School improvement seems to be the hot topic over the last few years in the educational world. I was one of those teachers when I first began that would roll my eyes when I would heard data and SIP plan. Eventually I was put on a school improvement committee which opened my eyes to a whole new world of information that our administrators and school board used to make sure our students and teachers needs are being met. When I started taking this class I felt like I had a good idea of what was going to be involved, but didn't realize what I was in store for. I had no clue how time and effort was spent collecting and analyzing data to make sure our school and system was working effectively. I found out a great deal of information about Moody High School in the process of taking this course. While taking this course I remained on our schools continuous school improvement team and was able to give added insight about the directions that we should take to help make our school better. I was also able to show my presentation to the committee and receive feedback about its contents. I was also able to help open their eyes to some ways that we could improve our school. Overall I found this course very informative, but also inspirational for future collection purposes. I now know who to ask and where to go to get the right information in a timely manner.
The focus of this course was for us as technology coaches to be able to implement and maintain an online learning platform for our school and system. This was very interesting because in our studies here at Kennesaw state, we are in an online learning class room. With this being said we as students in this type of classroom can only use this experience to help us in the future. I used this experience to hone my skills in the online learning classroom, and use this as a trouble shooting experience and to test the different types of platforms fro which is best suited for school and system. I feel taking online learning classes made this class and learning about the online system was easy. I feel fully functional now after taking this class to deal with the online learning platform that we have in place at Moody High School. Since taking this class we at Moody have implemented a online learning platform called My Big Campus. We as a school and system have been fortunate to purchase the ability to use this learning platform to be more effective teachers and provide our students with a 21st century technology that wil help prepare them for their futures. This is the most exciting part of the class to know that have the chance to make a huge difference in our students future.
From this class, I found out that I can actually put technology together and then create a workshop to assist my fellow teachers. I also had to put myself through some reading to figure out what type of coach I want and need to be for my school and staff. This class made it obvious to me that we as coaches have to continue to use data from our teachers and students to figure out where our needs are and how to fix these deficits to the betterment of the school and community. I think the most fun I had was working with a fellow colleague of mine to try and focus on technology in the their classroom. This put me in position of technology coach first hand. This was trying and difficult because this person was my age and I had to convey to him these new learning styles and ways to get information to students rather than lecture. I really thought this was fun though because we both were learning, me how to be a coach and him to be more effective. I enjoyed the readings for this class because I enjoyed seeing school systems across the country put into place programs in their schools and see them be successful. This is great encouragement for technology coaches and school systems who want to be successful. Overall this was a interesting and trying class, but very beneficial to me becoming a technology coach.
Where to start! I know that the most common thing to say is this class has been the best class ever, but truly I have enjoyed this class and all the material that we have learned. I think that I have learned more about technology and how to use it than all of the other classes combined. I have figured out that the blog I have been using is not as good as the weebly blog that I could be using. The free weebly blog is one of the web tools that I want to mention and feel has helped out professional career. It offers more than a
wordpress blog every thought of. I have even taken it a step further and began to embed videos that are educational for students who may lectures and class time. My goal for next year is to start a podcast of my lectures and discussions using audacity. The other tool that I feel has made me a teacher is Jing, or any other screen cast tool. I like Jing though because it allows you to upload to screencast.com and then embed, or share the link. This tool has made a huge difference in the way that I show students how to do things using technology. These two tools with the others that we have learned have added tons to my teacher toolbox and will keep my class fun and exciting. Oh and every time we learned something that blew me away, I ran right to my system technology leader hoping she didn’t already know it and would share with others. Really inspired me to share with others the great tools that they could be using. Equal access in schools is a complex problem in today’s society.
