Professional Portfolio Experience - Week 3

The portfolio is coming along nicely. We are now getting into some of the areas that are taking more time and thought to complete. This week I was focused on standards. I had a tough time finding standards. As my job changes from technology to administration I wanted to find standards that reflected my new position. I did many searches for administrative standards. Finally, I was able to find the right search terms to come up with some results.

What I found was the California Professional Standards for Educational Leaders. I also found some standards for administrators from New Jersey. Many were similar so I focused on the standards from California.

As I looked through the standards I picked 5 that were important to me. I also had to have artifacts to back up the standard. I was able to use a project from our statistics class as one artifact but the others came from past administrative projects I have done in the past at my school.

There is lots of work yet to be done but the end product will be a great review of past work and preview of future direction.

Professional Portfolio Experience - Week 1

Well, after over a year of taking courses, I can feel everything coming together. This course, along with the next two, signal the end of the program is near. While in the first lecture of this week's class I felt, just for a minute, an overwhelming feeling come over me. I looked at the work to be done in this course I felt some panic. As time passed, I looked at the assignments and some portfolio examples I started to relax. While this will be an important project, most of the work is not difficult, but it will take some time.

It took me a while to find some examples. I did find the Googlio site after some searching. I did find it difficult to find quality online portfolios. I did find some but they were either incomplete or just plain bad. I would love to see a site that is a directory for online portfolios, similar to those for online lesson plans.

I am looking forward to constructing my online portfolio and looking back on what we have accomplished over the last 15 months.

Facilitating Online Learning - Week 6

My district is just now exploring online learning. We are in the beginning stages of a blended style. We are going to start with existing students and classes at grades 6-12. The initial step will be to extend the classroom outside the physical building. This will give students 24/7 access to the necessary data for their class. All course information will be conducted through this portal. As things progress, after school discussions, chats, assignments, and more will be done using the portal and Elluminate. After teachers and staff get acquainted with the system we will start having students, mainly juniors and seniors who are on track to graduate and students who are ill or suspended, participate in live classroom sessions. Our goal is not to create a separate virtual school but to give more access to our current students.

My students are learning 21st century skills daily. I believe it is my job, as Director of Technology, to give students the opportunity to experience things they will encounter outside of school. Using things like LMS, iPads, iPods, laptops, and many web based services like blogs, wikis, podcasting, and more, will give them a good head start on what they will probably encounter in college and the workforce.

I understand the legislation but I am concerned that additional regulations and court action by the union will hamper the progress of virtual schools. I work in a school that participates in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (I know, a political hot potato, which many public school teachers disagree with, but that is not the discussion). I have seen what legislation has done to good schools in this program and am afraid that the same thing could happen to virtual schools. Choice and virtual schools can be as successful, maybe more successful, than public schools, if given the opportunity. I fear that the opportunity may not arise.

On a final not, I really enjoyed this class. It was very interactive and meaningful. I am hoping to be able to use these skills in my job as I provide professional development to faculty and staff.

Facilitating Online Learning - Week 5

Whew! This week is finished. All that is left is to put the final touches on the group project. Seems like there has been a lot of work in this class compared to others. Not that this is a bad thing, just an observation. This class has been probably the most beneficial of all in the program. I am looking forward to putting some of this to use.

I finally got my 15 minute presentation out of the way. And, of course, I was worried about nothing. It went fine, the discussion was good, and I had plenty of material. I could have gone another 30 minutes on what I had prepared. Glad it is finished.

This week has focused on collaborative learning and groups. My experience with this has been mainly positive. For the most part, all of the collaborative work has been evenly split among the group and we have produced real quality material. There was one class where I took the lead and asked for participation from the group and got no response. I was responsible then for finishing all three group assignments myself. That was frustrating but I was not willing to take a zero for the assignments.

I am not so sure about the socialization aspect. I think social networking is fun but I struggle with this in an educational setting. I see how it can work but I can also see how one could lose control of the situation. I think that schools using a LMS are in a better position than those using places like Facebook and other public social sites. The LMS can be better controlled and does not allow for outside interference.

