Group Leadership Project Part B: Storyboard and Script

Here is a link to our storyboard and script for our Group Leadership Project. We worked a bit backwards as a result of my excitement and extra time early on to do some work with students and on the Powerpoint. Wheatley then added to what I started. Leslie, Amanda and Allie created the storyboard and script. Allie will be adding deaf examples to the presentation. I’ll be doing the narration of the script followed by working with Wheatley on any final touches of putting the presentation together. Things are coming together well and our group seems really motivated to be involved and create something we all can be proud of!

Part B- Application of TPACK

”The beauty of TPACK is that it is a great framework to embed our technical knowledge into our preexisting content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. It creates a sense that technology needs to be ubiquitous with education, not a separate entity.” This Step B of the Wicked Problem Project was a bit confusing. I really had to think about what was being taught, who was teaching it, how it was being taught., in addition to how technology would be effectively embedded into the plan. By identifying that we (Wheatley and myself) are teaching teachers (the “students”) how to use two web 2.0 technologies (Google Calendar and Weebly) to create and share their lesson plans with one on one tutoring (pedagogy).

The technical pedagogy for the solution of saving teachers time with lesson planning means that the effort a teacher puts into our current system, Homework Hotlink”, can be greatly minimized. For example, See Mr. B’s lesson plans for this week. He has clearly put in some time creating columns, adding color and creating his lesson plans within this document. If he had to change Monday, for example, because of a snow day, he would then have to re-do his entire week and do so from school. If he had his lesson plans on a Google Calendar and embedded it in Weebly, he could do so simply by logging in to his Google account a within a few clicks, be completely up to date and do so from home, his phone or anywhere. As a matter of fact, Ms. C,one of our current “students”, noted the ease and joy of editing her lesson plans after the snow day. This also addresses the technological accessibility concept.

Although our “Homework Hotlink” doesn’t necessarily represent this, lesson planning is different than ten years ago. It was literally a pen and book with squares option only! Next it went to the ridiculous “Homework Hotlink” form mentioned in part A. Now, with our plan, it will evolve into its next phase which is very technologically driven and in a more user-friendly format.
Technology has to a tool that makes teaching easier, this possible solution is just that. As a teacher that teaches 8 sections of two different classes each year, as well as others, I really appreciate the ability and savings on my time to have a Google calendar created to simply re-date my lesson plans rather than do them again and again and make copies and put them in appropriate mailboxes and substitute folders. Time is saved not only in that I don’t continually have to do them, but when a student is absent, they can be responsible for going into the site, which I have created, to see what they’ve missed and do it. They don’t disrupt my class time with ‘What did i miss?’ questions or ‘Where’s my make up work?’ Additionally, parents can easily add teachers’ calendars to their own to be cognizant of important due dates and study times. In a perfect world, students with their own cell phones and/or Google accounts can do the same and use it as a digital agenda, in turn saving paper and the school tons of money on student agendas.

Technology, content, and pedagogy work together seamlessly with our solution. Simplicity inundates all stakeholders. Our current method is embarrasingly out-of-date and makes us seem technologically inferior... thus doing a disservice to our learners.

Brainstorm Session with Team4Tech: Part A

All members were present at our Thursday, February 10, seven o’clock meeting. I was able to attend the first fifteen minutes and Wheatley was able to join just before I had to leave. Allie, Amanda and Leslie were present the entire time. I believe that everyone did their best to participate and contribute.

We chose to teach Wordle and the technology to facilitate learning using Google Docs- Spreadsheets. Our project will include the following elements: 1) Instructions on how to create a Wordle with screen shots. 2) Features of Wordle also with screen shots. 3) Explain and show 3 examples of how to use it in classroom for different content areas. From my understanding, the examples we will use are two of my classes, Family Life (8th grade) and Computers (6th grade).

Our time-line has everyone busy this week.
By Friday Feb 18, each member will create the following:

* Amanda - Instructions of use
* Leslie - Features of Wordle
* Allie - Deaf example
* Abbie - Examples (Life Skills, potentially have a student modeled example?)
* Wheatley - Example (Spanish)/research?


