1.4: Diffusion of Innovations and Change
Candidates research, recommend, and implement strategies for initiating and sustaining technology innovations and for managing the change process in schools. (PSC 1.4/ISTE 1d)
Artifact: Action / Evaluation Plan ITEC 7410 Instructional Technology Leadership
Reflection
One of the goals that I had as I began the 2014 – 15 school year as a Technology Integrationist was to practice some of the policies, procedures and programs I had put into place in my first year as a M.Ed. student (2013 – 2014) in my Geography classroom through an action plan that I wrote before embarking on my new role as our schools’ Instructional Technologist (2014 – 2015). Having presented on using Google Sites as an instructional tool at ISTE 2014 in Atlanta, I wanted to work with Middle and Secondary School Faculty in moving them forward to placing their instructional strategies onto a Google Site using my class site as a model.
However, with a busy beginning of the school year, it was difficult to secure assigned professional development time for this activity, so I started to work with interested pioneer teachers to research and recommend ways in which they could enrich their student experience using technology, especially through developing Google Sites. I worked with other members of our department to provide drop-in workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday’s after school. Attendance at the beginning of the year was good (and questions were mainly about how the Apple MacBook operated and setting up things like calendars and Dropbox accounts – not anything to do with curriculum and instruction) and attendance began to dwindle rapidly until there were no faculty attending – because all the initial operation glitches were ironed out.
However, from those discussions – while operational, three English as Second Language (ESOL) teachers were keen to explore Google Sites. Their key objectives for their students this year was to speak and write in English. All three teachers adopted the use of Google Sites with their students in order to encourage them to write or record their growing English skills. I did not have access to a Google Certified Teacher (as that is planned for the early 2015 in my own professional development SMART goals) but all three teachers are scheduled to attend the Google Southern Summit at Lovett in January/February 2015. I worked with the Director of 21st Century Teaching and Learning and Head of Professional Development to secure the funding for these teachers to attend.
To augment this experience, I developed a series of “Lunch and Learns” to help faculty requests for additional technology integration experiences in the classroom. While there is no budget for this, I placed this into my Technology Integrationist role in terms of researching and developing professional development that is pertinent to the needs of the faculty. Using the research that is being built from in-house expertise, these short, 30 minute weekly snapshot PD’s give faculty the opportunity to dip into specific areas of expertise and then to further ponder their utilization in their classroom context for teaching and learning. The faculty attending will be the identified core faculty to work with as they plan MYP Units of Inquiry using the technology integration models alluded to in Standard 1.3. To guide these teachers, I will work with them on their schedule to plan lessons as they feel comfortable and be available in class as they roll out their plans should any technology issues arise. During this process, in the MYP Unit Planner, there is a section for faculty to reflect before, during and after teaching. I will utilize this planning process for the faculty to help to carefully onboard the implementation of the technology that they have initially investigated and get them to a stage that they are comfortable to use this technology in a sustainable manner ongoing without my classroom support.
I have learned that even though I worked hard to create meaningful PD for our faculty based on asking them what they wanted and needed, lunchtimes are not ideal in our current climate for providing these opportunities. While only the very interested faculty attend (and numbers to date have been small), the very nature of our busy school climate puts teachers with additional responsibilities like Year Head or Subject Group Leader at a disparity to elect to this kind of thinking time simply because they are in meetings over lunch. If I were to have the opportunity to do this again, I would place a stronger emphasis with our administration that this kind of activity be pinned onto the structured professional development plan for the year and scope formal time for all teachers to have equal access to these opportunities.
Plans to put together a “Technology Task Force” are ongoing, although my work with a small group of students in producing AIStv is helping to ring fence student ambassadors for technology as we broadcast our weekly news show about upcoming events in the school. As I work on creating a Middle Years Programme Unit Planner to deepen technology integration in curriculum planning (see Standard 1.3), I will focus on encouraging the faculty that are already in pioneering roles to become part of that task force. This will conclude with a final evaluation of the unit planner as part of my Capstone Project and assessment as to whether this is worthwhile expanding to wider International Baccalaureate community. This has assisted school improvement by directing the thinking of some faculty towards technology integration in a more authentic way. To date, the 1:1 Laptop Programme is four years old at AIS. However, the perception is that it has not made as big an impact on student learning outcomes as initially predicted in the Technology Vision Plan from 2011. One deficit area has been the lack of time assigned to faculty training and professional development (PD) as a whole school exercise, which the creation of this artifact is helping to gather data to support. Assessment of that can only take place when structured time for PD in technology integration across subject areas is more carefully integrated into a very busy school year calendar.
