Web Conference Reflection

The web conference that I attended was Sunday February 12^th. For the most part, during the conference, we waited for people to arrive and then as people arrived, we introduced ourselves and told everyone what district we taught at and what subject we teach. Throughout the web conference, I learned through discussion with the people there, what the difference between web 1.0 and web 2.0 was. Web 1.0 is more like a pdf. Just read what I’ve posted. There is no interaction. With web 2.0, you bring in the interactive element and the collaboration element. I also learned from Dr. Abernathy that web 3.0 is in the works of being developed. Another thing I learned from the web conference was that I had to be ILD trained. I had never heard of ILD training before, nor did I know that it cost money. Therefore, I put this on my to-do list to complete during my graduate study. Aside from what I learned, the rest of the time was spent helping other classmates out with questions that they had. I was able to help someone with their TK20 portfolio in regards to the transition between EPIC and TK20. Overall, the web conference was shorter than I expected and less formal. I thought it would have been more organized than it was. Nonetheless, I learned something from it and I was able to help others, which I’m sure is the primary goal of the web conference.

Technology Action Plan

Executive Director of Technology – Main person in charge of all technology for the school district. The Director of Technology ensures that the director of operations, librarian, and the instructional directors have everything they need. She also sets the vision and mission of the department.

Director of Technology Operations – This person is in charge of making sure that the schools have everything the need to have internet and wireless internet capabilities. Everything from fiber optics to WAN to telephones.

Lead Librarian – This role is primarily in charge of the library and media services. Video conferencing, podcasting, blogging, sites, and devices are just some of the things this person is in charge of.

Coordinator of Elementary/Secondary Instructional Technology – This role is responsible for supporting the district application managers with information and training so that the district application managers can supply the facilitator and specialist with information to pass on to the campuses.

Split Campus Facilitator – The person is split between two campuses. They provide technology training to the staff and they are responsible for administering the STaR Chart survey to the teachers. They also are there to come into your classroom to help the teacher use technology in their classroom.

The Campus Specialist – This person answers to the campus’ administration and could possibly film faculty meetings or set up mobile labs in a classroom. This person also makes sure the printer toner and copier tone is full and does other computer maintenance.

Principal – Ultimately the principal is responsible for the outcomes of the campus. It’s important that with the millions of other responsibilities that the principal has that he/she remembers to ensure that the technology learning and implantation is happening within the school. Principals are usually data driven and if the data today is showing that technology is increasing student learning, then the principal should look for evidence that her school is using technology to increase student learning. The principal can rest assured that this is happening in the school if he/she observes this in walkthroughs and allows plenty of time for the staff to be trained and to practice what they’ve been trained.

Chris Jackson’s Technology Integration Professional Development Action Plan

Goal: The goal is to equip teachers with the appropriate technology training to integrate technology to our 21^st century learners so that student learning increases.

Purpose: To increase the overall awareness to the staff of how technology is impacting our students’ learning and to meet that challenge head on by embracing the change and learning how we can use technology to reach our students.

The action plan below outlines several professional development activities that meet the needs of my campus. It will outline who is responsible, timeline, resources, and how we plan on evaluating the activity.