Now, off for a couple of days for Thanksgiving then back to work on week 6 assignments.

Facilitating Online Learning - Week 4

With my teaching experiences so far, almost all of my lessons have been teacher centered. Now, that being said, I have not taught in over 10 years. Technology was different back in 1998. I would certainly do things differently now. At the time, the only student centered lesson revolved around students creating their own music on a computer and keyboard. Even that process has changed.

While working on this module I am finding the authentic assessments to be the hardest part. I do understand the concept but am having some difficulty applying it to my lesson.

I am also finalizing my discussion points for next week. I am still nervous about not having enough material to cover the time. I am hoping my prompts are good enough to generate some really good discussion.

Facilitating Online Learning - Week 3

This week I chose Access and Equity as my discussion topic. Why? Well, I have experience in a number of different types of schools. I grew up and taught in rural schools, my wife works in an affluent, suburban school, and I now work in an urban school. All three settings provide challenges when it comes to online learning. My school is looking at implementing hybrid classes within the next 12 months. I am always looking for ideas and discussions around access and equity, especially for my urban students.

I have not yet taught an online learning course but I am currently planning some courses. My first course is a tutorial on the gradebook we use at school. I am going to offer this to our teachers who want more understanding of the gradebook functions. I am hoping to go live with this training at the end of the first semester, provided our online environment is setup and ready to go. My greatest challenge will be to make sure everyone is involved and comfortable with the online environment. My goal is to get our teachers to participate in the online format so that they will use it for their classes. It will be a long process but it should benefit everyone.

Planning for this synchronous discussion has been difficult for me. I am not comfortable speaking to groups of people (small or large) so this is taking me out of my comfort level. I do believe that this is something that I can do successfully if I can overcome my nerves. We will see how it goes.

Facilitating Online Learning - Week 2

Many of the tools that are used in our class will be things that I would incorporate into my teaching. My learners will be adults between the ages of 25 and 55. Methods like prompt discussion and initiate participation will be important so my students will have a good example to use with their classes. My job, along with help from others, will be to prepare our teachers for teaching a hybrid class and to facilitate in an online environment. Keeping younger students engaged will be important so the class is not lost. I think effective communication and feedback will also be important to keep the students interested.

I think some of the things I would incorporate are things that I taught to teachers this summer. Creating video responses using Eyejot or using Voicethread to create a presentation may be used. I also think that just responding to questions on the Elluminate whiteboard and participation in class will be effective tools.

I did like your initial contact. It was not only inviting and set a good tone, but it was also clear on where to go, how to access the data, and what to do and by when. There was only the minor problem with the logins but that was quickly fixed and communicated. This is certainly the most organized and the best format that I have experienced in the program so far. This will give me some great tools to pass on to my teachers.

Facilitating Online Learning - Week 1

This is the first week of a new class. It has been hectic with no break to finalize assignments from the last class before starting this one. So far, though, the class has been helpful and will help enhance my online teaching skills.

I can relate the examples of online learning to my daily experiences at work. We are trying to get some teachers to do a blended class and there is some resistance. This comes mainly from a lack of understanding of how to relate to the students in an online environment. Some of the resources that I gather in this will hopefully help them through the process.

So far, I have had no problems using the management system or using the discussion boards. Once we got past the initial login problem last week it has been pretty straightforward. I do like how it is organized and how easy it is to find our assignments.

I will be using Elluminate on a regular basis soon. We are testing some new software from Pearson called Fronter. This is a new LMS environment that is very popular in Europe. In this program Elluminate is a built-in module. We will be using this software for blended classes, for professional development, and for holding administrative meetings. This will be playing a big part in our future communications.

I tried something new in these modules. I actually took one of the quizzes on the gallery tour. This is not usually something that I do but I wanted to test my knowledge on a topic that I was not really familiar with. This gave me an idea to possibly use this method with our staff. After a professional development session we could use a tool like this to see if they understood the material.

Looking forward to next week's class.

