Take Me To Your Leader
July 2012
I have always been interested in advancements in technology and when it came time to decide what to get my master’s degree in my choice was simple. Combining this interest with what I thought would be a tremendous payoff; I jumped at the
opportunity to devote myself to educational technology. I wanted to be on the cutting edge of this field, learn how to apply it to my classroom, and enter the early stages of becoming a leader within my district so that I could promote all that I found to be worthwhile. This essay will describe important ideas that I have learned throughout the program, what I have accomplished, and what I intend to do in the near and distant future.
In the beginning
In the early days of the program I had a general sense of certain technology, a limited knowledge of how to apply it to teaching, and only a wisp of understanding of what else was out there. I started the program by taking CEP 810 Teaching Understanding with Technology, CEP 811 Adapting Innovative Technology to Education, and CEP 812 Applying Educational Technology to Practice in rapid succession (811 and 812 concurrently). These three courses really opened my eyes to how powerful educational technology could be. Going in, I thought I would be learning about the best way to use a Smartboard or how some other gadget would amaze and engage my students while simultaneously raising their ACT scores to unheard of limits! My mindset was more centered on items to be purchased and then let loose on the students. The only constraints would be the ever shrinking budget and the time we were allowed to be enlightened by the products of The Future. I say this a little tongue in cheek, but it is really not far off. I quickly learned just how far off I was.
My early courses exposed me to many forms of technology and instilled in me a deep understanding of a few. I saw how a blog can create interactions between students and their teacher and between the students themselves. It is driven and maintained by the teacher, but really becomes what the class wants it to be. It can be educational, supportive, and a provider of feedback. It does it in a way that is different from raising a hand in class to ask a question or having to provide a response while your peers wait. You are given time to consider and reflect before posting without the pressure of people staring. It also remains, so that days or weeks later a post can be brought back up as a reminder or to be reconsidered.
Other forms of technology that I was introduced to included wiki’s, Google Docs, and social bookmarking. Learning about wiki’s was exciting because I had known about sites like Wikipedia, but never realized that it was something that could be used in a classroom. The idea of creating a shared webpage that includes an entire classroom’s contributions opens up a lot
of possibilities for learning. Google Docs have proven to be very useful. Several of my instructors have used it effectively and over the last couple of years my district has used the feature in many ways to collect data, display information, or to make shared files accessible to everyone. Social bookmarking is just too sensible to ignore. Not only can you save yourself the hassle of creating the same bookmarks for every computer (and browser) you use, but you can group the bookmarks and
share them, like with a class or with colleagues. This early exposure showed me not only many new ways to assist learning,
it showed me how much I had to learn myself.
One assignment from this time still stands out in my mind. It was the Stand Alone Individual Resource (StAIR) project.
This was based in PowerPoint and allowed the learner to navigate on their own. They started with a lesson, and then progressed on to an assessment. If the answers were correct they would receive positive feedback. If they were wrong, then they would retake the quiz or be taken back to the lesson depending on how the author wrote it. I was very impressed by this and thought of the possibility of making an entire series of StAIRs for a high school math course covering each standard required. Over time these could be improved and infused with external links to helpful websites or with videos.
While it took a lot of time to create and was at times frustrating, I was pleased with the final result.
What have you done?
It can be difficult to identify specific lessons and times of learning throughout the program, but this can be helped by
recalling and revisiting projects and products of the courses. Some of the ones that made a lasting impression on me include the previously mentioned StAIR, the creation of an online course, and making a screencast. For different reasons, these three projects had an impact on how I do my job and my thoughts of the future.
The main reason I mention the StAIR is because it was the first time I realized that it wasn’t going to be gizmos and gadgets that fostered learning. It impressed me because it took a lot of thought and planning to create. I had to know what I teaching, how to present it, what ways a user could respond, etc. To be good, it was not something I could just wing or throw together at the last minute. Most importantly, it made it necessary to know how my students learn.
Creating on online class for CEP 820 Teaching K-12 Students Online was a very interesting undertaking. Like many other projects it took a lot of planning, but this started to get me to think more about my future. As the number of people taking online courses continues to increase, there may be a day that I want to create my own real course. It could be for my current district or for some unnamed employer down the road. It is a skill that I believe will be a big asset for me as the world trends towards an increase in online learning. I am a football coach as well as a math teacher and I have entertained ideas of packaging what we try to accomplish with two-a-day practices, video analysis, and playbooks into a sort of quasi-online course. How
exactly I would use this skill is beside the point. The point is that I can use it many ways that could potentially shape my
career.
The one form of technology that has provided the most concrete use so far has been the screencast. At a recent professional development day for my district, we were given an overview of a “flipped classroom” approach to teaching.
