The Final Post

Well, the nearly twenty month journey is now over. The 8:00-9:00 PM Thursday night time slot will now be opened up to high school basketball and Grey's Anatomy. While it has been a challenge to balance grad work with full time teaching, coaching two sports, and the numerous other things that life brings on, I have no regrets about taking on the program and the experience was a valuable one. My primary goal heading in was to enhance my knowledge and skills using technology in the classroom and I met that goal and went beyond that.

Professionally many of the tools and skills I have gained through the program have been invaluable. My teaching has been transformed as most of my lessons include some type of technology usage. Although some of this is used by me there is also a lot of opportunities for my students to use it as well. As I teacher I am starting to evolve into more of a facilitator of learning rather than a dispenser of content. I have also started to become more of a teacher leader in my building with technology.

Moving forward I am excited about the possibilities for me professionally. I expect that my teaching will continue to improve and my role as a technology teacher leader will grow as well. My goal is to start some online teaching in some form. Ultimately I would like to teach continuing education classes to teachers about using instructional technology and possibly set up some online classes for high school or college students.

CEDO 599 Entry One

My project will be implementing the flipped classroom. The plan is to complete a unit or lesson with my direct instruction done via an online video clip that I will create. Students will be assigned to watching the lessons outside of the classroom and in-class activities will be much more based on discussion, group work, and authentic activities such as primary source documents or problem based projects.

Advantage my project could bring is that my teaching could be dramatically changed. Although I am skeptical about using the flipped classroom for all my direct instruction it could be a way to help it. One of the struggles I face as a social studies teacher is the daunting amount of content that I am required to teach. There is not nearly enough time for discussions, group work, and authentic activities. Providing the lectures to students out of class may allow me more time to complete those more in-depth and meaningful activities. Having accessible online lectures may also be beneficial as a supplement to struggling students who need additional instruction. It may also appeal to students who want to pause and rewind certain portions of the lecture.

I do expect some potential problems. My biggest concern is that students will simply not watch the lessons. It would be great if there was a program that monitored who and how long each lesson was watched but I have not found one to date. If students do not watch the lessons then it will likely not be a very effective idea. I also am concerned about the time it takes to create flipped lessons. Creating a few lessons for the project will reasonable but finding time to do it frequently could be problematic.

Despite my concerns I am truly excited to try the flipped classroom. It is my hope that students benefit from the lessons and it becomes something I can share with other teachers.

CEDO 565 Entry Six

Leadership is a complicated and challenging skill. It requires a great deal of communication, understanding, persistance, and work. Schools have historically favored a top down leadership model with occassional directives from administration and teachers being isolated and independent. Newer models favor collaboration and teacher leadership. Leading peers can be extremely challenging as there is technically very little formal recourse that can be taken by the leader. For this reason teacher leaders must be positive and focus on improvement and communication. They must win over the support of their peers by establishing themselves as on their side and there to improve them and not judge them. This is especially challenging in a historically isolated profession.

I have always felt, and continue to feel, that I possess good leadership qualities. As a relatively young teacher I still have many facets of leadership to develop and experience is one of them. I have already went to conferences and presented at an inservice as positive steps towards teacher leadership. It will be important for me to continue to positively communicate and collaborate with my colleagues as I hope to grow into a leadership role. I due enjoy sharing my successful classroom strategies with others and want to play a key role in improving education in the future.

Although I believe that to truly improve education the stakeholders within the system will play a vital role it is hard to say that it can only be improved from within. As much respect as I have for my fellow educators and as seriously as I take my profession the reality is teachers have a limited scope of what is necessary for students to succeed in modern private sector jobs. There are universal skills and values such as hard work, discipline, punctuality, and quality that ring true in any line of work but the job market is constantly changing and educators are isolated from it a lot of the time. Therefore it will be necessary for schools to continue to partner with the community and local businesses to help bridge the gap that exists. I will continue to grow professionally by staying up to date on best practices and new educational initiatives. Someday I hope to possibly also become an Instructional Technology leader in a school district and maybe even an administrator.