Decision Making - Week 6

Well, I finished my last assignment last night. I am glad to be done with this class. I will admit, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. I did learn a lot about statistics and I understand it more now than I did when I was younger. Maybe it is more of a willingness to learn it this time instead of just taking the class as a filler math class in college.

I found some interesting data on the Archives web site. I was not sure what to look up then I found a search for military records. I looked up data on my Grandfather who was a World War II veteran and a prisoner in a German camp for a few months. I was able to find information about his enlistment such as where he enlisted, his term of enlistment, and more. I was also able to find out some information on his time a the German camp. It listed his date of capture, where he was held, and his status (released/rescued). This topic was something he never talked about but I have always been fascinated with. Even though the amount of data on him was minimal I did learn somethings.

I am looking forward to our next class already. Learning how to facilitate an online class will be helpful to me in the future. I am working with some software now that has Elluminate built into its interface. I plan on offering professional development to our teachers and staff starting in the Spring. This is coming just in time. Hopefully I will pickup some good tips to help me plan and manage my classes.

Decision Making - Week 5

This week we took a look at Google Trends. I have heard of people looking at this site before to see the latest hot topics on Google but I had never gone there myself. I liked that users can search keywords and see traffic on that topic over a period of time. Also, to be able to go back to that period of time to see the news and blogs posts related to the topics was nice. Overall, I think it is a good basic tool to gather information. As far as using it in a business setting, I do not think that this is an appropriate tool. There is not enough information given here to make wise business decisions.

As for the statistics part of the class this week, I found the work on z scores to be helpful. I am still a bit confused as to how to calculate it properly but a little more work on it and I will understand it just fine. I will also be glad when we are finished with this class. It has not been difficult but it has been quite a bit of work. Looking forward to moving on to the next class.

Decision Making - Week 4

This last two weeks has been a lot of work. The survey we put together was related to some information that I wanted to gather at work. So I spent a lot of time putting together questions and making sure they were worded the way I wanted. Finally the survey went out and 24 few hours had 80 responses! Great turnout and the results were good for my department.

Now that this process is done it is time to start the in-depth analysis of the results. I am looking forward to what the results really mean.

It also seems that this week and next we some larger assignments. The Hitwise assignment this week is going to take some time. Hitwise is an interesting company but I wonder how accurate they can be with the information they gather. Just because a topic is searched, for example, a political candidate, does not meant that that person is going to win or have a large turnout in their favor. It is interesting to see the trends in searching but I am not sure that it really means all that much in the end.

Decision Making - Week 3

Survey says...

That is the theme this week. I never knew so much thought and planning had to go into a survey. It is a lot more difficult than I thought.

After our group decided on the topic and our participants it was time to put the survey together. Much harder than predicted. I have created a number of surveys in Survey Monkey for our school but I never created the survey from scratch. It was always done by someone else and I just put it in the system. I thought I had a good handle on it until I started putting it in a document. Then everything fell apart.

Hopefully things will come together as we talk about it more in our group. I am looking forward to seeing the results and starting the process of analysis.

Decision Making - Week 2

Pirates and monkeys. That is what will stick with me most this week. Despite my lack of enthusiasm, the statistics part of the class has not been that bad and I am starting to understand things a bit more.

The assignment that took the most of my time was the survey comparison. One of the sites that caught my eye was Survey Pirate. I happened to see that title in the list and had to check it out. After all, last Sunday was International Talk Like A Pirate Day! (Everyone knows about this, right? Was I the only one celebrating?)

After visiting the site, not only was I disappointed that there were no pirates but the software was not that good. You can't judge a book by its cover, right?

The other site I checked out was Survey Monkey. I had used this site in the past but have been off of it for about 2 years. I was surprised at all of the new features that were added. I was also surprised that, after adding these features, the price of the site did not go up. There were lots of great enhancements and the price is great (only $200/year for unlimited responses).

I really enjoyed the Capterra site as well. What a great resource for finding any sort of software that you may need. Who knew that there were so many choices!

