Week 5 Assignment

When I first began the Instructional Leadership class, I envisioned that the class would be about developing curriculum. I was pleased to find out that the course dealt with technology and increasing its use in the instructional process. I am a digital immigrant, but I have always wanted to increase the use of technology in my classes. I enjoyed collaborating with other teachers in the discussion boards and learning that many of them have the same problems with utilizing technology that I have. I found this class difficult because of my unfamiliarity with blogs, but it forced me to learn and use a tool that can help me become a better teacher.

I am in the middle of my fifteenth year of teaching and consider myself fairly computer literate. I know that I am behind the younger peers that I work with as far as using technology is concerned, so I was interested in learning how to use wikis and blogs in my economics classes. I would like have a site for my students to be able to find notes and course materials while they are in the class and also be able to locate after they have graduated. I cover personal finance with my classes, but many of my students don’t care about learning the information because it doesn’t relate to their present life. I would like to be able to have a link on the school’s website to direct them to my blog so they can get the information when they need it later in life. I was glad to have the opportunity to learn how to create a blog and post Powerpoint presentations.

I would have liked to have had more experience in learning how to use blogs in classrooms. It would have been nice to have articles from teachers that explained how they incorporate blogs to increase learning in their classes. While collaborating in the discussion boards, many of my classmates had similar problems with students that don’t have computers and internet access at home. I would like to learn how teachers are able to overcome this problem. A suggestion I would make would be to create blogs for the actual classes that we teach or the programs we work for. This would help to encourage us to continue to use the technology at the conclusion of the class.

The most difficult part of the assignments for me was a lack of time. I am in the middle of basketball season and had basketball games on four nights during two of the weeks. The discussion board assignments were informative, but very time consuming. I found that it would take most of my time during the work week to do the readings and discussion boards and I would begin the assignment Saturday evening and finish it on Sunday. It was sometimes difficult to get the discussion boards completed because the other students in my group did not post their quotes until the weekend. The Week 5 assignment was confusing. I wasn’t sure exactly what to do and my colleagues felt the same way. I noticed that the Technology Plans that I reviewed were very different.

I learned that in order to be a successful campus leader, I need to model the use of technology by using it while performing my daily duties. I think the most challenging aspect of incorporating more technology in the classroom will be getting veteran teachers to learn how to use it. Schools also need to do a better job of communicating their expectations of technology use by teachers and students. I have completed many STaR chart surveys as a teacher, but I had no idea how my campus rated until this class. My campus also did not have any technology objectives in its Campus Improvement Plan. As a campus leader, I will make sure that I effectively communicate the need for technology instruction and monitor and measure its use.

I think blogs are a tremendous tool for communicating information and giving school stakeholders a venue to respond, collaborate, and share information. I think that blogs could also be used to increase learning by giving students the opportunity to collaborate on assignments outside of the classroom. I would love to have professional development sessions on specific lessons that teachers are using in the classroom. Blogs also provide a means for continuing education for parents and students after they graduate. I mentioned posting personal finance information previously, but you could have information about writing, such as, APA form that students could easily access from home while doing homework.

I have some concerns with safety and security that go along with blogging. The readings in this course addressed many of those concerns and as we mentioned in the discussion board, students will occasional break rules. Monitoring student activities on blogs is no different than monitoring them in the school. As long as we are diligent and enforce the guidelines, we will have few instances of inappropriate behavior. It will also be important for all teachers to understand and reinforce the Acceptable Use Policies that are adopted by the school district. Since I don’t use technology very often in my classes, I am unsure of our exact policies.

Blogs can be created to communicate information about school events. As a teacher of seniors, I hear them complain about not knowing what activities they have planned for the year. Important information about graduation, prom, and college requirements can be posted on blogs. Interaction with stakeholders can be utilized as well. Schools can have a place for stakeholders to make recommendations to improve the school climate. Suggestions could be made to the SBDM Committee and the committee could use a blog to openly communicate what they are doing to improve the school.