After initially reading the Syllabus, my first thoughts about this course were about learning strategies and methods to become a more effective teacher by changing my current instruction. In further reading the course outcomes, I realized that I would become familiar with the technology plan developed by the state of Texas, identify the standards used to integrate technology and identify issues related to technology in its implementation in a school setting. These outcomes intimidated me due to my current use of technology. I previously thought that I was using technology in my instruction and as a resource already to help students get prepared, little did I actually know. Before this course, I had not read about the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology, nor specifically the technology TEKS for middle school students. I honestly was not aware that such a plan, for moving toward technology, existed. Throughout this course, I was able to increase my knowledge regarding the plan for technology, read articles concerning the legal and ethical issues about implementing technology and now consider new ideas to use in the classroom and school to increase technology integration to better serve students. This course did accurately align its outcomes according to the syllabus, hence what I had envision within this course to accomplish.
Following these outcomes envisioned by the course and accomplishing them, I feel that they are relevant to my position as well as to my school. Firstly, being aware of the Texas Long-Range Plan for Technology gives you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with the goals in supporting educational activities and preparing students for success as a lifetime learner in emerging to a global digital community member. Secondly, evaluating data, such as the STaR Chart, helps us to understand where we are as a school and district and what key areas we can work on to become more technology integrated. Nowadays, technology is more than using simply just a computer it involves communicating and collaborating with other learners to share knowledge. Thirdly, learning about online predators and implementing online safety techniques and strategies will greatly help us protect our students and encourage them to continue using technology. These achieved outcomes will help our students be better prepared for our digital changing world.
What I found difficult in achieving during this course was identifying technology needs for our students. As Marc Prensky (2000) stated in Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Part 1, “Today’s students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach” (p. 1). This generation or group of students, have grown up with technology (cell phones, digital music players, computers and video games) throughout their lives, whereas we had to learn how to use it as [young] adults. It can be challenging to try to teach students certain technology tactics when we are just learning it ourselves. He further goes on to state that, “Today’s teachers have to learn to communicate in the language and style of their students” (p. 4). “Today’s older folk were “socialized” differently from their kids, and are now in the process of learning a new language” (p. 3). This supports my opinion of finding the needs for our current students a challenge because, at times, we teach how we were taught and not how we are suppose to teach. How can we advance student’s in technology, when they (at times) are the ones who know more? I think that the shift is to move to teach them on how to apply technology and use it effectively rather than just the technology skills, which would reduce the level of students knowing more since they are the ones referred to as the “digital natives.” One last thought that supports my challenge is well stated by Prensky (2000), “It’s very serious, because the single biggest problem facing education today is that our Digital Immigrant instructors, who speak an outdated language (that of the pre-digital age), are struggling to teach a population that speaks an entirely new language” (p. 3).
In my new learning within this course, I found that we were currently using technology that can be implemented with our students. We are putting into practice perhaps what we should be doing with our students and our schools. We participated in submitting online surveys, online assignments, online progress reading checks, posting up discussion over our reading and communicating that with other colleagues, viewing online lecture videos, creating our own log, and participating in web conferences. After listing all that we did with technology during a 5-week period, it leads you to imagine all the possibilities of doing this (technology integration) during a semester, a year! Some issues that arose during the course that discouraged me included the creation of my blog, posting up my quotes for the last week, and the web conferences. These challenges in the assignment did not ultimately keep me from carrying out the course assignments, just discouraged me in the beginning. First, I had never created a blog so I closely followed the established steps sent to me by my academic coach. With these steps, I did as I was told, but one minor misunderstanding kept me from initially uploading my powerpoint presentation onto my blog. This greatly overwhelmed me and discouraged me until I changed my status from “private” to “public” in order to successfully upload the presentation. After this, I was even able to upload a document. Another encounter of difficulty was an error application that kept appearing when I would click on the Discussion Board for Week 5. I tried to post up my quotes at the beginning of the week (Monday) but could not because it would not open up the regular discussion page, rather, it had a message that just stated that it was an application error. I emailed the technical support team as well as my academic coach to assist me. They did a great job in fixing the problem on the second try because the tech Group had first fixed Week 4, which there was nothing wrong with, and then went back to correct it. With this said, I was not able to post my quotes up until Thursday. I can see this being a problem with online assignments and the due dates, especially if we move to this as teachers, but the patience, understanding, and communication was very helpful in correcting this. The last encounter that kept me from being successful in this course dealt with the web conferences. I had never participated in one before and did not know what to expect. It was difficult to take part in them because I was out of town on most of those dates and then had the wrong time for one that I was in and then waited an hour before logging in. When I did log in there were many students online and made it challenging to keep up with the comments.
