EDLD 5352 - Final Reflection

Technology Skills and Knowledge

     I am glad for the existence of EDLD 5352, as it provided an arena for us to learn about and experiment with cutting edge technologies that are being touted as the next big thing by educational technologists, experts in learning differences and accessibility, and teachers of gifted students among others. Technology has not been one of my weaknesses as an educator in quite a few years.  Still, this course provided the opportunity to explore powerful tools like Live Binder and Google Drive in the contexts of student teamwork, leadership, and professional development.  Each of these tools, for example, can provide an archive for active collaboration or the publication of an individual’s work to a wider audience. As a result of this course, I feel recharged to enter the next school year using technology tools to the utmost in order to help myself and my colleagues work smarter instead of harder.

     One of the more interesting lessons I learned regarding technology and how it can facilitate collaboration was more of an offshoot of the lessons rather than a direct objective.  In working with my colleagues on the group projects, we learned to leverage Facebook messaging and email to build and sustain a team that was able to meet our deadlines and accomplish tasks despite occasionally being a little unsure of exactly what the expectations for those tasks were. In the midst of this work, I realized how easy it would be to put together a group on Facebook, develop a hashtag for a group's work on Twitter, or (if you were working with a small enough group) appointments on Adobe Connect in order to reach out to and work with colleagues regardless of distance of circumstance.

Campus-Supervised Internship Activities

     At this juncture in the program, I feel confident that I can accomplish all of the remaining goals built into my Internship plan.  During the 2012-2013 school year, I logged enough hours in a handful of competencies to satisfy the requirements completely if they were spread out across the board.  Now I just have to make sure that each competency and skill is covered  in order to meet the requirements for the Internship.

     Over the summer, I have logged more hours in activities that I already covered during the last school year like writing curriculum and facilitating staff development.  A couple of changes have occurred this summer, however, that have led to opportunities to fulfill other areas in my plan and that will continue to lead to more opportunities this school year.  I was promoted by my principal to the position of Reading department chair. This promotion resulted in my participation in interviews for faculty positions for the coming school year.  From sifting through resumes, calling possible candidates, interviewing them with the help of the English department head and our Curriculum Coordinator, and providing feedback to our principal, I was completely invested in the process.  This experience provided n excellent opportunity to complete my activity for Domain II, Competency 06, Leadership Skill #27 – Personnel Procedures.

Additionally, during the next school year, my new position will allow me to conduct classroom observations (Domain II, Competency 04, Leadership Skill #18 – Supervision of Instruction/Instructional Strategy) and to present professional development material in the form of refereed journal articles to my peers during department meetings (Domain II, Competency 05, Leadership Skill #21 –Learning/Motivation Theory).

Action Research Project

     My Action Research is essentially complete.  At this point, I am still collating data from the various sources I used to monitor student progress and to understand where to what extent my students were improving under our program.

     It is very difficult, obviously, to diagnose a situation when one is struggling with a dearth of data, but I am learning that it is likewise difficult to draw clear conclusions amidst a preponderance of data, especially when some of the data conflicts or does not accurately demonstrate the reality it purports to describe.  Still, based upon the state assessment scores alone, I have documented evidence of student improvement among an overwhelming majority of my students.  On looking further into the data, it is clear that all of my students increased their ability to comprehend fiction in the course of the year, but many of them did not move forward as rapidly as I had hoped they would, and we will revisit the structure of my courses as a result of these data.

     In short, the portions of my report on this Action Research Project drafted earlier this summer are ripe for the ending.  I must use this last week of downtime as the summer wanes and try very hard to establish the data and draw my conclusions so that the report can be completed and filed for the end of the program.  I am in a very good place with my project having completed the work with the students and moving on to implement changes based on what I learned.  This is all the more reason to make the time in the coming days to articulate what I have learned  so that I move forward in the right direction.

An unfortunate meeting

     I was not available to actually attend any of the four web conferences that were held during this course.  Instead, I have just finished watching the recording of the conference held on Wednesday, July 31, 2013, during Week 3 of the course.  I had heard that the conference was confusing and difficult to follow for a number of reasons.  I never expected to see what I have just finished watching. 

