Activity+Log+Reflections

The listed Activities are only a portion of what I am expected to accomplish in my position. It is difficult to write everything down because at many times I am pulled in many directions and expectations are changed depending on what is happening for that day. I have planned items on several different campuses but at many times as life has it changes. March and April tend to be my busiest months with the preparation of Summer Staff Development, of 29 open technology courses at this time. I added October to my list only because I do play an administrative role with the Distirct Technology Plan and it fit within the Standards that I needed, for this Internship course. There were so many items that I could list but I was able to meet all 33 Performance Standards with the activities below. =October=

Week 3

The Technology Paln is an ongoing process but has to be updated for our district every three years approved by the board, community members, teachers and staff. This can be a challenging aspect to meet and plan the growth of the technology within the district three years in advance but it has to be done to apply for e-rate funding by the state and federal government. This is how my district recieves most of their monies for any technology available. Standards TF-VII.B.2 and 3 focus on the budgeting and planning of resources and procedures. During week three there was a meeting with all members to decide how we would work together and which committees they could contribute to the best. Assisting with the writing and planning of the District Technology Plan focuses my direction as a facilitator in the technology department. It lets me help push what I want to see happen with teachers and listen to the committee on their vision of technology use. What has been an experience is understanding the technical side of the infrastructure working within the district. I have limited knowledge of the functionality of the server and all the components of how it works, but I am learning by listening in what key elements are needed to make all equipment run well. This helped me understand Standards VII for the purpose of budgeting, administrative areas that I do not have great input in. This is more of the leadership role and I was glad that I could give insights to what the teacher growth should be with the use of technology.

Week 4

Started off planning the goal for Staff Development, which is Goal 4 for the district technology plan. There had to be a plan of action and the view of what we needed our teachers to work on and set goals for themselves. Working together on deciding software and curriculum and recommendations needed for the future of technology and everyone involved, TF-VII.B.1. Parameters were set for the Staff Development curriculum and how the TEKS would change and meeting the students' needs through the teachers learning experiences. Strategies need to match what the goals are for the plan. Meeting with the members to work through some of the changes and if all were in agreement with to view and goals set for the district. Needing to apply knowledge of hardware and software needs for configuration in the school setting per the standard TF-VII.A.6. Each goal had strategies, that must meet all guidelines set for e-rate and Title II D funding that is available. If these items are not let then the path the committee has set is not the correct one. The district Technology Plan helped me meet the needs of the standards is of the administrator role. I have a budget but it is only for travel, being able to work with and see the entire technology staff development helped me understand the entire goal or vision of our program. I was able to put together where the monies are needed and why and the future technoloy needed to be purchased. Working with all the members of the technology department and listening to what they needed and realizing the "big picture" of software and hardware needs, made my goal easier to work through and the stratgeies became a detailed factor of the finished write up of Ggoal four.

=March=

March is the start of my busy season with the district that I work with. I have many areas on my plate and all have to been organized, deadlines met and Technology Staff development for the summer put together. It is a challenge but it is the best part of my position as an Instructional Technology Facilitator.

Week 1 of March

We use School Objects: Eduphoria program for all staff development workshops that are held within our district. I conduct Eduphoria: Workshop training for any new Administrative Assistants that need and have access to the system. This is also a time where if needed, a "refresher" training for those who want an update on any changes or ideas of organizing the workshops in a better form. The training was conducted in a one to one manner where examples were given by myself but sometimes I tend to go a little over board and it can be overwhleming. I watch myself on this for the reason that I have used the program for almost five years and on a daily basis. Overall, they know they can always ask if assistance is needed and I work around their schedules to accomodated any need that they have. TF-IV.A.2 is vital to the facilitator's role, assisting teachers in all aspects of technology to promote learning with technology but using skills they already have. The program is very user-friendly and it does take practice and time to become familiar with it but I know that we have a strong staff and many are always willing to help if I am not available. This leads into Standard V.B.1 with checking understanding while training the learner then afterward to check on how they are on their own. Many do not understand what questions they have until after the trainer is no longer "looking over their shoulder" for progress. Under Standard V, modeling is a strong aspect to meeting the "learning curve" of many individuals. When working with secretaries or educators, I strive to showcase, give examples and model what I am instructing. Working with individuals helped me imporve my own skills of breaking down the information but bring in what they needed to learn for their own position. In the educator role, taking what skills they have and showing them how it could be applied in the classroom is difficult until they visulaize it or see the product in action witin the classroom.