Within all these weeks I was able to capture a sense of the responsibilities and duties that a school leader has in regards of using technology. I was not aware that it involved a true technology plan. As a school leader you should be able to observe and evaluate the current use of technology, ensure that it is in the teacher’s planning, evaluate where the school is in technology integration and continue to offer further educational development, and ensure safety for students online. What I learned that is important in most, if not all situations is communication. As a school leader, one should be able to communicate with teachers on their technology plan, model for teachers, give teachers opportunities to grow and learn not just in their content area, but also in technology so that they can communicate with their students, and use data to see what is effective. There is more than one area to oversee as a school leader, and technology is one area that should be because it is helping to prepare our students to network in our world after graduation, we use technology in our daily lives.
One of my creations during this course included making and maintaining a blog. Blogs is a method of communicating and keeping track of discussions posted. This is valuable to students and schools because it allows for ongoing communication to occur beyond the regular school hours. Students are currently using myspace, facebook, and other social networks, including email so they are able to navigate and comprehend the purpose of its use. Blogs also allow for collaboration to occur between students and instant comments to be posted. This helps because if students are at home working on an assignment they can post up questions and helpfully get responses soon regarding the question. It also allows for others to view it since it is on the internet and others can respond who might have had the background and/or experience of the discussion if they are from that region, students are open-minded are developing networking skills.
In reading some articles in this course concerning blogging, it was an eye-opener to find out all what goes on during communication on the web. According to Adelman (2004), “There are real dangers online that our middle level students must be prepared for” (p. 17). Teaching online safety is a priority, or should be a priority when teaching about technology, so that students can remain safe and continue to access technology including the internet. Adelman (2004) concluded “that in order to keep our middle level students protected in online environments, they must have strategies for staying safe and being responsible” (p. 21). Teaching online safety is not the only concern in blogging. If we create blogs we must also teach our students the importance of acknowledging others’ ideas and teaching them the proper way to cite their resources to prevent plagiarism. Informing students the appropriateness of what is allowed to be posted up would also help prevent from falling into legal issues.
When you refer to stakeholders in blogging, you are referring to all those who are involved in the child’s education. You have teachers, parents, administrators, and the child themselves involved in their own education. Creating and maintaining blogs can and does serve as a communication tool between all these individuals. Many parents want to be supportive and help in their child’s progress but school’s might not have a well-established communication system in place. Blogs can assist in this situation. Parents can easily view, with internet access, what their child is doing in class, how they are doing on assignments, and who they are communicating with. Teachers can immediately view what the student’s post up as comments and messages and other information and quickly evaluate any misunderstandings and address them immediately. Blogs are effective when immediate action is taken and safety precautions are taken. This opens the communication to occur in whatever location, as long as there is internet, and can helps students, teachers, and parents keep up with the posts and assignments even if they are not at home.
References:
Adelman, H. (2004). Teaching Online Safety. Voices From the Middle, 11(3), 17-22.
Prensky, M. (2000). Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants: Part I. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
My Technology Action Plan
Technology Link: Professional Development
Improvement Goal: Based on feedback and campus surveys we are still in great need for ongoing professional development to maximize appropriate use of technology to increase student achievement and teacher productivity.
Analysis: Based on feedback and on reports, such as the STaR Chart Summary for the past three years, our area of improvement is Teaching and Learning with a total score of 11 for two out of the three years.