Decision Making - Week 1

Statistics. Not my favorite subject. I was a poor math student in high school and college. It just does not interest me unless it has to do with physics, which I find fascinating. The process of coming up with statistics is very boring to me. So, to say the least, I am not looking forward to the math part of this class.

One thing that I do like is to look at numbers and analyze them. Numbers can tell a story. When it comes to statistics at work, it my job is to export data, like grades, attendance, and test scores from our student information system and get them to others to compute and analyze.

I am hoping that this class will provide me a better toolset for dealing with statistics. I would like to know how to better analyze the statistics and put them to good use. Our school has been doing data driven instruction for the last couple of years. This is the type of class that I need to better understand that process.

Facilitating Collaboration - Week 5

Wow, this week I found tons of Web 2.0 resources. I checked out the Go2Web20 and All Things Web 2.0 sites this week and was almost overwhelmed with what I found on those pages. I have had teachers ask me for site and application recommendations for their classrooms in the past few years and have always looked at purchasing some tool to fulfill their needs. With these sites I found almost everything for free! This is going to be a great resource for me and my teachers.

I am still working on my Google site. I have the pages created. Now I need to add content, graphics, and mess around with the page colors a bit. So far Google Sites is really easy to use and, since it is part of the Google Apps package that our school uses, readily available for our teachers to use without signing up for any additional accounts.

Facilitating Collaboration - Week 4

This week was another great week of resources for my job. I spent a lot of time researching the screencast solutions. In the past I have used different applications like Snap Pro X or Quicktime to record desktop movies. I then had to find ways to publish or distribute these videos.

After checking out some of the options, I chose to use Screenr for my assignment. What I liked about this was how easy it was to use and that it was connected to my Twitter account. My goal for a couple of years has been to create short tutorial videos to replace the over 100 page technology manual that we distribute to teachers. I plan on having a Twitter account setup so that each time I post something a message is sent out to a group e-mail address so all teachers and staff get a message. Now, as I create these videos I can automatically Tweet that it is done and all teachers and staff will get notification about it.

I also spent time this week working on my Google Sites pages. I have been working on a site for the Messmer Tech department for a while and this is going to motivate me to get it done. Still lots to do to get this ready before school starts.

Facilitating Collaboration - Week 3

This week was a great learning experience. I was able to use Flickr and get used to how that service worked. This is something that I had been wanting to do but just had not committed the time to the project until now. I can see where teachers might be able to use this in their classroom with posting artwork, activities, and more. For me, I can see a personal use but not a professional use. I also used Flickr to post to my blog. It was extremely easy to setup and use.

The RSS reader was also quite informative. I had been following RSS feeds for a number of years. Until now, each RSS site was bookmarked and I checked each one individually. The reader now allows me to view all updates without going to multiple sites. If teachers knew about RSS feeds and readers it could save them lots of time and energy browsing different sites.

I am most excited about using Google Sites. I have already started working on a web site for our tech department. This will be used for professional development (videos, documents) for my staff. I am hoping to link our ticketing system to a page so all teachers can go to one page to search our knowledge base, submit a trouble ticket, and get professional development.

Star Wars

Star Wars
Originally uploaded by Bartels Family

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Star Wars in Concert show at the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. I had 7th row, center seats on the floor. It was a great show and was hosted by actor Anthony Daniels who played C3PO in all six films. The orchestra played music to the movies on a giant 60 foot LED screen. It was an awesome show and would go again.

Facilitating Collaboration - Week 2

Well, I have had a couple of days off of work so I was able to get my course work done early this week. What will I do with all of my extra time?

Anyway, this week we spent time looking at Wikis, Microblogging, and online photo sharing. This forced me to get a Twitter account. I will be honest, just like Facebook, Twitter was one of those things that I just don't have a desire to use. I see its purpose and understand why people use it. I also see how it can be used by a teacher or by the school but it is not something that I feel the need to use personally. I am finding some good information from the people I follow but many of these things are retweets or post from RSS feeds that I already follow.