Week 2 of March

There were two activities that I worked with for a strong part of two days. I have created a workshop "More than Googling" that I wanted to share with the staff in our district from what I had learned from TCEA. There are so many great ideas that I come away with from that conference and last year, was probably my best time coming away with brighter ideas. All students and teachers love to google, but from all my classes with Lamar University and other Technology people that there is more of a use other than its known use as a search engine. I have collaborated with a technology teacher at our intermediate school that teaches multimedia to her students. We just loved the idea of pushing Google in an entire new direction and model the tools that students are using into the classroom realm, TF-VII.A.4. So we have created a wiki http://notjustgoogling.wikispaces.com/ to use within our training. I wanted a place where we are going paperless and all documents are there in one place that all who need access has it with the URL. I want to promote 24/7 access to all learning. We also included our new web-based learning environment Atomic Learning for extra help if needed. This helped with TF-IV.C.2 using Atomic Learning to examine and apply the results to create a project for the classroom. My goal was to have access to training material and videos available at thier conveience not mine to bring storing work on a mass device under TF-VII.A.2. It has been a wonderful learning process and the site is always a work in progress but this was the week that I got the bones of iut started. These workshops have brought in the online learning community and modeling area of showing teachers that what I am giving you can be accomplished within the classroom. Since Atomic Learning is new to the district, many were sketical to it, but it is a need to access thier own learning. I have found that I still have growth areas and share this knowledge with them as a key learning moment.

In Instructional Technology, we have been focusing on giving campuses choices on what technology they need a focus on within their campus. One teacher asked us to come to her campus to show teachers how to create closed-captioning out of Discovery Education videos. TF-V.C.2 and TF-V.C.3 focus on modeling, locating and assisting with integrating media for projects and presentations while demostrating the use with other equipment. Some of these items are scary to teachers because many students use it and understand it better than they do. This training was cleared with the campus principal and my boss was the creator of the training. The Beyond the Stream training worked in two sections, during the day the teachers were able to attend during their conference period for the advanced training that incorporated closed-captioning and other details of discovery education. The afternoon focused on beginners for one afternoon session and then we would meet again for the advanced section. My boss and I spent the morning working together and it was nice to do that again. We finished each other's sentences and focused on the task at hand which included the training she had designed. Teachers need to have a clear sense of what other types of assistive technology could help all students with learning, TF-VI.B.2. This helped me see her vision and then I took over the afternoon session. I learn so much from her and look for guide and her knowledge in many areas.

Week 4 of March

I focused on meeting with the partnership with Anne on the More than oogling workshop. We had to iron out agenda items and what functions were more important than others. One aspect that was critical was the focus of what would be teacher access to student access. this is important for what would drive our class and meeting the national, state and local standards, TF-VIII.D.4. We wanted to give time to work through the areas of need and what would give that teacher an edge in the classroom. This is just a three hour training but one that could bring teachers up another level to work through areas they were either unaware or one that brings them to what the students already know and want to use in the class. We wanted to meet to work through what was assessible within the district. This is important because I am open to everything because of my position, but needed to see it from a teacher and student log in prospective. I have to be open-minded and view it as an administrator and teacher to bring it to the level needed. I want to see integration and how teachers would implement it into the classroom with students, this is the key to my summer staff development. Management of the computer lab classroom is another skill that teachers are in need of learning and meeting Standard TF-VII.B.5 is key to bein successful with technology integration. This is why it is important for me to work with a teacher and look for other ideas and one that is not afraid to test ideas on students.

Week 5 of March

I had the opportunity to meet with a couple of teachers on setting up accounts for students within Discovery Education. This is has been a new update and nice added feature for an administrator and teacher and promotion is key for teacher use. The challenge is giving ideas for the teachers in management of the student accounts. Teachers do not need another area to keep up with, especially with me promoting wikispaces and gaggle accounts. So, I give two or three different options and we work from there. Since it is late in the year we focused on setting up a class to use as a workable practice class. This helps within management of a new area and calms the nerves. Once they tackle this they slowly add another class. This teacher is also one with an eye disease so I discussed her trouble with viewing the computer and how long it takes her to complete tasks with my boss who then discusse dit with the technology director. We were able to purchase her a monitor screen that is larger and easier to view the screen. She is thrilled and is now including more and more technology with her GT and regular education students. She is a wonderful assest to the district and values what is needed for student growth.

I am over the Technology Staff development for all year but the big push is during the summer time for our district that now requires four days of comp time. This is a huge challenge but I am not shying away with my goal of technology integration. I create two seperate spreadsheets, one that incorporates my sessional set up and one that is organized by dates. This helps my department focus on what is happening and which classes are in need of attention on. This is my fourth year in this position and have learned valuable lessons in what my district needs and technology focused should be placed.

=April=

Week 1

There were three areas that I focused on in the first week in April. I was able to attend the eInstruction training using the MOBI. A 8th grade Math teacher wrote a grant and was given $10,000 for this equipment. I have been using a MOBI but never "officially" trained. I learned little details that I would of never picked up on, on my own. While I was enriching my skills I also incorporated my teaching ideas and working with the teachers on how to bring in this technology in the classroom. Implementing TF-II.A.1 and 2 was key to supporting the teachers with this new equipment. The teachers needed to see that I was learning as they were and then applying my new knowledge with with my work. I used the clicker sets and the old slates when I was teaching in the classroom, we worked on ideas that would be functional for them. The trainer help support the ideas and she gave her own teaching style from a high school persepective, TF-II.F.1.