Storyboard Due Sunday Feb 20th
Next Meeting Time: Google Doc chat?
Thursday March 3: Final project done

We used Adobe Connect to brainstorm as a group. Obvious perks are that it is free and familiar to all of us in Team4Tech due to previous use. Other advantages include that the meeting could occur anywhere there is Internet access. I appreciated and the record-ablity feature for voice, action and chat. I am especially thankful for the recording as I had a prior educational commitment at 7:30 and could not stay for the time agreed upon by all other group members. Now that I’ve had time to review the recorded session, I was able to see some downfalls of the meeting. I suspect, however, that similar issues would arise when using any technology. At any rate, disadvantages of our session included individual technology issues, humming, buzzing, echoes, and unfortunately a poor Internet connection for Wheatley. I think the feedback issue was resolved by ensuring that all participants had their headphones plugged in so that sound from speakers were not re-entering microphones to be heard again. Another disadvantage that I noticed, as I had to watch/listen to much of the meeting later, is that because I don’t personally know anyone, I really could not discern between people’s voices when speaking. I did not know who was saying what or when and two girls had very similar voices; I think Amanda and Allie, but I’m still not completely sure. We had visual abilities at the start of our meeting but they disappeared very soon into it. The visual capabilities would have helped clear that up to see who was speaking when. In addition, I think that I had another course where we had meetings using Adobe Connect and it was helpful to use the hand raise feature before speaking so that no one accidentally interrupts another. With visual cues in a face-to-face conversation it is easy to predict when some is speaking or about to begin. Unfortunately, without visual cues and delay of someone speaking, I think we overlapped each other a few times. Wheatley had technical difficulties. She and I later discussed how frustrating that is when you have more to contribute and cannot. I understood completely because as I watched what I missed, I wished I had been able to participate the whole time to provide input to clarify my own understandings or more quickly resolve an issue that I had past experience with and our meeting could have been less time consuming.

Overall, I think that the meeting went well and was effective use of technology to help us plan our group project.
Link to our meeting.

Wicked Problem Project-Part A

Technophobia Coupled with “Blocked” Accessibility
I began the MAET program in the summer of 2008 as an educational technology novice (Yes, this course is a bit out of sequence for me!). As soon as courses began, I wanted to implement absolutely everything I was learning. However, when I returned to school that fall, with lists of things to try, I quickly realized that so much of what I wanted tackle was impossible as our district’s technological restrictions in our district are incredibly tight. Needless to say, it was a huge disappointment to have so many new educational tools and not be able to use them due to district constraints. Despite the passage of a substantial technology bond, our district remains highly conservative with technology and its use. We have the technology, but the professional discretion of educators is not respected. For example, we have the ability to display our computer monitor contents on our classroom televisions, but we, the teachers, cannot access sites such as YouTube, which are blocked district-wide to avoid exposure to “inappropriate content”. Shouldn’t we, the adults in the classroom, be able to discern which videos or resources might not be appropriate for our student-viewers?

Also, in our district, technology integration is deliberate rather than seamless. Teachers are told they should use “tech A” or “tech B” rather than shown how those technologies might compliment their existing teaching strategies and systems. As a result, many teachers are hesitant when it comes to using and integrating educational technology in their classrooms and daily practices. Among our staff, both fear of the technologies themselves and phobias regarding perceived inadequacy with technology and/or straying from current habits exist.

Rather than waging a technology war independently, my colleague (Wheatley) and I have decided to tag-team on a mini-battle with the goal of upgrading our archaic Homework Hotlink and relieving some of the technology fears of colleagues in our building, and if all goes well, move our efforts on to a higher level; maybe another school or possibly the district.

Our current Homework Hotlink is the epitome of “old school”. It has to be updated weekly and is an approach that does not show that we, as a school, embrace current technology, interactivity, or user-friendliness for all stakeholders involved. Our Homework Hotlink essentially utilizes Word documents as “web pages”. We have teachers who stress weekly over this approach as they regularly have to call web/tech support to assist them in their update. We are required to submit lesson plans weekly in our district and collaborative planning and best practice methods is highly desired. The sad truth is that our current method isn’t easy to use and it truly lacks depth for both teacher and viewer.

