CEP 812 Group Leadership Project: Part A - Brainstorm Session

1.  What web conferencing tool did your group use?

We used Vyew as our web conferencing tool.  We made this decision before we found out that recording the session was no longer a part of the free site but with the use of Jing and Screencast-o-matic we recorded a good portion of our meeting. Our meeting was held on Thursday, May 26 at 8:00 pm Michigan time.  The link to our session is at https://www.msu.edu/~rebaemil/wc.flv

2.  What were the advantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?

The advantages of using the web conferencing tool to discuss the project were that we could bounce ideas off of each other and come to a decision on what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it all in one session instead of having multiple emails being sent back and forth between the group members.  We also had a chance (except for one member) to see what we looked like and to see facial expressions and body language instead of just text.  There were a number of moments of head nodding and laughter as we fumbled with the new technology, met a small pirate daughter and heard dogs and cell phone tunes go off in the background. At the end it felt like a very productive meeting and I feel like we add knew what our rolls were.  Emily recorded the session using Screencast-o-matic and I took a number of Jing screenshots.

3.  What were the disadvantages to using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project?

The disadvantages of using the web conferencing tool to discuss this project made themselves apparent when we first started trying to come up with a date and time to "meet".  I'm sure one of the reasons we all chose to take this class online was because of our busy and changing schedules so finding a time that would work for us all took some doing.  Between these schedules, having a member on the other side of the world and the weather here in Michigan adding to the confusion made this a challenge.  The next disadvantage was the program itself.  While exploring the program we chose before the scheduled meeting the site looked easy to use and a couple of us logged in early to practice.  As we were navigating Vyew we found that it was not as easy or intuitive as we thought.  We discovered that we couldn't all have our speakers on at once or we had ear piercing feedback and one member couldn't get their webcam to work.  We struggled with multiple people flipping pages, making things appear and disappear which was confusing and comical!  When we worked our way through that we then saw that we couldn't record the session using Vyew.  Since we were all there we decided to continue on and we used a variety of screen captures to record our session.  The final and least disadvantage was the advertisements in the corner, its a small thing but I found their flashing, appearing and disappearing to be distracting.

CEP 812 Wicked Project Part A

An educational need or opportunity. This element is fundamental in this project. Since we have limited time, energy, and resources, cool technology without a clear sense of why it matters or what we gain by it is of little value in the educational setting.

The educational need or opportunity that I have selected for my Wicked Project is to increase communication between me as a teacher and parents (and incidentally between me and students, the district and the community).  I have identified this as a need over many years where I have attempted to contact parents about what we are doing in class.  The old way of playing phone tag, sending home postcards, letters, progress reports is time consuming and seldom shows results.  The new way of using technology is as an opportunity to make the class work accessible online by having syllabi, course outlines, posting assignments, and providing resource links for further research and practice.  This way parents, students, the district and the community know what is going on in my classroom.  It will be there on days that students are absent or for ones who are working on homework at home to have the documents available so there is no “I left it at school”.

  How you plan to address this educational issue with technology. You need to make a clear and convincing case that your proposed solution will make a real impact on the issue you identify, and that your proposed approach is a reasonable approach given its costs and possible alternatives.

I plan to address this educational issue with technology by creating an easy to access and use classroom website.  I will be using a free website (Weebly) where I will include information about me, my classes, assignments, forms to contact me and a way to electronically submit student work.  I will include links to the Family Access gradebook and other resources for research and practice.  This approach will take less time to maintain once set up than I previously spent playing phone tag with parents or addressing mail.  I also believe that parents will find accessing the website less intimidating than trying to talk to secretaries, leaving voicemail or talking to a teacher that they may not know.  Students will find the ability to look up assignments (and being able to turn them in) not only valuable for my class but a valuable skill for future employment.

Logistics of solution (what is the scope; when and where will tool be used and for how long?)

The website I create will be used by me for the duration of this year with the intention of continued and expanded use next year.  As I work with the website I will be able to modify and enhance it for the remainder of my teaching years.  I am hoping that it will prove to be a model for other teachers who I can encourage to create a website so that it will become routine for parents and students to access them anytime they have a question or just want to know what is happening in the classroom.

          

Relevant research and resources (from the Internet and elsewhere) including reports on the closest effort you can find to what you are planning to do as well as ideas and materials you may be able to build upon in your own effort.

There is a lot of research (both old and new) that indicates that parent involvement and communication between parent and teacher is key for student success.  As I will be working with 5^th/6^th grade as well as High School next year I included research for middle school as well.  I found that due to the difference between middle school and elementary school structure, parent involvement tends to decline across the grade levels.  But if teachers in the middle school use appropriate tools to help increase communication with parents that those patterns will continue through the upper grade levels.  A website was shown to keep parents informed of homework and important school dates while fostering independence in adolescent students by not having parents visibly checking up on the students (ie. Being embarrassed in front of their friends by parents showing up in class!)

