Course+Embedded+Assignments+Reflection

= Course Embedded Assignments Reflections =

This course included a detailed analysis of the Long-Range Plan and the Technology Applications standards. The assignments provided an excellent opportunity to see how the big picture becomes what is required in the classroom. Some of the readings from people like Warlick (2007), Prensky (2004), Guhlin (2007), and others were just the beginning of a wealth of resources and information that has helped me throughout the program. Additional topics that were covered in this section include videos regarding safety on-line, the digital native video and copyright concerns. Of the activities I found the blogging, from Week 3 Leadership for Learning, was originally something I didn't see the need for. However, it began to help me ensure I took the time to let what I had learned register and helped me to start polishing my writing. Even though we teach, it doesn't mean we get to keep our writing skills honed so I've found that this has been a sidebar benefit. Examples of the connection made between the standards and the assignments include terminology and understanding of the common features of Internet communication tools as described in Standard I, and an understanding of the Texas Long-Range Plan and the shared vision for integration of software as identified by Standard VIII. Cyberspace safety was also stressed as it relates to Standard VI in the Week 4 Safety in Cyberspace lecture. The discussions postings became more comfortable as I gained a comfort level with sharing opinions and finding that so many others have the same thoughts. Not to negate any of the learning that occurred in this course but I was especially encouraged by the readings about the school in Alaska that has the one to one setup and extensive use of the Web. If a place like Alaska can make such progress, surely there is hope that our schools can be as fortunate! Guhlin, M. (2007). The case for open source. //Technology and Learning//, 27(7), 16-21. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 1. //On The Horizon - The Strategic Planning Resource for Education Professionals//, //9(5)//:1-6. Warlick, D. (2007). The executive wiki. //Technology and Learning//.
 * EDLD 5306 Concepts of Educational Technology **

Until I started reviewing my documentation from this course, I didn't realize how much information was packed into it; standards and accountability, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Annual Yearly Progress (AYP), site-based decision making, continuous improvement, and action planning to mention a few. Whew! And don't forget the exams! I believe that this course was best designed to be one of the early courses. I know that students can enter the program at any time but this was a very good initiation into many of the key topics that you really need to understand in a leadership position. "Cultural change begins with the school leader." (Reeves, 2007) Analyzing our campus data and picking out specific details supported the understanding of issues surrounding the use of technology as in Standard VI and VII. Data based decision making and the AYP projects were very eye opening and ensures that we are familiar with basic requirements that every school and district should have. Personally, I enjoyed the opportunity to develop a professional development day best from this course. This took us into the "real" territory that a technology specialist will be in. (I do think more time should be allowed for the project though. From the standpoint of providing more details and not that we did not have time for the actual assignment.) Fullan, M. (2002). The change leader. //Educational Leadership//, 59(8), 16-20. Reeves, D. (2007). How do you change school culture? //Education Leadership//, 65(5), 88.
 * EDLD 5333 Leadership for Accountability **

This course included an in depth review of the district technology planning and budgeting of technology. The overview of Student Information Systems helped me to understand more clearly what an information system is capable of what it can do for a district and what responsibilities our Registrar has. The information networking assignment was immediately useful for resources for my classroom. Assigned coursework made immediate connections to the standards by clarifying more terminology from the Web 2.0 environment as required by Standard I and also topics from other standards regarding policies, software use, etc. from Standard VII. The Horizons Report review was very thought provoking when you consider the fact that this information is where we should be headed and how far behind we are. Interviewing another teacher about the differences between teaching with technology and teaching before technology allowed for an opportunity to not only discuss and contemplate the resources available, as outlined in Standard V, but also the social, ethical, legal and human issues referred to in Standard VI. Johnson, L., Levine, A., & Smith, R. (2009). //The Horizon Report: 2009 K-12 edition.// Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
 * EDLD 5362 Information Systems Management **

A major part of this course involved the creation of a personal digital story and a group informational video and then blogging about the projects. There were resources available that helped to provide examples of what was expected. Creating the videos required a plan before starting and collaboration in stages with the other team members. I felt that the initial time spent to layout ideas and decide on what was needed was the most important step. Once we knew who needed to get what, we could work easily to collect the pieces that were needed. One of the biggest challenges I found was the posting of the videos in a format that was high quality but not too large to post. This has been an on-going issue I have had until recently. I spent several hours researching and testing different "Share" formats from iMovie to find settings that allow for the best quality but not so large of a video file. It can be quite annoying when you create a good video with many options like music and transitions and then you can't share it with others because it ends up too large. Standards that are addressed through this course include Standards I, II, III, and IV. These standards are reflected through the terminology that was explained in the textbook, the research we completed regarding our projects and the preparation of plans and the actual creation of the assignments. Lambert, J. (2007, February). Digital storytelling cookbook, 1-30. //Story Center//. Retrieved April 4, 2009, from [] Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). //Web 2.0: New tools, new schools//. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
 * EDLD 5363 Video Technology and Multimedia **