Our combined efforts will utilize the cost-free web technologies of Google Calendar and Weebly to help solve the problems that lurk behind our current Homework Hotlink system. One general issue (that is not addressed by our Homework Hotlink as it stands) is that teachers lack time. With more on their plates than ever, teachers simply do not have the extra minutes or hours that are required to properly maintain their Hotlinks. Also, in our building there is a desire to maintain our Evergreen status as a Michigan Green School and show that we are more technologically forward. The Homework Hotlink wastes time and resources by requiring weekly print-outs to “save the assignments from that week” and in a single glance one can see that our “Word document web pages” are less than tech-savvy. With this implementation, we hope to guide our colleagues into the comfort of easy-to-use technologies that can be updated from anywhere that the Internet is available, avoid the need to print paper versions of teachers’ weekly tasks, and help us live up to the notion of being “technologically forward” as well as make voters proud of passing such a generous bond as it would substantiate our accountability in implementing technology.

The first step in our implementation has begun with part 1: a few colleagues have created basic Weebly pages and are embedding their Google Calendars. Fast approaching is part 2: More colleagues creating Weebly sites into which they will embed their Google Calendars where editing is easy, and true interactivity between teachers, parents and students is possible. A change of plans due to a snow day or illness is a quick, simple fix from any computer with Internet access and the interface of Weebly is workable for even the most technophobic educator.

Success will be a self-granted title if we manage to save some teachers' time, give them a more technologically advanced means to communicate, and if the users (teachers/parents/students) say that they like the new format more. These goals can be measured and evaluated with the creation and use of a survey. After evaluating the survey results, we can determine our future direction with our plan. I think that this is a remarkable opportunity to be technology teacher leaders in our school and model the effective use and integration of appropriate educational technologies.

Resources:
Youtube- Weebly for Education

Tech Crunch- Weebly Launches New Managed Site Builder for Educators and Students
BrightHub- Using Weebly for Education ro Create Classroom Websites and Student Blogs
Embed Google Calendar in Weebly tutorial

Link for my video introduction for CEP812

Here's my video intro. Enjoy!

Internet research for Techquest project

The CDC addresses student absences and schoolwork which they refer to as “continuity of learning”, which surprised me. They suggest options to get the material to students who are at home through:
1. Hard copy packets: Photocopies of reference materials, curriculum, and assignments can be prepared in advance for distribution to affected students;
2. Online materials or other aligned content: Digital copies of reference materials, assignments, and audio‐visual learning supports can be made available on the Internet using e‐learning and other Learning Management Systems (LMS) ( e.g., school websites, etc.)
Our school’s plan to ensure continuity of learning mostly relies on number one. Teachers put work together for parents to pick up and students to complete and return. My issue with this has always been that what are we actually assessing if our students can do the work without our teaching?! I’ve always said to kids, “You can’t learn if you aren’t at school!” However, my attitude on this has changed the MAET program and especially CEP820: Teaching k-12 online. Students don’t have to be in school to learn! While surely it has its social perks and benefits working parents, my view was not so accurate. To prove my point, I want to submit some of my survey results as research here:
1. When asked where students usually learn new things with computers, 78% responded that they learn new things at home or at a friend’s house and only 22% said at school.
2. 78% also said that completing homework with a computer was easy because they have access readily available.
3. Most students said they were comfortable with and used technologies (i.e. email, blog, video creation) at least once a week to every day.
4. 89% reported that they contributed to a social networking site every day.
I think the results to my survey are telling, especially in conjunction with students learning at home as a result of absence. It is not that students are unable to learn or work from home, it’s that most teachers aren’t equipped to teach from school and get it home. Sending home a hard packet is for lack of a better term, a pacification of “old school” ways. Learning management systems, email, blogging, vlogging, and even social networking are better tools to utilize for distance learning even if it is only 2 blocks from your classroom.
Truly, traditional education occurs more because we need kids to be in school to assist working parents with child care needs, student socialization and learning public social norms, and because education has not caught up with the way today’s students learn. In other words, education is built more around teaching than it is learning. Teachers are doing things the way they have always been done and not changing at the rate or mode with which students learn. I suppose I’m digressing from my original point, and maybe upsetting my readers here. I’ll redirect…

The U.S. Department of Education Recommendations to Ensure Continuity of Learning are:
• Teacher check‐ins and tutorials: A variety of technologies (telephone, email, web conferencing) can be used to facilitate one‐on‐one interaction between students and teachers, counselors and other appointed adults (e.g., tutors) during prolonged absences or dismissals;
• Recorded class meetings: Using audio or video technology, recorded class meetings can be given to some or all absent students via podcasts, live or on‐demand television, DVD, captioned closed‐circuit or public access television, or online;
• Live class meetings: Schools can use available tools such as conference calling or webinars, online courses, or virtual schools with two‐way interaction between the teacher and students.

