6.1 Continuous Learning
Candidates demonstrate continual growth in knowledge and skills of current and emerging technologies and apply them to improve personal productivity and professional practice. (PSC 6.1/ISTE 6a, 6b)
Artifact: Presentation at the International Standards in Technology Education (ISTE) Conference 2014
PowerPoint Presentation
Reflection
This artifact was created over a period of time from November 2013 to July 2014. The artifact includes an application to present at the International Standards in Technology Education (ISTE) conference in July 2014 and the presentation and a link to the ISTE website outlining the presentation.
Based on using continuous learning from this course and our schools’ movement to being a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) School, I wrote an application based on my continued growth in the knowledge and skills of using the current technology of Google Sites in the classroom. Called “What do you mean there’s no notebook?” the concept of the one hour, hands on workshop was the transitional change that I had introduced into my 6th and 8th Grade Middle Years Programme (MYP) classes in using only Google Sites as a replacement for their notebook and textbook. The workshop allowed educators to see the tools that my students used in the classroom and to experiment with their use during the session. I also decided that since it was the students that had benefited most from this transition, they should also participate in the workshop. I invited three of my students and a parent to participate in the workshop with me. The students’ role during the workshop was to run an open BackChannel of questions from the participants using “Today’s Meet” so that while I was presenting, the participants could inquire in real time as to how the tools that I was demonstrating impacted the students’ personal learning in the classroom.
The presentation was accepted in January 2014 and in April 2014 we were invited to be an “ISTE Live” presentation, meaning that there would be a wider audience than just the participants in the room. Remote ISTE members could call into the session and participate either outside the room in the conference center or from anywhere across the planet. This really gave the workshop session a new dimension, as I now had to think about the presentation with an emergent technology that I was not familiar with and also work through a facilitator while presenting as well. Therefore, I worked with the ISTE facilitator to insure that the session would be inclusionary for all attending – either physically in the room or not – an experience that really did impact my personal productivity and professional practice. I also had to coach the students in working with the BackChannel answering questions for participants who were both in the room and remotely.
As a presenter, I also decided to volunteer some time working at the conference at an operations level. This just gave me so much exposure through the exhibition hall, conversations and attendance at sessions to new and emergent technologies and supplemental ideas to apply the knowledge and skills that I had already honed and demonstrated in my classroom for the ISTE Live Workshop. There was a rich environment for learning, reflecting on my own professional practice and assessment of personal productivity – especially given that I was about to move into a full time role as an instructional technologist with my school from a classroom setting in the next academic year. This is certainly seen in my blog posts after the conclusion of the conference with reflections as to my continual growth in this area and the knowledge and skills that I would need to foster as I moved into being an instructional technologist at Atlanta International School from being a classroom teacher of Geography.
I learned so much from completing this experience. I know that preparing for any kind of professional development delivery is time consuming and demands attention to detail. As an active workshop leader for International Baccalaureate (IB), I deliver about fifteen workshops every year for three days at a time. I thought that preparing for one hour would be easy. It was not. There were so many variables to consider – preparing the students; the wide diversity of the audience; the different medium that I would have to consider during the presentation; the PowerPoint and accompanying resources. Preparing for this workshop took more time than fifteen-hours professional development training for IB! It was an important insight into my personal productivity for ongoing professional practice and became a valuable touchstone as I started by new position in my school in August 2014. As I would have to prepare workshops of this nature for my colleagues, this experience helped me to focus in on how to best engage participants in this setting and to maximize the use of professional development time.
Therefore, one thing I would have done differently would have been to spend more time preparing and working with my student team prior to the conference. One difficulty was that the conference was during the summer so much of the planning was done using FaceTime and email. I reflected, knowing that I would be doing this presentation early in the school year; I should have had the students keep part of their portfolios to demonstrate to the participants while they were answering questions in real time. They were able to do that to a certain extent; but due to student privacy issues, they were unable to demonstrate the full extent of how they used their Google Site for pretty much everything that they did in class during that semester.
This artifact has certainly helped faculty and students in our school. As a new technologist, I have been busy with faculty, who have been scheduling me to come and work with their classes to build Google Sites with them. The introduction of Google Classroom in August 2014 has also lead to looking at this emergent technology as a Learning Management System (LMS) in our GAFE environment. Adoption rate is growing and will be measured by decisions to be taken in the next academic year as to whether this will be a whole school (6 – 12) LMS or fostered in pockets of comfortable faculty.
