Blog: As a member of this Master’s program, you are helping shape the future of your school with regards to its 21st Century technology practices. Please research what your school’s educational technology mission statement is. Is there one? Is technology mentioned at all? In your blog, please write your school’s mission statement that incorporates technology and comment on it. How does their statement align with your personal practice? Does it meet the goals for your capstone? Canyon Oaks Elementary School Mission Statement: Canyon Oaks students will acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to help them develop a lifetime love of learning.
Canyon Oaks Elementary School Vision Statement: All students will master grade level standards in a learning environment that supports inquiry and collaboration for students and teachers as they make meaning of knowledge. As you can see, there is no explicit statement about educational technology in the Canyon Oaks Mission and Vision Statements. However, it could be implied that grade level standards students must master includes the California Department of Education's scope and sequence of the "Recommended Digital Literacy and Technology Skills to Support the California Common Core State Standards." According to the CDE, "This scope and sequence is aligned to the Common Core State Standards requirements for Mathematics and English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects as well as skills required for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium’s Computer Adaptive Testing." Therefore, if a teacher is unaware of those relatively new CCSS Tech Recommendations, then he/she cannot realize those skills need to be taught! Frankly, it wasn't until I attended Touro that I knew explicitly about them -- What a major AHA moment!! In order for students to master the California Common Core State Standards, they must learn to use technology; however, it is not stated that public school teachers are mandated to teach those skills. One must assume that whoever wrote the CA-CCSS believed that somehow our children in California would "naturally" learn them because they are natives of the digital age. Our school's statements do not foster an explicit need to use technology, which means my capstone could have been impeded by this lack of technology requirement. In other words, my capstone is based on the use of technology, but our school statements do not require the use of technology; so, it appears there could have been a possibility of not having my capstone tech aspect fulfilled. Nonetheless, because our District provided 19 laptops for my 32 students, I was able to use that equipment to support my capstone. Note: The Napa Valley Unified School District 21st Century Skills webpage states ALL NVUSD students will:
Blog: Review the Add-ons you chose and what hurdles you encountered and your overall experience.
My overall experience with this assignment included the spectrum of emotions. These extensions are cool tricks to use to present data. On the other hand, the time to create my "branched" Reading Survey on Google Forms (GF) was much longer than I expected because (1) I needed to plan which questions I would pose that would require a branch -- in the past, I never needed to create branches, therefore, making a GF was pretty quick and straightforward in comparison to this GF survey; (2) I needed to check and re-check to assure that my branches were fully functioning, which included the necessary correction of my spelling and grammatical errors; then (3) when I tried to add the "add-ons," I almost freaked out because it appeared I would have to recreate my form that I had just spent hours working on all over again. Luckily, that re-do process did not have to happen because I figured out how to go back to my original GF survey to then click the "Add-ons" in the drop down menu at the top right side of my screen. From the new "Add-ons" screen, I could select which extension(s) I needed. WHEW! Here are my reviews: 1) DocAppender - Super important reminder: When adding this extension to a Google Form that has already been created, make sure to refresh your page, so you don't freak out when you don't initially see the "Add-on" icon to the left of the color pallette icon at the top right of your screen. If you don't see that icon, then you might need to recreate your Form--so remember, REFRESH your page! What I liked most about this extension is that it provides step-by-step instructions in a DocAppender Sidebar next to my Google Form. The sidebar is VERY USER-FRIENDLY! Also, the target Google document that has the collected data can be formated into three different styles (bulleted, vertical table, and horizontal rows). I strongly recommend this extension because it will also include long open-end responses as well as the multiple-choice, check-box, and drop-down menu answers. It is a great extension for easy reading of data and presenting the information in a malleable manner rather than printing the responses from the static presentation format that is standard on the GF Response page. 2) RowCall - Although I did not actually integrate it onto this Google Form, it appears to do the same as DocAppender, except its target document is a Google Sheet instead of a Google Doc. From the Google Sheet, one could create a variety of graphs for the collected data, which would help in creating infographics. I look forward to trying this one just for the reason of graphic representation of data and the ability to manipulate the placement of the data graphics onto another document, slide, etc. 3) Choice Eliminator - Again, this extension was not used for this particular Google Form. However, based on what I read and the three tutorial videos I watched about it, I can envision using the Choice Eliminator extension to create a Parent-Teacher-Student Conference Schedule using the Google Form that I could have parent work on during Back-to-School Night. The Google Form could also be sent to families who were unable to attend the BTSN, which would create equity of access for scheduling to meet with me. 4) Flubaroo - This extension appears to be based on what I read (and has been touted during the past two CUE conferences) as the awesome tool to use with Google Forms, especially when creating quizzes. So, although I have not used it yet, my interest has been piqued about it; I will give Flubaroo a try when I create a quiz for my students. I'll let you know how it goes. Blog: Having explored several capstone websites, write a blog about who you think the audience of your capstone is going to be and why. Also, what content do you think you will need to have on your website in order to engage and teach them about your research.
