What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned?
My initial expectation was to learn the styles of leadership for my campus. After the first week, I was blown away with great information. Although my assumption about this class was wrong, I learned more about technology in the classroom the last five weeks than my previous seven years as an educator. I am looking forward to learning all angles of researched based technology for my campus. It is imperative that digital natives have access to technology in the classroom. I am excited to continue experimenting with the blog, and look forward to implementing this in my new character and leadership class. A blog has also been set up on a message board for coaches across Texas. I underestimated the amount of information I would learn from this class. This course has been extremely helpful as I look to improve as an educator and leader.
To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not?
Before this class, I was never able to identify the why there was such a growing gap between the older generation and new generation. After reading the research, terms, and definitions given by Prensky, I had my light bulb moment for technology in the classroom. His article about “singularity” and the differences between student’s consumption of information before the Internet is relevant and should be taught to educators (Prensky, 2001). Today’s students need information technology to be effective, because our society now demands it. The outcomes of this course are very relevant to teaching digital natives. If schools and teachers do not take advantage of today’s technology, we will lose a generation of learners to the fast paced and real time effects of the computer.
What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them?
An outcome that I did not achieve was that I was unable to review and study as many my fellow student’s blogs as I would have liked. As for most, this is the busiest time of the year for me as a head boy’s basketball coach with tournaments and the Christmas holidays. I would have like to have spent more time browsing their blogs because I thoroughly enjoyed interacting with them on the discussion board. That may be the aspect I enjoy the most about education, there are some many talented educators out there, if we allow ourselves, we can learn something from them daily.
Were you successful in carrying out the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you?
Looking back at this course, I was successful in each of my assignments. It was beneficial to learn how to create a blog. I will use this as a tool for my basketball team as well as the classroom. The timing of some of the projects didn’t work out in the best interest for me, because of basketball tournaments and Christmas holidays. But, I was able to set aside time to dedicate to the assignments. Some weeks it wasn’t until the due date of the assignments, but I was able to successfully complete them! All in all, I am satisfied with the work I was able to produce in this class.
What did you learn from this course…about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes?
I learned that I have a long way to go before I can really be efficient with technology in the classroom. I have some ideas of the types of technology I want to incorporate; I just need a little help along the way. I look forward to collaborating online with my classmates for advice. I didn’t know before how much of an infant I was in the aspect of using technology for my students. I understand and utilize the newest technology in my daily life, but I was not aware of how beneficial various components of technology could be in the classroom. I am willing to use these techniques with my students, because I understand how well they will learn from it. At this point I need more professional development in the area of implementing instructional techniques in the classroom.
What is the educational value of blogs and blogging to the 21st century learner?
The education value of blogs can be endless. Blogs can be used in all classes. A history student can create a blog to research different wars enabling veterans to view their blog and provide information by commenting on their posts. A science student could research information concerning the H1N1 virus asking doctors and scientists to view their posts and comment. A math student could research how most professions use math on a daily basis since the comments from students continues to be that they will never use math in the “real world!” A basketball team could create a blog with their schedule, results, statistics, directions to their out of town games, and any other information they would like to share. I look for blogs to become common in all classes in the near future.
What are the concerns of blogs and blogging in education?
The concerns of blogging in education is that it is often hard to monitor who posts comments. In the age where we are constantly hearing of sexual predators preying on young people they met on the Internet, educators have to figure out a way that ensures the safety of our students. Educators will also have to be sure to provide students with specific guidelines on how to properly use blogs and ways to avoid falling into traps would be predators often attempt to set. Just like any other aspect of education, we as teachers and administrators have the responsibility to set a positive example for our students in the area of blogging.
How can you use blogging to communicate with school stakeholders?
Once again, blogging can be used in an array of ways to communicate with stakeholders. For example, our district complete a brand new gymnasium, renovations to the football stadium, built brand new science labs, and broke ground on a new pre-k building. Our district could have created a blog updating stakeholders on the progress and asking input from them concerning the details of various projects. Stakeholders would have been able to comment on and provide input allowing them to feel more involved in the process. This most likely would help them take ownership and have pride in the beautiful facilities the passing of the bond allowed us to have.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Technology Action Plan
Technology Action Plan
Goals
As I sought to formulate an action plan to improve technology and how it is utilized on our campus, I thought I would start by identifying goals and areas that needed to be addressed. In order to do that I turned to our district wide Technology Plan. Here are the goals that caught my eye as they pertained to integrating technology to deliver and enrich instruction:
Goal One: Improve student academic achievement through technology. Mitchell Long, the Technology Director for our district, said in order for this to happen all students will be “technologically literate” by the end of their eighth grade year and that all students in grade levels that are tested will meet the state and federal NCLB AP standards either on the TAKS tests or their IEP objectives.
Goal Two: Integrate technology skills and use in the various content areas. The primary objective of this goal is to increase the integration of technology and instruction.
Goal Three: Provide technology and learning opportunities to the community and parents. This can allow stakeholders to have an integral part in the educational environment. We learned last week that a “wiki” could be a tool used to meet this goal.
