EDLD 5306 Course Reflection

When I began this journey, I honestly did not know what to expect. My largest concern at the beginning was how was I going to know which class I was in?  I had only had the acceptance letter and request for my tuition.  The receipt of my email, banner ID, and course description arrived on Friday prior to the start of class.

On the first day of the class, my expectations were that the course work would be challenging and that I would be learning information relevant to my current and possibly future position. The outcomes from the course, I can’t say that I had any, with regards to the actual content; however, one outcome was to actually see and experience an online learning environment.

My interest, the past several years, has been in developing an effective online learning experience in my classroom for my students.  I wanted to give them the experience of the many Web 2.0 tools available but in a controlled environment for safety. The District did offer the opportunity for implementing the Moodle on our campus and I jumped at the chance.  My research into developing a successful online curriculum netted me more “guidelines” of what was possible along with how to use the Moodle environment, but no real examples of it being used effectively. The time working on the course these past five weeks has meet both my expectations and intended outcomes.

The work we did was very challenging both in content and volume.  I found in order to be successful I needed to develop a schedule for the week. The week began on Sunday with the readings and, if time and energy permitted, the videos.  The discussion quote along with the progress monitor quizzes came next in the week. From Wednesday on, I worked on the assignments.  My intentions were to complete the assignments on Saturday and type “The Final Word” entry on Sunday morning. At that point, the cycle began again.  Following this schedule allowed me to keep focused on the course work to be completed.  I did find at the end of week four a surprise assignment, the superintendent report.  Some how in the process of the week, this did not make it on the schedule; however, I was able to complete many of the assignment a head of schedule, thus allowing me time to complete the report.

Between the readings and research assignments, I have come away with knowledge that validated some of my beliefs and many that have me looking at how to improve technology integration at our campus. Including more project-based learning and embedding technology into lessons support my belief that these techniques will help engage students and improve their success in learning. Using the District technology plan, the results from the District and campus STaR Charts and additional input from the teachers, the campus can make informed decisions on the acquisition and integration of technology in the classroom.

Improving integration of technology on our campus is relevant to my position and also one of my visions for the campus.  Working with several teachers that are currently interested in the use of technology in the classroom, I would like to create a cadre of teachers in each core area that can be role models for the others.  Our teachers are fortunate to have a Professional Learning Community (PLC) period scheduled as part of their day.  It is here I hope the cadre of technology using teachers will benefit the departments. This is just one idea I walk away with from this course.

In the final analysis of my first course in this journey, I have learned that my background has a depth and breadth regarding embedding technology in the curriculum and use of technology as productivity tools.  Two of my weakest areas are: incorporating Web 2.0 tools into the curriculum, productivity of my position, and professional development instruction for the faculty; and, being a technology leader on my campus. As I work through my internship these next 18 months, I will be working on these weaknesses to become a technology leader on the campus and the Campus Instructional Technologist cadre.

Technology Leadership Book Summary

Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning

By Marc Prensky

Partnering pedagogy is basically creating a partnership between the teacher and student to learn the information and skills necessary to prepare the students for the 21st century. “For successful partnering, teachers and students alike must realize and accept that we have entered an era in which both students and teachers have something of equal importance to contribute to the learning process. Each side must respect, and learn from what the other has to offer” (Prensky, 2010). Asking guiding questions that focus on the concepts or knowledge to be learned, the teacher creates the lesson. Along with the overarching questions, details questions are also created to ensure the students have the answers for questions that will be on the test. The students, either in groups or individually, research for answers to the questions using any tools or technology available. The teacher facilitates the lesson by moving through the class monitoring or guiding the students in their work. Once the students have researched, they present their results to the class in a one or two minute presentation, where the entire class discusses the information. Throughout the partnering process, students are able to build their skills in researching, analyzing, critical-thinking and problem-solving and apply these to the real world problems while they are learning the content for the course.

For more information about this book and partnering pedagogy, visit my wiki at http://qtmouser.wikispaces.com/Technology+Leadership+Book+Summary.

Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching digital natives: Partnering for real learning. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin, A SAGE Company.

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District Technology Plan

Over the last ten years, our district has focused on improving the use of technology for both productivity and student achievement. After reviewing the over systems in place and the outcomes of the District StaR Chart, the District’s Technology Plan (2009-2010) is focused on three areas:  Student Achievement, Classroom Support and Responsiveness.