At this point, my audience will possibly expand to include students, their families, teaching colleagues, administrators, and stakeholders who support education. The audience expansion is due to the potential change of my capstone focus, which is going through a third version. Instead of being a resource website of "How-to" reference videos, it will probably be a website defending/encouraging the use of technology to support and sustain learning for all students, especially English Language Learners (ELLs) or students with limited English proficiency (LEPs). Because of my original action research project, which I initially thought was going to be the focus of my capstone website, I learned of the important benefits regarding the student use of a managed threaded discussion to increase student engagement in reading and writing. Then, during a think aloud with Dr. Redmond, I shared that I'd like to deepen my focus toward ELLs. So, Dr. Redmond suggested I consider broadening my DQ to "How Technology Sustains Learning for ELLs," which is when I came up with what I considered the innovative idea to create my capstone website as a "24/7, one-stop resource center of 'How-to' videos/screencasts showing the use of technology applications" for ELLs, their families, and teachers. It was an innovative idea to me because there was nothing like it available at our NVUSD and/or COES sites that I was aware of. Later, though, I felt that idea would not work because our Capstone Seminar course instructor caused me to feel as if it could not be a viable path due to the reality that there were possibly too many resources I would need to cover in a limited amount of time. Therefore, my third idea might be about a Capstone website on student blogging; however, there have been several Capstones on that topic, which means I would not be adding to the body of knowledge. So, my latest thought (which I recognize could change again) is that my Capstone website will be a poignant presentation about the importance, benefits, and ways of using technology to meet the needs of ELL student learning through myriad ways including differentiation of pace, learning styles, gamification, accessibility, etc. I want to present research that supports my position as well as examples of relevant resources that students, their families, and teachers can use for those purposes. Also, the research will show administrators and stakeholders concerned with education about the need to provide technology and its accessibilty for students at school and home to support and sustain their learning. The website also needs to have a level of aesthetics and entertainment value to draw and hold their attention, so the presentation of my research, etc. needs to include Baggio's ideas of CRAP. Blog: What has been or now is your experience with Google Forms? Is it intuitive? What challenges did you encounter when building your form? Do you think this tool would be beneficial for your teaching practice?
My experience with Google Forms has been minimal; so far, I have used it to obtain feedback/collect data from my 4th grade students, which means they could respond to the GF when they had an opportunity within a week to be on a computer (desktop or laptop). Because our school does not yet have 1:1 device:student availability, I realize I would have to be innovative in determining how to utilize GF on a regular basis, or at least more often -- like as an exit ticket at the end of class. (By the way, because of my response to Master Madigan's blog, I now realize I can have half of my students complete an exit ticket on one day while the other half completes it the next day; thereby, creating a rotation of responses.) Google Forms was intuitive as I created my questions because it automatically changed the possible response from "short answer" to "long answer/paragraph" and/or determining if a "multiple choice" answer might be a better fit to my question. Based on my limited usage of GF, I did not encounter any challenges when building my forms. Also, the data/feedback I collected were mostly opened-ended answers, so I have not yet learned how to create graphs using the GF data. This tool would be beneficial for my teaching practice, expecially now that I've been reminded by fellow Cohort 10 members' great ideas in their blogs. For example, Jenny Knox's blog shares the many ways she found it can be used. Because I currently teach 4th graders while she teaches 5th graders, the potential GF uses she mentions are approaches I can utilize with my students. Thank you, Jenny! My goal is to strategically use the knowledge I learn from this Master of Education program to teach students how to be innovative in their thinking. I would like to be a facilitator who encourages them to think about recognizing and/or defining problems and creating solutions. Using technology would be a part of their toolkit, their resources. Touro has helped me develop and expand my technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge; this program has been transformational, pushing me to become more innovative and intentional about my teaching. I have learned to be a more collaborative, communicative, creative, and critical thinker who advocates for the best output from my students, peers, and myself.
I would deeply appreciate my fellow cohort members' support in completing my capstone by providing constructive feedback to me in a timely and respectful manner. Of course, I shall do the same for each of them; and, I'd like each of them to know they can call/text me at anytime--especially if stressed out and in need of just "an ear." I believe that a high performing team will (1) Form; (2) Norm; (3) Perform; (4) Storm; (5) Reform; and (6) Perform at an even higher level, with this being a cyclical process. Also, a high performing team will care deeply for each member's personal and total well-being. My hope, thoughts, intentions, and actions will be to support and be a high performing team/cohort member. Notes/info about my DQ can be found on my EDU 792 page of this Weebly. |
AuthorJulie C D Meyer-Houston is thrilled about her learning journey in the Touro University CA Graduate School of Education Innovative Learning M.Ed. Program! Archives
August 2017
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