I say complex because of the touchiness of student privacy. We as teachers try to keep this atmosphere of an even playing field for all students. This doesn’t always happen though because of the socioeconomic status of some of our students. Its weird though, In today’s schools some of our poorer students do not look or dress poorly. So it is hard to differentiate between which students will have access to technology or not. To add to this deception government programs give smartphones to low income families. With all this being said the “Digital Divide” is something real that exist in all schools across the country. This divide describes the lack of access between students in schools and in the community. My personal experience with this is in my short tenure as a teacher I have always had students who did not have equal access to technology. This has not always been a problem until recently. With education making the move in recent years to teaching with technology, the issue is coming more to the forefront. It is really hard to combat this problem, but there are a few ways that I have been able to help this. In my classes I have always given students time in the Library when needed, extra time before and after class with classroom technology, and lastly printed versions of assignments that we are completing. At my present school, I have access to a 2:1 ratio, so a lot of work is done during class time and homework is not needed. If assignments did need to be completed at home students would be able to check out a laptop under certain conditions. From our readings this week the authors made some really interesting statements. One that I agree with is from “Connecting schools, community, and family with ICT.” The author states that schools are important to bridging the gap in universal service and access, as well as awareness and training to family and the community. This statement puts a lot of pressure on the school and its teachers. The pressure is good pressure though, and who other than educators should this fall on. Educators will all the experience and knowledge are great connectors of information. We as educators are the most responsible answers to making this connection. I feel that this is what the author is talking about. It being our duty to make sure this generation and others get a fair shake at technology. The next statement is one I also agree with, but it is because I am a parent as well. It comes from the article “Predictors of creative computing participation.” The author says that “The amount of parent-child coactivity around computing predicts children’s interest and engagement for computing. My argument here is, how can children understand technology is they are not introduced to it at a young age? This hits home because I have young child and do not want her to fall behind in this technological world. But how do parents who cannot afford this things be able to introduce these technologies? This only makes the argument stronger for educators and their purpose of breaking this “Digital Divide.” Diversity! “I think that’s the name of an old wooden ship,” to quote Anchorman. This is not the
definition of diversity, but most might not have a clue about what context we are using it in. Our meaning of diversity goes along with the use of technology in the classroom. Most would think diversity is only talking about race and ethnicity, but we can also use it for equitable use of technology in schools. After reading the articles for this module, I am still on the fence somewhat of diversity in technology. I go to the first article about assistive technology, and how important it is for some students who just don’t get the concept that is being taught. In the article they show data from the student using traditional teaching, pen and paper, and the student using a website to help understand the concept. The data showed that the student failed to understand the assignment without the assistive technology. With this being said we should be jumping for joy that this student now gets what is needed to move one, but it poses a great question. The question is, what about the students who don’t need the technology and use their mental capacity? This question deals with fairness among all learners. This is where I am stuck on that preverbal fence. I think that it is great that all students will have the ability to learn now, but are we showing other students that they shouldn’t use their mental capacity to achieve higher standards. This to me is a double edged sword. From here I go to the last article by Richardson, which really blew my mind. This article revealed the “how” to making higher standards achievable. I am floored at the way that some of these teacher have given the reigns to the students and let them run with it. Implementing this strategy can be beneficial in getting your learners to achieve their highest standards. I think this form of learning is amazing, and really isn’t more work than traditional teaching would be for teachers. I am 100% behind personalizing the curriculum for the learners we have, this makes it more interesting for them, which in the end will have higher results. Respect for technology is difficult in this digital age, where most students have and had access to technology since a very young age. This is even more prevalent in the age of the smart phone, which is capable of accessing the internet on your personal phone. I am fortunate to have a 2:1 initiative in our school, but this doesn’t come to close to meeting the needs of all our students. We at Moody, have a low socioeconomic status, which there are a small amount students who don’t even have phones. With the small amount of laptops that we do have, we are working on making out students digital citizens, which is somewhat tough because of mass media and home use. It all starts with the guidance of the teacher and how to effectively use the internet within education, because these things will be needed in higher education and workplace. Modeling is the best way that I, as the facilitator can show students how to develop effective use of the internet. With any new component that is implemented in the classroom, I plan on demonstrating the process before allowing students to go off on their own. I also plan to be specific in the sites that they visit. I can do this by posting which sites need to be visited, and only these sites. Consequences will be laid out for those who do not follow directions. Global awareness is very important in today’s world. Students have everything at their fingertips, the world actually. Students can now be impacted by people around the world and actually have a conversation with some of these people. This brings forth a new form of research, first person, which is the most important type of research, especially in my field of Social Studies. This is a great way students to broaden their horizons and view of how others around the world live and do things. The best way to implement this is through virtual field trips, and through blogging. I think blogging is key to allowing students to becoming more global in today’s society. Allowing blogging into the classroom is an