In the month of January and February, as a FHS Tech Coach I was involved in several technology activities during and away from my tech coach duty time.
Most of my tech coach duty time has been designated in the areas of implementing the tablet pc in my classroom instruction. Currently, I have completed Phase 1 of tablet pc training with Technology Coordinator, Mike Bachrodt. In the process of becoming an expert on using the tablet pc as a way of instruction and learning in my classes I have tested this use in my Accounting and Business Management class.
Through my use of the tablet pc in class. I have been able to apply the use of One Note and Windows Journal for classroom brainstorming and anectodal notes. I have implemented the use of electronic demonstration through the use of using the annotation pen to demonstrate accounting procedures in my accounting classes and how to format and identify parts of a business letter in my computer application courses. The ability to use the tablet pc with the wireless projector allows me to work next to the projection screen to point things out as needed, rather than pacing back and forth from the teacher's station on side of the classroom to the other side of the classroom. The wireless tablet pc allows me to pace the classroom while I demonstrate on the computer using the tablet pen as my mouse.
Outside of the classroom, the tablet pc has allowed me the portability to take minutes and notes at meetings and conferences. I was able to use my tablet pc at a presentation at Roosevelt University. I will be job shadowing Eric Wenckowski for my Educational Leadership class and I will be able to take notes "on-the-spot" as I observe the inter-workings of administrative discipline with students.
My goal in using the tablet pc is for students to submit work electronically and for me to grade their work using the annotation pen. I could then save their work for them to view and learn from off-screen; essentially eliminating the high cost of using paper and printer ink.
On February 25 through February 27, I was at the Illinois Conference for Educators (ILTCE) where I took a workshop on SharePoint Showcase; an all-in-one online portal for teachers and students. I will be investigating the possiblity of obtaining a free version to be integrated with my tablet pc for student work submission and teaching grading electronically. This software also allows users to create discussion boards, email, organize their daily activities in a calendar, and post student work in a content management arena. The next two-days I continued on my annual professional growth in web page design by taking two advanced Dreamweaver workshops. One on creating online databases which I can utilize with my online forms and the other class on using CSS (style sheets) to enhance the visual aspect and navigation ability to one's website. I can take these skills back to my classroom teaching computers to my students as well as a tech coach for my school. In the future, an upgrade to Office 2007 and Vista operating system will eliminiate Microsoft FrontPage. My projection is that Dreamweaver will be the "up-in-coming" software for web development by teachers and having full competency in using the software as a technology coach is instrumental.
During this quarter, on an early dismissal day I met with five teachers (Jetel, Keller, Hanson, Sponsel, and Mosack) instructing them on how to create an online form for formal assessment purposes relating to their school improvement goal. This two-hour workshop took them through the basics of developing a form, formatting the form, and publishing it. I also met one-on-one with Christine Vlaming instructing her on utilizing online forms for classroom purposes, data feedback and analysis of student work.
As I continue into the 4th quarter, I will be investigating the features of the tablet pc in order for me to instruct others in the future how to enhance student learning and teacher instruction using the wireless tablet pc in their classrooms. Also, throughout the 4th quarter I was able to learn about some Web 2.0 Applications and was able to forward examples via email to my department on social bookmarking (tagging), wikis, threads, and blogs on how to integrate them into their instruction.
Perhaps the biggest project of my technology coaching tenure this quarter was the desire to get feedback from teachers on next year's Staff Development regarding classroom instruction and integrating technology. It has been noted that technology staff development has taken a "back-seat" to other areas of staff development (i.e. - CLS, PLC, etc.) over the past two years. I strongly believe that technology is a core component to improving school initiatives in any area. Therefore, I developed an online staff development survey and was able to survey 126 out of 200 staff members at Fremd. The survey can be viewed by clicking on the following link: http://www.fhs.d211.org/departments/be/amiller/Online_Forms/staff_development_survey.asp
On the survey, teachers were able to voice their needs for staff development in school improvement areas, like engaged learning, critical learning standards, PSAE strategies, etc. and then a series of technology areas, such as: Web 2.0 Applications, Office Applications, Abode Applications, Web Design, Multi-Media Applications, Software Tools, and Email. Many of teachers provided feedback on the need to have time to improve on web page design skills to customize their class web pages and develop online tools to integrate them into their instruction and learning environment.
The feedback was sent directly to my Access database where I extracted survey results through queries and reports. Formal reports were submitted to Assistant Principal of Staff Development and our Technology Coordinator as well as committee members of Staff Development and Technology Trailblazers for review. At our end of the year meetings, committee members will use the results of the survey to plan out Staff Development activities for the 2008-09 school year. Additional surveys could be conducted to find out possible trainers or teachers in the areas of Staff Development activities. Possible online registration can be created to organize Staff Development activities for next school year. A summary of the survey results can be found by clicking on the following link.