I have been bookmarking articles using my Delicious account:  http://www.delicious.com/ppilant and Google Bookmarks

A plan for the portion you will implement during this course and the portion you will implement after this course completes.

I will create the website that I will be using after completing my research on what an effective teacher website should include and interviewing potential “clients” (parents, students, teachers…).  After I have the website up and running I will have some test subjects look it over and use the various features that I include.  For the fall I will update the website with my current course information and add website maintenance to my weekly schedule of “things to do”.  I will have the website included on my course syllabus, business card, the bottom of my email (signature) and have a link added to the school website so people will know that it is there and available.

Indicators of a successful project

I will know if my project is successful by the number of visits I get to the site, the number of subscriptions I get to the website and the feedback I receive from parents, students and other users.  Since I will have a different job next year than this year I won’t have a before/after percentage to look at but I will be able to complete a survey during parent-teacher conferences to see if parents and students feel better informed.  Since I will be including a communication form and a homework submit form I will be able to see if that is being used.

CEP 812 My Personal Introduction Movie

So here it is, my first "movie" which took way too long because I kept playing with it!  All this for a one minute introduction!

CEP 812 My Avatar

I created this Avatar of me while playing with ideas for my personal introduction.  I decided not to use it but it was so funny I had to keep it and post it!

CEP 812 My First Audio Podcast--experimental

Here is my first audio podcast created in Audacity.

It's located at:
https://www.msu.edu/~pilantpa/cep812/mypodcast.mp3

CEP 811 Final Reflections

Its hard for me to separate the questions from CEP 810 and CEP 811 since I was taking them at the same time and much of it blended together with only the assignments making a distinction between them for me.  This was actually a good thing as I could apply what I was learning in one course to the other and my studies and readings flowed back and forth between the classes.  So, my answers for CEP 811 are similar to CEP 810 :)

Some of the things that I have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology are:

• to provide guidelines
• to make lessons valuable to students
• to select technology lessons that enhance the curriculum
• to make technology fun
• to not worry about knowing the technology perfectly

Integrating web-based technologies helped me think about and evaluate uses of technology by:

• helping me be aware of resources that I didn't know about (like Merlot)
• helping me think about the quality of the different web-based technologies
• helping me know how to evaluate the quality of the resources

I have met my own personal goals for learning about technology integration by:

• becoming more aware of new types of technology that are available
• learning how to use new types of technology
• implementing some of the new technologies learned for personal use (I have set up my own website) 
• introducing some of the new technologies with students.  I have shown some of my projects to students who then have decided to try them too
• assisting other teachers at my school to use some of the technologies too (they love Google Docs now and one teacher wants me to help her set up an online resume).

My plan for reaching my goals is to complete the next 3 CEP courses I need to get the NP endorsement. My long term goals will be to continue learning about new technologies and search for other opportunities to advance my educational technology education.  Since I already have a MA in Educational Technology I'm not sure what my next step will be but through the networks I am now connected with I will be able to see if new courses, new degrees, or workshops become available.  Also I will be kept up-to-date on what's new in the world of educational technology and can pursue learning on my own which taking this class has reminded me I really love doing! I plan on continuing using my Wiki and my Website for both professional use and as an example for students in my classroom.

CEP 810 Personal Learning Reflection

Some things that I have learned about effective teaching strategies when integrating technology are:

• to provide guidelines
• to make lessons valuable to students
• to select technology lessons that enhance the curriculum
• to make technology fun
• to not worry about knowing the technology perfectly

Integrating the Internet helped my think about and evaluate uses of technology by:

• helping me be aware of resources that I didn't know about
• helping me think about the quality of the different resources
• helping me know how to evaluate the quality of the resources
• helping me show students how to evaluate Internet resources

Of the assignments that I turned in I feel the following really exemplifies good teaching with technology:

• The SIG Annotated List of Resources.  I feel that our  project would make using technology relevant to students, enhance the curriculum, make technology fun and introduce students to the concept of enjoying learning and lifelong learning.
• PLN Visualization.  I feel that is a lesson I could use with my students to help them set goals for their own learning while becoming familiar with new technologies.

I feel I have met by goals established in my Personal Growth Plan by:

• becoming more aware of new types of technology that are available
• learning how to use new types of technology
• implementing some of the new technologies learned for personal use (I have set up my own website) 
• introducing some of the new technologies with students.  I have shown some of my projects to students who then have decided to try them too!
• assisting other teachers at my school to use some of the technologies too (they love Google Docs now and one teacher wants me to help her set up an online resume).

My goals for after this course is over are pretty much the same as in my Personal Growth Plan.  My plan for reaching my goals it to complete the next 3 CEP courses I need to get the NP endorsement. My long term goals will be to continue learning about new technologies and search for other opportunities to advance my educational technology education.  Since I already have a MA in Educational Technology I'm not sure what my next step will be but through the networks I am now connected with I will be able to see if new courses, new degrees, or workshops become available.  Also I will be kept up-to-date on what's new in the world of educational technology and can pursue learning on my own which taking this class has reminded me I really love doing!