5302: Concepts of Educational Technology

Do you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset?  The foundation of the Digital Learning and Leadership program.  In order to be an innovator you will need to be open to failure within this course.  Through failure comes growth.  You are not measured by your failure but by the amount of growth you make.  Carol Dweck’s developing a growth mindset helped set the stage for future classes.  Through this class I developed my own presentation which is now the foundation for all my classes that I teach.

5303: Applying Educ Tech: Portfolio

Portfolios are a waste of time, at least that was my original thought process.  I have created portfolios before, but never with a purpose. With the ideas of COVA in mind the ePortfolio is one of the most important pieces that you will take away from this course.  The portfolio that I have created is truly my own and will continue to be used as I continue to grow as an educator. One of the most powerful things that I have taken away from my portfolio is the reflection through blogging.  Reflecting has given me more insight into how I have grown and developed as an educator.

5304: Leading Organizational Change

I will be the first to tell you that I didn’t always see myself as a person that could impact change.   Maybe that is because I never had the right tools or process in order to do it. In order to impact change you need to develop the WHY.  This was impacted by Simon Sinek’s Start with Why.  In order for my innovation plan to be successful I needed to present my why.  I went with what I was passionate about.  If I was going to be successful in implementing Blended learning I would need to show my passion and heart.  It’s not easy being an Innovator.  In order to be successful a lot of planning and purpose needs to be established.  That process was demonstrated throughout this course providing me with several different tools for impacting change.  One tool was the power of conversation.  I think this is one area that I have grown the most over the past year and a half.  Through Instructional Coaching training and this course I have been able to develop better relationships with teachers through conversation.  Another set of tools that were used in order to help create a plan was the Influencer and the 4DX model.  These tools can be used in order to measure the overall success of my innovation plan. Each one of these tools have been taken and modified in a way that I saw fit my own personal innovation of blended learning.  This is another example of how the COVA model was demonstrated throughout the entirety of this program.  With the power of these tools I am hoping for the power of 10X the impact.

5305: Disruptive innovation

All I can say is that true innovation is disruptive, and in a good way.  This course had probably the biggest impact on me as an educator/innovator.  The idea that I could lead and help facilitate organization change within my school district was very rewarding. Here is where the real change started.  It all started with a letter.  Sending this letter to my principal was the moment that changed everything for me as an innovator.  It is the moment that I started to see myself as a person who could impact change within the school.  I then went on to create an innovation plan for my school district.  The outline of the plan will be expanded upon later on.  In this course I was also tasked with developing my own research on blended learning.  The research helped give me a deeper understanding so that I could create my own innovation video about blended learning.  This was used to help create excitement for blended learning.

5313: Creating Significant Learning Environments

How does a teacher change their classroom from a teacher led classroom to a student led classroom?  That is what creating a significant learning environment means.  As a teacher in a blended learning environment I needed to look at this very and create my own significant learning environment.  There are a number of ways to develop CSLE in a classroom. The first tool which I had used before was Understanding by Design (UBD).  Is taking a backwards approach to developing a unit.  With the end in mind you build so that you finish where you started.  The second tool 3 column table, I was not familiar with but rather enjoyed getting to learn and develop my own 3 column table.  Initially I struggled with the 3 column table but came to like this method better as time went on. Combining the first 4 classes together with this class made for a very strong foundation moving forward with my innovation plan.

5314: Digital Learning in Local and Global Context

“What we instill in our children will be the foundation upon which they build their future.” 

Steve Maraboli

In EDLD 5314 learning was focused on resources from around the world.  The world is changing and technology is playing a major part of this change.  In the world that we are living in today there are many uncertainties.  One thing that I am sure of is that technology will play a major part.  In my call to action I explained the importance that technology is playing in today’s world. It is important that teachers are helping students prepare for that world. After viewing and researching more about current world implementation of technology.  I updated my research on blended learning incorporating this new knowledge.

5315: Assessing Digital Learning and Instruction

Of all the classes I think that I struggled the most with Action Research.  I was not familiar with Craig Mertler’s Action Research, I found the process of taking action very simple and flexible laid out in the book. I learned that the process doesn’t have to be set in stone and concrete. It can be more flexible to meet the needs of the individual creating the action plan.  Creating my own Action Research is where I feel that I fell short in the whole process of my innovation plan.  I liked the idea of comparing asynchronous to synchronous learning in a blended learning model, but with COVID 19 in the midst of the first quarter several plans were scrapped at the last minute.  In the future I would like to work more closely with my team in order to get a better action research plan developed.