Online photo sharing is something I have dabbled in for the last few years. About 6 years ago I had a MobileMe account from Apple. Here I created a web site and used iPhoto to post and share photos with family. I decided that the cost was too much for the use I got out of it so I let the account expire. I have been looking at other ways to share photos. I have a Flickr and a Picasa account and am trying to determine which is better. I do store most of my photos in iPhoto and that has a built-in publishing tool for Flickr. It works fine with the testing that I have done. The one thing that worries me is that, while I want to share photos with my family members, I do not want photos of my kids posted for the public to see. If family members do not have Yahoo or Google accounts they are not able to see the photos unless I make them public. At least that is what I can tell so far. I have not explored all of the options so I will continue testing different services until I find one I like.

Facilitating Collaboration - Week 1

Blogs. Lots of info about blogs this week. I recall when I first heard about blogs. I wondered why anyone would be interested in what I had to say. It wasn't until about 2 years ago that I started using it in my job to communicate with teachers and staff. Since then almost all of our teachers have some sort of way to electronically communicate with their students. Some use a blog, some use Moodle, and some have used Google Sites to create their own classroom web site.

It is amazing how far blogs have come in the last 5 years. It seems that everyone has a blog with something to say. It has really changed how we communicate and get information. Now, the important part is to have the ability to determine what is fact and what is opinion or fiction. Our students need to learn this skill. It is a similar to the debate about Wikipedia. Blogs also have the power to influence people. I think it is important that we also teach our students responsibility when it comes to blogging.

Digital Storytelling - Week 5

Pecha Kucha. This is what it is all about this week. And boy, will I be glad when this week is over. I am finding this project quite difficult. I found the topic and the pictures without a problem. My biggest issue is telling the story.

I wrote the storyboard without a problem only to find out that when it came to recording the audio that I had way more than 20 seconds for each slide. I had to re-write the storyboard a couple of times. Now I have everything down so it fits in the time limit but I am having a tough time making it sound like a story. Right now it sounds very scripted and like I am just spewing out facts. I need to add more to make it flow nicely but that will cause me to re-write the storyboard again.

I am also finding that 20 seconds goes by really fast. I thought that a nearly 7 minute story would be tough to tell but when I have this many slides and have to squeeze in the info for each slide in 20 seconds the time goes by quickly.

This project is probably one of the toughest that I have run into in this program. That's not a bad thing, it was just unexpected. Even through all of this I am still enjoying the project and am looking forward to the outcome.

Digital Storytelling - Week 4

This week we are finishing up our texts. I am still really excited with the Presentation Zen book. I will take a lot from that book. I am hoping to really integrate these ideas into my presentations as I move forward.

I am starting to storyboard the slides for my Pecha Kucha presentation. I am finding that process a little difficult. It is easy to plan out the slides but writing down what I am going to say on each slide seems to be taking some time. It is especially hard to get that down to 20 seconds for each slide. I am starting to make progress but it is tougher than I thought.

I also spent some time creating a Prezi. I found this process difficult at first because of some technical difficulties. Once I got over that problem I found the program to be easy to use and got some nice results. Although I do like the Prezi format, I think it only fits in a certain place. It is not something that I would like to look at for a long time. I find the same transitions over too long to be boring and repetitive. Don't get me wrong, I do like the format, I just feel that it can be overused.

Digital Storytelling - Week 3

After taking a week off from the homework I have started hitting the books again. I am really enjoying this class. There are so many tips that I have picked up that will help me with my presentations and stories.

Presentation Zen is, by far, the most helpful element of this class to me. It is giving me a whole different way to think about my presentations. I remember in Chapter 5 that it talked about Steve Jobs and his presentation style. I have seen a number of his presentations online and I have always wondered why they stuck with me and impressed me so much. Many of the techniques he uses are in this book. In addition to his slides, he is just a great speaker. He has a way of talking to people and making them see his point of view.

I am also excited to see us use Animoto. I started using this about 2 years ago. I remember uploading my first photos to this service. I was amazed at what I got in return. I have even used it in presentations. I have taken photos of teachers doing group activities and then shown them the end product at the end of the workshop. When I first started using it they did not have an education account. I am looking forward to upgrading my account to the education version.