The district hopes to improve student achievement by increasing the availability of virtual learning environments through the use of video conferencing (all levels) and online courses (high school). The purchase and installation of Promethean Boards, digital projectors, document cameras and other technology throughout the campuses should bring other opportunities to integrate technology into the learning environment and hopefully increase student achievement.

To support current and new technology available to teachers, Instructional Technology along with Curriculum and Instruction will coordinate to plan a summer technology camp for district staff to provide instructional and skill development opportunities in core competencies, applications development, applications integration and technical content development. Training for district personnel on District standard applications for classroom, administration, and support requirements will also be planned.  With the increased emphasis on technology, Instructional Technology and Curriculum and Instruction will work together to develop an Employee Technology Competency Requirements and seek Board approval of the Technology Core Competency.

With all the technology opportunities, the technology department will continuously review, design and implement the appropriate infrastructure enhancements necessary to meet the needs of voice, video and data transfer. The technology department will also monitor and support the Acceptable Use policies and make recommendations for improvement and inclusion of 21^st Century Skills requirements and expectations.

As with any plan, money is a major issue.  The E-Rate fund will help support most of the actual networking and infrastructure part of the plan, but there is a large part that the district needs to fund in other ways. Title II and High School Allotment Grants will be used to provide hardware, software and professional development in some areas. Our district was fortunate enough to have received a large T3 grant for science that brought many new technologies into the science classrooms along with the professional development on how to integrate the technologies in to the curriculum.  Stimulus money will be used specifically for the Special Education Department permitted the first district-wide purchase of hardware and software to be used with students with special needs.  Finally, the school board had designated, from the current budget, a large portion every year to be used in a four year life-cycle replacement plan for technology on every campus.

After all the strategies have been implemented, the district expects the following outcomes: appropriate instructional technologies will be infused throughout the curriculum, systemic and programed professional development opportunities will improve teachers’ ability to use the technology, and implementing and supporting research-based, integrated technology systems and solutions will allow for better response to the needs of the students, faculty and staff.

Technology Assessments

For any technology plan to be effective, there is a need for good data that is used to make decisions.  In our case one of the assessments used is the Texas STaR Chart which is completed by the teachers, campus and district administrators.  The information provided by the STaR chart, along with other data collected, is used to make decisions on training, funding and integration of technology. In reviewing the STaR chart results for our campus there were gains in two areas, “Teaching and Learning” and “Educator Preparation and Development.” In these areas the campus moved from Developing to Advanced Tech. This may be an indication of the change in the teacher demographics. As the more veteran teachers begin to retire, teachers who have been exposed to technology at an early age are replacing them. Because of their level of comfort and expertise, these newer teachers have a better handle on the use of technology and are willing to incorporate it into their lessons.

The surprise was the decrease in the area of “Leadership, Administration and Instructional” support. This may be due to the lack of vision being expressed by our administration team.  At one time, technology was a large focus on our campus “for doing old things, in old ways” (Prensky, 2008). As new research was released, the administrators began to understand the need for integrating technology in the curriculum. This change was reflected in our Campus Improvement Plan (CIP).  The technology was embedded in the different areas for improvement and was not listed as a separate goal.  This change in the CIP did not include professional development for the teachers either in how the technology worked or how the technology integrated into the instruction. Because of this, teachers’ perceptions reflected less administrative support for technology.

With regards to students, there is no assessment of the student’s technology knowledge and skills levels at the high school level. It is perceived that the students have master the required Technology Application objectives and are technologically savvy. With this perception of the students and their needs, teachers who are trying to incorporate technology are often surprised and frustrated that the students do not have the technology skills required for the lesson.  In many cases the teachers themselves do not have the skills and therefore, cannot guide the students. This is one area on our campus that needs to address in the CIP.

Though the STaR Chart is a technology assessment being used in our district, it must look at other factors when making decisions.  When looking at the improvements or decreases, we have to understand that these are the perceptions of teachers or administrators and how they view themselves and the use of technology on their campuses.  Some teachers answered the questions in the way they believed administrators wanted them to answer, even though the only instructions given were to answer the questions truthfully. Some administrators answered with what they wanted the campus to reflect rather than what was truly happening. Since the data collected by the STaR Chart is perception and not fact, there needs to be several areas from which data is pulled to ensure that the decisions being made for the district and campuses is a true assessment of need and not one that is skewed by perceptions.

