I plan to continue applying my learnings this school year as I meet with various teachers and the principal to propose a new direction for technology in my school. I do anticipate some challenges as many teachers at my school have been frustrated with the past uses of data. However, I do believe that if teachers can see a real need for using data that they will get on board. All teachers really want is to feel that what they are doing has a purpose. The use of data that I have learned this semester provides this purpose.
Throughout this fast course this summer, I have learned a variety of things about data analysis and its use to focus school improvement. The three most important things I have learned are how to find a variety of types of data from different sources, how to best approach leading a school in a different direction with data, and how to work collaboratively with other teachers on the data team to create norms. All of the assignments were so in-depth and required a great deal of effort; however, I thought the most valuable field experience in this course was the data overview that I completed towards the end of the course. This data overview forced me to incorporate a number of new skills, including finding data, analyzing it, and proposing a new direction for the future.
I plan to continue applying my learnings this school year as I meet with various teachers and the principal to propose a new direction for technology in my school. I do anticipate some challenges as many teachers at my school have been frustrated with the past uses of data. However, I do believe that if teachers can see a real need for using data that they will get on board. All teachers really want is to feel that what they are doing has a purpose. The use of data that I have learned this semester provides this purpose.
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Overall, I have really enjoyed the ITEC 7410 course on Instructional Technology Leadership. What I appreciate the most is that it has encouraged me to think outside of my classroom and to examine what technology leaders in my school are facing as they tackle technology incorporation. Like many teachers, I get caught up in what is going on in my classroom, and I forget to examine what is happening in the school as a whole. By working on a vision paper, I examined what I would like to see with technology in my school, and I addressed my expectations and hopes for all major stakeholders. By doing the SWOT Analysis, I examined the various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that currently exist in my school. By working on an action/evaluation plan for my school, I came up with a concrete plan of action for my school to better incorporate technology.
Now that I am done with this class, I know that it is imperative to stay current with trends in educational technology leadership. By attending ISTE 2014 in Atlanta, I got a membership to ISTE. I am already following various groups within ISTE, and I will continue to do so. By staying current with ISTE, I am learning about new initiatives and technology on a daily basis. The challenge for me will be to utilize this new technology learning and to assist other teachers in my building with their own incorporation. I must admit to being overwhelmed a time or two in this course. Although I did a limited qualitative study in my M.Ed. program, it was nothing compared to the extent of research and analysis included in this course. I was able to conduct my research on Teacher Attitudes towards New Technology this semester, and I really learned a great deal more than I had anticipated. I set out with a belief that as teachers get older or more experienced, we tend to not be as open to new technology as we are when we are younger and less experienced. In reality, I found out some very different truths.
Teacher age did not seem to be as important of an influence on attitudes towards new technology; however, teacher experience did. As teachers' experience grew, their attitudes towards new technology worsened. This may be due to a frustration with new technologies coming and going and/or a frustration with perceived insufficient time to train on the new technology. Regardless of what the reasons are, the main thing I learned this semester in this course is that as an educational researcher, it is imperative to keep an open mind about incoming data. This will impact my role as an instructional technology coach as it will push me to critically evaluate new research on technologies in an attempt to determine the mindset of the researchers. This course has been an incredibly interesting one in that I have learned a great deal about how professional development should work in schools according to the partnership principle advocated by Knight (2007). What I found is that while some professional development works as a partnership, much of professional development is centered around a "sage on the stage" philosophy. Information is disseminated to teachers, and they are expected to enact it in their classrooms. When I did my own technology coaching of a teacher in my school, I found myself forgetting some of the partnership principle methods and simply disseminating information to her myself.
It is easy to get caught up in the excitement of gaining new knowledge and forget that a true connection must be made with a teacher we are attempting to coach. No one likes to feel as though they are being criticized for their instruction. As teachers, we take a great deal of pride in our art and can be highly defensive about the practice of that art. Coaching is also an art, but we are not dealing with students, we are instead engaged with colleagues who have valuable experience and input to share with us. That has been my big learning from this semester. Spending time one-on-one with another teacher is valuable as you have the opportunity to learn something new from him before you attempt to share knowledge with him that may not work in his classroom. Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving instruction. Thousand Oaks: Corwin and Learning Forward. This course has been an amazingly intense experience with different internet tools tried out and practiced every week. I created a wikispace for use in my AP Psychology classes, utilized Diigo to tag websites, followed people on Twitter, created my first podcast utilizing PodOMatic, embedded videos and slideshows, and done practice screencasts. In addition, I was exposed to various other internet tools for use in the classroom by my classmates. I have to admit that although I enjoy following my favorite NFL team (@Atlanta_Falcons) and AP for Students (@APforStudents) on Twitter, I have not used it to the full extent that I know other teachers are using it. I am hoping to improve that over our winter break and get a better handle on how this tool can be used for educational purposes.