Professional Development Activity	Person(s) Responsible	Timeline	Resources	Evaluation
Go over STaR Chart data as a campus to see where our needs are.	Sharon Eckert – Campus Technology Supervisor Bara Warner – Principal	March 2012 – Briefly done at a March Faculty Meeting	STaR Chart Data	Verbal feedback from teachers to see if they agree with the results from the STaR Chart.
Software Training – Interactive Workspace, Google Docs, Video Editing Software, and Google Sites	Sharon Eckert – Campus Technology Supervisor Andrew Wietner – Campus Technology Specialist Chris Jackson – Technology Teacher	Aug 2012 – Before school starts	Internet, computers, specific software required	Seen more frequently used through principal and assistant principal walkthroughs, conversations at Professional Learning Community meetings, student feedback – which is important because we want to know if this software is affecting their learning, such as student use of the teacher Google sites.
Device Training – iPads, iTouches, Mobi’s, CPS clickers	Sharon Eckert – Campus Technology Supervisor Andrew Wietner – Campus Technology Specialist	Aug 2012 – Before school starts	Internet, computers, and devices	Devices seen more frequently used through principal and assistant principal walkthroughs, conversations at Professional Learning Community meetings, teacher feedback as to if they are actually impacting student learning. Observe student grades that you have used the technology to teach the content.
Review of the updated Technology TEKS that came out this year	Chris Jackson – Technology Teacher Bara Warner – Principal	Aug 2012 – Before school starts Come by team leader meetings	Updated Technology TEKS handouts, PowerPoint, Computer	Check for understanding that the teachers understand the TEKS and how to implement them in their class. Be available to answer questions they have and to offer any help I can give.
Provide technology trainings once a month	Sharon Eckert – Campus Technology Supervisor Andrew Wietner – Campus Technology Specialist Chris Jackson – Technology Teacher	Aug 2012 – Before school starts	Internet, computers, software, and devices	Teacher feedback to determine if what they taught was what they wanted. Also provide surveys as to what teachers want to learn about.
Allow time for teachers to practice what they have learned from technology trainings.	Bara Warner – Principal	ASAP – At least once a week during teachers teaming time for core teachers. Allow at least once a month for elective teachers during PLC time.	Time	Technology seen more frequently used through principal and assistant principal walkthroughs and that it’s increasing student learning.

The action plan clearly describes how the professional development activities will be evaluated. Data we will use to evaluate are STaR chart results, AEIS data, student grades, teacher feedback regarding once a month technology trainings, student feedback regarding the technology used in the classroom, and observations seen by technology staff and administration. In addition, the Campus Action Plan will also be used to assess how we are progressing to meet the technology and academic goals of the plan.

Scoggins STaR Chart Summary

Scoggins s ta r chart summary

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TLRP - Teacher Preparation

The area that stuck out to me described in the Texas Long Range Plan is the Educator Preparation and Development. This area discusses how students today learn differently than we did. Ways students learn is different than just two or three years ago. As students are becoming more familiar with technology before they come to school, teachers need to prepare themselves to use the technology to teach the students. We can’t teach the students the way we were taught. That is not how society is now. I believe our campus and the state is doing their best in preparing teachers to use technology to teach the 21^st century learners. However, I feel like instructors are spending too much time teaching us how to use the technology instead of teaching how to use the technology in the classroom. In the rare cases that they do teach us how to use technology in the classroom, there is no time given to practice or get familiar with how to implement the idea in the classroom. It seems like it’s just here it is. Good luck. I do not believe this is done on purpose. I do realize that everyone is pressed for time and it always seems like there is no time for anything. However, if technology is where everything is going and it’s expected to be done, let’s do it right. I can only speak for my campus, but my recommendation is to set up frequent times to discuss technology in the classroom. It cannot be a once a semester or even twice a semester get together. I suggest once a week. If too much time passes by, then it’s forgotten. When teachers feel confident using the technology and then implementing ideas on how to use the technology in the classroom, then everyone benefits. Students are engaged in the lesson, and the teacher feels like he/she is reaching the 21^st century learners.

Draft Action Research Project Progress Report

The Benefits of using Social Networking Sites

Being a technology teacher, my need for improvement formed out of one of the classes I teach, which was computer literacy. At my school, the computer literacy schedule is on an A/B day schedule. I essentially have an A day set of students and a B day set of students. The students are in P.E. when they are not with me. I noticed through observation that since the students don’t have my computer lit class every day, they were more late work assignments being turned in. Also, I wasn’t happy with the way that I was giving feedback to the students. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to give feedback at all and other times I was just able to walk behind their computer screen and give feedback directly to them, which wasn’t very private. Through reflection and observations, I wanted to find a way to decrease late work assignments and find an effective means for giving feedback to my students.

Knowing what the need was, I now needed to formulate a plan or a vision. Before the school year started, my technology coordinator was talking to us about teacher-student social networking sites and how we were going to use this site for one of our computer literacy projects. After exploring the site for a few weeks, I learned that this would be a perfect solution for my need. This site would allow for students to turn in their work anywhere with an Internet connection and it would allow me to provide one on one effective feedback to my students. After I knew what tool I was going to use, my vision became to use the teacher-student social networking site to decrease late work turned in by providing a more efficient means for turning in work and to effectively provide feedback. Also, with seeing the students every other day and dealing with absences, I had at least one or two late assignments per assignment. Therefore, a goal attached to the vision was to only have three late assignments per six weeks for all my classes.

