Course EDLD 5306 Reflections...

• What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned?

I was a bit apprehensive when I began this course, as with any other course that I have taken when I working on my undergrad at Sam Houston. This is mainly due to my previous experiences as a student; you never really know what to expect in terms of your professor’s teaching style, the level of communication in between the professor, and fellow students, workload, subject matter, and the amount of time spent every week doing all of these items. I knew that the one outcome that I envisioned was getting a solid introduction and gain a pretty good foundation in the framework of Educational Technology. I feel like I did achieve this outcome, because as a “non-teacher” I was thoroughly introduced to important items such as the Texas Long Range Plan, and the State Technology Standards; as well as other very useful tools I did not expect to learn about such as blogging, using a wiki and successfully participating in a web conference (which I really enjoy).

• To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not?

As I am not actually employed by a school, but rather an Education Service Center in the Safety Education and Training Department, the outcomes of this course are probably not quite as relevant to the work I do currently as much as it probably would be for somebody who teaches on a campus. I am a firm believer that knowledge is power and to always continue to be a life-long learner, even if it does not directly apply to your current position. However, in my department we do offer Virtual School classes, which involve Educational Technology and has to align with the State’s Technology Standards as well as the Standards set by the Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN).  I feel like it is always helpful to be knowledgeable in the future of Technology Education as well as becoming familiar with using Web 2.0 tools to assist with educating other employees and possibly be able to assist other departments with Technology Professional Development.

• What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them?

I honestly cannot say that I feel like I did not achieve the outcomes I wanted for this course because I have learned so much information (that it is border line overwhelming), but still very retainable and applicable. A personal outcome that has nothing to do with the actual course materials that I wanted to achieve was to actually work ahead and stay on top of my assignments very well, however I do not feel like I achieved this personal outcome to the point that I wanted.

• Were you successful in carrying out the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you?

I absolutely feel like I was successful in carrying out the course assignments, even though some of them were very long, daunting and much more time-consuming than I had budgeted my time for. Every assignment I turned in was 100% complete and for the most part, I was very satisfied with the work that I turned in. If I was to consider myself “unsuccessful” in any area of the assignments, it was definitely in respect to budgeting my time for the school work; readings, videos and the end product—the assignment. I did get a bit discouraged and overwhelmed with some of the assignments because I am not a classroom teacher and I had to struggle a bit more than I think my peers did who are classroom teachers in relation to applying technologies and lessons incorporating technology into day-to-day classroom instruction (of which I have no experience in whatsoever); and to the infrastructure of technology they have on each of their respective campuses and districts to draw on for course application.

• What did you learn from this course…about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes?

This course was a great learning experience for me, especially in learning what technology skills I am proficient in and those that I will need to work on. I did discover that I am pretty resourceful in finding the answers to my own questions and self-teaching myself to fix technology problems that I have encountered along the way via Google and other internet resources (for example, I randomly have issues with my internal camera and microphone of which I taught myself how to fix without having to ‘bug’ anyone else about)! I enjoyed doing the self assessments and seeing what the assessment said my strengths were (my top three intelligences, my technology applications inventory, etc). I also learned that no matter how hard I try to stay on top of the assignments, I really am one of those people who works well under pressure, which in turn means that I tend to put items off until I absolutely have to get them done (which is not always a good thing and moderately stressful). All in all, I have learned so many valuable items from this class and I am looking forward to the rest of this degree program!

Week 2 Web Conference Reflection

Oh, the benefits of using technology to save time and money! Web conferencing really is a great cost and time effective tool to meet with your classmates and professor on course items, especially when all of us are scattered across the state! This really was a neat experience for me to learn how to use this tool and all of the software and hardware needed to have a good web conference. Luckily for me, the hardware requirements (mainly the web camera and microphone) are contained within my laptop, making them especially easy to use and hassle free.

In addition to learning how to properly use this tool, it was really neat to have the opportunity to meet my classmates and converse with them on items such as: the course workload (hours spent), posting properly on discussion board, getting to know them as individuals—where they live and work, interests, etc. It was nice to see and get to speak with Dr. Abshire about the assignments and more specifically, the internship requirements and expectations that many of us were overwhelmed with.

All in all, the web conference was a great success and an all around wonderful opportunity for the students to interact with each other as well as Dr. Abshire on varying topics concerning this course.

E-Rate & HISD

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National Educational Technology Plan - Summary

The National Educational Technology Goals set to be achieved by 2020 that have been defined in their Plan are: to “raise the proportion of college graduates from where it now stands [39%] so that 60% of our population holds a 2-year or 4-year degree” and to “close the achievement gap so that all students – regardless of race, income, or neighborhood – graduate from high school ready to succeed in college and careers” (U.S. Department of Education, 2010).
In order to achieve these two quite sizable (and might I say valiant) goals, there must be quite an innovative transformation in their approach, pushing the [education] system to be unambiguous, work effectively and efficiently in all collaborative efforts; to ensure measures are taken to rate and monitor progress and to “hold [themselves] accountable” (USDE, 2010) for that progress (or short-falls).