Goal Four: Improve teacher/administrator skills in using technology in instructional settings. The plan goes on to say that in order for this occur 100% of teachers and administrators must participate in professional development sessions that address district wide deficiencies lined out in the StaR reports.
Goal Seven: Improve technology infrastructure for our district. If administrators and teachers are expected to use technology they have to be given the proper equipment to do so.
Evaluation
After looking at the goals for our campus we need to look at how those goals can be evaluated.
Goal One: One way for this goal to be evaluated is to look at the StaR chart results. This information can be taken annually and aide in developing steps to ensure all administrators, teachers, and students are “technologically literate”.
Goal Two: The most effective way to evaluate this goal is for the administrators to observe teachers and see how they are using technology during instruction. The StaR chart data can also be used.
Goal Three: To evaluate if this goal is being met you could survey stakeholders to see if they feel their voice is being heard.
Goal Four: Once again we will need to review the StaR data to ensure this goal is met. The good thing about the StaR data is that it is updated every year so we are up to date on the newest, most important aspects that need addressing.
Goal Seven: This goal is imperative. You cannot expect administrators and teachers to use technology successfully if they are not provided the proper equipment to do so. StaR data will reveal if teachers feel they need more equipment to adequately implement technology, but you could also create a survey asking administrators and teachers if they are receiving necessary equipment; and if they aren’t, what equipment they need to meet those requirements.
Professional Development
Some professional development issues that need resolving in our district are:
· Proper training for all programs-At our district we usually have a blanket professional development session for all programs we are expected to use, i.e. gradebook, attendance, quia, Microsoft outlook etc. For some this is ok, but there are always teachers that feel they are not properly prepared to utilize these programs and become frustrated quickly.
· Proper training for all equipment-A few of my colleagues comment frequently about not being properly trained to use the equipment that we have been provided (Ex. ELMOs). A training session for teachers to learn basic and advanced functions would be influential.
· More time for collaboration-Very little time is dedicated to teachers sharing ideas and strategies that work regarding technology. This could be the most effective tool because it is always useful to see how programs work in real world settings and not just in an in-service setting.
Goals
As I sought to formulate an action plan to improve technology and how it is utilized on our campus, I thought I would start by identifying goals and areas that needed to be addressed. In order to do that I turned to our district wide Technology Plan. Here are the goals that caught my eye as they pertained to integrating technology to deliver and enrich instruction:
Goal One: Improve student academic achievement through technology. Mitchell Long, the Technology Director for our district, said in order for this to happen all students will be “technologically literate” by the end of their eighth grade year and that all students in grade levels that are tested will meet the state and federal NCLB AP standards either on the TAKS tests or their IEP objectives.
Goal Two: Integrate technology skills and use in the various content areas. The primary objective of this goal is to increase the integration of technology and instruction.
Goal Three: Provide technology and learning opportunities to the community and parents. This can allow stakeholders to have an integral part in the educational environment. We learned last week that a “wiki” could be a tool used to meet this goal.
Goal Four: Improve teacher/administrator skills in using technology in instructional settings. The plan goes on to say that in order for this occur 100% of teachers and administrators must participate in professional development sessions that address district wide deficiencies lined out in the StaR reports.
Goal Seven: Improve technology infrastructure for our district. If administrators and teachers are expected to use technology they have to be given the proper equipment to do so.
Evaluation
After looking at the goals for our campus we need to look at how those goals can be evaluated.
Goal One: One way for this goal to be evaluated is to look at the StaR chart results. This information can be taken annually and aide in developing steps to ensure all administrators, teachers, and students are “technologically literate”.
Goal Two: The most effective way to evaluate this goal is for the administrators to observe teachers and see how they are using technology during instruction. The StaR chart data can also be used.
Goal Three: To evaluate if this goal is being met you could survey stakeholders to see if they feel their voice is being heard.
Goal Four: Once again we will need to review the StaR data to ensure this goal is met. The good thing about the StaR data is that it is updated every year so we are up to date on the newest, most important aspects that need addressing.
Goal Seven: This goal is imperative. You cannot expect administrators and teachers to use technology successfully if they are not provided the proper equipment to do so. StaR data will reveal if teachers feel they need more equipment to adequately implement technology, but you could also create a survey asking administrators and teachers if they are receiving necessary equipment; and if they aren’t, what equipment they need to meet those requirements.
Professional Development
Some professional development issues that need resolving in our district are:
· Proper training for all programs-At our district we usually have a blanket professional development session for all programs we are expected to use, i.e. gradebook, attendance, quia, Microsoft outlook etc. For some this is ok, but there are always teachers that feel they are not properly prepared to utilize these programs and become frustrated quickly.
· Proper training for all equipment-A few of my colleagues comment frequently about not being properly trained to use the equipment that we have been provided (Ex. ELMOs). A training session for teachers to learn basic and advanced functions would be influential.
· More time for collaboration-Very little time is dedicated to teachers sharing ideas and strategies that work regarding technology. This could be the most effective tool because it is always useful to see how programs work in real world settings and not just in an in-service setting.
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