effective way to allow for creative communication and gets students higher level questioning flowing. These are the best forms of assessing whether our learners actually learned the concept that was being taught. Blogging allows many to respond and view what is being communicated in the classroom, it is as good a number grade. I actually keep a blog of what is going on in my classroom for parents and students on a daily basis. This has been important for parents who are inquisitive and for students who have missed class time. Making this available, has really cut down on all the emails that I receive, and allows the stake holders in the community to follow you step by step. I have yet to implement blogging for my students in the classroom, but hope to by next school year. I plan on using it as a formative assessment in my class to gauge what was actually learned in the prior class and have them expound upon it. Basically this is to have technology or not. We want it, but we don’t. This can only be answered by your school and system. Does it work? Yes, but does it foster laziness among higher achievers? Maybe, but you will never know where you sit until you try it. This is a very interesting subject in all schools across the country. Internet safety is one subject that
slips the mind of core content teachers. I say this because I am bad about making this assumption that our computer teachers (business tech, computer essentials) are teaching this for us. Assuming this could be bad for your career. This is not only for computer teachers to teach, but all teachers who employ technology in the classroom. In the end it is up to us all to make good digital citizens of our students. Keeping students safe on the internet starts with the classroom teacher spelling out and directing students to what is appropriate for school and home use. Teachers have to model this behavior, in hopes of students falling in line with it. Next teachers have to put students in situations where they can be successful and using inappropriate websites will not do this. Schools also have a responsibility to make sure students are safe with filters put into place. Students have to know that some material will not be able to viewed at school. Schools have to make sure that WIFI settings are set the same way. At Moody our WIFI settings have recently changed where students have to sign in with their usernames and passwords so that the IT staff can keep tabs of what is being viewed by each individual student. After scouring the internet for websites that safe internet use, I came up with three sites. These sites range from real life stories of potentially dangerous web use (http://www.netsmartz.org/RealLifeStories) to a website that has short videos of how to properly treat the internet (http://www.brainpopjr.com/artsandtechnology/technology/internetsafety/.) Both of these sites are good to help educate our students about the ills of the internet, but also praise them for appropriate use in the classroom. My last site is a great site for teachers who show video from sites like youtube.com. What this website does is allows teachers to download video and then go to this site and make sure it is safe, without commercials which sometimes make it past the filter. The name of this site is safeshare.tv/ . This site is really neat and keeps teachers from having to download movies on your personal device and hope that it doesn’t take forever. I really like these three sites because of what they had to offer. Each had something different that they brought to the table. Articles, Video, and a clean scrubbing aspect. Screencasting! Wow is all I can say. I have viewed a screencast for educational purposes, but never created one. Jing was the program of choice and was a very easy download. I had to use my personal computer to download Jing, rather than my school issue because we do not have the ability to download programs without the system administrator’s permission. Minus the download, Jing was easy to navigate and learn. I didn’t have to use the tutorial at all, so anyone can download and start capturing. I really like how the application is attached to your browser, this makes it easier to capture whenever you need to. The only thing that I had to really figure out, was the capture area, when you start to capture. After a few practice runs, this easy to mesh up with the capture area. Having the ability to add sound to your capture is also a plus so that you don’t have to voice over your presentation. This type of presentation can be very beneficial to my classroom. I feel that I can use this type of presentation to educate my students about certain programs that I am going to implement in my class. This would be easy to add to my weebly class blog to show students how to create and set up their own Edmodo page, which I am planning to set up this summer for use in the next school year. This is also a great way to add tutorials on our Office suites that we will be using for projects and other assignments for our class. The last idea for this type of program is more for professional development of my coaches and teachers at my school. We had to implement a new program for sports last year and this would be a great way to show other coaches how to use the system correctly, rather than having to stay on the phone with them walking them through it. This program had a ton of potential to make my job easier, as a teacher, technology leader, and a coach. If you haven’t tried Jing or other Screencasting programs you should, It can’t hurt to try. Google Docs is a really neat Web tool. I had never used Google Docs before this program, but have heard of a few teachers who have and really liked it. It is a great tool to be able to use in the classroom, but I have a problem before I ever get to use it. Google functions are blocked at our school (gmail, drive, etc..) and I will not be able to access it in my classroom. If I were to have access to it, I would use it like I use drop box, as a place to store material on the internet. This keeps you from having to carry around thumb drives to every class you teach, plus it gives students a place to save documents and share them with their teachers. I also like the ability to use it like an office suite, this can be huge for students who may not have access to these functions at their homes. This will take away the excuse of not having Word or Power Point in their home, Google Drive takes care of that. I felt that navigating Google drive was very easy and then the ability to share documents on the web is easy. Here is a link to a document I uploaded and shared to the web, http://tinyurl.com/ktgvqmc. I shortened the URL with Tinyurl.com, which takes a long URL and shortens it up to make it easier for students to input. I think that Google Docs can be really beneficial to a classroom teacher and even students if they are given the proper training. I will be talking to my tech team about access to Google Drive, but I think it is a lost cause because of the viruses with in the email function of it. |
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January 2015
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