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!

CEDO 555 Reflection #1

How have you or your schools utilized ePortfolios? I haven't utilized an eportfolio yet but am excited to create my online portfolio using Google Sites. I've started working with Google Sites to lay out the outline and rough draft of my eportfolio. This is the first time that I'm actually creating a site in Google Sites. At first I was really nervous about the tool; I was having a difficult time finding my way around. After making a few errors and figuring out how to undo them, I think I now have a good handle on the basics of Google Sites. I plan to watch some tutorials online to learn about some of the intermediate/advanced features of Google Sites that I might be able to use for my eportfolio as well. My school system is currently researching student eportfolios so this course comes at the perfect time. I'll be able to share my firsthand experience with creating an eportfolio with the Technology Committee and provide guidance with this new endeavor that we are trying to implement K-12. The portfolios would be for students to demonstrate their mastery and experience with ISTE's NETS for Students. This is a huge shift for our system from assessing very specific technology objectives (like "copy" and "paste") to 21st Century skills that the NETS identify.

Reflect on the applications shared and whether they are applicable to your situation.
So far, I like how Google Sites is taking shape for my eportfolio. A few other applications that I could see fit well with eportfolios include blogs and wikis. There are so many different gadgets that can be added to a blog to make it more functional that just basic posts. Also, a wiki could be created to act like an "online binder" with various categories that would house artifacts, etc. I have the most experience working with wikis as I use them for each of the classes that I teach as well as any professional development sessions/workshops that I put on but I'm excited about having this course opportunity to "force" me to use Google Sites so I have experience with this tool.

CEDO 550 Week 6

My students are gaining 21st century skills by . . . completing authentic assessments that don't allow for a yes/no, true/false, multiple choice answer but instead require the students to be creative, collaborate with classmates, and think critically. By integrating technology into these authentic assessments, the students are learning in a hands-on, exploratory manner and are demonstrating the NETs standards in their work.

I understand the Virtual Schools Legislation in Wisconsin and am excited about . . .the opportunities virtual schools provide for students who don't excel in the traditional classroom setting. Virtual schools certainly aren't just for struggling students but for any student who will excel and learn more in a non-traditional classroom setting as well as students who are disciplined and will take responsibility for their own learning. The VS Legislation provides some basic "definitions" that clearly spell out the layout of this type of schooling. I find it encouraging that all teachers must complete 30 hours of professional development in order to be certified to teach an online class. I'm glad that part of the legislation was included!


My system involvement in online learning includes . . .
We are currently exploring the option of offering the required personal finance class as an online class so all students will have experience with this type of course prior to graduating. I am excited to be part of this process and research. I think once the personal finance class is up and running and students/parents/teachers see and experience the success, more and more courses will be offered in this format.

During the module I was excited to learn about . . .I was most excited (and nervous) about the synchronous facilitiation that I was responsible for this week. I had no idea what to expect as I had never done anything like it before. It was a nice, safe environment to practice some of the skills that we've seen our instructors demonstrate and use over the course of the term.

Shift Happens Narrated Reflection

Well, after spending a good amount of time on an assignment, I am realizing that I don't think I needed to do it. There isn't a place for me to submit the assignment or a discussion board for it anyway so I'm guessing I could have skipped it but I'm not totally sure. Because I don't want to think I just spent some time on an assignment that isn't going to get looked at, I'm going to share it here just to make myself feel better about the time spent on it. :)



Striking content, data, or statistics:
•India & China – more honor students than we have students in USA

•Today’s learner will have 10-14 jobs by the age of 38. 1 out of 4 people are working for a company that they’ve been employed by for less than a year. 1 out of 2 people are working for a company that they been employed by for less than 5 years.

•Top 10 in demand jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004 & we are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist.

Implications for Teaching & Learning:
•Most of these statistics are interesting but not surprising with how quickly the world is changing. The one fact that really put things into perspective for me was the first one listed above regarding the honor students in China & India being more than the total number of students in the USA. The USA has always been so highly regarded in so many areas but it is somewhat frightening to think about the USA falling behind many countries in regards to education, innovation, etc. What do we do about this? Give our educational system a complete overhaul? What are China & India doing differently? Maybe we need to take a peek at what they are doing and consider making some changes on our end to keep up?!

•Because students have been born into this digital age, most have been connected at such a young age. They are used to the instant gratification that is part of using technology and being connected. They’ve been brought up hearing, “You can do whatever you want and be whatever you want.” I think we need to proceed with caution with students feeling the sense of constant connectivity and “I can do whatever I want” mentality. Maybe this is contributing to people bouncing around to so many jobs. If they don’t feel that instant gratification, they move on too quickly to the next opportunity without using some of those 21st Century skills like problem solving, teamwork, cooperation, creativity, etc. ??

•The last stat listed above talks about preparing students for jobs that haven’t been created yet. Interesting! I think it goes to support the idea of getting away from so much memorization of facts and moving toward teaching 21st Century skills which can be applied to any future.

CED0 550 Week 5

In reflecting on my teaching experiences to date, I would say that the proportion of teacher centered versus student centered lessons has been …

Most of my teaching experiences during my first year of teaching were very much teacher centered but since then I've really focused on making my lessons student centered. I think my first year I was in survival mode, which I'm sure every teacher can related to during the first year. So much is new - the content, the classroom management, the grading, lesson planning, not to mention all of the other non-classroom related things to learn, monitor, be responsible for. After getting a few of those variables under control, I felt much more relaxed and able to give up some of the control in the lesson delivery as well. There are times when lecture is important to give the material and teach key concepts but I really try to be the facilitator and let the students guide their learning process in an hands-on manner whenever possible.

I was able to identify more than one authentic assessment to measure mastery of a single concept lesson when I …

For the assignment this week, I only described one authentic assessment to measure mastery of the lesson but with a bit more time to think about it, I could come up with multiple assessments for the students to choose from to demonstrate the mastery of the learning objectives. Time to develop these ideas and corresponding rubrics is always the issue.

The rubric I created for my lesson clearly defined expectations and scoring for the lesson so that my students could …

Easily understand the expectations of the assignment. As with all assignments with rubrics, it gives the students basically a checklist to use during the creation process as well as prior to submitting the work to make sure all key concepts and elements have been covered and included in the assignment/assessment.

While working on this module I had success/difficulty while doing something new involving …

This week I've been spending much of my time developing and going over my synchronous facilitation which I have tonight. I'm very nervous about it, especially after trying to get into the virtual classroom early to get files loaded, breakout rooms set up, etc to find out that Elluminate is now been purchased by Blackboard, right? The log-in screen looks different with "Blackboard" on it. I hope the interface of the virtual classroom isn't different that that of the room that I practiced and played around with in our small groups. In addition, I don't have the moderator privileges yet to be able to upload my presentation, etc. Deep breaths...everything is going to be fine...and what doesn't go as planned will be a learning experience. :)