     At around fourteen and a half minutes, the audio seemed to go pretty much completely.  I could hear little to nothing even on the recording.  At that point, several students just started firing completely disjointed questions at the professor.  Without audio, these can only be deciphered in the transcript through all of the complaints about not being able to hear and so forth.  At about eighteen minutes and a quarter, everyone’s video went out.  About half a minute later, the professor’s audio came back, and most participants could hear again.  At this point in the conference, it appeared that the professor decided to nix the individual student webcam video and switch to sharing his screen or his camera in order to provide video for the conference.  In essence, the first twenty minutes of the recording was a wash with the brief exception of some tech tips for participating in an Adobe Connect Web Conference.  At twenty-one minutes and one half, the audio cut out again as the professor switched from sharing his screen to his camera.  By twenty-three minutes and a half, people were just bombarding the professor with questions faster than he could address them all.  On top of this inability to keep up with the deluge, many of the responses the professor did provide did not really elucidate anything: 

Q: “Do we actually have to create the web 2.0?  or just read about it and analyze it?”

A: “And yes, Jessica, we do have to create a Web point two zero.”

And then, a little later…

Q: “My understanding is that we do not do a LIVEBINDER, correct?”

A: “No, we do not, Rhonda. We do not have a binder…in this class. That’s correct. We do not have a binder.  It’s not a LiveBinder; it’s just a binder in TK20.” And then again a moment later, “We do not have a LiveBinder. It’s not a LiveBinder, Rhonda. It’s a binder. [then reading the text of a statement on screen] ‘the assignment talks about [a] livebinder’ We do not have a LiveBinder. And if it’s talking about a LiveBinder, I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I can go back and look and see what it says on…in Blackboard, but that’s what we have.”

     In the first of those two questions, the question itself was worded a bit strangely, but the professor’s reply only added to the confusion in the question by justifying it with his sanction. I’m not sure what it even means to “create” a Web 2.0, but telling everyone that we do, in fact, have to create one hardly helps to clarify the assignment.  In the second example above, the response simply reveals the professor’s unfortunate utter lack of awareness of the assignment that should have been clarified through this Web Conference.  The assignment for that week (which the professor later realized with some remorse) read thusly:

Week 3.1 - LiveBinder Web 2.0 Tools Collaborative Document

Complete instructions on this week's assignments are found in this Word document.

For this assignment, create your first Google Document.

·   Click the link below to access information about LiveBinders:

o    LiveBinders

From the LiveBinder link above, each member of your team must choose two collaborative web 2.0 tools within different tool categories for reviewing and discussing on your team Google Doc of how the tool may be used. Write a paragraph in your team Google Doc of the usefulness of this tool. How would you recommend the tools to teachers if you were the school principal?  What is a curator? Each team member must have one unique tool. Your team Google Doc becomes your curation of tools!

     Plainly, the assignment for the week made reference to LiveBinders although the particular LiveBinder to which the assignment link once led either no longer exists or is no longer actively available. At any rate, what was a legitimate question based upon the title and introduction of the assignment (and the conjecture necessary in the presence of a broken Internet link) was instead steered in the direction of TK20 and its “course binder” aspect.  The student’s question neither understood nor answered, the professor then compounds the confusion by intimating that there was a TK20 binder for this course which immediately results in a sense of dread clearly unknown to the faculty of Lamar University but felt to the very marrow by every one of TK20’s unwilling student victims.  This confusion became even greater later, when the professor pointed out that there was not, in fact, a course binder in TK20 for this course.

     The professor went on that evening to review the Performance Objectives for the course which, while worthwhile to know and to have in one’s head in order to enhance understanding throughout the assignment, did not really clarify what we as students needed to DO that week.  At this point in the conference, the students briefly descended to merely commiserating over the lack of clarity in the course’s instructions and the further confusion created by the lack of coherent instruction in the conference.