This artifact was created over a period of time from November 2013 to July 2014. The artifact includes an application to present at the International Standards in Technology Education (ISTE) conference in July 2014 and the presentation and a link to the ISTE website outlining the presentation.
Based on using continuous learning from this course and our schools’ movement to being a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) School, I wrote an application based on my continued growth in the knowledge and skills of using the current technology of Google Sites in the classroom. Called “What do you mean there’s no notebook?” the concept of the one hour, hands on workshop was the transitional change that I had introduced into my 6th and 8th Grade Middle Years Programme (MYP) classes in using only Google Sites as a replacement for their notebook and textbook. The workshop allowed educators to see the tools that my students used in the classroom and to experiment with their use during the session. I also decided that since it was the students that had benefited most from this transition, they should also participate in the workshop. I invited three of my students and a parent to participate in the workshop with me. The students’ role during the workshop was to run an open BackChannel of questions from the participants using “Today’s Meet” so that while I was presenting, the participants could inquire in real time as to how the tools that I was demonstrating impacted the students’ personal learning in the classroom.
The presentation was accepted in January 2014 and in April 2014 we were invited to be an “ISTE Live” presentation, meaning that there would be a wider audience than just the participants in the room. Remote ISTE members could call into the session and participate either outside the room in the conference center or from anywhere across the planet. This really gave the workshop session a new dimension, as I now had to think about the presentation with an emergent technology that I was not familiar with and also work through a facilitator while presenting as well. Therefore, I worked with the ISTE facilitator to insure that the session would be inclusionary for all attending – either physically in the room or not – an experience that really did impact my personal productivity and professional practice. I also had to coach the students in working with the BackChannel answering questions for participants who were both in the room and remotely.
As a presenter, I also decided to volunteer some time working at the conference at an operations level. This just gave me so much exposure through the exhibition hall, conversations and attendance at sessions to new and emergent technologies and supplemental ideas to apply the knowledge and skills that I had already honed and demonstrated in my classroom for the ISTE Live Workshop. There was a rich environment for learning, reflecting on my own professional practice and assessment of personal productivity – especially given that I was about to move into a full time role as an instructional technologist with my school from a classroom setting in the next academic year. This is certainly seen in my blog posts after the conclusion of the conference with reflections as to my continual growth in this area and the knowledge and skills that I would need to foster as I moved into being an instructional technologist at Atlanta International School from being a classroom teacher of Geography.
I learned so much from completing this experience. I know that preparing for any kind of professional development delivery is time consuming and demands attention to detail. As an active workshop leader for International Baccalaureate (IB), I deliver about fifteen workshops every year for three days at a time. I thought that preparing for one hour would be easy. It was not. There were so many variables to consider – preparing the students; the wide diversity of the audience; the different medium that I would have to consider during the presentation; the PowerPoint and accompanying resources. Preparing for this workshop took more time than fifteen-hours professional development training for IB! It was an important insight into my personal productivity for ongoing professional practice and became a valuable touchstone as I started by new position in my school in August 2014. As I would have to prepare workshops of this nature for my colleagues, this experience helped me to focus in on how to best engage participants in this setting and to maximize the use of professional development time.
Therefore, one thing I would have done differently would have been to spend more time preparing and working with my student team prior to the conference. One difficulty was that the conference was during the summer so much of the planning was done using FaceTime and email. I reflected, knowing that I would be doing this presentation early in the school year; I should have had the students keep part of their portfolios to demonstrate to the participants while they were answering questions in real time. They were able to do that to a certain extent; but due to student privacy issues, they were unable to demonstrate the full extent of how they used their Google Site for pretty much everything that they did in class during that semester.
This artifact has certainly helped faculty and students in our school. As a new technologist, I have been busy with faculty, who have been scheduling me to come and work with their classes to build Google Sites with them. The introduction of Google Classroom in August 2014 has also lead to looking at this emergent technology as a Learning Management System (LMS) in our GAFE environment. Adoption rate is growing and will be measured by decisions to be taken in the next academic year as to whether this will be a whole school (6 – 12) LMS or fostered in pockets of comfortable faculty.