I also met with Anne Mueller about the More than Googling training that we would be working on together. There was a need to iron out small details on the activities we have had planned. Much of the work is on the wiki site but a face to face is sometimes necessary. We looked at all pieces that needed to have attention on then moved to the areas if we get time for as additions. All is on the site so if the time is limited referring them to the site would work too. There was the need of setting time constraints on the specific items we wanted to make sure that we taught with the time allowed for the teachers to explore, TF-II.D.1 and TF-II.E.1. This is critical on setting the pace and understanding the requirements of the instruction.

The last item for the week was the meeting with the high school librarian on the layout and equipment that was available for summer staff development. I have not used her library in a couple of years and wanted to touch base on what items I could have access to and what areas woul dshe perferred that I utlized. This is a curtisity of being able to use their space, and she knows her library better and how items should be placed. TF-III.D.1 applies with working in how she applies classroom management within the library with individual, small group or use of the laptops. I want to be able to request the area again if possible and if I take care of the space then she would not feel as if the place is not taken care of.

Week 2

One of our middle schools has set forth an effort to survey all staff members and the student body. They discussed options with my department, with the idea of just using Survey Monkey. This site could work with the staff but not hte students, it only lets 100 people in to use the survey. This campus has 1000 students, so this was not an option. We have Eduphoria FormSpace that has not been tapped into full use as of yet. This was the perfect time to bring this tool into place to meet productivity tools that are available in the PK-12 schools, TF-VC.8. I met with the committee overseeing the survey and we discussed who would have the rights to the survey and how to access it. It has turned out the be the best way for them to get information quickly and easy to access the data by conducting a evaluation of an environment, TF-VIII.D.2. This will help the campus evaluate both groups on the campus.

Then it was time to keep work on two of the newest workshops focused on integration of technology to specific curriculum areas. The Language Arts and Social Studies is one that has a ton of fun filled links and curriculum ideas that will take 2 days to work through. The Math and Science is how to merge both of these areas with creating a catapult, dicussion of the technology tools used, then the building of their own lesson. Both sessions need to understand technology TEKS and how they work with their own curriculum and bringing them to blend togetherThere needs to be methods and strategies taught which brings in the TEKS of technology.

The next two that followed that week is Internet Safety for the parents and students for the same elementary campus. There is a need to have parents knowledgable with what their children are faced with and how to help educate them in the 21st Century.TF-III.A.2 is critical to bringing in the correct data and research to students and parents. This proves ans backs the infromation that is vital to teaching what is happening with the 21st Century learner. I only presented to the 3rd and 4th graders of this campus because our Technology person focuses on K-2 and small discussions with 3rd and 4th. She feels that will take it more seriously coming from someone other than on the campus they reside on. The students were well behaved and asked great questions and seemed to understand the consequences of choices when using the internet and cyberbullying. Taking work that students have completed inside school and bringing it to what happens outside of school, TF-IV.A.2. It was nice to be on a campus again with students wanting to learn.

Week 3

Started off the third week in April with a meeting with other technologist of surrounding districts with our SAILOn group. All technology members work together to maintain the website, TF-V.D.4. It is a breath to get out of the office and see what other districts are doign and discuss and work through ideas while we collaborate with the site we all help manage. The site is always changing with the changes of the TEKS and meeting the TEKS with updated interactive web links can be a challenge especially with the High School areas, TF-V.B.1. We break into groups and work together to add more material and look for deadlinks. As a group we are always looking for updated tools for the TF-V.C.6 for communicatinfg and integrating concepts available for teachers and students.

Finalized the Technology Summer Staff Development on my spreadsheet and in Eduphoria. Making sure all of my class information was correct before the opening to all staff members on May 3rd, TF-V.D.3. There are always little areas that need to be updated or changed by either location or instructors. It will change even sometimes before the class day.

This week I had the most amazing experience with having a phone conference with a class of students while in the computer lab working with PowerPoint and having trouble enbedding videos into their presentations. Students could ask questions if needed and were answered right away and be able to correct any mistakes, follow the steps and check their work through what I was voicing, TF-V.C.1 and TF-V.C.5. The students asked appropriate questions, worked together and answered me when I asked for their understanding. It was similar to a web conference without video but helped the class move along with their work. From TF-V.D.3, by bringing in a collaborative environment for projects and team activities.

Week 4

The last week I logged in April was assisting a teacher with converting a video from a wav file to avi file. One of the sites we have used was being block which is not uncommon for our filter, something triggered the filter to block it. I was able to find another one that was comparable to the other and worked with her through the process. It seems that many when the screen looks slightly different they panic and are afraid if they do anything that it could cause a problem. We got through it and was able to convert the file and upload it to her site for parent and community involvement. From the TF-I.A.1 is the need to assist teachers in thier life long set of learning technology. Technology Facilitators are there to brin to technology to the teachers and share what they know to promote new learning while modeling appropriate strategies for standard TF-I.B.1. We have to promote understanding technology operations and concepts.