Digital Storytelling Week 2

This week we had to create a presentation using Voicethread. I had never heard of this tool before but it sure does make it easy to create a narrated story with pictures. What a great way for teachers to get kids involved with storytelling. It is similar to creating podcasts but without the hassle of using some complex software. There are some limitations to the software and the free tool is not feature-rich like the subscription model. At least the full version is not too expensive. At only $60/year for 100 students the price is affordable by most schools.

I am also starting to realize where storytelling can come in handy. I did a presentation yesterday at a school about how our teachers use technology in the classroom. I did this mostly by demonstration but found myself telling stories and using those stories as examples for the teachers. They reacted in a positive way and told me at the end of the discussion that the stories I used as examples helped them realize what they could do with the technology in their classroom.

I might start using students and teachers at my school to create short videos that I can show during my presentations. This will hopefully create a positive connection with the audience. They will be able to see how students and teachers are affected by technology. By having it come from someone other than an administrator they may be more open to embracing technology in the classroom.

Digital Storytelling Week 1

I have been looking forward to this class for some time now. For the past 5 or 6 years, I have been playing with things like iMovie and Garage Band making movies and podcasts. My knowledge of this process was limited to the tools that I had in front of me and I never went out on the web to find other tools and resources to improve my creations. I am hoping to pick up some new ideas on how I can share things with colleagues and family members.

The first week focused on PowerPoint and storytelling. I am glad that there is a movement to change how presentations are done. I have been through a few marketing meetings in the past few months and the presentations have been awful - lots of words and reading right from the screen. When it came time to do a presentation on technology I immediately knew what I wanted and didn't want to do.

One of the things I really want to improve is my ability to tell the story of events in my kids lives using pictures and sharing them on the Internet with family. I used to have my own secured web site for family but that became a lot of work to maintain. I am starting to explore things like Flickr and Picasa but would like to know what other options are out there.

By the way, I really like the new AngelLearning portal. It is a lot easier to find all of the items related to the class.

Similarities and Differences, Homework and Practice, and Generating and Testing Hypotheses

I can think of a time when I asked a student about similarities and differences. Before my technology career I was a music teacher. There were many times when we would look at two pieces of music and find similarities and differences. I was very pleased when the students would pick out some of the harder to find similarities or differences. There was one piece called Bravade Esprit by David Shaffer. The students named at least 10 ways that the composer similar in form and orchestration to music by Jim Swearingen.

I can think of a time when I taught a music appreciation class to 7th and 8th graders. I asked them to complete some homework covering Baroque music, specifically learning about the works and life of J.S. Bach. There was a complete revolt by the students. They had no interest in the music or the class. The students refused to complete the assignments and failed the quiz (listening and writing) on purpose. Needless to say I was not pleased with this outcome. I was forced to revisit the chapter taking a new approach to try to gauge some interest in music of the time period.

Generating and testing hypotheses is something that I use regularly in my daily work. Every time I come across a new piece of software or teaching resource I generate a hypothesis on how I think it should work and then test out that theory. In addition, I generate a hypothesis about how the teachers will react and use the new tool. A few times I have been way off on my hypothesis but, luckily, my teachers are open to embracing most of the tools I give them.

Clay Shirky Review

When I saw these videos posted as part of this week's assignment, I was very excited. In the spring of 2009, I read the book "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations." From the first chapter I was fascinated at how this new form of interaction and socializing works. It was great to see and hear him say these things and expand on them in these videos.

The first video on Institutions vs. Collaboration was directly from his book. He wrote about some of the same sites (Meetup and Flickr) and used some of these same examples. It was interesting to me to see the chart that he used to show the distribution of contributors to Flickr. He did talk about it and there may have been a chart in the book but seeing it on screen and hearing him talk about it drove the point home. Don't we sometimes see the same thing in our classes? Usually there is a small group of people that answer most of the questions while others only answer one or two, even though they know the answer.