Prensky, M. (2008). Adopt and adapt: Shaping tech for the classroom. Edutopia: The George Lucas Foundation.

National Educational Technology Plan (NETP)

The National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) was developed in response to President Obama’s position that education must change in order for our children to compete in a global workforce and economy. Part of this revolutionary change, requires the integration of technology into the educational environment. To achieve the needed change in education, NETP made recommendations in five major areas: Learning, Assessment, Teaching, Infrastructure and Productivity.

Learning Recommendations:
Revision of learning standards in all areas to exploit the use of technology for learning, especially in the areas of collaboration, is one of the major recommendations. This, along with the use of learning studies’ results (how we learn) should help determine the best way technology could be used to improve our students learning. We need to capitalize on that information, especially in the area of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects to develop new methodologies to help our students excel. Finally, instruction needs to be developed that changes where our students learn, giving them opportunities with anytime/anywhere instruction.

Assessment Recommendations:
To help improve students’ learning, technology based assessments have to be developed to give students timely feedback that allows the teacher to modify and tailor the instruction for each student. The teachers need to build their capacity to develop these assessments that will measure what is important in the learning. There is a need for the development of games to assess complex skills and performance objectives that cannot be measured by simply asking questions. As more assessments begin to be completed through the use of technology, safe guards need to be put in place to protect the privacy of the students’ data.

Teaching Recommendations:
If teachers are expected to teach using technology of the 21st century and beyond, they need to have access to resources to help them develop the learning experiences. There needs to be a central clearing house that would help teachers connect with others to build learning communities, that enable them to collaborate on best practices and access “experts” in the field. District and teacher preparation programs need to provide professional development for teachers using the same technologies and methodologies, including on-line instruction, if they are expected to use them in the classroom. This will help close the learning gap between teachers and students.

Infrastructure Recommendations:
If technology is to become an integral part of the educational process, districts will need to provide the bandwidth required to support the technology and resources. In addition, students and teachers need to have the use of devices that will allow them to access the Internet 24/7. As new technologies come along, we need to encourage our educators to be innovative in the way they use them for instruction. To support the districts, state and federal governments need to build a national infrastructure to handle all the current and future technologies.

Productivity Recommendations:
A definition of productivity in education needs to be developed so states and districts can have a more effective measure of learning outcomes and the cost. To help manage costs, the federal and state governments should share ways that districts could cut costs and improve productivity. Governmental agencies that request student data require it in many different forms. All agencies from the local to federal level need to create a standard format for storing this data. This will allow districts to allocate funds to different areas rather than on the resources required to convert data to the different formats.

Reflection:
There are many recommendations in the plan that should make a difference in student learning and being prepared for the 21st century. The need to improve learning by changing how we teach is probably the first step. One area of teaching that supports and builds on a skill most students currently possess is the use of digital gaming. Using simulation games as part of learner-centered projects will improve the problem-solving and collaboration skills of the students.

One area of concern is the cost of improving and support of infrastructure for current and future technology. When looking at many different programs outside of education that need funding, the government’s (federal and state) funds are going to be stretched. The inclusion of partner companies, both national and local, will need to be included in this process. Their inclusion in this area (infrastructure) may extend the government funds.

Complete copy of the National Educational Technology Plan can be found at:
http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf

Web Conference - October 13, 2010

This was a different experience from last week.  There were more people involved and that affected the audio.  But even with the sound being affected, it was great!  Dr. Borel reviewed the internship requirement in much more detail.  Even though I have already read the handbook and was questioning my choice to begin this program, her overview has not calmed that concern. However, one bite of the elephant at a time.

Web Conference - October 8, 2010

What a great experience.  My first official, for school, web conference.  Though we (husband and I) do video conferences with our daughter, this was different.  We were meeting each other for the first time; putting faces with names from our discussion board.  As with all first timers, we were working out the kinks in the system.  Mine was that I did not do the sound check prior to enter the conference, so when my time to speak arrived, not a word was heard from my lips.  Oh, well, at least I tried it before the “required” one. I look forward to meeting more of you next at next week’s conference. Now off to work on the rest of my assignment for week 1.