Heidelberg's Integrating Technology Site

This has been an extremely hectic week so I have not made as much progress on my GAME plan as I had planned (Cennamo, Ross, & Ertmer, 2009). My superintendent suffered a heart attack but luckily we managed to get him to the hospital before he went into total cardiac arrest. It was certainly a reminder about the dangers of stress. Anyway, due to the domino effect at the Superintendent’s office, I had several additional tasks added to my plate.

I did meet with my small Intranet development team on Monday morning for about an hour but the entire time was spent configuring Dreamweaver and the Intranet sites. Here are my latest thoughts on my plan for increasing my proficiency with eductional technology:

Are you finding the information and resources you need?

I was unable to film any other ET/educator collaboration this week although I did meet with a video instructor at one of my schools. This educator suggested that I create a video teacher resource page on my Intranet so that tips and suggestions can be easily shared among that group of educators.

The more I think about it, the more I want to make sure that the resources and links that I make available on the Heidelberg Integrating Technology Site (HITS) are useful. So many educational sites I visit have numerous links but many of the resources are not helpful or go to sites that require paid subscriptions.

The main intranet sections I am currently working on are:

Webquests

Concept Mapping

Electronic Portfolios

Internet Literacy

Blog and Wikis

Video Production

Online Tutorials

Project/Problem Based Learning

Assessment with Technology

If you know of any web resources that you regularly use or find particularly useful in any of these areas, please share them with me.

Do you need to modify your action plan?

I am receiving positive feedback about my plan for a technology integration intranet site from educational technologists and educators so I think it is going to be larger than I had first envisioned.

What have you learned so far?

While researching for some of the additional resources for this week, I discovered an article about the Moodle resource. The Consortium for School Networking article (2008) described the features of this free learning management software and I see numerous applications for this tool in my district.

What new questions have arisen?

I am still struggling with how best to organize the information on the intranet website so that it is useful for educators. I have looked at numerous educational resource websites and often there are so many hyperlinks that it becomes overwhelming and difficult to find the resources that are truly beneficial. I think for this Intranet site I will only include links to resources that educators have utilized with their students. In fact, eventually it would be nice to include a short video of the technology being utilized by the teacher and students along with the resource link.

References:

Cennamo, K., Ross, J. & Ertmer, P. (2009). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach (Laureate Education custom edition). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Consortium for School Networking, W. (2008). CoSN K12 Open Technologies Implementation Study #3. Moodle: An Open Learning Content Management System for Schools. Consortium for School Networking, Retrieved from ERIC database.

GAME Plan First Actions

I accomplished the first step in my plan which was to have an Intranet site established for my use by our IT department on the Department of Defense Dependents schools (DoDDS) webserver. Now I am planning the organizational structure of the website so that it useful for the educational technologists and teachers. I am thinking about separating the website into general areas such as Project based learning, Internet Inquiry, Webquests, etc. Within those general areas, I will have resources and links to lesson ideas separated according to elementary, middle and high school. If you have found an organization structure or website elements on educational related website that you really like, please share them with me. My webpage creation skills are not the best but it is another one of my professional development goals this year.

This past week I was also able to film three school level educational technologists (ETs) collaborating with educators. Schools in my district are spread out so it does take at least a day for each ET. I am now editing the clips together. In addition to filming the collaborations, meeting with the ET and educators does help me gauge how we are doing with the integration of technology to promote students learning.

This week I was also involved with a program called Creative Connections. Over 150 DoDDS students from across Europe apply to attend this 5 day educational retreat where they are immersed in a fine arts or performing arts workshop that stresses creativity and learning new skills. I assisted with the video production workshop and it was amazing what the students were able to create during the week. The Thursday night performance included these videos and I plan on posting it to the website this weekend. We also steamed the production live which was nice for parents who were unable to attend the show (including some deployed parents.)
The secure website for Creative Connections 2009 II is located at:
https://owa.eu.dodea.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://doddshost.net/now/cc10/index.html
username: dodeateam
password: achieve09

GAME Plan related to the teacher NETS

Recently I was selected as a district level educational technologist (ET). My primary responsibilities are to support the school level ET’s, educators and administrators with the effective integration of technology in order to promote highest student achievement. I think that all of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) National Education Technology Standards (NETS) for teachers are important and require continual attention because of how quickly technology changes. My current focus in terms of the NETS teacher standards is in the area of professional growth and leadership.