     When he finally reached the assignments in his review of the week’s Overview document and realized how he had misinterpreted the earlier question about LiveBinders, he simply apologized and stated that “LiveBinder is correct”.  This still left the student’s question unanswered.  That statement ended his review of the assignment, and he moved into asking a series of questions devised by another professor and himself.

     For a moment, then, some students simply began to ignore him and attempt to answer one another’s questions among themselves until other students unleashed an avalanche of responses to the discussion question about encouraging faculty to use Web 2.0 tools in our future leadership roles.  Throughout the discussion that followed, I couldn’t help but notice certain comments drowning amidst the tide of students racing to answer the professor’s questions.  With the exception of Tami’s direct question, all of the following statements and questions went by without reply:

• My ADHD is not allowing me to follow any of these conversations.  People have questions that are unanswered.  People are confused.  I'm very frustrated with this.

• wow, i think that I will need a drink after this web conference.

• Dr. -----, are you going to answer questions about the assignment? (his reply: Tami--you should call be [sic] after the class.)

•  I would be frustrated if I were a student trying to learn here or even get simple clarification on my assignment especially when we are asking questions that aren't being addressed

• I still don't understand exactly how the 2  assignments are to look.  How do you showcase your tool?

• …I don't think any of us quite understand. The instructions aren't clear. I know my group mates are just as confused as I am. I thought the web conference was to get clarification of the expectations of the assignments. Good luck!

• What about the Live Binder...?

     A Web Conference that left so many students feeling confused, frustrated, and isolated from help must do little to inspire technological novices to move forward with the idea of incorporating new technologies in the classroom and across the campus.  I remain grateful, after watching this recording, that I am not such a novice and have never been afraid to integrate technology to the highest degree possible given the hardware available to my students and me.  I am even more grateful, though, that because of this knowledge I felt assured enough to move forward with my best conjecture about the unclear assignment instructions throughout the course.  If I had felt the need to turn to the Web Conferences for help, I might have just gone insane.

     Upon reflection, I completely understand what the professor was trying to accomplish during the conference.  He had an agenda for the meeting, and he clearly felt the need to keep to that agenda regardless of the wishes of a considerable handful of the eighty or so students who attended. I also understand why he wanted to engage everyone in the conversation that consumed the last half of the conference.  That is, I imagine, the theoretical purpose for these things.  The only problem with that idea rests in the lack of clarity in the instructions for our assignments in several of the courses we’ve taken over the last year.  Many of my peers have grown very, very used to receiving that clarity during our weekly meetings online.  In this class, the instructions were so convoluted, unclear, and often derailed by outdated links and directives that some amends for clarifying the assignments should have been made.  In other words, this was decidedly not the class in which the professor needed to stick to his guns, ignore the pleas of confused students, and demonstrate the benefits of online discussion.  The very irony drowns any possibility of achieving that goal.

     One possible solution for this might be to hold two different Web Conferences each week with two separate intentions.  One conference could be facilitated exclusively through the professor’s prepared questions and reserved for group discussion of the concepts and theory that form the basis for the course. The other could be more like “e-office hours” where the students direct the substance of the session through their questions about the content, the assignments, or anything else that is on their minds and for which they wish to turn to their professor for guidance. 

     Another solution, and I have suggested this in the past, would be hold two or three conferences each week at different times and/or days with students assigned by section or last name or whatever to a certain conference date and time.  That solution might have made for the first third of this conference being eminently more successful than it was.  This is the second or third course in which the number of students trying to attend the Web Conference has been beyond what Adobe Connect is able to bear.  Either way (or another), something must be done to make this program’s Web Conferences more profitable for students and less stressful for our teachers.

On Project-Based Learning Here and Elsewhere

In one of the best recent examples I’ve seen of a PBL lesson, my colleague who teaches American History broke his class into groups and had them choose strips of paper at random. The strips each contained one of the 8^th Grade history TEKS. The groups then had to make a video presentation of their TEKS standard over a period of a few weeks. You can see an example of the videos here in an Xtranormal movie in which two guys hash out the causes and effects of the U.S.-Mexican War and their impact on the United States. In order to create these videos, students needed to work together, rely on one another’s strengths, pull together in areas of weakness, MASTER THE MATERIAL, and prepare a finished product that would be ready for use in a flipped-classroom.