One of the goals that I had as I began the 2014 – 15 school year as a Technology Integrationist was to practice some of the policies, procedures and programs I had put into place in my first year as a M.Ed. student (2013 – 2014) in my Geography classroom through an action plan that I wrote before embarking on my new role as our schools’ Instructional Technologist (2014 – 2015). Having presented on using Google Sites as an instructional tool at ISTE 2014 in Atlanta, I wanted to work with Middle and Secondary School Faculty in moving them forward to placing their instructional strategies onto a Google Site using my class site as a model.
However, with a busy beginning of the school year, it was difficult to secure assigned professional development time for this activity, so I started to work with interested pioneer teachers to research and recommend ways in which they could enrich their student experience using technology, especially through developing Google Sites. I worked with other members of our department to provide drop-in workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday’s after school. Attendance at the beginning of the year was good (and questions were mainly about how the Apple MacBook operated and setting up things like calendars and Dropbox accounts – not anything to do with curriculum and instruction) and attendance began to dwindle rapidly until there were no faculty attending – because all the initial operation glitches were ironed out.
However, from those discussions – while operational, three English as Second Language (ESOL) teachers were keen to explore Google Sites. Their key objectives for their students this year was to speak and write in English. All three teachers adopted the use of Google Sites with their students in order to encourage them to write or record their growing English skills. I did not have access to a Google Certified Teacher (as that is planned for the early 2015 in my own professional development SMART goals) but all three teachers are scheduled to attend the Google Southern Summit at Lovett in January/February 2015. I worked with the Director of 21st Century Teaching and Learning and Head of Professional Development to secure the funding for these teachers to attend.
To augment this experience, I developed a series of “Lunch and Learns” to help faculty requests for additional technology integration experiences in the classroom. While there is no budget for this, I placed this into my Technology Integrationist role in terms of researching and developing professional development that is pertinent to the needs of the faculty. Using the research that is being built from in-house expertise, these short, 30 minute weekly snapshot PD’s give faculty the opportunity to dip into specific areas of expertise and then to further ponder their utilization in their classroom context for teaching and learning. The faculty attending will be the identified core faculty to work with as they plan MYP Units of Inquiry using the technology integration models alluded to in Standard 1.3. To guide these teachers, I will work with them on their schedule to plan lessons as they feel comfortable and be available in class as they roll out their plans should any technology issues arise. During this process, in the MYP Unit Planner, there is a section for faculty to reflect before, during and after teaching. I will utilize this planning process for the faculty to help to carefully onboard the implementation of the technology that they have initially investigated and get them to a stage that they are comfortable to use this technology in a sustainable manner ongoing without my classroom support.
I have learned that even though I worked hard to create meaningful PD for our faculty based on asking them what they wanted and needed, lunchtimes are not ideal in our current climate for providing these opportunities. While only the very interested faculty attend (and numbers to date have been small), the very nature of our busy school climate puts teachers with additional responsibilities like Year Head or Subject Group Leader at a disparity to elect to this kind of thinking time simply because they are in meetings over lunch. If I were to have the opportunity to do this again, I would place a stronger emphasis with our administration that this kind of activity be pinned onto the structured professional development plan for the year and scope formal time for all teachers to have equal access to these opportunities.
Plans to put together a “Technology Task Force” are ongoing, although my work with a small group of students in producing AIStv is helping to ring fence student ambassadors for technology as we broadcast our weekly news show about upcoming events in the school. As I work on creating a Middle Years Programme Unit Planner to deepen technology integration in curriculum planning (see Standard 1.3), I will focus on encouraging the faculty that are already in pioneering roles to become part of that task force. This will conclude with a final evaluation of the unit planner as part of my Capstone Project and assessment as to whether this is worthwhile expanding to wider International Baccalaureate community. This has assisted school improvement by directing the thinking of some faculty towards technology integration in a more authentic way. To date, the 1:1 Laptop Programme is four years old at AIS. However, the perception is that it has not made as big an impact on student learning outcomes as initially predicted in the Technology Vision Plan from 2011. One deficit area has been the lack of time assigned to faculty training and professional development (PD) as a whole school exercise, which the creation of this artifact is helping to gather data to support. Assessment of that can only take place when structured time for PD in technology integration across subject areas is more carefully integrated into a very busy school year calendar.