CEDO 565 Entry Five

Reading about helping teachers improve instruction was captivating to me. In my experience I have noticed administrators using several of the strategies in the chapter to support my teaching (focusing on positives, supporting my self proclaimed weaknesses, providing me with feedback, etc.). Most of the time I have found it extremely helpful and appreciated the comments. Our school began group observations in which all three administrators and a teacher would observe a class and follow it up with a discussion. This was particularly valuable as it gave me a chance to receive feedback from not only my bosses but a peer as well. It has promoted collaboration within the building by facilitating discussion about best practice and giving teachers chances to show and learn from each other. The program is continuing this year and now include department crossovers to continue to promote a building wide professional learning community. I have really enjoyed the process and wish it was something that could be done more frequently. Apparently it must be the Millenial in me wanting that constant feedback and desire to collaborate with others :-)

The chapter did cause me to really reflect more on change in schools. I still hold on to the idea that teachers can be difficult to change largely due to their passion and because many of their lessons and strategies have worked for a long time. I have however noticed many occasions in which best practices were not being used and colleagues have chosen to not listen to new ideas or feedback. This challenge is very difficult for administrators and teacher leaders alike. Teacher leaders are caught in an especially difficult situation because they are still a peer to the teachers that they are leading. It is my hope that the increased availability and use of data in schools will provide more ammunition to promote best practice for all, even those who are uncomfortable with the change.

CEDO 565 Entry Four

Reading about climate and morale in the textbook was an interesting reflective activity. With all of the upheavel in education Wisconsin has experienced over the past two years there has been plenty of times in which teacher morale has been low. It has been challenging for teachers who are feeling unappreciated and disrespected to have the same zest and energy in the classroom. Although most do truly love what they do and their sense of responsibility and professionalism have kept them working hard, it may be some time before things stabalize. It will be an important responsibility for both administrators and teacher leaders to keep morale up and facilitate a positive climate.

On top of being in a department with an at-times negative climate a lot of what I read about in the book rang true. Over the past year the climate in the department has improved dramatically and it has felt as though the group has become more productive and collaborated better. As our school moves more to working with data it will be interesting to see how the climate of the building corresponds to student achievement and if there is a way to measure it.

CEDO 565 Entry Three

Reading the chapter in the textbook this week really helped me better understand a lot of the actions that have been taken by administration during my 5+ years teaching. There is no doubt that teachers can be...somewhat difficult...to deal with. And not always for bad reasons. Teachers are people who are passionate about what they do and take a lot of pride and ownership in their work. Managing them is a challenge and being a teacher leader, with no legal power, brings about a new set of challenges. But with that being said being a teacher leader can be very powerful as well. I am a coach and although coaches provide leadership to their team, there needs to be players who are effective leaders as well. Although players do not have the power to take any direct action they play a huge role in the success of any team by improving performance and accountability. Teacher leaders can have a similar impact.

The generations articles were also interesting. It does help explain some of the differences that I feel that I have with some older colleagues. Although I try not to view generational conflicts as a right and wrong type of issue there can definitely be value clashes. It must be extremely challenging for school leaders to manage this. With those differences however there is always room for growth and generations can pass on their best values for the good of the system.

CEDO 565 Entry Two

One of the things that I am really trying to learn more about is the use of data in schools. Although we have taken an entire course that focused on it, I still am a bit unsure and skeptical about some of its uses. Even with that, considering the increasing importance of data in education, I need to jump on the bandwagon soon.

My current struggle with data is the lack of training that educators get. New evaluation systems and No Child Left Behind evaluate districts and will likely evaluate teachers on data that most people do not understand and cannot put into context. Looking at the WINSS site was a good exercise as it is an excellent tool that provides great information but my first thought is,"how can an average person understand or measure the significance of this?". Jargon such as AYP, advanced and proficient, or composite score have meaning to educators but likely do not mean much to the general public.

The message that I am sending is that more training is needed and needed soon for teachers. If districts and states are creating systems to evaluate teachers based on all of this data and then using it to determine salary or even hiring/firing it is imperative that teachers understand it. And even then there are questions about the quality of data used and likely the need to acquire more data. More data will likely cost more money which means cuts from other important places. Although I understand the purpose of goals and measuring success, it just seems that education is coming to a place where jargon and statistics will mean more  than quality instruction and supporting educators.