I did learn about one online tool that has changed my teaching during professional development training at the Federal Reserve in October, and this tool was reinforced in this course. Socrative is an online quizzing tool that is currently free of charge to teachers. Teachers set up an account and are able to enter and save quizzes for use with their classes. Students login to their teacher’s classroom and take quizzes, with the results being automatically fed to the teacher in an excel spreadsheet. My Economics colleagues and I have been using Socrative quite consistently since October, and students are excited about the immediate feedback and the ability to log in using their cell phones or in the computer labs. One additional item that I am really excited about from this course is the wikispace I created for my AP Psychology classes. As we prepare for the AP exam in May, I am hopeful that we will be able to incorporate this into the curriculum and utilize it in the computer lab. I am definitely planning on utilizing it in my project in the abnormal psychology and treatment unit in April. I am still in the process of constructing that online project, but I believe that students are going to be excited about the ability to collaborate online with other students. This goes hand in hand with the change in my thinking about wikis as a result of this course. In the past, I have been quite condescending about wikis because they did not seem to be “valid” knowledge. I still believe that wikis have to be evaluated for use in the classroom, but I am much more open to my students utilizing them. Overall, this has been an intense semester, but I am excited about what I have learned and what I am currently applying in my classroom! This has been an incredibly rigorous semester! At the end of it, I find myself thinking about what it really means to be a Specialist of Education. I recently had lunch with a friend from my former career as a paralegal who asked me what exactly it meant to get my Specialist degree. I jokingly told her it was more than a Masters but not quite a Doctorate. In reality, what being a Specialist of Education means is that I now have a better grasp of research and research literacy than I did at the conclusion of my Masters degree. I have become more adept at locating and understanding the relevant literature when I evaluate my field of interest – teacher attitudes towards new technology. I understand that relevant research is out there for almost any topic I could think of, but I also know better how to evaluate that research now. As a result of this course, I have found myself to be a better teacher of research methods in my AP Psychology classes at school.
In the learning outcomes for Curriculum and Instruction listed in the syllabus for this course, I know that I have grown substantially in my knowledge of content and knowledge of research. I have actually shared some of what I have learned in this course with my students, as referenced above, and my colleagues. One area I would like to continue to grow in would be my knowledge of assessment, although I do feel that designing the survey for my research proposal helped substantially in this. If I could go back to the beginning of the semester and tell myself anything, it would definitely be to contribute an additional article or two to my ongoing literature review every week! I have been a procrastinator for most of my life, and it seems to continue on to this day. Hopefully I will do better with this next semester. At this point in time, many students with from lower socioeconomic status families are suffering from “the digital divide,” the disparity of access to, use of, or knowledge of information and communication technologies between students of various income levels (Wikipedia). Barron, et al. (2010) conducted a study on eighth grade students in Silicon Valley at two middle schools with disproportionate income levels. They found that students with lower incomes had substantially less access to technology at home and, as a result, had a lesser breadth of technology experience than their counterparts at the higher income schools. Hohlfeld, et al. (2010) also found that there is a deep digital divide between students in higher versus lower socioeconomic status areas in Florida over a four year study. Thus, our quest as educators becomes how do we bridge the digital divide in our schools such that all students benefit more equally from technology? One of the first and most obvious issues to address is the need for up-to-date technology in all of our schools and adequate training for all of our teachers. Research by Barron, et al. (2010) seemed to indicate that teachers in lower SES areas were not given the same amount or quality of training in technology as those in higher SES schools were. This could be due to overwhelming focus placed on passing various standardized tests; however, equitable access requires adequate technology for all schools and adequate training for all teachers. Just putting computers in the schools will not conquer the digital divide if teachers do not have a full understanding of how to implement this technology into their courses.
A second and equally important issue is providing access to all students within the context of the school day including training on utilizing various forms of technology as well as the time to practice that technology. Without this training and practice time, we will continue to see the digital divide increase. The reality is that we may never be completely able to conquer the digital divide, but at the very least, we can narrow it through rigorous attention to details and training. Barron, B., Walter, S.E., Martin, C.K, and Schnatz, C. (2010). Predictors of creative computing participation and profiles of experience in two Silicon Valley middle schools. Computers and Education, 54: 178-189. Hohlfeld, T.N., Ritzhaupt, A.D., and Barron, A.E. (2010). Connecting schools, community, and family with ICT: Four-year trends related to school level and SES of public schools in Florida. Computers and Education, 55: 391-405. Although I have looked at means of incorporating diversity, cultural understanding, and global awareness into my classroom throughout my career in education, this is the first time I can honestly say that I have examined this incorporation primarily through technology. Today, we are fortunate to be in a time in which technology is easily accessible to many, and most schools have computer labs and other resources available to us. Utilizing the Internet in the classroom allows teachers to help develop student understanding of and respect for diversity. By teaming with another class across the country or across the world, students would have the opportunity to communicate with students of vastly different cultures and/or languages. “Meeting” online and discussing common interests allows students to see someone from a different culture as a person quite similar to themselves. Several decades earlier, students were primarily exposed to people of their own cultures and languages with limited contact with those from other parts of the world. The Internet and modern media has brought the world to our televisions and computer screens, allowing students to experience items of interest from around the world. In my own classroom, I try to show students CNN’s Student News at least once a week as it provides a great overview of what is going on in the world. Then as a class, we pick other videos to view so that students are able to engage in events around the world.