Technology Staff Development Plan
Objective 1: Offering trainings in a variety of formats for teachers to ensure an increase in technology proficiency.
Tasks/Action Steps
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator will communicate and collaborate with the Principal(s) and teachers to set up meeting dates for trainings.
Responsibilities
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator will be giving the trainings, teachers need to be informed to attend.
Timeline
Ongoing
Evidence
Scoring a total score of an 11 (lowest of the three years, two out of three years)
Evaluation
Keep track of ongoing trainings and the teachers that attended
Objective 2: Integrating technology/software in the classroom
Tasks/Action Steps
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator and the principal(s) will be evaluating and observing teachers using technology in the classroom.
Responsibilities
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator, Principal(s), teachers
Timeline
Ongoing
Evidence
The need to integrate technology knowledge and skills into the core subject areas.
Evaluation
Use low inference data from their observations counting the number of teachers integrating technology in their classrooms; also by reviewing the teacher’s lesson plans
Using the action plan above, we would collect data throughout the year and see the number of trainings being offered with the number of teachers attending these trainings to promote our ongoing professional development for technology. As my educational technology campus coordinator stated previously in a short interview, he is trying to look for a tool that assess teachers’ knowledge and skills in technology so that we can better assist our kids, if we are not informed, how can we inform others? Our Principal and campus technology coordinator have arranged a set of observations be made during the year to observe the use of technology in the classrooms. They will discuss their observations and share thoughts of improving technology to be used in the classroom.
Improvement Goal: Based on feedback and campus surveys we are still in great need for ongoing professional development to maximize appropriate use of technology to increase student achievement and teacher productivity.
Analysis: Based on feedback and on reports, such as the STaR Chart Summary for the past three years, our area of improvement is Teaching and Learning with a total score of 11 for two out of the three years.
Technology Staff Development Plan
Objective 1: Offering trainings in a variety of formats for teachers to ensure an increase in technology proficiency.
Tasks/Action Steps
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator will communicate and collaborate with the Principal(s) and teachers to set up meeting dates for trainings.
Responsibilities
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator will be giving the trainings, teachers need to be informed to attend.
Timeline
Ongoing
Evidence
Scoring a total score of an 11 (lowest of the three years, two out of three years)
Evaluation
Keep track of ongoing trainings and the teachers that attended
Objective 2: Integrating technology/software in the classroom
Tasks/Action Steps
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator and the principal(s) will be evaluating and observing teachers using technology in the classroom.
Responsibilities
Educational Technology Campus Coordinator, Principal(s), teachers
Timeline
Ongoing
Evidence
The need to integrate technology knowledge and skills into the core subject areas.
Evaluation
Use low inference data from their observations counting the number of teachers integrating technology in their classrooms; also by reviewing the teacher’s lesson plans
Using the action plan above, we would collect data throughout the year and see the number of trainings being offered with the number of teachers attending these trainings to promote our ongoing professional development for technology. As my educational technology campus coordinator stated previously in a short interview, he is trying to look for a tool that assess teachers’ knowledge and skills in technology so that we can better assist our kids, if we are not informed, how can we inform others? Our Principal and campus technology coordinator have arranged a set of observations be made during the year to observe the use of technology in the classrooms. They will discuss their observations and share thoughts of improving technology to be used in the classroom.
Technology Action Plan
This is the action plan that the school has developed to improve our technology usage and awareness.
file:///Users/yuridia.barrera/Desktop/IDEA%20Public%20Schools%20Technology%20Plan-%202009%20-%202010.pdf
file:///Users/yuridia.barrera/Desktop/IDEA%20Public%20Schools%20Technology%20Plan-%202009%20-%202010.pdf
Sunday, November 29, 2009
STaR Chart
Was unsuccessful at uploading my slide presentation onto my blog from slideshare. If you would still like to view it, you may by clicking the following link. Thank you.
http://www.slideshare.net/yebarrera/yuridia-barrera-week2-course5-edld5352-presentation1
http://www.slideshare.net/yebarrera/yuridia-barrera-week2-course5-edld5352-presentation1
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