CEDO 565 Entry One

One of my main goals in taking the MEIT Program is to become a technology leader for other teachers. Although by no means do I claim to know all there is to know about Instruction Technology, I have felt that I am very proficient in its use and the next step is to find ways to become a leader.

Schools have historically had a top-down leadership structure but educational reforms are giving more leadership options for teachers. Whether attending a conference, being on a committee, or presenting to the staff there are a growing number of ways that teachers are taking a leadership role. I have had experience doing all of those three things and they have been a good first step in taking a leadership role in my school.

It is my hope that this class teaches me some tools and strategies to enhance my leadership role in my school. I feel my knowledge of instructional technology is something that could benefit many other teachers, and in turn would help students. It is my hope that after this course my influence will spread in my building and beyond.

CEDO 555 Final Reflection

I was excited to get the chance to learn about and create a portfolio in hopes that I could possibly have my students create them. I successfully completed my portfolio and also gained an extensive understanding of the best way to integrate them in my classroom. 

Creating the actual portfolio was time consuming and at times challenging. I admittedly procrastinated on more than I should have throughout the process. Despite that fact I am pleased with the end product. It gave me a great chance to look back and reflect on what I have learned and done throughout the MEIT Program. Gathering artifacts and reflecting on each course was an enjoyable and one of the easiest parts of the process. I liked getting to look back on what I had previously created and tie it all together. Choosing standards was also a pretty straight forward although categorizing artifacts was a little more challenging. 

I am looking forward to the culminating project. I have decided to flip my classroom for an entire unit by turned my lessons into online lectures. This is a topic I have read a lot about and feel it is time to create an extensive experiment to determine how effective it is. It will allow me to integrate what I have learned into my classroom instruction. If successful it may allow me to dramatically transform my classroom. 

There is no doubt that I will be having my students create digital portfolios this year. In my opinion it has become a very valid and quality summative assessment that can measure and enhance learning.

CEDO 555 Entry One

And so begins the portfolio experience. It does bring me back to my teacher education program a little bit as I had to build three portfolios through that experience, but none were digital. I do recall the experience being worthwile as the evidence and reflection were memorable. I found the portfolio in a closet the other day as a matter of fact. Taking a look at it has caused me to reflect a bit on the experience back then and my thoughts now.

First off it will be nice to have a neatly organized digital portfolio as opposed to the big and bulky binder that has traveled with me for six years. Having an electronic binder is also more conducive to sharing and collaboration as it can easily be viewed and commented on by others. It will allow for more creativity and a more diverse collection of artifacts.

I have also been inspired to have students create portfolio's in my summer school class this year. My Civics students will be submitting a webpage that displays reflections on examples of their best work related to course objectives. I am very excited to see how they turn out and feel they will be better indicators of student achievement than a traditional final exam.

So the gathering and reflecting will soon begin...

CEDO 550 Entry Six

The Facilitating Online Learning Course has given me a lot to think about in regards to the future of education. It is my belief, and a big part of the reason I chose to get my Master's Degree through this program, that technology will play a huge role in the future of education and is not going to be a passing fad or have a small niche. Online learning will be a big part of this and could change the way education is delivered.
Many schools are creating virtual schools and requiring online courses for graduation and those districts are likely going to be far ahead with changes in education. It will likely become commonplace in teacher education programs that students get certification in online teaching and many districts will require it of all their teachers. My main question is, what will education look like in 5-10 years? What role will online learning play in all of this?
One of my hopes is that I will soon get the opportunity to teach online courses myself. There is a growing segment of people including adult learners, higher education students,  and K-12 students who can greatly benefit from online learning and I want to play a role in that. I continue to be happy that my passion for education and instructional technology continues to grow and I am starting to look forward to supplementing my existing career with what I learn.