In this approach, students get the majority of their lessons from viewing material outside of class, such as videos or slide shows. The teacher posts these and the students are expected to be active note takers just like as if they were in a classroom. Then, when they do come to class, they do activities, projects, or skills practice with the teacher being the “guide at the side”. The screencast was a perfect tool for this! I was able to record what was going on my own computer screen while simultaneously recording myself talking to the slides or whatever content I chose to display. A great benefit of
teaching this way is that whatever is created doesn’t go away. It is saved and can be viewed again and again by the students at their leisure. It can also be used in future years or by other teachers. The screencast is a valuable tool that I have used and will continue to use in the future.
The Future: Goals, Possibilities, and Dreams
My thinking about the future can be categorized three different ways; goals, possibilities, and dreams. My goals are both short and long term, but the longer they stretch out, the more they look like possibilities or dreams. Possibilities of the future are, to me, not necessarily what I want to happen, but what could happen with my situation. Dreams are what happen when everything turns out perfect. I have ideas that fit all three of these categories.
My goals are current and usually take up the majority of my thoughts of the future. I have three short term goals
concerning educational technology. First, I plan to begin to build a virtual library of my own personal
screencasts. I will use my school issued website and start with the courses that I will teach next year. Each day that I would typically stand in front of the class and give notes will become a screencast. This requires either someone recording me, or creating (or finding on the internet) a slide show. I prefer the instruction to be by myself (as opposed to a site like Khan Academy) because I believe this will help me make connections with my students. They will hear my voice, the way I teach, and the terminology that I use. This a huge undertaking, but I go in with the thought that this is the first iteration and that if a lesson doesn’t get done during the first pass it will the second or third time. Eventually, the library will fill in and then just require occasional maintenance.
My second short term goal is to revamp my school website. Using the knowledge I have gained over the last two-plus years, I have confidence in my ability to make an engaging, highly useful site that can help students, parents, and other
teachers. Students and parents can use it for typical things like viewing the calendar, reading the syllabus, and looking at past and future assignments or tests. It will be where I post my library of screencasts. It will have other links and videos to supplement the main ones I use for class. It will have a blog which will allow interaction outside of school. Other teachers can link to my website if they find my screencasts or other material to be helpful. In CEP 805 Learning Mathematics with Technology we analyzed several different technology based math sites and programs. I could keep a log of sites that have been critiqued with comments and ratings.
My third goal is to use Google Docs more effectively. Many of my fellow math teachers spend a lot of time and produce a lot of very good worksheets, tests, slide shows, and projects…just to save them to their own computer! What a shame! I
have promoted sharing our creations in the past and I plan to push this more in the upcoming year. We can create
course, chapter (or unit), and lesson folders, save all of our existing work to them and allow them to be accessible to any other teacher. I think this would be especially helpful to new teachers or for those that are teaching subject that they have never taught. I will never forget my feeling of being underwhelmed when the help I was given my first year consisted of handwritten tests that had been recopied several times.
A long term goal of mine is pretty simple. I want to become the technology leader of my department. I have a good
foundation now, I plan to incorporate it into my daily routine, and I will continue to look at new ideas. I would be comfortable being the go-to-guy for any questions and would love to collaborate with others that have a high interest.
For my ideas of future possibilities, please allow for the use of bullets:
· Texting students with reminders for assignments
· Using Skype or something similar to hold discussions outside of class
· Incorporating cell phone use in the classroom to access information
· Using Twitter to post links to helpful sites or to show how math shows up everywhere
· Creating a wiki for each of my classes and allow them to generate a knowledge base of what we are learning
· Creating an app for my classes or for my football team
· Creating an online class
These are ideas that I think about using, but have not gotten to the point where it sure to be used.
Finally, I come to the dream of the future. In this dream I see a lot of interaction and collaboration. Some people will be active and some will be passive, but, overall, through the use of blogs, group postings, YouTube, and Google Docs, students and teachers can share and have access to an enormous amount of good information. I dream of a highly organized and flexible information base that guides students through an engaging and rich learning experience. It will be easily accessed.
It will be streamlined. Students will walk away with confidence and mastery of the subject and the ability to relate their knowledge to others. They will know how to build upon their knowledge and how to revisit ideas. Their work will be documented, posted, and permanent, such as in an online portfolio. My dream requires universal access to the internet, students with data plans, and a huge amount of prior knowledge of the technology being used, but after all, this is a dream!
I have mentioned that I have an interest in technology, but I know that is not enough. If I want to make my goals a reality, I know I must have great enthusiasm. That is the challenge I know that I face. I now have a great understanding
of how to use technology in education and I have many tools to help me along. It now relies on my ability to be productive to achieve the possibilities and to make a dream come true.
-Dave Crispin