In respect to teaching and learning, technology allows educators to access and implement the “connected teaching model” (USDE, 2010) which enables teachers to become a part of online learning communities to help forge a higher teaching and learning capacity for them. It shifts isolated teaching to a “team activity” (USDE, 2010) in which all participating educators connect not only to data to learn from, but also the tools for using that data. For student learning, the main challenge for this plan is to reshape the structure of how the students learn. To give them the freedom to take the reins on how they learn, by incorporating the technology they use in their everyday lives to have a more tailored experience with learning, which will then motivate and encourage them beyond the traditional style of learning information (lectures, books, writing, and so on) (USDE, 2010).

The plan also states that there must be a mutual/shared, sound, and on-going approach taken in respect to professional development and training for educators. This entails unifying traditional person-to-person workshops and trainings (most prevalent currently in our education system) with the new online learning environments that are rich with resources and collaboration with fellow educators (USDE, 2010).

The main concern that I see with this comprehensive, proactive plan is that there are such a high number of socio-economically challenged school districts that will struggle financially to acquire the technology they will need implement to become a part of this plan. More specifically, it is not that they will not qualify for assistance, but many schools of this nature lack the personnel needed to take the appropriate steps to document, report and receive funding because often these small/underprivileged schools struggle to hire “experienced” staff that is well-versed in this area or even care to take the steps to move forward with new technology.

Reference:

U.S. Department of Education. (2010, March 5). Transforming American
             Education: Learning Powered by Technology. Retrieved from

            http://www.ed.gov/sites/default/files/NETP-2010-final-report.pdf

Huntsville Indepedent School District Technology Plan

For Huntsville Independent School District, there are four main goals included in their Technology Implementation Plan. They are:
“Goal 1: Technology is used to reinvent and reshape curriculum and instruction, changing the way teachers teach and students learn.
Goal 2: The professional development programs in technology are designed to advance the school’s goals for student learning.
Goal 3: Technology is used as an efficient and effective management and administrative tool to support the instructional program.
Goal 4: The deployment of resources advancing the school’s vision for technology and student achievement” (Newman, 2010).

All of these goals are accompanied by many different strategies that ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ are far too in depth for summarization but can be viewed by visiting HISD's Technology Plan (Newman, 2010). The professional development opportunities that are/will be available are coordinated by  the Career and Technology Education Director  and the Instructional Technology Specialists from the District Technology Department; they focus on different areas of what competencies the teachers and administrators will have to be familiar with and master through an “HISD Technology Staff Development Plan (TAP)” (Newman, 2010) but the specific trainings are not dated or defined. I kept a keen eye to look for the local Education Service Center (Region VI) to provide some of this professional staff development; however it was not mentioned. There appear to be limited financial resources and time to ensure the staff is kept up to date in learning new technologies, but they are allocating their funds to be the most cost efficient as possible. 

The telecommunication services, hardware, software and other services are assessed by the Technology Director to ensure improved student learning. The evaluation process than enables the district to monitor progress toward specific goals and make mid-course corrections is both formative and summative and the Technology Director is responsible for submitting these monitoring reports to the Superintendent mid-year and at the end of the fiscal budget year. The District Technology Committee then “compiles the data to evaluate the effectiveness of the Technology Plan and make recommendations to the School Board and Superintendent for revisions and needed updates.” (Newman, 2010)

Reference:

Newman, E. (2010, June 29). Huntsville Independent School District Technology Plan
             July 2010-July 2013. Retrieved November 26, 2010 from Huntsville Independent
             School District’s website:
             http://www.huntsville-isd.org/pdf_files/TechnologyPlan2010-2013.pdf

The Value of Technological Assessments for both Educators as well as their Students

The value of assessing the educators’ as well as the students’ knowledge and skill levels in technology is very useful and very much needed; because in every application, you have got to know at what starting point each is at before moving forward new plans and goals. You simply cannot put the “cart before the horse,” as my mother used to tell me when I would get excited about weekend plans when I still had a week full of chores to complete. The same applies with technology education—you cannot simply hand a teacher a technology curriculum to integrate within their classroom if you have not first assessed their own level of technology skills in which they will be required to teach with, nor can you assign an entire classroom of students a homework assignment to be completed on the Internet if you have not first assessed whether or not the students can even operate on that technological level (depending on grade level, of course). Assessments are a good way to gain some insight on what you are working with on a knowledge and skill basis.

However, with almost any topic, there are both pros and cons to these assessments. On the “Pros” side, if the assessments are answered both honestly and accurately, one can gain a fairly decent, overall grasp of the strengths and weaknesses of the individual taking the assessment and can get an overall direction that the individual can work towards technologically. Answering dishonestly and inaccurately would definitely be a “Con” that completely skews the usefulness and application of even giving the assessment and further sets back that individual in their growth towards becoming more technologically skilled, which would be like a Butcher applying for a Banking position—nothing good would come from it. Another downside of the written assessments is that they do not confirm that the individual actually has the skills that they could say they have; having an actual set of skills to be performed (i.e. creating a PowerPoint or Blog, etc.) as part of the assessment would be a better confirmation of where that individual stands in their knowledge and skill
level.

In summary, I do still believe that having these assessments does play a positive, critical part in the overall success of teachers as well as the students in the area of technology.  What do you think?

First Blog -- Coming soon!

Wooo hoooo! I have made it this far, but now the hard part: What, oh what, to Blog about? This will indeed require some soul searching and just a little bit more time than I currently have today. Please come back soon and I'll something for you to read. :) Until then, my Mom and I say "Goodbye" and "Goodnight!" (which is, of course, just an excuse to put another picture on here...you caught me. Haha.)