CEDO 565 Week 1 Reflection

I really enjoyed the first chapter of our text, How to Thrive as a Teacher Leader, by John G. Gabriel. While reading the chapter, I tried to relate what Gabriel was saying to my school environment and culture. I found it very interested when he said, "Leadership roles should not be determined by seniority. Therefore, if standardized results are marginal or a teacher's leadership is questionable, a change is warranted. Don't be afraid to make changes; change, along with its potential for struggle and conflict, is often an essential ingredient of success." (Gabriel, pg. 4). In our school, as far as I know, the department chair is given to the person with most seniority. I agree with Gabriel's statement that it should automatically go to the person with the most seniority but instead to someone who has shown the skills and characteristics of a positive teacher leader.

As the chapter goes on to describe, there are many other leadership roles besides being an administrator or department chair that teachers can jump into. One that is of interest to me is the "Peer Coach", which is "similar to a mentor except that with this pair, both teachers - not necessarily novices - function as mentor and as protege." (Gabriel, pg. 7 ). Instead of doing a traditional student teaching placement, I opted to do an internship during my undergrad work. While I was still technically being supervised by a veteran teacher, I had my own classroom and classes 100% on my own. I didn't have the opportunity to observe my supervising teacher or have her observe me to get tips & tricks, best practices, etc because we taught classes at the same tim as each other. I feel like I missed out on some important mentorship because of this. I would love to find a partner to do some Peer Coaching this year; I have several teachers in mind who I'd like to do this with. I look forward to talking to a few to see if they want to try this out this year!

One last quote from chapter one that stuck with me is "Obstacles do not slow down a good leader; they are opportunities for him to flex his problem-solving muscles" (Gabriel, pg. 17). I love it! :)

This past year I really felt like I spread my wings and became much more active within my school system. I was an active member on many committess including the Technology Committee and the 1:1 Initiative Committee, as well as several professional development orgranization committees (WI Business Education Association District 3 Rep and Convention Planning Committee). I've always enjoyed being in leadership positions, even as far back as high school student council & class president. During my first few years of teachers I felt quite overwhelmed with all of the new things that come along with starting out in the teaching profession, and last year I finally felt confident in my performance and like I had a handle on all of the different aspects of the job that teachers juggle so decided to get actively involved with the committees mentioned above. At the end of the school year at our faculty end-of-the-year cookout, my principal thanked me for being an integral part of many technology initiatives going on in the school and system. For him to say "thank you" to me spoke volumes and boosted my confidence in being a leader in the area of technology.

My Tech Coach position also allows me to serve in a leadership role and help others learn about technology tools and resources. I LOVE this part of my job and hope someday that it turns into a larger % of my contract. I really enjoy helping the teachers learn something new and see the enthusiasm they have after learning about a new tool that they can use in their classroom or have their students use. To see them re-energized gives me a boost of energy and excitement as well. I often lack that excitement from my high school students when I teach them about Gross Domestic Product so to get that feedback from my teacher students makes me smile! :)

Picture source: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/904406

CEDO 555 Reflection #3

After meeting with Kris via Skype for our one-on-one chats, I felt much better about my Culminating Experience Proposal project idea. I was really struggling with what to do it on, but then it was like a lightbulb went on and I knew exactly where I wanted to go with the project. I've decided to really focus my project on sharing my instructional technology knowledge with parents, students, and staff. I am going to posting weekly to my blog about a new technology application that teachers can use in the classroom as well as hosting a parent/student technology night once a term. I'm excited about both parts of this project and look forward researching it and implementing the plan.

Working on the portfolio has also been going much better than I thought it was going to. I do still wish this project would have been explained at the beginning of the program so we could at least keep up with the course reflections as well as thinking about which artifacts to be included for each course in the portfolio. It has been challenging to think back to some of the courses that were taking over a year ago and remember all of the projects to choose from.

I'm excited to use my MEIT portfolio as a model for my PI34 portfolio. Using Google Sites has been much easier than I thought it was going to be as this is the first time I'm actually building a site with this application myself. I'm also excited about sharing my experience and my portfolio with my administration so they can see how I've used these web tools to build my portfolio. We (the system I work for) are looking to have students complete eportfolios but we haven't been really sure what form we want these eportfolios to take. Last year we adopted Google Apps for Edu so using the Google Tools like Docs & Sites would be perfect, especially at the middle and high school level.

CEDO 555 Reflection #2

The question for reflection this week is "What big picture issues related to ePortfolios are you still missing?" While thinking about it, I'm having a difficult time coming up with anything that I'm struggling with or have questions about. I guess that's a good thing, right? The main struggle/frustration right now is having to think back to each class and come up with a reflection as well as figure out what assignment(s) to put down for the artifact. I would have really appreciated a general overview of this portfolio experience during the first day of the first class (or maybe that orientation class we did before we actually started with our first class) so we would have a general idea of what was going to be asked of us at the end. It would have been WAY eaiser to do a course reflection & select an artifact upon completing each class rather than try to sort through everything and come up with a reflection months to a year later. I don't think the quality of these reflections are as great as they would have been if I would have completed them immediately upon completion. Anyone else feel the same way?

I am also feeling so lost in the "Culminating Experience Proposal" assignment. I think and reflect on it every day and I'm still not really sure what to do....mostly because I don't truly understand what is expected of this project. I feel like I'm going at this one blind, and it is such an important assignment so that is adding more stress on top of an already anxious feeling. If anyone would like to bounce ideas around, I'd be very open to that! Sometimes that best ideas come out of a bit of collaboration. Let me know!