5316: Digital Citizenship

In a world that is turning more and more digital media, citizenship is of the utmost importance.  As I learned more and more about digital citizenship I continued to return to Mark Ribble’s Nine Elements of Digital Citizenship.  If we are asking students to be present online then they are going to need specific tools in order to be successful. Digital Citizenship is easy to overlook as a teacher.  The curriculum that is taught is always at the forefront, but digital citizenship can be incorporated into the classroom especially a blended learning classroom.  I find that students need to understand their digital footprint first.  That is why I created a call to action video on student digital footprints.  In my research on creating a digital footprint students need to understand that a digital footprint can be positive or negative if not monitored.  

5317: Resources Digital Environments

In 5317, I ventured out into uncharted territory.  I worked to become a published author.  For this class I focused on the power of choice.  After using COVA in my own classroom I worked to focus on the power allowing students choice when demonstrating their learning. When all is said and done I am looking for students to show authentic work.

5318: Design Online Learning

When I originally started my journey this was something that I was extremely interested in.  I wanted to learn how to effectively create an online learning management system (LMS).  In order to be successful one must ask themselves many questions on what is important.  Instructions must be easily understood.  I have since used many of the lessons learned in this class to make my own learning management systems for my own students.

5389: Effective Professional Development

If you are a teacher you have seen your fair share of professional development.  There is a right way and a wrong way of creating professional development.  I created a video explaining the proper way that educators should be taught in developing new learning.  Professional development is important but it needs to be continuous and built around the 5 principles of effective professional development.

5320: Synthesis of Digital Learning and Leadership

As my digital learning experience comes to an end, it really has only begun.  I look forward to further implementing blended learning in my school district.  I am also interested in helping other school districts implement online learning into their classrooms.  I believe that will be the true power of this course, the overall impact it can have on education.  Innovation is in each and everyone of us.  I have found that out throughout my own Blended Learning Innovation.  

Strive to be the change that your students want you to be.

Leigh Jass

“In life not everyone is comfortable with calling themselves a leader”. Drew Dudley

Everyday Leadership [Video file]. (2013, August). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAy6EawKKME&feature=youtu.be

Change Begins With You

This quote was true of me at one point in my career.  To be honest I never really saw myself as a leader of change.  I never saw myself as having an impact on teachers around me.  In 2018, I was asked to become my building’s instructional coach.  This was the first time that I started to see my-self as a person who could invoke change

Passion

I have always been interested in technology and teaching with technology.  I would not call myself a tech savvy kind of person, but a hard worker at trying to develop my craft within teaching.  There is something about blended learning that resonates with my soul.  Everything about it seems to fit within my persona as a teacher.  For that reason I chose to implement blended learning into the classroom.  As I started to implement this into my own classroom I started to share my experiences with other teachers.  In the spring of 2019, I shared a presentation on blended learning.

In the summer 2019, I started my journey at Lamar University.  I was in search of ways that I could help my fellow teachers better understand how they could teach 1:1.  The process prior to receiving our computers was basically here, “teach with computers.”  

Innovation Project

Innovation is not something that is down half hearted. It takes planning and purpose.  In order to have a successful innovation project one must plan.  People must understand the why, how, and what.

As an innovator I needed to be able to explain the why.  Without the why, my innovation plan would surely see failure.  I needed to be able to convey my message to my staff through my why, how, and what statements.

Before I could present to my staff.  I needed to get my principal on board. I wrote a letter to my principal describing a general outlay of what I was proposing. Along with the letter an outline of the plan was created in order to give a better understanding of the general timeline.

Promoting Blended Learning

I was given the green light to pursue my innovation plan.  In order to excite teachers I created a promotion video about blended learning.  If I could go back I would like to clean this video up and work on making it a little more professional.  The message would stay the same but the overall production would be cleaner.

Research – Literature Review

With innovation comes research.  During the research process, I think that I grew more in love with blended learning and what it had to offer.  Blended learning is dynamic in so many ways.  It allows for differentiation of instruction for students.  It allows teachers a wide variety of models that can be used within the classroom.  This research was used in order to help teachers see what is currently being said about blended learning in the educational world.   After looking at the global context of digital learning and blended learning my innovation project was strengthened by an updated version of my literature review.

