EDLD 5398 Week 5 post

When I first started this program, I never heard of Web 2.0 tools. This degree has opened my eyes to another world that I did not know existed. I have looked into using Twitter, blogs, Google Docs, Dropbox, and others just to name a few. I understand that students may be familiar with these tools, but I also know that a majority of students still do not know how to type a word document and save to a separate drive on the network. As an educator, we need to show students not only how to use technology, but use technology as a tool for learning. Even though I am not looking to be an administrator, I understand that change starts at the top and works its way down through to the teachers and students. If administrators are not familiar with these concepts, then teachers will not feel supported in making changes and then students will not receive the benefits of what technology can do for them in the classroom. We must remember that most change happens at the top and when teachers know that administration supports new ideas and efforts, then true growth will occur.

EDLD 5363 – Week 2 Blog

This week there is a discussion over what is to be expected for the podcast. It seems that we are to create a tutorial over a type of video editing software. It would be good for us to be able to be familiar with a wide variety of video editing software for our teachers use and for our students. It will not only be our job to deliver the content to the teachers but to be able to adapt and integrate the technology with students as well. A discussion was also brought up about tagging for our video postings and what that can do for you to get your publications out on the web. Overall this conference was very informative and I hope it made my assignment turn out better because of this. I know that I am still learning but I will do well and become great at this as well.

EDLD 5363 – Week 5 Blog

We were told at the beginning that we will eventually be switching over to Black Board, which will be nice to see that side of it. It also seems that we are going to be messed with for the classes. Apparently Dallas messed something up for week 5 and we are getting credit for the Discussion boards for weeks 4 and 5. There will also be no final exam, which I do not recall seeing anything about in the assignment course syllabus but oh well, I know I would have aced it anyways. It also seemed that the cameras were causing trouble for the assignment as well. I was curious about when this degree program started and Dr. Abernathy said it started in November 2008, which is pretty neat. I wish I could have started with the first one but it is what it is.

EDLD 5363 Week 2 post

This week was interesting in trying to find a good video editing tool that is also free for everyone to use. This is very important as budget issues became more complicated to deal with in the present and future. I noticed that we had a few suggestions in our readings but I wanted to try using CNET to find some good programs to use. I tried to use a couple of programs that I am not familiar with but I did not have any luck in using them, they were not user friendly. In addition, like myself, students want to spend a few minutes in trying to figure out how to use it and the programs I played with were not very user friendly. I decided to create a podcast about Windows Movie Maker 11, as it is very user friendly and easy to use. I know that many people are using this as their assignment too, but there is a reason why so many people seem to like it. I have used the older version before to make music videos in the past, but I think this version is a lot better. The one thing I wish this did better was to show the timeline to see how everything lines up. This feature seemed to disappear with the new version but overall I think the program works out better this time around in general.

Week 1 EDLD 5363

This was a fun week so far as I was able to create a story about my dog for this week's assignment. I tried to keep a theme of all her crazy disaster stories and found some good pictures that we have taken to document the incident. I did try to put more of a fun twist with my pictures as I would put a caption for each pic to create a smile for the reader. Through the planning process, I wrote out a script that I would like to follow and inserting the pictures when I would like them to appear. I used Photo Story 3 to create the pictures and I did not like the lack of allowing the user to determine when the picture comes into play. In my rough draft, I had the correct picture number for easy retrieval and a description of the picture. After I had created my script, I emailed a copy of it to my partner and allowed him to review it. It was suggested that time could be a factor and this was confirmed as I timed a silent read through the script and found that I would be at about a minute and a half. I decided to go add more to the story to set up the crime scene for the viewer. After I added more story and a couple more pictures, I was ready to create the project. I made sure that my transitions were smooth and they would reveal the way I would want the viewer to see the picture, not just a random transition. I decided to add a music background to my story but I made sure that it stayed very low in the background so you can still hear the story. I was also disappointed in the program as it started every recording with a loud popping noise and I did not have the ability to edit that part out.

EDLD 5364 Week 2

This week was a very good week for me. I was able to meet up with my group members and at first I think there was a lot of confusion on what was expected of us. When we met the second time we were able to get everything planned out for the most part and we finally had direction to what our goal was for the project. After the web conference I was finally able to understand what was expected of us for the project and go from there. As far as the readings were concerned, I am very excited about the Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. I was able to find a few websites from the first chapter that will be beneficial for our group project and sites I can use in my own classroom getting students prepared for TAKS. I even browsed through ahead to the second chapter which is rare since I am not one who enjoys reading. I am the type that does not want an explanation just let me jump in to it and figure things out for myself. I blame wanting interactive technology, but I know I can't use that excuse. The rest of the readings were ok, a lot of it I thought was common sense. As far as lower socioeconomic groups responding to using technology and parental involvement is a no brainer. The only concern I have is that if every classroom on campus decides to integrate as much technology as possible that it would be impossible to do so since we only have so many labs and mobile carts available. I like the activities with www.explorelearning.com, but I know that if I advertise this to all of the math teachers then I will not be able to let my students have constant access to try something new. To me this is a major problem that will not get better as purchasing enough computers will be even more difficult to do due to budget cuts. Our district for instance is losing over $200,000 of grants just for technology. That is a big chunk of change. I do think trying to integrate technology will be a big improvement but trying to make it happen is once again the challenge. I hear a lot of great ideas but trying to make it happen seems to be a topic that nobody wants to address.

Acion Research Topic - modified and updated

After oraginzing my data, I have decided to modify my action reasearch topic. Before I was looking to start online professional development for teachers to receive training on their specific subject areas but I have now decided to modify the direction I want to go. Below you will see the idea that I am now going to try and press.

I was not able to meet with my site supervisors due to weather issues and another attending the TCEA conference this week but I was able to get feedback from our Director of Assessment and Organizational Development who is in charge of professional development for the staff at our district. She made a few suggestions about my survey before I sent it out to make sure that my questions will generate answers that can be used for my topic. She also suggested I try to keep the survey from being too long to not discourage the survey takers from actually taking it. After I set out my survey with Survey Monkey, I noticed that I have had over 100 responses but the free version only allows me to see the first 100 responses so my site supervisor is checking to see if I can transfer my results over to the district version which is already paid for to get all of my data that I need. I also asked our professional development director if there was a way to collect some data on how many teachers have signed up for trainings and what teachers are actually signing up for as well but I am still waiting on the results.

As I stated in part 3 of my assignment, I think trying to get online professional development is not going to be the area I am focusing on, based off the data that I am receiving so far. I think I will look into trying to find a way through forums or some other online tool for teachers to discuss ideas of their specific subject areas to others across the state. This way teachers can share ideas that they have that is working, documents and lessons that have been created and post problems that have been coming up to look for solutions. As the saying goes, why try to recreate the wheel if others have already solved that problem that you are having.