Week 5: Reflections

The course title Instructional Leadership led me, at first, to believe I would be learning how to lead my campus in the instructional journey students and teachers take. I include in this journey guiding the creation of effective, creative, useful, productive professional development for teachers, as well as providing guidance to teachers in implementing differentiated effective instruction for students, and guiding students towards ownership of learning. When I saw the added tagline, The Technology Link, I believed this course would prepare me to be a leader in the instructional journey, as laid out above, specifically with the use of technology. I thought the topics of Web 2.0, online learning, copyright and intellectual property would be addressed, as well as shared thoughts for funding of technology, the state's expectations of technology in the classroom, and the future of technology in education.

I do not believe I achieved all of those specific envisioned outcomes; what I actually learned in this course included elements of what I expected to learn, as well as new ideas. I had not thought about addressing issues of how the 21^st century student learned and how that is different than the learning styles of "digital immigrants," or finding it pertinent to know what people who are becoming teachers have been taught about integrating technology into the classroom.

I feel that some of the outcomes from this coursework are relevant to the work I currently do in my school, which is that of librarian. From my previous graduate work and my subsequent role of librarian, I am well versed on copyright and intellectual property, but a refresher on this incredibly complicated system is never a bad thing. While I believe that some of the articles I read are appropriate for what I do in my building, I'm not sure that the final project is one that will see much difference on my campus. As most of my campus technology needs are met (and decided upon) by administrators at the district level, there is little I can do to implement some of the expected outcomes for this course, so their relevance was little to the work I currently do in my school. Perhaps mine is an isolated case for this course; how many are certified librarians? To be fair, I did expect to cover material in this graduate program that I've previously studied.

I feel I did not achieve the outcomes of fully exploring ideas for funding of technology, nor do I feel the future of technology in education was addressed. Perhaps the future of technology in education is here; perhaps more recent articles would have led to the discovery of what's being examined for the future.

While I believe I was successful in carrying out the course assignments, there are certain elements of this course that I feel need attention. In my opinion, some of the articles the class had to read were a little on the old side, as far as technology is concerned. Lamar University claims to have access to world-renowned libraries; surely the reference librarians would have been able to find just as relevant (if not more so) and more recent articles dealing with the aspects of technology in education that this course stands to teach.

Aside from the articles, I feel that the action plan will not become a reality at my campus. While I believe the administration, the teachers, and the site based management team agree that the ideas included in the plan are useful and important, I do not think the district will provide the campus with the needed autonomy not only to make these decisions, but to see them carried out. I find this discouraging.

I did learn in this course. I have never taken the time to set up a blog and the assignments for this course led me to discover that it's really not that hard (now I'm a little less impressed with my colleagues who blog regularly, either for profession or personal). Setting up and following blogs led me to investigate RSS feeds, Googledocs, and other Web 2.0 items further. This past summer I declined an offer to take Web 2.0 training in order to begin my program with Lamar University. Before this summer, I had often considered myself pretty tech-savvy, but with all of these new web-based programs, I feel left behind. As with most trainings, now I am invigorated to go out and utilize more Web 2.0 features, and figure out ways to integrate them into the library program on my campus.

 

I also learned more about my school district and the direction the district claims it wants to take versus the direction we're actually headed. CCISD is pretty far ahead of the curve with technology integration in the classroom, but there's so much farther we could go. It seems that all are punished for the inappropriate actions of a few, that many decisions are made by people who have never taught, and sometimes the cart is put before the horse (ok, we bought it. Now what do we do with it?).

 

It's taken me some time to try to figure out how blogs and blogging can be of educational value to the 21^st century learner. Having set up and followed blogs, I easily understand the value of this tool for learners. How easy it would be to have a "silent" discussion about a topic introduced in class? For clubs and organizations to post upcoming events as well as reviewing past events? For a communication tool from the district or campus administration to the community at large? Blogs are an interesting tool, but I hope education doesn't overtake the blog bandwagon. PowerPoint presentations used to be all the rage at one time, too. Now students are not as impressed or engaged with them due to the overuse of the software. The use of discussion boards, blogs, pods, and wikis all have huge educational potential; they all need to be used instead of relying on just one to engage the learner. Web 2.0 tools such as blogging brings other concerns to mind as well. Privacy issues, protecting our students from inappropriate content and cyber bullies, and dealing with intellectual property are all messy and detailed concerns that administrators, teachers, and parents should have with blogs and blogging. Making sure the students know they are in a "safe" environment is much more difficult in cyberspace than in a physical classroom.

 

Overall, a balance of the use of various methods of getting information to students, communicating with stakeholders, training teachers all needs to be taken into consideration when dealing with these issues. Relying too much upon any one way of doing anything is a recipe for problems.

Week 4: Professional Development Action Plan

After reviewing the Campus Improvement Plan, District Instructional Improvement Council (DIIC) Plan, Campus Instructional Improvement Council (CIIC) Plan, Clear Creek ISD Long-Range Plan for Technology, STaR Chart, AEIS report, and Net Day's Speak up Event Data, the technology area Clear Lake High School needs to address is Educator Preparation and Development. This is also the area that the Technology Integration Specialist (TIS) and the Dean of Instruction noted was an area that needs continued improvement. There is also a need to increase the infrastructure and the equipment at this campus.

