Reflecting Back...

Professional Growth and Leadership: My ongoing renewal of professional practice for adopting current technologies for student success.

In order to get this initiative started the committee has to think about what the next step to plan will be. This step will be giving time, commitment and teamwork to communicating this initiative to the Lake Forest School Board and the Delaware Early Childhood Center. If this initiative were passed, the next step would be to inform staff, new parents and community members of our plan. This comes with advertisement! Joanne, a member of the tech committee will be making posters, sending out emails and letters requesting feedback of the plan. Participation will be offered towards the end of August when school starts. This will then give the committee some time to prepare for the first tech session!


All of this seems simple and easy to do, but the process in getting here was not so much. The committee had to communicate by phone, email, Skype and tech blog in order to collaborate with one another. Unfortunately, due to the program being spread out amongst the state of Delaware, consistent communication was the most challenging for the committee. With that being said, the committee had agreed to collaborate as much as possible throughout the week but assign specific sections in the plan to one or two members. This really worked out with the team since everyone seemed to be on the same page from the first face-to-face meeting.


There were several areas in which the committee had to collaborate with one another to complete the section. These areas were to plan our technology initiatives as well as the solution plan, which was done in during the first face-to-face meeting. In the technology initiatives section, the committee had to agree on the vision/goal of the plan, the policies, decision-making process and how the committee was to communicate with one another throughout the seven week time period. The other areas which was spoken of during this meeting was the solution plan. In this section, the committee had to create a rationale, describe the technology that would be used, the outcomes and hope for the plan, policies, what the teacher current use in the program, analyzing the overall costs to the plan, and the basic design of the program itself for background information. All of the section spoken of are quite important to start with, these sections gave the base to the plan as well as provide all of the members of the committee with a place to start with their own section. Even though these two sections were crucial to the plan, the rest of the contributing sections have just as much of an impact in the presentation of the plan to Lake Forest School District and the Delaware Early Childhood Center.

A problem with the ECAP program would be the lack of technology and technology education in each one of the thirteen sites we serve in Kent and Sussex county. We decided to chose this initiative because of the lack of proper training for educators to use technology tools and how to embed them into their instruction each day. Even though funding might be as much as hoped, we have grants both long and short term that could help us in this issue. The overall maintenance and replacement could easily be provided by our housed district, Lake Forest.

Michele was talking to me about this online tool called animoto. The tool allows you to upload pictures and make a video to music. I made one for fun! I thought we could maybe use this at orientation? what do you think?

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

A Bitter Sweet End...

Hi everyone! I know you havent been able to participate that much on the blog itself but I thank you for getting in touch me in reguards to our initiative. I have been able to sit down with Jesse Beth, and Janet frequently to make some decisions for our committee. I know everyone is soo busy this time of year with school coming to a close but I ask you all to please keep it touch with me as much as you can so I can get your input for the rest of the plan. Thanks!

A More Formal Approach

I hope everyone has had a great week. I know I have been talking to you all frequently about our committee and what the next step will be. Over several of our converstaions through the phone, IM, or email I have come up with this formal proposal. Don't get freaked out...it's what we have talked about already, I just needed to have something to show our collaboration and ideas. Thanks Michele for getting some budget questions straight. As well as Jesse anf Beth for the support in creating this formal peice, what would I do without you guys! Joanne, even though you have alot going on this week you gave me such great feedback when you could and I thank you for that. The formal copy of the Implemenation Plan will be on the wiki for you to view. It;s coming along guys! Keep up the great work! ~ Ashley

Meeting Day

Hi all! Thanks for all of the feedback. Beth, I have been receiving surveys from our teachers throughout the last few days. I just wanted to remind everyone that our meeting is tonight. I have already set up time to communicate with all of you except Michele. Please call me with your feedback on our agenda for tonight. Check out the wiki to get the agenda attachment and here is a glimpse of what we will be working on:

Write The Technology Solution Plan. Components should included: (a) a rationale (b) description of the technology (c) the expected outcomes, (d) policies and guidelines for selecting the technology, (e) current technologies, (f) analyzing costs and establishing a budget (See appropriate section); (g) Basic Design Parameters (See appropriate section); and (h) Benefits. Use the web site components as a guide for writing the Technology Plan. remember some of the topic discussed in this section will not be applicable to your situation.

(from the 6040 Blackboard site)

SURVEY

Hello Everyone!

Michele wasn't able to put this up in time tonight so she emailed me to attach the survey for her. This tool does not allow you to insert a file so I am emailing it to everyone and let me know your feedback! Thanks everyone and talk to you all soon :) Ashley

Many of you could not meet due to prior arrangements but since we all got to discuss your feelings about the needs assessment I am going to put our collaborated meeting notes here so we are all on the same page.

What is a needs assessment? All agree that it is a survey requesting information to see if there is a needs of service.

Who is our focused group? All agree that our focused group will be Ashley's twelve ECAP teachers

What do we hope to get out of the assessment? Beth suggested a simple survey. Joanne suggests speaks of the importance in technology for the classroom as a whole. Jesse notes the importance to use advanced tools.

How will we overcome negative people? Michele suggests to give lots of evidence and notable sources to back up our needs plan.

What resources will we use? Jesse suggested the Northwest Regional Laboratory. Michele suggests the Assistive Technology and Emergent Literacy for Preschoolers.

Make a Survey: Each member thought up questions for the survey.

HOPE THIS HELPS YOU ALL AND CHAT WITH YOU SOON!

GROUP MEETING

The group will try to meet Friday, 21st to discuss this process. We willbe meeting online through a chat at 5:00 pm. I will be taking mintues for those of you who can not attend. Please let me know if you can not join the chat so I can give you a copy of the minutes.

This Just In!!!

The members of the Technology Commitee will consist of four members. The four members are: Ashley- commitee chair and curriculum coordinator, Michele- technology specialist, Joanne- parent and Beth- curriculum coordinator.

Congrats all and I look forward to bloggin with you soon! :)

The Hot Spot For Technology

Welcome Everyone to online collaboration! Here you and some other members of our 6040 class with wrok together to create and manage a Professional Technology Committee. Let's get started!