Module 1 assignment: Multiplier Initial Reflection

Even though I received a score of 19 on the self-reflection quiz, making it unlikely that I am an “accidental diminisher”, I need to continue working in a couple areas to be an effective a leader in my school.  

The first being that when problems arise, I tend to be a person who wants to not only address the problem, but propose a solution to the problem and take care of it quickly so we can move on.  (This is a coping skill since I am a procrastinator.) This year our Instructional Leadership Team (ILT)  has been in this mode as well and I can see how it caused us to come close to becoming “Accidental Diminishers” as we feel the need to make decisions quickly.

For example, we made changes in our leadership team this year and with those changes came the problem of how do we get information out to staff.    In the past, we were in teams (schools within a school, so we had 4-5 core teachers on a team that had the same students and we shared specialists among the teams)  and the team leader was the representative on
our school’s leadership team.  It worked well, but because we are not “teaming”this year, it was decided that we would have department leads as well as a representative from each
grade level on the team to make sure all were represented.

Even though at the time it made sense.  We ran into the problem of who will be the point person for who?  What are our roles?  Too many questions and variables came into play. Since we had at least two people representing everyone on staff. it didn’t make sense to have both department leads and grade level representatives deliver any communication and/or bring things to ILT.  In trying to solve this problem quickly, it was decided to have grade level people be in charge of communicating since we have less responsibilities than department heads for the same pay.  We tried this one month, but soon realized that then it shifted the workload and it didn’t work out since we were each communicating with a third of the school.   We also, still had the problem of some being represented by two people.  (example,  I teach
both 6th and 7th grade social studies).  As we looked for solutions again, it was suggested that we create a communication tree where each of us took only a few people to represent/ communicate with.  We are rolling this out this next week and will see how it goes.  

Even though this is an example of a decision that was made with a group of people, I was in on the decision.  I think through this example and my detailed report after taking the quiz, it shows my need to slow down a bit in my decision making and take the time to think it through how it would really look and sound.  I also liked the idea of waiting at least 24 hours before responding. . . . I am getting better about this since I have been burned in the past by decisions I have made quickly.

The other thing I need to work on is my gift for gab.  I am one of those people who really has a hard time not speaking up if the room is quiet.  Also, if it is something I am passionate for as well then I will speak more as a way to convince someone to try my idea.  I do see how it can stiffle others, and I have been working on this, but it is a work in progress.  I look forward to trying the ideas presented in the book.

Again, I can see my efforts to work on these issues in the past has changed me from an
“accidental diminisher” to an “unlikely diminisher”, but I still need to work on these areas to be an effective leader and to be aware of them I do my action research so I don't slip into being an "accidental diminisher".

Evidence of Participation in an Online Educational Community Extra Credit Project Submission

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Extra Credit - Evidence of Participation in on Online Educational Community Extra Credit Project

After our discussion in Hangouts, I have changed my mind about Twitter.  In the past I have seen it as a waste of time since I have seen others use it to post trivial information like what they ate for breakfast or to just get a rise out of others.  To get more information I talked to another teacher and asked her if she uses it and if so what she uses it for.  She said she is more likely to look at what other people post (a creeper in her words), but that she follows information about Google and Google products for the classroom.  

So I set up my Twitter account  I looked for groups that had to do with technology and education for now.  I am starting by following STEM education, #EduTweetTech and PDST Tech in Ed.  For the moment I think I’ll be checking out what other people are saying, but I am looking forward to checking out the different online communities that will help me to grow as a teacher and help others grow.  Here are copies of my first two tweets:

Digital Citizenship Poster

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ISTE Standard 4 -- Digital Citizenship

After reading through articles about digital citizenship I created this poster to teach my middle school students about digital citizenship using Pictochart.

Resources for increasing my repertoire of digtal tools and effectively integrating them into my classroom.

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ISTE #5

Trigger Question: How can I continue to increase my repertoire of digital tools and resources and effectively integrate them into my classroom to support student learning?