A more low-tech project that I’ve used many times in my English classes – the Bridge-and-Tunnel playset – also proves to drive material home deeper and more thoroughly than more traditional learning models. In this project, I build mixed-ability groups and distribute construction paper and art supplies (crayons, glue, tape, markers, etc.). The students use instructions to build a small playset featuring a road. A bridge forming a second road then rises over the first road creating a short tunnel through which the first road passes.  The students make two cars and then use their imaginations to add elements like trees, bodies of waters, pedestrians, and so forth. Once the playset is complete, the students “play” with the cars while other group members record the cars’ behaviors by jotting down the prepositional phrases that describe the cars’ movement (e.g. through the tunnel, over the bridge, into the lake). The project ends with students using their list of prepositional phrases to compose a short story which they later present to the class. My students have always responded positively to this project, and that response has always been verified through formal assessment of the concepts of prepositions and prepositional phrases.

In the videos we saw this week, Introduction to Project-Based Learning and Project-Based Learning: Success Start to Finish, I saw that same kind of passion and engagement coming out in the students.  Children connected lessons they learned to previous attempts and first versions in both the “wing” lesson in the first video and the “critical friends” portion of the assignment in Manor.  These connections, as any reading teacher will tell you, constitute the basis of comprehension.  Without them, we are pouring water into a sieve, and the rush to assess before memory fails is on.  With them, we give students the opportunities they need to learn concepts and skills that will last throughout their lives.

Web 2.0 Tools and Collaboration - 5352 Week Three - Presented by The A-Team!

The A-Team!

	A-Team Members	Bios
*	Jeffrey Farley	Jeff graduated in 1999 from Coastal Carolina after ten years of chasing the moon, the sun, and his undergraduate degree. This unconventional path led him to myriad occupations, locations, people, and experiences. At the end of this formative period, he dabbled in human resources management, publishing, and other mean tasks but finally arrived in Texas and began teaching in January of 2001. Having arrived at what would prove to be his calling, he taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade reading and English for 5½ years in Port Arthur, Texas before transferring to Marshall Middle School in Beaumont, Texas.  read more...
*	Troy Humphrey	Troy is entering his 22nd year in education, all as a teacher and coach.  After graduating in 1991 from Southwestern Oklahoma State University with a degree in Social Science Education, Troy spent the next nine years teaching and coaching in Oklahoma.  He has been coaching girls basketball and teaching history in Texas the past 12 years.  Troy is now employed by Lubbock ISD, where he teaches Geography and is an assistant coach at Estacado High School. He is currently pursuing his masters in Educational Leadership at Lamar University.
	Aimee Keller	Aimee graduated in 2001 from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. in History.  After completing her degree she spent a few years working in social work before returning to school to become a teacher. Aimee attended Southwest Texas State University and completed post-baccalaureate work to obtain her certification. Currently Aimee is a Human Geography and World Geography Teacher at Westlake High School in Austin, TX.  She is working on her masters in  Educational Administration at Lamar University.