CEDO 550 Entry Five

Although it is difficult to make accurate predictions of the future there are several things that I do see happening:
1. Retinal or fingerprint recognition software will become a significant part of online education. One of the main drawbacks of online education is that it does leave the door open for academic dishonesty. Although most students will do their work there is potential for fraud or cheating to occur. Therefore I predict that computers will come with some sort of identity recognition software that force users to prove their identity.
2. Textbooks will become obsolete. Although this is not by any means a bold prediction it is unlikely that budget strapped districts will invest in textbooks for much longer. Even e-textbooks may become more obsolete as teachers may choose to create custom and more interactive options such as wiki's, podcasts/vodcasts, or webquests to present content. Most subjects also already contain a variety of online resources that are free to use.
3. Tighter copywrite and fair use restrictions will be legislated. Although I do not support the SOPA law and worry about censorship on the web, the reality is that a lot of material is being pirated and people are not being compensated for their work. Eventually this will have to be addressed.
4. Teachers will spend a majority of their face-to-face time with struggling learners. Most students are more than capable of learning through primarily web-based means. Moving forward it will be more effective and efficient for most students to get a majority of their instruction through online learning and teachers will spend most of their face-to-face time working with students who do not respond to online learning or need intense interventions.
5. Online learning will be the key to America's future prosperity. No longer will schools be able to use the excuse of not having enough effective teachers or students not being able to have access to the best education. Online learning opens up doors to students in the most difficult of educational scenarios and truly can offer everyone a high-quality education.

So there are my predictions for the future of online learning. It would be nice to get a couple of them right.

CEDO 550 Entry Four

Blogging is a formative assessment tool that could be valuable in online learning. It is a way for students to quickly demonstrate understanding of a learning objective while also providing easy monitoring and feedback for the teacher. It allows students to create a personalized learning experience and better connect to their learning which are fringe benefits to the formative assessment experience.

• Student Responds: Student posts answering a question or reflecting on a topic taught during a lesson or activity.
• Monitor the Response: Using an RSS Reader teacher will be able to efficiently monitor student blog entries.
• Diagnose the Response: Teacher will informally determine student understanding in relation to the specific learning targets in order to decide what action should be taken.
• Share Feedback Based on the Diagnosis: Teacher will provide comments on student blogs relating their response to the learning target. Feedback will fill gaps in student understanding and if necessary will provide links or ways for student to receive additional instruction or intervention. Teacher may need to intervene more intensively if student shows minimal understanding of objectives.
• Student Uses Feedback to Learn: The feedback, additional instruction, and/or intervention should help fill in gaps in learning allowing the student to perform better on the summative assessment.
• Report Growth and Celebrate: Teacher and student will be rewarded with high achievement on summative assessment.

CEDO 550 Entry Three

One of my primary goals in taking this Master's Program is to develop and teach online courses on a full or part time basis. What I have realized is that in many cases being an online instructor can be just as or even more demanding than a regular classroom instructor. An online instructor must be available to their students well beyond the traditional school day and provide timely feedback to any concerns or work. They also must be able to perform a variety of roles.
I do belief that I posess many of the skills necessary to be an online instructor. I will need to become more organized in order to provide quicker feedback to students. I also am very good at finding learning resources online but need to organize and share them better with students. I look forward to hopefully testing my abilities as an online instructor and eventually making it part of my career.

Learning Plan

CEDO 550 Entry Two

I chose to focus on comparing blended learning and online learning. Although I really enjoy online learning and feel it has been a great experience for me, most of the students I teach may not be at a developmentally appropriate age to experience full online learning. Most still need frequent monitoring and to be held accountable by a teacher on a face-to-face level. For that reason the blended learning model seems most appropriate for most high school students. They are still able to experience many of the benefits and flexibility of online learning while still having a teacher closely monitor and work with them.

https://creately.com/diagram/h1r3t7m61/W9ArWWb9P6cSEkEaKSEZNxaX0zA%3D

CEDO 550 Entry One

Prior to enrolling in this masters program my online learning experience had been limited to a select few assignments in college that were posted on a Blackboard website. I joined the program because it was an area I was very interested in and the flexibility & convenience it offered were very appealing.

So far I have truly enjoyed my experience with online learning. The flexibility it has offered fits my lifestyle because I teach full time and coach two sports plus keep a very active social life. Being committed to traveling and attending several hours of class every week is not something that I was particularly excited about. Being able to do assignments when and where I want has been great and has made this a more enjoyable educational experience. Getting my master's was something I thought would be drudgery but has turned out to be a truly valuable experience. To me the true to test of an educational experience's effectiveness is whether or not it deepens and expands my interest in the subject or not. In this case I have become significantly more interested in Instructional Technology and spend a great deal of my free time expanding upon what I have learned, even if it is not required for class.