Professional Development Plan

In order for my innovation plan to be successful planning was needed.  I created a professional development plan for the innovation project. This was one of the most tasking parts of the innovation process and likely so.  Without planning the project was sure to fail.   I have had some experience with leading Professional Development but never creating a plan for something of this magnitude.  I struggled with making sure that each time we would meet it would be done with purpose.  If there is one thing that I know it is that teachers hate to waste their time.  They don’t get a lot of time to learn new things and when they do they want it to be worth their time.  That is what I tried to encompass every time that we would collaborate together.

COVID Changed Everything

In March, Covid 19 changed everything.  To say that things changed in the educational field would be putting it lightly.  In March of 2019 my school district like many other school districts closed for the year.  We didn’t know that it would be for the entire school year, but that was the case.  Teachers were thrown into the world of online learning with little to no experience for some.  As instructional coach I was put into a situation of helping teachers learn how to properly create online learning environments.

For some teachers this was merely helping them set up Zoom and away they went.  The problem that most teachers learned was that you can’t teach the same way that you teach in person.  My timeline of starting professional development starting in August has changed.  Several teachers reached out and because of that they have started to work on changing their classroom.  Due to COVID restriction some blended learning models are not used within the classrooms.  Many of the teachers went to a flipped classroom model.  This was done primarily out of necessity.  Many of the teachers have seen success with a flipped classroom and have been basically learning on the fly.  They are stressed to the max because they not only are trying to learn about blended learning but also implement it at the same time.  Implementing Blended learning takes time and this was something that I had done over the summer prior to myself implementing it into my own classroom.  These teachers did not have the luxury.

In August school started back up, but not in the normal way.  At my school district students were required to come into school but they would not transition from classroom to classroom.  Teaching was still done 100% online.  Many of the teachers that had flipped their classrooms continued to use this model.  With the added stress of the beginning of the year, my innovation plan has been put on hold as a whole.  Some teachers are working on transitioning to blended learning on their own and I am working with them in coaching sessions within their classrooms.

The Future of Innovation

When it comes to innovation its not easy, but most things worth accomplishing are not easy. Through out the process I have learned that planning can be your best friend. I have not always been the best planner. If there is one thing that I have gained from this experience is the power of planning. I have found that the more I plan the more prepared I am. The planning tools UBD and 3 Column strategies really helped in order to be better prepared for the outcomes that I was looking for. These helped me in not only my innovation plan but in my classroom as well.

Another lesson that I learned was make sure that I understand who my audience is. I think that sometimes I was torn between the audience of my teachers and the cohort of students also going through the process. At times I thought it was easier to talk to people who understood what I was going through. I wish that I would have taken more time through out and done a better job of making it clear what I was getting at.

Overall the process has been very stressful, but at the same time very rewarding. I feel that I have grown and look forward to other opportunities to lead in. It really does start with a spark.

Spark your passion. If you are passionate you can do anything. Right now I look forward to continuing my innovation plan. Using technology with in the classroom isn’t something new to teachers. Teachers have learned to adapt and adjust learning over the years. What I hope to instill in teachers is that education does need to change in how we experience it. The innovation has been enjoyable because of COVA & CSLE. I look forward to sharing my experiences with anyone that has time to listen.

 

In June 2019 I started my journey at Lamar University.  The DLL program presented by Lamar University was very enticing to me.  Little did I know the amount of growth I would go through personally.

It all started with an idea

Over the past year I have started to develop my innovation plan.  The plan is focused around the idea of implementing blended learning in to my school district. The amount of research out there is continuing to grow around the idea of blended learning.  In the fall of 2019 I wrote my first literature review of blended learning.

In the last couple of weeks I have been reading a number of case studies comparing the use of mobile learning devices across the world.  The lessons learned in these studies help create a better understanding of where my own innovation plan needs to go in the future.  In order for it to be successful creating effective professional development and addressing the barriers of blended learning will need to be addressed.

This week my literature review was updated to fit the new research that was presented in EDLD 5314 Digital Learning.  There were several questions that I was presented with that needed answering.

1. What worked?
2. What could have been done better?
3. How to apply the lessons learned?
4. What possible gaps are in the research?
5. What are some questions for future learning?

