Stakeholders

When taking on a initiative such as 1:1 program it is important to have the support of many types of stakeholders.  All stakeholders are needed to advocate for programs such as these.  

School board members have the means to bring taxpayers on board with technology in the classroom. Taxpayers who can provide funds for the programs.  

Funding is always of top concern for most stakeholders There are so many factors that go into the cost of these initiatives. School board will need to know how much money it will take to provide a strong infrastructure to support the technology, hardware & software costs, professional development, adding staff if that is necessary. School board will need ideas on how to raise money, how to gain support from surrounding companies that would like to be donors, and also how to convince taxpayers to INVEST in their school systems.  These are things that school board can be very useful for, along with other stakeholders lending support as needed.  

Time is also of concern for school board.  How long will it take for the initiative to roll out, how long will it take to raise funds, to hire staff, to train staff, to see a return on their investment (shown by none other than improved test scores), and infrastructure set up. How long will it take for teachers to integrate this new technology into their classrooms?  This is one that would be hard to address, especially a timetable for teacher integration.  Time is money, the more money you have the less time it would take to complete some of these tasks.

In, "How to Gain Parent Buy-In for Classroom Technology Integration" posted by Jennifer Carey she writes, "Instead of emphasizing the content side of technology and the Internet, focus on skill sets and career readiness!"  This is the third thing that I think school board will want to be informed on.  What is the bottom line, how will a 1:1 program help students.  It really isn't about the technology itself but more about how will we help students to become successful members of the world.  This is where students can be very helpful in showing off their skills, also having former students come back and give testimonials on behalf of their education they received.  

21st century skills

On this blog I feel like I am a broken record (that can be a bad thing OR maybe you can see that I REALLY value the topic :) )  I value critical thinking over many of the other 21st century skills.   It is something that I tell my students on a regular basis, "I don't care if you remember photosynthesis, what I want you to learn is HOW to think and solve problems."  Communication is also very important and can definitely tie for having equal importance with critical thinking.  

Critical thinking is important for obvious reasons, if there is a problem in the workplace how do you solve it? Critical thinking!!! Need to do some creative budgeting to make it through the month to pay bills and save a little too...critical thinking again!  However, being able to communicate a solution or for that matter, get feed back also requires a solid background in communication.

In my class I do laboratories and a large movie making project over evolution.  Students must communicate with one another but they also need to use critical thinking skills to solve their problems, designate roles to group members, and to apply what they have learned in class combined with new information they discover.  They need to discuss their strengths and weaknesses, something that they are not very good at doing ( no one wants to be inferior or seen as "stupid"). They also need to be able to discern credible vs. non-creditable sources on the internet.  Its a happy relationship between thinking and communicating.

I asses all projects based on rubrics for each project or lab ( I love rubrics). Students also get to grade themselves but of course as others have said, I have the final say in the grade.  What I find most often with high school aged students is that they do not want to cause confrontation, even if a group member does not pull their weight they still give them a high grade (a C when it should be a D or F).  Their rational “I got it done anyway didn't I”.  So, nothing is really perfect but this way they can see what is important and what is needed to succeed in class.

Utopia or My educational philosophy

My schools vision statement is “When students walk across the stage at their graduation from Martinsville High School and descend the ramp on the other side, they are prepared to chase their dreams.”

Education has a job to help students achieve their dreams, dreams that are realized and also dreams to come.  If a student wants to go to college then that student will need the tools to be successful at that level.  If a student wants to be a welder or a stay at home mom those jobs all have skill sets that are necessary to be successful.  My goal as a teacher has less to do with my curriculum and more to do with my students learning how to be self sufficient, empowered, adults that can think critically. 
I believe my role as a teacher is to prepare my students for the next step in life, whether that be real world, college or just the next class up.  I also believe that my job is to encourage critical thinking. I am not Watson (jeopardy computer), I don’t have all of the answers, I want my students to try and figure things out on their own and ask questions when they don’t understand.  I want to show my students different ways of thinking about a problem or situation; allow them to discover other points of view.  I am more of a facilitator that a teacher. This is a role I can be more passionate about than being a walking, breathing encyclopedia.
Technology plays a great role in society today. Students need to know how to be digitally responsible citizens. Allowing them to explore all of the enriching sources that technology has to offer is one way I can contribute to their success in the future. Offering students choice in how they show what they have learned is one way I can integrate technology and allow my students freedom to express themselves in different ways.
One of my favorite quotes that I use now as my own professional vision statement is from Josef Albers, a professor of art and education, “Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.” If the only thing that my students remember from class is that they learned how to think critically I would consider it a job well done.

Let the Good Times Roll: Technology Integration 101

As the title of my blog indicates I think of myself as a dedicated life long learner. I am most excited to learn more about "flipping" my classroom and how to integrate technology in meaningful ways for different levels of students.  I'm looking forward to sharing best practices and learning from the successes and the mistakes of others during the course.

