3.7: Collaboration and Communication
Candidates utilize digital communication and collaboration tools to communicate locally and globally with students, parents, peers, and the larger community. (PSC 3.7/ISTE 3g)
Artifact: Year 3 Middle Years Programme (MYP) Website 2013 - 14
International Baccalaureate (IB) Blended Online Professional Development
Lunch and Learn Professional Development
This artifact contains three; self-created elements, as each reaches different stakeholders in terms of communication with students, parents, peers and the larger community.
1. Year 3 Middle Years Programme (MYP) Website 2013 - 14.
This artifact was used in my Year 3 (8th Grade) Individuals and Societies (Social Studies) to communicate with students and parents about their class and the ongoing course of study. Assignments and daily tasks were posted here, along with the course expectation, documents for download and calendar for due dates.
2. International Baccalaureate (IB) Blended Online Professional Development.
This artifact was created for peer teacher professional development as part of an online blended learning Category 2 IB workshop for Individuals and Societies teachers. This has been used in the last twelve months in Chicago and Dallas. I was the facilitator of the online, three-hour component and the instructor in the face-to-face twelve-hour component in those locations.
3. Lunch and Learn Professional Development.
As part of my new assignment as Instructional Technologist at Atlanta International School, I initiated opportunities for our faculty to engage in professional development using a Lunch and Learn protocol, commonly used by businesses to help start good practice conversations.
Each one of these artifacts clearly demonstrates ability to utilize a variety of digital communication and collaboration tools (websites, discussion groups, back channels (Today’s Meet) and email) to communicate with a local face-to-face class and classes that are located in other states. Colleagues in other areas of the world have also adopted the blended IB workshop model website, and I have collaborated with educators in Dubai and China to create their three-hour online components in their regions. Through each one of these artifacts, I have demonstrated clear use of technology to reach multiple stakeholder groups.
As I developed each one of these artifacts, clear reflections were noted for their improvement. The class website was always a work in progress – it was updated, often daily, forcing a realization as to how this needed to be archived carefully for sustainable future use.
The use of a Google Site that was shared with other educators across the planet for blended online learning brought a similar reflection – and, after one incident where I shared my site with an educator who completely changed it, forcing me to recreate, I now always copy the framework of the site for those that I share it with to allow this creativity to happen without compromising the integrity of the original website.
The Lunch and Learn site development for collegial professional development has helped me get into a weekly habit of updating and rethinking a web tool for learning. As the faculty engages each Wednesday at lunchtime, I review the site immediately thereafter, update for the next week, and include a reflection activity and evaluative feedback for the ongoing review of our in-school professional development offerings.
Certainly, I have learned a lot about collaboration and communication in creating and using these artifacts. I now know, for example, to always copy the site before collaborating with other educators. These digital communication tools are highly dynamic, so I am constantly looking for augmentation to their use to change the engagement levels with technology (for example, using Padlet instead of a traditional Google Form survey to gather ideas).
Each one of these artifacts have lent to school improvement. Students who engaged in my classes during the 2013 – 14 school year got the opportunity not only to engage in using a website for their class, but created their online portfolios and notebooks in what was, in effect, a paperless classroom. This has spread to other teachers in our school as part of their practice. A group of three students assisted me in presenting these findings at the ISTE 2014 conference in Atlanta.
While attendance at the Lunch and Learns has been disappointing, reflection with attending faculty is such that they point not to the subject matter, but to the climate and culture of our school finding this method of engagement difficult in a busy schedule. I am assessing this through weekly faculty feedback and will discuss whether this method truly is a way to engage faculty or whether we need to rethink our professional development time to scope in technology legitimately.
1. Year 3 Middle Years Programme (MYP) Website 2013 - 14.
This artifact was used in my Year 3 (8th Grade) Individuals and Societies (Social Studies) to communicate with students and parents about their class and the ongoing course of study. Assignments and daily tasks were posted here, along with the course expectation, documents for download and calendar for due dates.
2. International Baccalaureate (IB) Blended Online Professional Development.
This artifact was created for peer teacher professional development as part of an online blended learning Category 2 IB workshop for Individuals and Societies teachers. This has been used in the last twelve months in Chicago and Dallas. I was the facilitator of the online, three-hour component and the instructor in the face-to-face twelve-hour component in those locations.
3. Lunch and Learn Professional Development.
As part of my new assignment as Instructional Technologist at Atlanta International School, I initiated opportunities for our faculty to engage in professional development using a Lunch and Learn protocol, commonly used by businesses to help start good practice conversations.
Each one of these artifacts clearly demonstrates ability to utilize a variety of digital communication and collaboration tools (websites, discussion groups, back channels (Today’s Meet) and email) to communicate with a local face-to-face class and classes that are located in other states. Colleagues in other areas of the world have also adopted the blended IB workshop model website, and I have collaborated with educators in Dubai and China to create their three-hour online components in their regions. Through each one of these artifacts, I have demonstrated clear use of technology to reach multiple stakeholder groups.
As I developed each one of these artifacts, clear reflections were noted for their improvement. The class website was always a work in progress – it was updated, often daily, forcing a realization as to how this needed to be archived carefully for sustainable future use.
The use of a Google Site that was shared with other educators across the planet for blended online learning brought a similar reflection – and, after one incident where I shared my site with an educator who completely changed it, forcing me to recreate, I now always copy the framework of the site for those that I share it with to allow this creativity to happen without compromising the integrity of the original website.
The Lunch and Learn site development for collegial professional development has helped me get into a weekly habit of updating and rethinking a web tool for learning. As the faculty engages each Wednesday at lunchtime, I review the site immediately thereafter, update for the next week, and include a reflection activity and evaluative feedback for the ongoing review of our in-school professional development offerings.
Certainly, I have learned a lot about collaboration and communication in creating and using these artifacts. I now know, for example, to always copy the site before collaborating with other educators. These digital communication tools are highly dynamic, so I am constantly looking for augmentation to their use to change the engagement levels with technology (for example, using Padlet instead of a traditional Google Form survey to gather ideas).
Each one of these artifacts have lent to school improvement. Students who engaged in my classes during the 2013 – 14 school year got the opportunity not only to engage in using a website for their class, but created their online portfolios and notebooks in what was, in effect, a paperless classroom. This has spread to other teachers in our school as part of their practice. A group of three students assisted me in presenting these findings at the ISTE 2014 conference in Atlanta.
While attendance at the Lunch and Learns has been disappointing, reflection with attending faculty is such that they point not to the subject matter, but to the climate and culture of our school finding this method of engagement difficult in a busy schedule. I am assessing this through weekly faculty feedback and will discuss whether this method truly is a way to engage faculty or whether we need to rethink our professional development time to scope in technology legitimately.