Updated Literature Review

Updated Innovation Literature Review

Learning in today’s world can be down right scary at times.  That is how I feel at times.  The world that I live in has changed from the world that I grew up in.  The world crisis that we are all living in is proof of that.  Reading through a number of case studies held world wide about using mobile devices has been very interesting.  In many cases mobile learning lends it shelf to my innovation plan of “Blended Learning“.  Looking through the development of these studies shows that a well thought out plan is crucial in the success of any innovation plan.  One of the biggest revelations for me was the barriers that mobile learning faced.  I believe that I will be faced with very similar barriers.  With that being said it still affirms my belief that blended learning and the use of technology is imperative for my students.

Students in today’s world need to be able to compete in a global market.  Technology will play a major role in a student’s growth.  School districts that are not pushing their students to develop such skills are putting their students at a disadvantage.

 

If you are an educator like me you have had your fair share of Professional Development.  I have spent the last 14 years sitting in professional development that has been “sit and get”.  The schools that I have been apart of have spent large sums to have professional development speakers come in. I have heard some great presenters and have been motivated to change.  But oftentimes that motivation has left me with questions and concerns.  How can I implement that in my classroom?  What does that look like in my classroom? You see there is nothing wrong with what the presenter presented.  The problem is what happens after the presentation.

There is a better way of creating Professional Development.  In this week’s assignment, I want to convince my fellow teachers and administration to do just that.

Creating the video

I have created a few videos using a number of different platforms like iMovie, Adobe Spark, and Screencastify.  For this project, I chose to use Screencastify.  It took me several different cuts to come up with the finished product.  I normally use iMovie but felt that Screencastify gave me a better platform to convey my overall message.  I first created a write up of what I wanted to say.  Once I had a solid idea of what I was going to be talking about, I looked for pictures.  I like to use google slides because I am comfortable with using it with Screencastify.  A great add-on to google slides is Unsplash.  This is a great place to find royalty-free pictures.  For this project editing was made simple with Screencastify’s editing tools.

The Presentation

The overall goal is to develop a better plan for professional development.  I feel that teachers and administrators are looking for change.  My hope is to convince them that this can be that change.

 

Gulamhussein, A. (2013). Teaching the Teachers Effective Professional Development in an Era of High Stakes Accountability. Center for Public Education. Retrieved from http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/system/files/2013-176_ProfessionalDevelopment.pdf

These last 5 weeks have been really fun designing an online course.  I decided to take my psychology class that was once a face-2-face class.  This class needed to be develop for an online platform.  Developing a class for an online platform has its challenges.  One of the biggest challenges for me was creating instructions that would be clear for students.  I needed to create instructions and assignments that make it easy for students to understand what the expectations are.  Looking at the finished product I needed to take a step back and assess my creation.

Online Course Scorecard

  2 Areas of Focus

After looking at my online scorecard I see myself making some changes or improvements to my online class.  The first area of focus for me will be to look at my assessments and feedback. I feel that many of my assessments are clear and do a great job of actually assessing student’s learning.  Where I would like to clean up my assessments is in how I assess them.  I need to create rubrics for many of the assessments.  Some of the assessments have rubrics, but not all of them.  Along with assessments is feedback.  I would like to make it clearer as to when they will be given feedback and how it will be delivered.

The second area that I would like to develop further is my course overview and welcome.  I think that my overall outline did a great job of outlining the class but further details are needed in other areas. I feel that I need to do a better job of creating relationships between myself and my students.  I would like to create some videos for my students that are personalized from me.  These videos would provide information about me and how the course will be ran.  I would also like to create more opportunities for students to work with me individually.

Further Reflection

Creating an online classroom is interesting.  I needed to ask my self “How I wanted to teach?”  Along with that I need to ask myself “How I want student to learn and show their own learning.”  In doing this I took a Constructivist approach.  As I look at my online class I was pleased on how I created opportunities for students to develop their own learning.  I tried to give the students freedom to choose.  Students were given opportunities to showcase their own learning in a number of ways.  I tried to incorporate the COVA model that has been so paramount through out each of my own learning experiences.  As the teacher I tried to provide resources and questions for students to build upon.

Each of my learning opportunities were carefully planned through my 3 column outline.  Using the 3 column outline helped me lay the foundation for my online class.  This helped me create activities and learning opportunities that followed my overall outline. By using the 3 column outline students can have an understanding of what is expected of them.