With only receiving feedback and permission to conduct the research, I was the only one involved in making the decision to do the action research. However, before coming up with the idea of using the teacher-student social networking site, I asked several different teachers their methods for decreasing late work and providing effective feedback, but it either didn’t fit my computer environment or I didn’t have the time. After hearing about implementing this new website for a project we were doing in one of our tech classes, I did further research about it and decided to use the social networking site Edmodo. I read articles such as “Edmodo Best Practices” and “School Principals and Social Networking in Education: Practices, Policies, and Realities in 2010.” The first article describes the students being able to take ownership of the group. Instead of the teaching leading most of the teaching and discussing, the students get to have more of a role in that area. Online social networking can also “connect students with real- life learning” ( 21). For example, I could invite a doctor to join a class discussion through Edmodo for students to interact with. In addition, collaboration is a real-life learning skill. After reading several of these articles and best practices, I knew that using Edmodo could prove to be the answer to the conflict.

After coming up with the vision, I primarily communicated the vision with my administrator. My administrator gave me feedback and helped me fine tune the action research plan. There wasn’t any initial need to communicate the vision with parents, community members, or other faculty members because it didn’t necessarily involve them. However, I did share my vision with the students. I told my students that I had been observing more frequent late assignments being turned in and that I wasn’t happy with the feedback I was giving them. I also quickly did a survey on whether or not the students felt like they were receiving feedback. When introducing the site with the vision, the kids were excited. After this next full year of piloting the site and the research, I plan on sharing the vision and the results of the research with parents and other faculty members.

Since the website was designed for teacher-student collaboration, implementing the project primarily involved the students and me. The majority of the responsibilities fell on me because I had to put in the time to set up the site, make sure updated content was on the site, provide feedback for every assignment, and monitor the chat among students. The site was free, which was an added bonus to the project. The most difficult responsibility to fulfill was all the time I had to put into the project, which turned out to be manageable now that I’m comfortable with the site. Before venturing out on this website, I made sure that this site was secure for students. For example, students do not need an email address to register. Students cannot chat privately one on one. Students can only chat with classmates in the class, which goes out to everyone. Every time a student sends a comment, I get an email. Also, to ensure student learning, there are guidelines the students must follow in order to keep the privilege of using the site. For example, all comments must be school related. I made it perfectly clear that this website was a privilege and that its intended use was to be a tool for them to use to collaborate with each other and the teacher for help or guidance.

Additionally, I used the needs assessment and data to guide the operations of my research plan and to set priorities. My top two priorities were to provide effective feedback and to decrease late assignments. When posting assignments on the website, there was a quick taskbar on the top right of each student’s homepage. On the taskbar, it listed all upcoming assignments and due dates. It would also alert you if a big announcement was made. The taskbar played an important role in the organization of the students’ computer lit assignments and in turn, decreased late work assignments. Furthermore, due to the large number of students I had in class, I would only provide feedback to students who did not receive a 100 on their work. This was also due to the amount of time I had to provide feedback and post grades.

This website can benefit both special needs students and exceptional needs students. For the special needs students, they can collaborate with their classmates and teacher for extra help. As the teacher, I can post special resource handouts to specific kids only and I can provide help anytime I’m on the internet and on the website. For my students with exception needs, they can be the students who help the students who don’t understand something. In turn, they get to be the teacher and post helpful comments to those who are having difficulty, which demonstrates a higher form of learning. In addition to all the main features that I wanted out of the social networking site, Edmodo can also help teach life skills such as organization and time management. With the calendar, spotlight, and bolded headlines, all the students are learning how to manage their workload in my class, which they can transfer these skills over into their other classes. Overall, I believe this website will provide exceptional results for my research and increase learning for all students.

Bibliography

Edmodo Best Practices. (n.d.). Retrieved July 29, 2011, from Edmodo Teacher Hub: http://edmodoteacherhub.wikispaces.com/Best+Practices

School Principals and Social Networking in Education: Practices, Policies, and Realities in 2010. (2010). Retrieved July 29, 2011, from edweb: http://www.edweb.net/fimages/op/PrincipalsandSocialNetworkingReport.pdf