As part of my personal professional development, as well as to support the educators I work with, I will be utlizing the GAME plan method outlined by Cennamo et al. to guide my self-directed learning (2009).
My GAME plan for professional growth and leadership is focused on the following two ISTE NETS teacher standards:
5b – exhibit leadership by demonstrating a vision of technology infusion, participating in shared decision making and community building, and developing the leadership and technology skills of others.
5c – evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning.

Goals –
Demonstrate a vision of technology integration and increase the technology skills of ET’s and educators in my district. Increase the use of existing and emerging technologies in order to improve student learning
Actions –
I plan on filming and creating short video examples of effective technology integration throughout my district. These short videos will be shared with all ET’s and educators using a district technology intranet site that I will create.
As part of the district technology intranet site, I will share information and ideas on how to use existing and new technologies in order to promote student creativity, innovation and achievement.
Monitor –
I will gather responses from ET’s, educators and administrators on whether the videos and Intranet site are useful resources for promoting the effective use of technology to support student learning.
Evaluate and Extend –
Through site visits and discussions with ET’s, educators and administrators I will determine whether the technology integration videos and district intranet site are promoting the more widespread and regular use of existing and emerging technologies to promote increased learning. I will look at ways of extending intranets to each school so that educators can share technology integration successes and ideas with each other throughout the district.

This plan will not only give me a chance to improve my own knowledge and skills in many areas of educational technology but it will also assist educators throughout my district with effectively utilizing technology to promote highest student achievement.

References:
National Education Standards for Teachers (NETS-T) located at http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf

Cennamo, K., Ross, J., & Ertmer, P. (2010). Technology integration for meaningful classroom use: A standards-based approach. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning.

Information Literacy and Online Inquiry Reflection

My district has been utilizing the NETS teacher and student technology standards for the past several years but we have struggled with how best to facilitate the development of the associated 21st century skills. The Walden course, ‘Supporting Information Literacy and Online Inquiry in the Classroom’ directly addressed this problem and provided numerous insights and strategies for teaching 21st century skills.

The QUEST model provides an efficient approach for incorporating the key literacy skills of questioning, understanding resources, evaluating, synthesizing and transforming information into authentic lessons (Eagleton & Dobler, 2007). Through the process of designing a unit lesson plan, I now recognize the many opportunities there are daily in the classroom for students to develop and hone 21st century literacy skills. Looking back at my teaching career, I realize that I often provided students with quick answers and fact based lectures instead of designing learning environments that actively engaged them in researching information, synthesizing and transforming; ultimately resulting in increased depth of understanding. This approach also supports students in become more self-directed and confident in their individual ability to learn.

As a district level educational technologist, one of my primary goals this school year is to facilitate the development of 21st century skills in teachers and students throughout my district. I believe the learning unit I created in this course can effectively be incorporated into virtually any subject area and grade level and I plan on sharing it with the educators in my district. This past week, I worked with the school level educational technologists on a coordinated approach to emphasizing internet literacy skills such as search techniques, web site evaluation, and information reliability. I am developing an information literacy presentation for the next school leadership meeting so that internet inquiry and literacy skills are encouraged and supported by the administration at each school. I also plan to continue my own research into information literacy and online inquiry so that I can share new strategies and applications to promote the development of 21st century skills in all of the students and educators in the district.

Resources:Eagleton, M. B., & Dobler, E. (2007). Reading the Web: Strategies for Internet inquiry. New York: The Guilford Press.