The Future of Online Learning

Is the future of learning online?  Looking at the opportunities that students can be given through online learning.  It’s hard to say why not.  As I look at my small district I think that it is important for teachers to be able to develop their own online learning areas.  It is important that teachers learn how to create effect learning environments online.  This is something that I see myself doing in my job as an instructional coach.  As an instructional coach I am asked for help in many different ways.  I think that it is important to keep learning student centered.  Just like in your classroom if you can keep the students at the center everything else will follow.

It is hard to replace good teaching in the classroom.  I see online learning being primarily for high school and college students.  I can see a blended of online and face-2-face teaching being done at the lower levels but see it being difficult to have just online learning.

For my own future I am excited to create more online learning opportunities for my students.  I have been having several conversations with my building curriculum director and principal about creating future online classrooms.  This would open up more opportunities for students to learn.

In the final week of creating my own online classroom.  I have started to find my own design for creating my online classroom.  Being organized is the key to creating an affective online classroom.

In this weeks thinking process I thought about how I can keep the classroom organized.  Along with that I try to keep COVA in mind.  In many of my assignments I try to provide students with many opportunities for free will/choice. Students are given the choice to decide how they want to present their learning.  This gives them ownership of their own learning.  This is a great way to meet the demands of teaching an Online classroom using Universal Design of Learning.  This is a great way for students to drive their own learning.

I am excited to see how this psychology class works.  Thinking about my current classrooms, I would like to try and create a couple more classes.  I can see my self creating another class to build upon the psychology.  I teach a second edition of psychology.  I think a class that would be interesting to creating would be an online geography class.  This interest me because there are vast amounts of online resources available.  Another reason I would like to create this class is because it could be developed to really build a COVA style class.  Students would develop their own learning with in the resources available.

If you would like to see the finished product of my online classroom take a look. https://app.schoology.com/course/2347775099/materials class code: CWTP-CC49-Z3KN3

In part two of creating my online class, I focused on the overall design.  This week I had to answer how I would input assignments and materials?  What would this look like?  What is going to be easiest for my students?

At first I started to just put all my assignments and materials in.  As I started to do this, I felt as though the main page would get messy.  So I decided to create folders for each Unit.  Here is a look of what my main page looks like.

To me this seems well organized and easy to navigate for students.  Which is what I wanted. When you click on the folder it then opens up to a detailed outline of requirements.  Here is what a Unit folder looks like.

This week I posted 50% of the class materials. Next week I will be posting the last 50%.  I will also be finalizing my online class.  The finishing touches will all be in place.  If you would like to see my progress you may connect my joining my class.

https://app.schoology.com/course/2347775099/materials

Code: CWTP-CC49-Z3KN3

Creating an online classroom has some different challenges from teaching in a face-to-face classroom.  As the teacher in the face-to-face classroom you have more opportunities to communicate and explain your thoughts and ideas.  When looking at creating an online classroom you lose that part.  So you need to make sure that you communicate and explain what you are looking for very clearly.  Much of this week has been spent looking at what will be assessed and how will it be assessed.  When thinking about what I want my students to do, I look back at my over all goal for my students.  What is it that I want them to be able to do?

In my online classroom I am looking for students to make real life connections.  How many time have students asked “why are we learning this.”  I want students to make those connections and see the why through their own real life experiences.

For this weeks assignment I was tasked with creating an outline of materials.  Again if you would like to follow my experience of creating an online classroom you can follow here https://app.schoology.com/course/2347775099/materials. Class code CWTP-CC49-Z3KN3.

Designing an online course takes a certain set of skills just like teaching students face-to-face.  When looking to design my own online course I want to design a course that is engaging, interactive, and informative.  As a teacher that has taught in the classroom for the past 14 years. Developing an online classroom that was once a face-to-face class can be difficult.

So what is Instructional Design? According to Debbie Morrison “Instructional  design is creating an environment for learning by structuring content and creating activities that engage students and facilitate meaningful learning”. I really like this statement because it cuts to the core of what I want my students to receive from my own online classroom.

One of the first steps in creating an online course is developing and communicating your expectations. So one of the first things that I had to develop was my goals and outcomes for this online class.  I had to ask myself what are going to be my outcomes for this course?  What will this course look like online?  I tried to answer these questions in an online course description.

If you would like to follow the creation of my online course you may do so Here. Course code – CWTP-CC49-Z3KN3.  Please leave me feedback on my blog on how I can make my online class better.

Resources

Morrison, D. (2013, May 7). Why Online Courses [Really] Need an Instructional Design Strategy. Retrieved from https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/why-online-courses-really-need-an-instructional-design-strategy/