I choose to focus on how I can increase my repertoire of digital tools and resources and effectivelyy introduce them into my classroom to support student learning  because I feel that I do a good job overall of meeting this standard in my teaching practices.  As a representative on our district’s Tech Summit committee, I pilot new technology in my classroom, I train others at conferences as well as by individually meeting with them, I troubleshoot technology issues with our technology department.  Over the summer I have presented during our district’s 10Tech Conference we have in June and the Powerful Learning Conference sponsored by our district and surrounding districts where I feel that I contribute to the effectiveness, vitality, and self-renewal of teaching and teaching using technology.

Exploration

As I was reading through articles to answer my question I found the following stated in article How Teachers are Learning:  “Students will learn best in those environments where teachers themselves are model learners”(p. 4) which I believe is very true, but with time at a premium it is hard to get in the professional development we need in order to grow as educators and in this case find digital tools to use in our classrooms..  And of course, the other issue is cost.  So as I looked through articles and videos I was looking for ways to increase my repertoire of tools and learn from others how to integrated those tools into my classroom within my time and that were free.

Some of the free staff development resources I found from this article included:

The Teaching Channel (https://www.teachingchannel.org/) - this has videos, blogs, and articles that are teacher created and cover a variety of topics in the education profession.

Adobe Education Exchange (https://edex.adobe.com/) -- This is a platform for teachers to share and exchange.

Then I found the article, Four Tips for Effective Digital Leadership that gave me even more resources:

Twitter (https://twitter.com )  -- we have talked about this one in class.  You don’t need a twitter account to look through topics, only to participate in the discussions.  Here’s an archived discussion that I looked at:

And as discussed in our Hangout time this week, if you find someone that is in the same discussions as you often, you can start following them as well and learn even more.

TED ideas worth spreading (https://www.ted.com/) -- These are experts in a variety of professions and they cover a huge variety of topics.  Although, it is not interactive, it is a great free resource.

ISTI (https://www.iste.org/)  -- If you go to the ISTI website not only can you see the technology standards, but you can also get ideas of how to implement those standards into your classroom.

Education Leadership (http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership.aspx) -- This has a variety of articles to read and provides free webinars as well.

Then as I was reading through others resources I found the following:

Edutopia (https://www.edutopia.org/) which is a collection of education blogs that you can look at and respond to. (Erin Cook shared this one)

Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/) which provides free courses.  Below is an introduction to one that I think would be great to help me find digital tools and resources to be used in my classroom.

Conclusion:

Overall, by looking through the resources found by Dr. Wicks, myself and others, I have realized that there are many free resources available that I can use as time permits and on my own time schedule to increase my repertoire of digital tools and learn from others how to effectively integrate them into my classroom.

References

Dabbs, L. (2012, August 07). 5 tips for new teachers to become connected educators. Retrieved December 03, 2017, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/new-teachers-becoming-connected-educators-lisa-dabbs


E. (2016, July 11). How teachers are learning: professional development remix,  EdSurge Guides. Retrieved December 03, 2017, from https://www.edsurge.com/research/guides/how-teachers-are-learning-professional-development-remix


Gonzales, L. (2016). Four tips for effective digital leadership, Tech & Learning, 37(4), 32-33.

End of Course Reflection for "Accomplished Teacher"

Since I am in school district who does believe that in the concept of “social capital” as discussed in the article, “The Teacher Leader:  Improving Schools by Building Social Capital Through Shared Leadership” I have had the opportunity over the last six years  to act as department chair for math and social studies, be part of our Instructional Leadership Team, and our PBIS team.  In my role as department chair,  I facilitate department meetings and report to our building and district administrators.  Fortunately, we are also provided dedicated department time which encourages this practice and I have teammates who are willing to participate.  As grade level department chair this year,  I am also mentoring two our teachers who are teaching 6th grade social studies for the first time.  In the other roles I help make decisions for our school through communicating concerns and issues of those I represent