If you noticed, at the beginning of the video it was date stamped 2005. 2005! That was 5 years ago. Many of us are just now coming around to understanding and using the technology that he was talking about 5 years ago. Much of this seems new to us but in terms of technology, it is actually quite old.

The other video is more recent, from summer 2009. There was one comment that really stands out to me and it was mentioned briefly in his book. He basically said that people who are good conversation are not good at creating groups and those good at creating groups are not good at conversation. How true. When I talk to younger people (18-24) many of them are great at social media and groups but have a hard time with a conversation. They don't like to look you in the eye and talk to you. On the other hand, I can sit with people and talk to them but do not understand or necessarily like the whole social media movement. It takes away the personal connection you get when you talk to someone in person.

The other key point that he brought up was that everyone is a consumer and a producer. This has never been more true than now. If you look at technology items on the market now, they are all multi-functional. They allow you to not only watch a video but also record, edit, and publish one from a single device.

Clay Shirky talks about some very interesting topics. I look forward to hearing more from him.

Online Tools Review

The first tool I reviewed was bubbl.us. I found this product very simple and easy to use. The product the user can produce is a neat and clean map. Its simplicity is also its worst feature. It does not have the ability to add graphics to the design. While this is not always necessary it would be a nice feature.

The next tool was Mindmeister. This product was also very easy to use and produced nice, clean maps. The basic account is limited in its features. Users can only create and share up to 3 maps. By upgrading to the premium account, users get the ability to upload and use files and images and can create maps offline. The cost for the premium account is $59/year.

The third site I checked out was Education Oasis. This site has a number of different graphic organizers that can be downloaded. These are not organizers that you can use online but rather files that can be downloaded. There are a quite a few different types of graphic organizers for many different uses. This is one tool that almost all teachers can use and they do not have to have the a lot of computer experience.

Objectives, Feedback, and Recognition

What kinds of technologies can I use to help students set objectives?

There are two tools that I use to help others set objectives. First, I like to introduce new technologies either using a PowerPoint or a short movie in combination with a verbal introduction. I also will provide a demonstration showing them what this new technology can do. This gets my teachers familiar with what my goals are by implementing this technology.

I can think of a time that I asked students to fill out a survey to provide feedback.

A survey is something I use on a regular basis and it is a process that everyone understands. I like to ask my teachers what they need from me to successfully use new technologies in the classroom. I then use that information to push their goals higher so they can provide a more meaningful experience for students. In general, this method works great. The teachers provide me with great feedback and, after knowing them for a few months, I know their technical abilities and can set goals for them accordingly.

What questions do I have about using technology to provide recognition?

I am not one who provides a lot of recognition unless someone is doing something extraordinary. In that case, I usually e-mail the person and may mention them in a staff meeting. I need to get better at recognizing when people reach their personal goals or do something that is outside of their normal technological abilities. These things happen quite often but I am not sure how to use technology to provide recognition.

Enhancing Learning Materials through Technology Week 2 Article Review

I read the article Focus on Effectiveness: Setting Objectives. The very first objective really opened my eyes. I have a tendency to set objectives that have a very narrow outcome. To me, the objective is only met if I reach the goal I set in my mind. It must be exactly how I want it or it is not successful. Now, what I want and what is successful may be two different things. I may be able to implement a program at my school and make it work without meeting every little goal in my mind.

I also do not allow students, or in my case teachers, enough time to adapt. I expect all of them to pick up new technologies quickly and do not have patience for those who cannot figure it out.

Again, I am not a very flexible person and expect everyone to understand things the way I do. I like to carefully plan things and when it does not go as planned I think it is not a success. Working on some of these objectives may help relieve stress in my job.

Enhancing Learning Materials through Technology Week 1

This week we were to read about learning and teaching principles. Two of these principles really stuck out to me.

The first was the learning principle stating that students' prior knowledge can help or hinder learning. I never really thought about that before but as soon as I read that title it made complete sense to me. Students do come into a situation with a certain knowledge and what they know influences how they interpret and react to the new ideas presented to them. The same is true in adults. In an adult, this prior knowledge makes it hard to teach them something different or new. When I have to teach a new technology to teachers, this prior knowledge and attitude keeps some of them from really taking their teaching skills to a new level.