The only part of the program that I do not always enjoy, and it is not due to the other people I work with, is the group assignments. Scheduling and having to set time aside for a group meeting can be inconvenient. While I understand the purpose of them and have enjoyed everyone I have worked with it can be difficult finding a common time to meet and work. I have also had some technical difficulties during class with staying connected because my wireless connection is not always the greatest.

Overall my online learning experience has far exceeded my expectations. How anyone could not enjoy learning at their own pace and convenience is beyond me. After going through this process myself one of my career goals is to spread my professional development to others and hopefully make Online Learning part of my career.

CEDO 540 Entry Five

It was interesting taking a look at the annotated resources list and it really just shows the vast amount of information that the internet makes available. Seemingly any piece of data or statistic that one could ever need is available somewhere. And the accessibility of this information is the best part. Most of this information was only available to a select few in the government or with the influence to access it. The United States government has done a great job opening all of this up for the general public and the transperancy it creates is liberating.

Although not entirely applicable to this class inparticular when I saw this video it truly led me to buy in to the power of Web 2.0. Watch if you haven't had a chance to see Kony 2012:

The way information is created and distributed truly is undergoing a fundamental change with the world wide web and I cannot think of a better example than this.

CEDO 540 Entry Four

Quite a week for me personally in this class. Jessica, James, and me had a very tough time figuring out the Guided Practice assignment so I did some "old fashioned" note-taking with a pen and paper while re-listening to the recording of the class and we got it figured out. I do appreciate the assignment offering practical scenarios as one of the big problems I had with mathematics growing up was that the teachers I had rarely integrated practical uses of what I was learning. This definitely goes hand-in-hand with the idea of authentic learning. I am a history teacher and sometimes it can be difficult to make the content extremely relevant and authentic to the kids but exercises like the guided practice make me realize how important it is to constantly do that.

Watching the Bill Tancer video scared me a bit. Although he is obviously a brilliant man the whole idea of data collection and the potential risks of companies keeping digital footprints in some sort of database makes me nervous and wonders what it could do to our privacy. I hope the day never comes when using a computer for a lot of different tasks (which I currently do) makes it okay for my online activities to be registered and monitored.

CEDO 540 Entry Three

This week in I happened to have the experience of being involved in two surveys. The first was a Census Bureau survey that required me to keep and expense diary to help the government adjust the Consumer Price Index. The second was a long survey about technology usage and ability for the tech department at my school. I do not believe that I will be able to see the results or how the data will be interpreted for either survey but it was interesting to participate in both of them considering that I am currently enrolled in a class about collecting data.

On a side note I had students in my World Cultures classes do research and create Prezi's. They turned out so great! The kids really got into making them and took pride in their work. I knew it was a successful project because the kids seemed enthusiastic presenting them and I learned a lot myself from watching them. For anyone skeptical about the power and effectiveness of having students create digital projects I would direct them to view these and there minds will be changed quickly.

CEDO 540 Entry Two

Doing the guided practice this week helped get some ideas regarding statistics and using them in my profession. Historically I have always used the class average (mean) when looking at a particular groups performance but by doing that I have clearly limited what I could have learned from my data. I believe that having more hard data to support teaching strategies, particularly those using technology. What I have discovered is that many teachers and even students are skeptical of new ideas and having data that has been examined may help promote buy-in. The next thing I need to find out is what types of data I should collect and what types of questions to ask

CEDO 540 Entry One

After really enjoying the last two classes in the program (Digital Storytelling, Web 2.0 Tools) I will be honest and say I'm a little more suspicious/apprehensive about a stats class. It has been a while since I've had any type of mathematics class (first year of college to be specific) so remembering some of the vocab might be tough. Despite the fact that I initially do not have the excitement my attitude always is to be open-minded and to always find things that I can use or that will help me improve.

