Culminating Experience - CEDO 599 FINAL POST

     So here we are..the final post.  It really doesn't seem like 2 years has passed by, which I guess is a good sign because that means that it was perhaps enjoyable.  Looking back on the blog posts over these last 2 years was pretty amazing but before I rattle off some of the great things that I have been exposed to in this program I will rewind to the "Laurence of Technology Past".  The main reason I stumbled across this program was because my school district (the Archdiocese) was making all of their Computer/Technology teachers that didn't have the Computer Science 405 license go back and get it.  My degree in computer programming and the 14 years teaching computer skills weren't good enough - teachers HAD to have this license or they were forcing schools to take action to potentially replace these employees.  After many hours of calling and internet research I was finding out that no institutions were offering programs for students to even achieve this license anymore.  This fact, coupled with the whole idea of paying for classes to obtain a license that I considered as "backtracking" in my career motivated me to look elsewhere.  And then I talked to someone at Stritch and the light bulb went on when they recommended looking into the Master's programs instead of backtracking.  Long story, short - I enrolled in this online cohort and it counted as satisfying the licensing requirement of the Arch.  So the journey began.
     "Laurence of Technology Past" had several goals at this time in his career.  Up until now, I hadn't thought very much about the future...Yes, I teach technology skills etc., but I hadn't given any thought to where things were going with the future of my position or my role in my school.  I was teaching a stand-alone class (called Technology) where classroom teachers would drop of their kids to my classroom, leave, and then come back.  Over the last several years I had tried to collaborate as much as possible but it was often times clumsy and mistimed.  I still felt that technology was removed from the whole educational experience of the students but didn't know what to do about it.  Then I started noticing some of the changes in other schools and how they started treating technology.  New Berlin Public Schools got rid of the Tech teacher all together and put the technology education burden on the shoulders of their Library Media Specialist.  In other schools, the technology class was becoming a thing of the past.  Technology was not being taught during one class period but being integrated into every subject area throughout the course of the day.  This was the future of my position.  I started seeing job postings for such titles as "Technology Integrator", "Technology Coach", and "Integration Specialists".  So it was clear that times were a changin'.  My goals quickly became:

• To transform my role and responsibilities at my current school from classroom teacher to Technology Integrator - part of this transformation would need to include a shift from the stand-alone technology class to a more unstructured, free lance style when it comes to my teaching responsibilities
• To achieve at least 90% integration where I would be teaching 90% of the technology-related skills while incorporating it into a core content area project/assignment.  There are still a few topics that need to stay in the Technology-only curriculum like common language/vocabulary and Digital Citizenship so that is why I left the 10% flex range.
• To take on more of an administrative role when it came to technology and it's use in the school.  Additionally,  I wanted to be involved in the decision-making process concerning future initiatives concerning technology.

With the help of this program, I have achieved or nearly achieved all of these goals.  I think the biggest thing for me was that this program forced me to explore things that had been on my to-do list for years.  Lots of times I would run across great ideas and see fascinating technology tools and think to myself "I should really try that out" and then I would just make excuses for myself and keep doing what I was comfortable with.  When these things are part of a class that I'm paying lots of money for however...that's a different story.  I also think of all of the new tools and concepts that I was introduced to.  I've never heard of a Pecha Kucha. I never thought about placing pictures strategically on slides to create a powerful presentation experience for the viewer.  I barely knew what the CIPA was and what it covered.  There are many more examples.  So like I said, this has been a great opportunity for me to experiment with those things that I had always intended on checking out (Edmodo, Moodle, Google Sites) and being exposed to things that I never knew about (Google Alerts).  Last, but certainly not least, has been the collaborative nature of this class.  Even though I may not have all of the faces to go with my classmates' names, I felt a growing camaraderie with them as we explored many different topics in many different ways.  I learned so many wonderful ideas from my fellow cohorts that I'd really like to stay in touch with my colleagues in some way, shape, or form.

Culminating Experience - CEDO 599 Week 1

"And now, the end is near..." -Frank Sinatra

Well, we've started the last class of this Masters program.  The idea behind this last class is to come up with an idea for a culminating project and put it into practice.  We spent a few weeks in the Portfolio Experience class (CEDO 555) coming up with an idea for the project and some of us went further by planning it out.  For my project, I am going to try and implement and manage a Learning Management System (LMS) with an assignment.  A secondary goal is that I'm hoping to make it a collaborate assignment where I can help integrate technology into the lesson.  Here is a little back-story...Last year I had spent some time showing teachers different ways to facilitate electronic assignment submission.  It was a fairly successful endeavor but the problem became a matter of uniformity.  There are many different tools out there that will accomplish the electronic submission goals but it can get confusing to the students, staff, and parents if every teacher is using something different.  To achieve the highest efficiency and, ultimately, proficiency - I feel standardization is necessary.

After meeting with the instructor (Louie), it became evident that I should narrow my focus and edit the timeline a bit.  Instead of trying to give the assignment, allow time for the students to work on it, and then grade and return the assignment...the altered goal will be to find and use a LMS, collaboratively create the assignment with the classroom teacher and have everything in place for the implementation and electronic reception of the assignment.  Louie and I felt it was a necessary adjustment because it allowed for a much more realistic timetable.