The website eHow offers an article on ways to meet the diverse needs of your students in your classroom and to introduce diversity to students from areas that are fairly racially homogenous. Ideas like incorporating journaling into the classroom struck me as especially helpful. I have actually tried this before in my Sociology class, and I am now thinking of also doing this in other courses. Students keep a journal daily or weekly and respond to prompts such as “Growing up a girl” or “The world as I see it.” Then students are offered time to present their journal responses in class. The idea is to foster openness and understanding of diversity and cultures within the classroom. Clearly, another means of promoting global awareness and communication is through blogging. Although I post on my school blog every day, and I post on this blog approximately once a week, I do not believe I have reached the communicating globally stage of blogging at this time. However, there are numerous websites that offer advice on how to increase your interest to others on a larger scale. An article from About.com offers excellent information on how to do this. What I have noticed from blogging for school for the last two years is that I get excellent feedback from parents at conferences on the information they obtain from my blog. What I would like to aim for though is that I am receiving feedback through the blog on a more immediate basis. This week in ITEC 7430 revolved around internet safety in the classroom. Most people today are familiar with NBC News’ show To Catch a Predator (information available at http://www.nbcnews.com/id/10912603/). While reports of predators online are numerous, in reality, Richardson (2010) in his book Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms points out that this is actually the minority of internet users. Richardson further observes that while the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) has mandated that schools filter internet content available to students, this has not been entirely effective (pg. 12), and it is critical that teachers make their students aware of safety necessities while utilizing the internet. Fortunately, there are numerous websites available to assist teachers in emphasizing internet safety with their students.
One such site is hosted by i-Safe, Inc., and provides tips to parents and students on how to safeguard information online. Although i-Safe, Inc., offers tips, it is crucial that teachers explain some of them, such as “know how to exit an inappropriate website.” Too often, our students get caught up in the surprise of having found an inappropriate website instead of simply clicking the back button or exiting from the window. I will never forget my first year of teaching when my AP Government students were doing a project on the executive branch of the government. Too late, I realized that there is a big difference between the official site of whitehouse.gov and the extremely inappropriate site of whitehouse.com. Another site is hosted by NetSmartz.org, which is run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Again, this site is targeted mainly to students and parents; however, there is a substantial section for educators. Here, you can order lesson plan kits that are targeted to various grade levels. A final website that I found extremely useful is from eSchoolNews and is an article on how schools are teaching internet safety. One idea that I found interesting in the article is the concept of teaching internet safety through online games. They suggested using material from CyberSmart! or WebWiseKids. I recently was introduced to free programs from EverFi at an Economics conference, and they also have sections on teaching internet safety. I love that these make the incorporation of internet safety information entertaining for kids. Although it is nearly impossible to protect our students from everything, it is crucial that we give them the tools to safely navigate the internet on their own. My hope after this week is to do a much better job of addressing the importance of keeping private information private and how to deal with inappropriate sites when they are happened upon. As always, I look forward to your comments! This week’s exploration centered on screencasting and its possibilities for use in the classroom. I primarily focused on Screencast-o-matic, although there are other possibilities such as Jing available. Screencast-o-matic offered a free download of software and was very simple to install and run on my home laptop. When I had the software installed, I simply resized my viewing screen to include my home screen, and then I was ready to begin. The important thing to remember when screencasting is that simply speaking into a microphone is not sufficient to produce a good screencast. Links to websites must be checked first and a script should be generated and practiced several times prior to production. The screencast that I produced for this week focused on possibilities for utilization in the classroom and gave a brief demonstration of how I would use the tool in my AP Psychology class with my own students. I hope you enjoy the screencast, and I look forward to hearing from you with comments or suggestions to make these better! |
Leah Kurtz
Welcome to my Weebly blog! This is a chronicle of my experiences in the Ed.S. for Instructional Technology program at Kennesaw State University. Come along with me on my grand adventure. Archives
July 2014
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