Readings form EDLD 5364 included articles to assist in connecting technology in student education. The article by Sprague and Dede (1999) pointed out how different a classroom can appear when students are actively learning. I have had similar situations with administrators stopping by when students appear to be unmanageable and playing on the computer when in fact they were very involved in their assignments. The comments from the article were very supportive from the standpoint that I am not the only one with this issue in a computer classroom. The book builder lesson we completed was very interesting and immediately useful for students based on the availability of information in one place and the option to create additional language characters. ESL students will have additional help with this tool along with students who are learning another language. This lesson allowed us to design and model a product created with technology as found in Standard V. The staff development plan provided the connection to Standard V by allowing the opportunity to facilitate the development of a shared vision from Standard VIII. For the week two scenario-based group project, I created the wiki and organized our teams’ initial plan. We had an excellent team and getting a strong start helped keep us on track. The early start also allowed us to spend more time checking our work as we progressed. It was challenging setting up assignments and tracking completion but we knew we had to complete everything as a group or without anyone who did not complete their part. (However, everyone in our group did complete their assignments as required.) This assignment, as outlined in the Week 2 lecture, allowed us to use some of the specific tools as stated by Pitler (2007) such as rubrics, blogs, Websites, and e-mail. Sprague, D. & Dede, C. (2007). Constructivism in the classroom. //Washington, DC: International Society for Technology in Education. // Mason, D. (2009). EDLD*5364 Teaching with Technology lecture materials. Beaumont, TX: Lamar University. Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). //Using technology with classroom instruction that works//. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
 * EDLD 5364 Teaching with Technology **

Topics that we covered during this course included school Web Policy, Governance, and the Web 2.0 World discussion from Week 1, Website planning and design from Week 2's Project Charter and High-Level Plan, and project management and Web 2.0 tools such as blogging, social networking, and interactivity from Week 4 Creating Interactivity. This was one of the first times I used Survey Monkey and I began using it in my classroom shortly after we had the assignment. Website maintenance and use is an area that I have had the opportunity to be part of before and I particularly like Website maintenance so I found myself able to help others for this portion of the class. Website software is one of those things that you need a good introduction to so you can feel comfortable trying it out. When students think about something going live and how easily it can get messed up, it can be very scary! The exams in this course were very heavy. I did a substantial amount of note taking and studying before I took one. There was a lot of information, as in most of the courses that we were exposed to. I had no problem being familiar with the topics and knowing where to find the information, but it was difficult to remember all of the details for a test! Examples of connections between this course and the standards include a thorough understanding of the terminology associated with creating Web pages from creating a plan as in Week 2's Project Charter and High-Level Plan and actually creating a Website as in Week 4's assignment using NewSchoolSpaces.net and Week 5 Site Launch Planning. Kaiser, S. E. (2006). //Deliver first class web sites: 101 essential checklists//. Collingwood, Vic: Sitepoint. Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2007). //Web 2.0: New tools, new schools//. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.
 * EDLD 5365 Web Design **

I consider this class to have been one of my most interesting and memorable ones. While at first I did not understand the connections our course would have to the old manuscripts and history information, I soon became very interested in the lecture material and assignments. With over two-million pages, The Turning the Pages manuscripts at the British Columbia site kept me surfing for hours looking at the historical data. (Week 1: Principles of Design, Activity 1.1) I had to remind myself I had an assignment to finish! Knowing the history of how the original form of desktop publishing began helped to see where things like color, layout and shapes began. This assignment gave me information that will help teach my students how to appreciate the art involved in creating desktop publishing projects. Another aspect of this assignment is the fact that I should always look further into education topics to get more information. The tying of the past to the present and making connections for learning are beneficial learning tools. Week 4 and the adventures of Second Life, aaahhh, what an adventure! There are so many possibilities for the use of a Second Life type product but I still see so many issues. The majority of cohorts all had the same experience I did initially. We either ended up landing somewhere obscene or were propositioned in some fashion when we first entered Second Life. After arriving at Lamar Island, everything was great and very educational. Other members also shared a number of additional educational Second Life locations with me while I was online. While creating code was an optional assignment, one of my pet peeves is using software and not trying out everything possible that is available. So, this was another area that I really found challenging and spent extra time on. I created code for gestures and some animations like giving others instructions when they walked on my rug. Examples of standards that tie into this course include the integration of new technology as outlined in Standard I and the code used for Second Life also connects to the need for higher order thinking that students need to achieve according to Standard III. Learning about the different definitions of what teachers use to define "understanding" was very interesting and useful for creating lesson material. The explanation presented by John Dewey (1933) as provided in the Wiggins and McTighe (2000) book came to be my best reference. "To grasp the meaning of a thing, an event, or a situation is to see it in its relations to other things: to see how it operates or functions, what consequences follow from it, what causes it, what uses it can be put to." (Dewey, 1933, p. 137, 146)
 * EDLD 5366 Digital Graphics, Animation and Desktop Publishing **
 * EDLD 5368 Instructional Design**

Over viewing my method of preparing lessons as required in the discussion helped me to evaluate the process and to realize that sometimes I take shortcuts that I shouldn't. The week 5 assignment asked about the benefit of online education. Reflecting on the possibilities helped to identify what I wanted to do with my Schoology lesson that we started preparing for in Week 2. Educators will experience a clear benefit from the ability to design and implement online learning when they see how much more engaged their students are. Students are accustom to using technology and studies have shown that most students do better when they can use a hands-on and/or interactive learning approach. In the article by Haury and Rillero (1994) there are numerous examples of different subjects justifications for online learning but my favorite reference from the article is the Chinese proverb; I hear and I forget, I see and I remember I do and I understand.

The Schoology project from this course was especially useful by providing the opportunity to try out a majority of the options available in an online learning system. As stated in by Collier (1977, p. 75) there is value in small a professional study where small groups contribute.

Collier, K. G. (1977). Research on small-group methods in in-service work. Retieved from doi:10.1080/0305763770040113 Dewey, J. (1933, January). //How we think: A restatement of the relation of reflective thinking to the educative process//. Boston, MA: Henry Holt. Haury, D. L., & Rillero, P. (1994). Perspectives on on-line science teaching. Retrieved from http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/content/cntareas/science/eric/eric-2htm Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). //Understanding by design// (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.