CEDO 565 - Leadership - Week 6 (Final)

OK, final week.  We were to answer a few questions posed to us.  My definition of leadership has changed in the respect that leadership can come in many forms and through many styles.  One leadership style is not necessarily better or worse than another...just different.  A lot of it can be situational but the best leaders try to incorporate a lot of different management styles and motivational methods.  The best leaders also learn as they go instead of trying to force their style upon people no matter what.  Leadership can be situational.  In certain situations it is good to have a leadership style of a calming, level-headed person.  In other situations it might be better to have a leadership style of an active, creative, assertive, and inspirational personality type.  The leaders that can adjust to different situations and adapt their management styles offer the best chance for success.

CEDO 565 - Leadership - Week 5

This week we continued "The Game".  It was supposed to emulate Years 2-3 in the planning process of accomplishing some bigger picture items in a school district.  Even though we had learned a lot from playing the game in the prior class, we still ran into some unforeseen problems.  We still had issues with the sequence of the planning process.  Just when we thought we were prepared for something, the game would make us go back and revisit something we had already done.  We also noticed that the people with a negative attitude pretty much stayed that way and it was more of a pain than it was worth to include them in any of the big decisions.  The consensus was that we keep moving without them and they will either hop on board, or leave.  The choice was theirs.  It was a little frustrating to have to keep going back and talking to people before allowing us to advance but perhaps that was the point that the game was trying to make.  The bigger a school district is, the more and more red tape you'll have to go through.  The more committees and planning groups you may have, the longer it will take to gather information and get decisions done.  There is no perfect answer, just some hints for effective practices and putting the right people in the right places to accomplish goals in the quickest and most efficient way possible.

CEDO 565 - Leadership - Week 4

So this week we started "The Game".  It is an engaging leadership exercise in which you emulate the process of getting things accomplished in a school district structure.  I will admit that at first I was thoroughly confused by all of the charts, history of the players involved, and how the game was to be played.  My group quickly adapted, however, and we learned as we went along.  After a short time it became clear that this game was extremely deep and had many complex layers that made up the dynamics of how it was played.  Some things we learned after this initial "year":

• Include the Superintendent (Al) in everything - things will not advance unless he is on board
• Talk to the constituents and stakeholders a few times and gather information before forming any plans
• When performing events that ask for a group of people, try to include a diverse population of individuals making sure to cover the various categories (Admin, teachers, parents, students)
• Be aware of influential people, who they may influence, and what type of influence they provide
• You can't please everybody and sometimes it is best to just move ahead with plans once acquiring a majority of approval

We are looking forward to continuing the game next class with our newly found knowledge.

CEDO 565 - Leadership - Week 3

Change, change, and more change.  This week's activities all revolved around change.  I liked it when my group member, Zac, said "Change is the only constant".  It's not a new concept but it was a good reminder.  As technology directors, trainers, or integrators we are after times the harbingers of change.  As we all should know from prior experience in our own lives, people fear change.  As the bringers of change (technology) we need to be cognizant of those feelings in the people we are bringing the change upon.  Understanding and empathizing with those feelings will allow for a much smoother transition.  During in-service days I was able to sit in on a presentation by Ian Jukes and he had an interesting underlying theme when referring to educators.  He used the acronym TTWWADI and it stands for That's The Way We've Always Done It.  That phrase seems to be all too familiar when we look at what's currently being done in education.  I walked into many classrooms last year at my school where we would politely ask the question of "Why?", as in why were they doing something. The answer often times included a lot of hemming and hawing and then something to the effect of "Well, I've been doing it that way for the last 22 years and it works just fine".  What those teachers don't realize is that for every year that they keep employing an outdated teaching method or curricular piece, they are creating more and more of a disconnect between themselves and the students.  The world keeps evolving and so should the way that students are taught.

CEDO 565 - Leadership - Week 2

Well, I got a new job since my last post so some of these next assignments will be a little more challenging.  I used to know pretty much everything about my former school in the technology department after teaching there for 10 years and now I am transitioning into an entirely different school and environment.  Exciting for sure, but it'll make these last 2 classes of this degree program interesting.  Well, enough about that since I'm playing catch up here...

I'm still struggling through the Data Retreat paper because I was going to write it from the point of view of my old school, but it is a Catholic School and therefore difficult to get a hold of test scores or any other meaningful data.  So then I started  to write it from the perspective of my new position since it is a WI public school and their data is available on the WINSS website.  I was running into problems when it came to some of the deeper questions, though, because I am not familiar with procedures and processes yet.  I may end up writing it using both situations but we'll see.

In answering the forum questions I used the test data from WINSS for my new school, Bayside Middle School.  I chose to use the disparity in scores among the different ethnicity groups as a point of discussion.  The "White Not Hispanic" ethnic group were the most successful group when looking at the test scores and I tagged that as an area that my school needs to improve.  Some suggestions that I provided were:

1. Evaluate the curriculum. Look for any content or methods that might have a slantedness towards one ethnicity or another.
2. Evaluate the staff. Look to see that they are truly identifying with each child and being aware of background or cultural differences.
3. Evaluate the tests. Do they have a history of being skewed or providing biased results.
4. Research the students' backgrounds whose test scores are suffering. Try to identify a common thread that might provide insight and use this information to find innovative ways to reach these students.