A-Team’s awesome Web 2.0 Tools for the Classroom

Tool	Description
	iTunes U is a useful 2.0 tool that you can use in the classroom. In iTunes U a user can have a library and download different courses from iTunes U.  One way of using this tool is setting up a course (similar to a book) for the subject being taught.  Within the course you can create units. Within each unit you can add topics or learning targets.  Underneath each learning target or topic it is possible to add links to presentation slides, websites, articles, videos, and surveys.  As a tool in the classroom you can set up sections with questions linked with videos, articles, or other resources and students can use the resource to answer questions as well as continue their own self-directed research if they chose to do so.    As a school principal I would recommend this tool to teachers if the campus is on a 1:1 initiative with iPads.  iTunes U is a great way for teachers to organize information and for students to access the information.  Unfortunately students will need apple products to use this program. One reason I would not use iTunes U is if teachers and students do not have access to apple products.  Also this tool does not allow for discussions by students or teachers only for information to be posted. -Aimee Keller-
	Socrative is a student response system that is a great tool in the classroom. Teachers can create exit tickets, quizzes, games, and exercises students can access during class. Through this system teachers can get quick data regarding student knowledge for either continued teaching or re-teaching.  The great thing about this tool is that students can access these activities through any digital medium. For example students can use their phones, ipads, computers, or whatever other digital medium with internet access they have. As a school principal I would recommend this resource to teachers as it is an easy way to gather formative assessment data and quickly determine if students understand the information.  One reason I would not recommend this tool is that it is currently not possible to insert images into questions which in some subjects and forms of questioning may be necessary. -Aimee Keller-
	Word cloud tools like Tagxedo can be useful for visual learners who need a visual depiction of the words of emphasis in a text. Teachers can  try having students use Tagxedo as an tool in the editing of their written work. They can also have students paste the text of an essay they've written into Tagxedo to see how often they use particular words or phrases. The students can then reflect on why they've used a particular word so often. Tagxedo is very easy to use and has a wide variety of design options available.  Students can either enter a word list manually or enter a url from which Tagxedo will produce a word cloud on its own.  It can be used either as study guides, presentation tools or even an assessment format to demonstrate understating.  I foresee many uses for Tagxedo in a 21st century classroom.-Troy Humphrey-
	Animoto is a video presentation system that is very easy to use.  It’s both easier and faster than creating a PowerPoint presentation and can yield much more visually satisfying products.  Students are afforded a great selection of images and music on the site or can upload their own images.  Text can be added to the presentation and there is no limit on how many videos are created.  Different priced packages offer upgrades to full length video ability and educators can sign up for free accounts. Animoto for educators can be utilized to introduce thematic units and activate student background knowledge and can be used as an alternative narrative method in the classroom.  These presentations can be easily shared through many social networking sites like Facebook, shared as a web link or embedded using HTML.  Students can be as creative as they wish with Animoto and personalize their photos with music.  Animoto projects allow students to think critically and thoughtfully about classroom topics in order to produce a substantive presentation.  Student’s videos allow them to showcase their reflective skills and serve as an evaluation tool for their teachers. -Troy Humphrey-
	Edmodo is a Learning Management System (LMS) that is available for free to districts, campuses, and individual teachers. With this tool, teachers can poll students; assign work; grade completed work; maintain grades; communicate with students, classes, and parents; positively reinforce students’ efforts; and more.  Students can work on assignments within the Edmodo platform, turn in work 24/7, and even store documents with the “backpack” - cloud storage - each students is assigned within the program. One of the most powerful elements of Edmodo is the smartphone app.  Using this tool, I have had students compose and submit their work while sitting in the backseat of their parents’ car on the way to Houston. I have then graded  the same assignment while standing in line at Target waiting to check out.  With this kind of portability and versatility, Edmodo has the capacity to change the face of education as we have always known it leading to flipped classrooms and a whole new way of teaching and assessing kids.- Jeffrey Farley -
	Prezi is still another useful tool for teachers and students.  On the Prezi platform, one can take presentations out of the stale, two-dimensional framework of PowerPoint and enter a more three-dimensional, 360⁰ realm that will stimulate classes, audiences, or a very tired PLC meeting at the end of a long day of teaching. Educators and students can sign up for free educational accounts with Prezi then create vibrant presentations that zoom in and out, contain audio and video, and deliver image and written content in ways that keep the viewers’ eyes engaged and happy and their minds wondering just where the presentation will take them next.  Teachers can put content into Prezi to keep students engaged during instruction or to be viewed outside of class by posting a link to a Prezi into an Edmodo assignment.  Likewise, students can present their findings for formal assessment in a Prezi that they then present to the class, submit for review by the teacher, or even post the link in an Edmodo discussion post to share with classmates.  Where one Web 2.0 tool is good, combinations of them only get exponentially better. - Jeffrey Farley -