The Campus STaR Chart showed consistent scores across all years in educator preparation and development. In most recent years professional development experiences increased. 60% of staff met SBEC Technology standards, and 29% of the technology budget is used for professional development. The level of understanding and use, however, decreased from 2008 to 2009.

Our lowest scoring areas within the Advanced Tech classifications were Online Learning, and Professional development for Online Learning. In previous years, there have been no online learning opportunities available for teachers. Some have opened up this year, but this is a first for this district. Another area of weakness was found in Classroom Technology and Technical Support in the Infrastructure classification. As there is an increase in the number of teachers using technology, there is an increased need for support to help with problems that occur with the hardware. Also, when there are more teachers learning to use the technology, the equipment must be available. There is not enough equipment for every teacher in the building to use. There are various sources for data that can be used by teachers. Professional development should be provided to make teachers aware of these sources.

Teachers should be trained on Laser Focus On-Line Student Documentation and TEAMS management systems. Many new teachers are not even aware of these sources. These trainings will enable teachers more efficiently to document student progress as well as provide on-going evaluations of students for SST referrals. This will enable follow through on students on a year to year basis which will benefit teachers, students, parents, and administrators.

Teachers should be provided training to use Dashboard, which has a wealth of data on students' scores from district and state assessments. Teachers should also be trained in data desegregation.

Professional development should have upside down mentoring where new teachers who are proficient with technology are paired with veteran teachers who are not so comfortable in integrating technology and provided time to collaborate.

E4 (Blackboard) training is needed and teachers at our campus are at various levels. Training should not be one size fits all. Teachers should be allowed to learn at their own pace on Web 2 .0 tools.

The Professional Development activities that that will achieve the action plan of integrating technology with instructional and organizational leadership include the following:

Part I: Identifying Technology Needs:

Have the teachers complete pre-assessment as a survey, done before the day of the professional development, about technology on campus, including: what are current needs, what is the district long range plan on technology, do you know where to find the district long range plan, what sort of data is available on the AEIS report, how can this data be used to help your classes, what do you anticipate future technology needs being, and what professional development in regards to integrating technology do you need to better serve our students? This pre-assessment is to understand better teachers' knowledge levels of technology needs for the CLHS campus.

On the day of the professional development, have teachers divide up by department. Provide STAR chart, Long Range Plan (LRP), CIP, DIP, Speak Up challenge data for the teachers. In content departments, discuss what each of these documents can do for the teachers in integrating technology and creating professional development to aide them. Discuss for 15 minutes in departments. List on chart paper the important points gathered.

Ask the smaller groups to rejoin the large group. Using technology such as data projector and either live links to the District Long Range Plan (LRP) or a PowerPoint presentation show the most important areas of the LRP. Take the CIP and compare it with the district Long Range Plan. Ask the departments to brainstorm ideas to incorporate technology into their content areas. Have each department write these down in a pre-created wiki. Share these ideas with the larger group, through posting findings on campus discussion board, divided into content areas.

Part II: Take the data and change the CIP to reflect these needs:

The entire CIIC meets to evaluate discussion board findings, and restructure the CIP to reflect the actual campus instructional technology needs.

Divide CIIC members into collaborative groups, to include parents, students, and district level members. The CIP will be divided into objectives; each group to take two objectives on current CIP, and incorporate as many new instructional technology needs assessed from the discussion boards as possible. The CIIC will approve the new and improved CIP.

To evaluate the professional development activities outlined, the CIIC members will share the new CIP with each content department to ensure incorporation of their departments' specific technology needs. Each department will turn in to the Administration three written goals of how technology will be integrated into the content areas.

In order to evaluate that technology is integrated and campus based decision making is occurring, the professional development team will access elements of the pre-assessment, the data gathered at the professional development, the wiki, and the discussion board in order to evaluate the success and needs of professional development. The use of the assessments follows:

Use the data from the pre-assessment to monitor where technology needs are perceived vs. where technology needs are not being met vs. where technology needs are actually. Use this information to establish a knowledge level.

CIIC will compare prior years' STaR charts and NetDay data to see if there is an increased student and teacher perception of integration of technology.

The discussion board will be monitored by the presenters for evaluation/gathering of information about areas of technology integration and instruction where the campus is lacking and what teachers perceive their needs to be.

Administrators and dept heads will evaluate the success of the three goals through classroom observations and lesson plans.

Other data used for these professional development activities include:

• STaR Chart Survey reports
  
• Net Day's Speak up Event data.
  
• Ongoing informal interviews conducted by campus technology specialists and campus technicians.
  
• Feedback from monthly campus technology specialist and campus technician meetings.
  
• Records of participation in technology professional development, including, but not limited to, sign-in sheets, records of time.
  
• Online/completion for online training, and certificates of completion for out of district training.
  
• Workshop evaluations for all district and campus training conducted by Instructional Technology staff, which include sections for participants to indicate topics they would like to see covered in the future.
  
• Monitoring and documentation of technology proficiencies for all staff.
  
• Number of staff completed with each of the four levels in the Technology Staff Development Plan (TSDP)
  
• Updated curriculum documents that include the Technology Applications TEKS and technology integration resources.