I am always ready in August to work on this project but I have NEVER gotten concrete information on what events are happening or even who is working the events prior to needing the information.  I always have to beg to get the data I need, and I often get the look or comment of you can find it or it is not that big of deal.  This gets my goat.  I have long and often said I am doing my job well if you don't hear anything about the concession stand, because  that means people are happy with what is happening, but if something went wrong then they will hear about it.  I prefer for it to work seamlessly and effortlessly, but I have people who don't agree.

First of all I do not get paid or get a prep or even 1 class period a day to do this job.  I manage and teach a student on how to do all of the ordering, billing, and counting.  I have long been the advocate of the group that sells on Friday night also needs to be the group that sells on Saturday because I WILL not come in or make my student come in over the weekend to count inventory on who sells what.  I know there are people who think I am to narrow minded but I take extreme pride in making sure everything is balanced and comes out after every event.  They go with the philosophy of just divide it in half and that will be fine, but I know of the different cost and sales that can happen I know that one group could come up short money.

I know I need to just let it go when I have the same people complaining about the same thing year after year, but it is getting harder.  So maybe a new perspective this year?  I don't know.  I do know there are lots of times I am willing to say go ahead and manage it yourself.  We will see how this year goes.  I do have more flexibility in my schedule this year than last so that may help only time will tell.

I did put in 2 hours at school today (yes I even had to bring my two boys with and they had fun building box houses thanks to Cindy).