I have been fortunate to have good role models in my current principal and math coach since they asked me good questions that made me think about my practices  As I was taking this class I thought the information about the different types of leadership styles and the discussions of when each can be useful was interesting.  I tend, like many others in the class to easily fall into the consultant role, but I wish to become more of a coach with both my peers and students so places I need to improve on are paraphrasing and reflection on my teaching practices.   Although, I realize the benefits of paraphrasing,  such as valuing others and being on the same page, I doesn’t come natural for me.  So with the help of the practice we got in our face-to-face meeting as well as the question starters am I improving.   And since reflection has been brought to the forefront,   I taking more time to reflect on my teaching practices and as result I believe I am helping my students to be more successful.  I am hoping with more practice both of these skills  will become more natural.

The overall theme I saw as we went through this course is that as an educational leader we want to help others feel valued and become independent and confident in their own thinking. This started with the first articles, “The Teacher Leader:  Improving Schools by Building Social Capital Through Shared Leadership” as it discussed the need to build relationships so we can sustain the programs and practices we believe in and not get burned out .  This continued in the article, “Four Stances: A Continuum of Learning-focused Interaction”  as it  discussed  that although there is a time and place for each of the different types of leaders, we really want to get to the place where we are coach so that we are helping people find their own solutions and therefore are gaining confidence in themselves and become more self-reliant. The other article about mentoring, “The Good Mentor” also discussed how is it is important to develop good relationships and to make sure you are meeting the needs of your mentee.  To this you need to be able to know what they struggle with and help them to reflect and find solutions which leads into the article “Paraphrasing: An Essential Skill of the Educational Coach” which emphasized this when it talks about the goal of paraphrasing is to help the person you are paraphrasing “to examine and reflect on their beliefs, values, goals, and assumptions along with their feelings and ideas”.   By feeling valued and empowered, we are able to grow and get excited about our profession.

As I have been going through this class, I have learned or re-learned how important it is to build relationships with both my peers and students as well as to help them grow to become effective leaders in the future though continued paraphrasing and reflection.  I will need to continue to work on my paraphrasing skills as well as my reflective practices in order to do this. It has also helped me to also think about how I need to pass on these skills to others, so for my action research next quarter I plan on finding strategies to help my students reflect upon their work.

References

Corcoran, C. A., & Leahy, R. (2003). Growing professionally through reflective practice. Kappa Delta Pi Record, 40(1), 30-33.

Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (2013). The power of professional capital: With an investment in collaboration, teachers become nation builders.  Journal Of Staff Development, 34(3), 36-39.

Jackson, P. W. (n.d.). Coaching for Educators. Retrieved December 02, 2017, from http://msuk12connect.org/articles/coaching-for-educators/254-paraphrasing-an-essential-skill-of-the-educational-coach

Nappi, J.S. (2014).  The teacher leader: Improving schools by building social capital through shared leadership.The Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, 80(4), pp. 29-34.

Rowley, J. B. (1999).  The good mentor.  Educational Leadership, 86(8), 20-22

Integrating Digital Citizenship into Social Studies Classes

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ISTE Standard 4

My triggering question was “How can I integrate digital citizenship into my social studies classes?”

A couple of weeks ago, we had a “Future Ready Day” at our school.  We had invited community members to come into our school to talk about their jobs.   We were short a few spots, so it was decided that we would fill it in the blank spot with a presentation about digital citizenship.  Since I am on our district’s Tech Summit committee I was asked if I would be willing to present.  The slide presentation had been prepared by our secondary technology coach so we just needed to present it to the 6th graders.  It focused on how fast and easy technology has made life for our students and even though it is really cool and helpful, it has pitfalls and students need to be aware of those.  It was so well received by our students that we plan on including it in the future.

Between making this presentation and my research for ITSE 4, I was reminded that we need to continually educate our students how to be digital citizens in this global world.  Since we do research in our social studies class it seems like a logical place for us to talk about “safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources”.