I would not consider myself an expert really in anything when it comes to technology but I am an expert in how to avoid a crisis when technology fails!  This is not meant to be a negative statement, I still continue to try and integrate technology as often as I can. (Some call it perseverance others might call it stubborn!)  I feel like "baby steps" are my strength. I'm focusing now on how I can work technology in at the basics of the SAMR model starting with labs and activities. I have a few web based activities that have worked out well and one project on evolution using a program called Photo Story (see "Tools") that needs some fine tuning.

I am always looking for best practices on how to manage a classroom using 1:1 program, how to integrate a flipped classroom, how to keep kids engaged, how to spend less time grading and more time interacting with students and planning or creating lessons...my list is endless!

Last year my school corporation decided not to pursue 1:1 programs due to funding.  We do not have a grant writer for our district so it would be up to teachers and principals to do this.  The recent buzz is that we are going to implement 1:1 and our principals have been visiting schools around the state who have 1:1 programs that are successful. Anything that I can bring back to my school that will help make this process a success is much needed.

I sometimes get overwhelmed by all the "stuff" that we teachers are expected to do to make learning fun and engaging but at the same time relevant and challenging. It seems like an uphill battle...

The End and the Beginning

At the end of these past 8 weeks I have learned that I am more tech savvy than I thought. This is my first online class and there were some times when I just wanted to be in a” brick and mortar” class to actually see my teacher and classmates. I have at times been over whelmed by all of the tools and how to integrate them into my teaching style and also into my district but I think just focusing on using one tool at a time is a great starting point.  I've surprised myself and my colleagues on the ideas I have brought back about going 1:1 and it is all because of this class.  Week 3 module: Moving mindsets was really a great unit for me.  I brought lots of ideas back to my schools technology committee and while I’m not sure how receptive they were, maybe it at least opened the door for discussion at a later date.

The SAMR model was probably the best tool for me to utilize when evaluating my use of technology. I have also tried new lessons this year with more technology. I used a web quest instead of a lecture and then we went back and discussed questions that they had or things they thought were cool. I tried a Photostory for evidence of evolution that did not go well and was very frustrating but I had another teacher try it with her students and it went better. I got the students feedback for improvements next year.

If blended classroom setting is the way of the future then I think we as educators have our work cut out for us, as well as other stakeholders in the community. Hopefully all parties involved will see that teaching critical thinking is not something that is new to education but rather something that has been sidelined because of the importance of standardized tests. One of my favorite quotes that I use now as my own professional vision statement is from Josef Albers, a professor of art and education, “Good teaching is more a giving of right questions than a giving of right answers.” 

Social Networking and Eugene Levy

I admit I have been against social media from the beginning. I did not get a Facebook page right away and I do not have any other social media sites. I think all media has a time, a place, and a specific use but I think it is a bit gimmicky to try and show students how social networking sites can be used for education. To use an analogy to illustrate what I mean, it would be like Eugene Levy dressing up in skinny jeans and a plaid shirt and a Justin Bieber hair cut, using the vernacular of our students today explaining the importance of completing their homework. That being said, I believe some can be useful tools, like Edmodo and Twitter for students to communicate about assignments and projects. From a professional development standpoint I see the value of Twitter to follow blogs, e-mags, and sharing ideas. I can see how those sites would be useful in a classroom setting, but some of the others like Facebook, I just don’t see the point.  My rule of thumb is that if the tool is not going to assist in making the content relevant then it is not worth our valuable time in the classroom. Plus some social networking sites have lost students attention because they are so often used. They are bored with it; they want the next greatest thing. Furthermore, as a parent, I want my child using tools that they would at a potential job. The website below is a list of the

Top 40 Social Networking Sites Worldwide some can be used professionally and others are likely not as useful.

Curating

I used Edmodo for my curating  assignment. I liked it enough but I had trouble navigating. My school uses Edmodo in freshman English so the students will already be familiar with the site. I plan on using this next year in my classes for small group work and also for enrichment. I find a lot of neat things on the internet that I think my students would enjoy but we never have time to talk about it, this way they might look at it. I have a class website that I had been posting on but no one looked at it.
I have really liked Symbaloo and Bundlr seems very similar. The simplicity of both is the draw for me. I think I would use these more for myself (I use Symbaloo instead of a favorites bar) but I can see implementing both as a way to control where students go for information.
Another site I liked was Evernote. Evernote has so many options that could be used in a classroom. I liked that Evernote was set up like my cornell notes with a left and right side, the details were on the right and the short version was on the left.  However I struggled using the site and gave up in favor of Edmodo but, with all of Evernotes capabilities I think it would be worth trying again after a YouTube tutorial or two!