In addition, Student Absenteeism: Research Findings and Recommendations for Schools and Local Communities, 2004 research by Glenn Bond consistently found “pre-eminence of condoned absenteeism as the most common and pressing form of absenteeism.”
Common triggers for student absence fell into the three broad categories:
1. Student issues: boredom, lack of attachment to teaching staff, frustration or difficulty with the curriculum and inadequate social support were among the key factors leading to absenteeism.
2. School issues: inconsistencies in engagement practices and teaching quality, and teachers were also seen to have difficulty balancing the needs of absentees and the needs of the broader group.
3. Parental issues: a low regard for education and attendance was often identified in the families of regular absentees, and parenting skills such as time management and discipline were brought into question in the case of some families. Resistance to pressure from schools and poor communication between parents and staff with regard to attendance.
The triggers and the whys are interesting, but I wonder how much this could change if teachers with students who have access to technology at home, and this is obviously a pressing concern, knew how to teach them while they were at home. Would students be more likely to just come to school if they knew they would be responsible for it anyway? For my techquest, I know that a majority of my students have computer and internet access, so I can complete my project using the results from my survey and prior knowledge of my student demographics, assuming that access is for the most part, available to my learners. I have the knowledge and the tools to teach from school/home. My school utilizes a website, that is our “updated” homework hotlink but it is essentially providing students with that aforementioned “hard packet” of assessment rather than teaching or learning. We do not utilize any type of learning management system, although we clearly should. I will continue building upon my 7th grade class curriculum website to complete this project.

Tech Quest Problem/Proposal

I pondered for a long while to come up with a real educational need or opportunity. Many suggested I simply make something up. However, if I am going to put hard work into something, I want myself and my students to benefit from it. If its worth doing, it’s worth doing well, right?!
A real problem that exists in our school, in absenteeism. Students miss a lot of school for many reasons and often fail to make up their work. Especially with extended absents, for illness or vacation, parents often want to have work left in the office to pick up for their child. However, I often find that that work never returns to me and the temporarily excused grade turns into a goose egg, which is a huge detriment to a student’s final score in the class… especially a ten or twenty week course!
There was much talk near the end of our school year about the power of zero! In sum, it says that when a student does nothing on a project or assignment, turns in absolutely nothing, to adjust their grade to a 60% instead of a zero because a zero is not fair and is sixty percent away from the nearest grade. It is extremely difficult, even for a great student, to work back up to earning a satisfactory grade. The debate really seemed to divide our staff. While I understand wanting to accommodate for students, and being fair, too much inside me doesn’t think that it best prepares students for their future. My goal, as a Life Skills educator, is to best prepare students for their future! At any rate, I think that for the case of absenteeism, students need the teaching/learning opportunity, not just the work/assignment. Afterall, assignments are guided practice to give us teachers a gauge at our students learning and our teaching to prepare them for formative assessments. Zhao says that, “Teachers’ technology knowledge consists of three elements: a0 knowledge of problems that can be solved by technology, b) knowledge of a technology that can solve their problems, and c) knowledge of how technology can solve their problems. Teachers who are sufficiently equipped with this knowledge should be able to decide when to use the technology and when not to.”
I believe that this is a time when technology would be highly appropriate to solve the problem. For CEP820: Teaching K-12 Students Online, I created a website for my 7th grade: Life and Living class. It is a place I can send these absent students to review lessons they’ve missed. I think that this techquest is also an opportunity for me to add to what I’ve already done so that it is truly useful to me as an educator.
Zhao points out the increase of schools connected to the internet, and I’d be willing to guess the same of homes connected to the internet. This is a plausible expectation to help students learn what they missed and actually be able to complete work… not just do the work. I could add screencasts, and my last unit on for students to complete at home.
I have access via the web, to some of my past students and surely they would agree to help me out, as if they were absent students. My project addresses the four common places of education as follows: I am teaching, ex-students are learning, the subject matter would be my 7th grade curriculum, and the setting would be the web/internet.
Clearly, I am open to ideas other than adding to my current site, such as an interactive blog or something I may not even be considering. At any rate, I’m all “ears”!