That kind of leads into the next principle that I connected with. That principle states that effective teaching involves progressively refining courses based on reflection and feedback. Again, the prior knowledge principle comes into play. If a teacher is knowledgeable and comfortable in their lessons they sometimes do not feel the need to change. I know many teachers who would not change their lessons if they were not forced to use a new technique or technology in their classroom. Many of these teachers have been teaching the same way for years and have no interest in changing. I think it is important that teachers review their methods and lessons regularly and ask for feedback. Changing their approach and technique makes them more interesting to the many unique styles of student learning

Internet Learning Resources Week 3

The last couple of weeks have brought up some interesting topics. The first one was the quote from Tom March about the Internet being "an embarrassment of riches" and is useless without teachers. There were some interesting reactions to this quote from class members and the diverse thoughts were great to read.

The other big topic that was interesting for me was the Wikipedia debate. Wikipedia is one of those things that seems to bring out very strong feelings in people. It is almost like discussing religion or politics. Some people are adamant that Wikipedia is no good while others try to find a use for it. Again, I really enjoyed reading these comments and am anxious to see how Wikipedia evolves and whether or not it becomes accepted in education.

I also really liked getting in back into the group work. I was again joined up with Brian and Kylie who were in my group in the first class. We have all come a long way since then and it was good to catch up a bit with them.

One of the items we reviewed was virtual classrooms. We strayed from the assignment a bit and reviewed an alternate online classroom. We decided to see what WebEx could do for education. It is widely used in the business world for trainings and meetings but could that be adapted to education? We found that it had most of the same features that Elluminate did. Depending on what tools you wanted for your online classroom, it could be used for online classrooms.

Once more week and we have finished our fourth course in this program. Hard to believe that we have already come this far. I am already looking forward to the next class.

Internet Learning Resources Week 1

This is the first week of a new class. After a few glitches with our first lecture we are now off and running with our first group of assignments.

Understanding what Internet Learning Resources are is key to this first class. We all have ideas of what they are but I think that most of us expanded our definition after looking at the links provided to us.

For a few years, I have been providing my teachers with resources like MIT's OpenCourseware and iTunes U. Teachers have used these lesson plans, videos, activities, and handouts to enhance, and in some cases, replace their lessons. I now have more resources for them so they can continue to improve their classroom.

Technology Tools Week 6 - Course Review

Once again, this was a very informative class for me. A couple of things really stand out and are things that I will use in my job.

First, the software evaluation tool review was extremely helpful. Right now, I have to know about the programs, research them, and decide if they get installed or not. By using an evaluation tool, the teachers need to do the research and get the all of the appropriate information to make a decision. This will save me a lot of time when deciding on software for the classroom.

Another item that was really helpful were the guidelines for professional development. I need to create some professional development courses for our staff to introduce new initiatives like Open Office and Google Apps. Using some of the guidelines in the book, I will be able to produce helpful and meaningful professional development courses.

Finally, I really learned a lot about using Google Apps spreadsheets. Now that we are moving forward with implementing Google Apps in our school, it is important that I know how to use the programs.

Overall, I thought this class was very well done. Thanks to everyone in my group for working so well together to accomplish our goals.

Technology Tools Week 5

After a long break, it is finally time to get back to work. This week we looked at software evaluation tools. At my school, the teachers come to me with the software, I review it, and purchase and install if approved. There is no real formal approach. It is just done via e-mail or phone. Looking at these evaluation tools gave me some things to think about.

Some of these evaluations were very simple, asking only basic questions about how it will be used and if it applies to state standards. The evaluation tool from Sun Prairie was definitely the most thorough tool and the one that our group chose to be the best. It covered the cost and standards and requested input and approval from administrators. In larger districts, this is probably a good idea. In a smaller situation, like mine, I fill the role of most of the people on the sheet.

I think it is a good thing to have some sort of process in place for evaluating and purchasing new software. It is something that I will put on my to-do list for summer.