As a member of this Master’s program, you are helping shape the future of your school with regards to its 21st Century technology practices. Please research what your school’s educational technology mission statement is. Is there one? Is technology mentioned at all?
In your blog, please write your school’s mission statement that incorporates technology and comment on it. How does their statement align with your personal practice? Does it meet the goals for your capstone? At the start of the school year, our staff created a “Top Down” collaborative vision. It started with our district’s mission statement and worked down to our site level. District Mission Statement "Our mission is to transform lives by instilling 21st century skills and to inspire lifelong learning in every student." District Goals "Goal 1: Students will graduate career and college ready through inquiry-based learning experiences and assessments aligned to 6C/California State Standards Goal 2: Students will have equitable access and opportunities to close the achievement gap. Goal 3: Instill 21st Century Skills - All students will master 21st Century Learning." AVID Schoolwide Mission Statement (We are an AVID Elementary School) "AVID’s mission is to close the achievement gap by preparing all students for college readiness and success in a global society." We then described our AVID site goals which are based on AVID strategies of writing to learn, inquiry, collaboration, organization and reading to learn. Last but not least, we created our own mission statement. Northwood Mission Statement "Our mission is to foster a love of learning by challenging and supporting every student, fostering collaboration among all stakeholders (students, staff, families & community), and maintaining a positive and respectful environment." In reviewing our school’s mission statement, there is no explicit mention of technology. While this mission statement is in alignment with my educational philosophy of supporting every student, it does leave out a key piece of our innovative learning program. Although “21st Century” skills are mentioned in our district’s goals, that too is up to interpretation as to exactly what hat means. I think that a simple addition to our mission statement such as “ while improving equity of access and supporting best practices in technology integration” might be a way to demonstrate our school’s vision and commitment.
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Write a blog review of the Add-ons you chose and what hurdles you encountered and your overall experience. Creating a Google Survey was a relatively new experience for me so the learning curve on that was steep for me before I even began looking into Add-ons. It really made me aware that foundations really need to be strong before we ask students to stretch to the next level! I chose to create a survey for my entire staff seeking feedback about my digital graphing tool project. I plan to use their responses to really help me narrow in on who my audience will be (either K-5 or just 3rd-5th). I struggled with which type of question (linear scale, multiple choice, short answer, etc.) would give me the best feedback while at the same time trying to respect the amount of time it would take to complete the survey. I wanted the greatest possible number of teacher responses as possible so I wrote in my header that it would take 3 minutes to complete. ADD-ONS USED:
2. Doc Appender I thought I would like this Add-On more than I did. While I did like viewing the responses in a Google Doc vs. Sheets, it didn’t have the same visual impact for me as Advanced Summary. Since I am so inexperienced with Google Forms, it is hard for me to see the usefulness of this tool right now. Maybe as I become more proficient, I will be able to see a better use for this add-on. 3. Form Publisher I didn’t realize at the time that this Add-On is very similar to Doc Appender and so my inbox was flooded with Templates every time a teacher responded to my survey. I am still not quite sure about the purpose of these templates and it wasn’t quickly intuitive for me so I didn’t explore it too much. Once I found Advanced Summary, everything else seemed irrelevant to me because it is exactly what I wanted! Having explored several capstone websites, write a blog about who you think the audience of your capstone is going to be and why. Also, what content do you think you will need to have on your website in order to engage and teach them about your research.
Reviewing the finished products of other capstone websites was very helpful to me and helped me consider which elements were the most useful to me. My audience is going to be elementary school teachers, but evaluating Ann Dearborn’s project made me question whether if even that is too broad. My research project and DQ are geared toward upper elementary teachers (grades 3-5). I initially wanted to design a site that would be especially helpful for my fellow Read 180 teachers (grades 3-5) because it is focuses on using some student data points that are unique to that program. While some of my tools are adaptable to younger grades, the type of data analysis/feedback conversations are really more appropriate for slightly older students. The content that was most engaging to me from the websites I viewed were the practical “ready to use” features. For example, video tutorial links on how to use a certain digital tool, printable kid friendly rubrics, and easy to find links that led directly to recommended resources. I appreciated Ann Dearborn’s preview feature to her links (with the chain graphic) so that you didn’t have to click in deeper. Having the most information at the top was useful because sometimes users don’t take the time to scroll down the page and might miss something. I really do want my content to be clear, concise and a practical how-to toolkit. I guess that comes from my years of teaching struggling readers! What has been or now is your experience with Google Forms? Is it intuitive? What challenges did you encounter when building your form? Do you think this tool would be beneficial for your teaching practice?
I have only used Google Forms a handful of times when I was seeking feedback from our staff following a few professional development mini-trainings that I led. It was very intuitive and I liked the variety of response options such as multiple choice, scaled ratings, and short answer. I never had any official training to produce my survey so it couldn’t have been too tricky! I don’t remember encountering any challenges with building the form, but it was a bit frustrating to not know when someone had replied to the survey unless I checked the spreadsheet. I hadn’t previously thought about how to use Forms with students, but I am very excited after reading the article “The NEW Google Forms: 9 Classroom Uses.” I learned about a Google Add-On feature (which is also new to me) called Awesome Table. I played around with it a bit and I am still not completely clear if it is user friendly enough for me to use with my elementary students. One feature I especially want to find out more about is how it takes the responses and creates colorful graphs/pie charts. This ties in perfectly with my driving question about how to help students visualize their monthly reading progress. I plan on reaching out to our district technology guru and hopefully getting his take on if this might be a useful tool for me. Stay tuned! |
Dana HandI teach Read 180 at Northwood Elementary School and I am passionate about reading (obviously!) In my "free time" I love hanging out with my 2 teenagers and taking our two dogs for long walks. Archives
March 2017
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