I look forward to finding ways that I can gather data to improve my teaching and potentially my collaboration with other teachers. I have been seeing a need to have hard data about how effective using technology has been in my classes. Several teachers in my department and school are suspicious as to whether or not technology actually improves student learning and it would validate what I do if I have some hard evidence. On a personal level it may also help me determine what is having a measurable impact and what is not for my students. I will need to learn what type of questions to ask, how to gather the data, and most importantly how to interpret and apply the data.

My most extensive experience with statistics has to do with sports stats. When I was a kid I learned a lot of math from studying and playing around with football statistics and basketball statistics. I've been able to use that going forward so hopefully I get some stuff from this class that does the same...

CEDO 535 Entry Six

Smart Goal:
I will create an interactive e-textbook for a unit in one of my classes that incorporates multiple web 2.0 technologies. This will be done using a web 2.0 application for information collection, content presentation, interaction, and feedback. After getting some more information regarding data collection I plan on creating a form for students to fill out regarding the effectiveness of the e-textbook. This will be done at some point during the current semester.

Other:
Regarding my post from last week about not going far enough using technology I heard about the crab theory at my inservice meeting on Monday of this week. While I have a lot of faith in fellow educators and truly believe most of them have their students best interests in mind there are times in which innovation and progression are slow to occur in the field and I think a large part of that is the crab theory.

CEDO 535 Entry Five

Reading the epilogue really got me into some deep thinkingj about the read/write web. I have tried in class many times to use these strategies. This year I have used Edmodo in my classes, had my students blog, and had them work collaboratively using Google Docs just to name a few. The results have been mixed. While some students seem to get into and enjoy these things, it has not been effective for some. I've spent a great deal of time reflecting on why it has not worked as well as I had hoped with all students. While there is no doubt that I will revise some activities that have not worked as expected, I truly believe that I have not went far enough.

Most of my closest colleagues are very hesitant to use and critical of technology and view teachers having students on computers a lot as " lazy". I will admit that this has caused me to hesitate to go as far as I would like to using web 2.0 applications. By no means have I not incorporated technology but on a far more limited scale than I would like. I start a new semester on Monday and one of my goals for the rest of the year is to move forward using web 2.0 tools more frequently and setting a culture that my students and colleagues will follow.

CEDO 535 Entry Four

First off, I am an absolute podcast addict. As I write this  I am listening to one of my favorite sports podcasters Bill Simmons. Since purchasing an Ipod touch a couple years ago I have been listening to podcasts almost every time I go somewhere and even when I mow my lawn, clean my house, and work out. Naturally I am interested in the possibility of creating my own podcasts.

Finding a free and easy to use tool to create them is the first step. I will be trying the options posted in the course work page and seeing if any of them fit my needs. I have long thought about trying to podcast material for my classes but have chosen to give my students links to other podcasts about the material. Creating my own may encourage more students to listen to it on a more regular basis. I am a little worried about how much time this will take as my schedule is absolutely crazy right now and will not slow down until late March so finding an easy and efficient way to do this is essential. Having students create podcasts is also an intriguing concept as well as a potential assessment. If creating my own goes well this is something I may try.

Vodcasting is also an interesting concept. Although I personally like listening to podcasts due to the fact I like to multitask creating a vodcast has many of the same benefits. This may be something for me to try and once again if it goes well and the school eventually gets the right technology having my students complete them may be an interesting option as well.

CEDO 535 Entry Three

Finally we are looking at RSS Readers. This has been a topic I have been looking forward to for one simple reason, efficiency. Technology tools and resources can become overwhelming very quickly and getting new information about it can be difficult to do. There are so many blogs with so many great ideas that it is very hard to constantly read and stay updated on them and when people get overwhelmed they tend to shut down. Having a central location for all of the information and blogs that I like to read and have access to can potentially solve a lot of mine and other people's time issues.
To make it more complicated I like reading websites and blogs about a variety of topics from sports, to history, to current events, to technology, to education, and more. Like most I have favorite pages that I check often and also there are others that I like but lose track of. And in some cases I lose the valuable material I could use.
So off I go to create an RSS Reader. Although I do not necessarily expect it to solve all my time management issues it is my hope it can help make me more efficient as I will make an effort to read it as part of my morning routine every day.