As we realized our ancient Asian culture project need to some major tweaking, we split up the work between the 7th grade social studies teachers.    My job was to work on the rubric for the projects to make sure it was teacher and student friendly and included everything we expected the students to have.   While working on it,   I advocated for requiring that students create a bibliography and as you can see in rubric below we have done that.

This last couple weeks, to help our students be successful with this project, we have been modeling the projects with our current unit on Imperial China.  As we have been modeling the projects, we have showing students how to create a bibliography and cite information correctly.  This has become so easy and fast for students to do with technology.  I use http://www.citationmachine.net/

while others are using http://www.easybib.com/   Although, not perfect, they are a start.  I have also been showing students where to find citation information on the discovery education and online encyclopedia our district subscribes to.  I show them how to copy and paste that information into a google doc and create a bibliography.  With how easy and fast it is to create citations, there really is no excuse not to give credit to others work.

We also talk about “safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology” when students are looking for pictures.  Unfortunately, people can tag their pictures however they wish, and sometimes they tag them so inappropriate images will come up when students are searching for images for their projects.  We have taught our students that if this happens they need to close their computer and let an adult know.  They have learned this throughout their time in our district so luckily it has become second nature for them.  

We use to have our students get their pictures off of flicker.com because they could sort them and only have creative common pictures, but then they started require an email.  Our students are too young to have an email,  so this wasn’t an option any more.  Then we found that they could get pictures by searching on  https://search.creativecommons.org,  but would often just do a google search.  This past week in our hangout as well as in the article The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons we learned about http://www.photosforclass.com where students could look for appropriate creative common pictures that have also been screened for appropriateness.  On top of that when they download them into the presentations it automatically puts a citation on them. This is a great resource that  I plan on using this as we go forward with this and other projects.  

I think that it is important that we take the opportunities that present themselves to teach our students to be good digital citizens throughout our lessons or conversations we have.  As can be seen I do have the opportunity to teach my students to be good digital citizens by teaching my students the “three pillars” of respect, educate and protect (REP) that I read about in the article, Middle School Digital Citizenship:  What Students Need to Know and Why while “advocating, modeling and teaching safe, legal, and ethical use of digital information and technology, including respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources” while working on research projects.

Although, I have been focusing on just one portion of ISTE 4, I have been thinking about how we are can incorporate the other parts of ISTE 4 into my socials studies classroom.

First, by doing this project with all of our 7th grade students we are also addressing the issue of providing equitable access to technology to all students that Erin Cook focused on with her article, 5 Ways to Make Technology More Accessible to More Students.  Since being equitable does not mean equal, we also are trying to find resources that are on multiple grade levels or can be read to the students so that all students can be successful.

Secondly, we have the opportunity in our social studies classes to “promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions related to the use of technology and information” through teaching our students to peer editing skills.   This is perfect moment to teach students to THINK ( is it True?,   is it Helpful?, is it Inspiring?, Is it Necessary?, and is it Kind?) before they make a comment or post.   Many materials are available from https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship to help teach these skills.  

Lastly,  although I haven’t been good about doing this,  as teachers we can “ develop and model cultural understanding and global awareness by engaging with colleagues and students of other cultures using digital age communication and collaboration”.  I thought of the idea of following twitter feeds that was shown during our hangout session showed a fast and easy way for us to do this.

Miller, J. (2016, March 24). 5 Ways to make technology more accessible to more students -.

Retrieved November 18, 2017, from

https://www.teachthought.com/technology/5-ways-make-technology-accessible-students/

Watanbee-Crockett, L., Middle school digital citizenship: What students need to know and why. (2016,

December 08). Retrieved November 15, 2017, from

https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/middle-school-digital-citizenship

Walters, S. & Burt, R.,  (2017, August 08). The educator’s guide to copyright, fair use, and creative

commons. Retrieved November 19, 2017, from

https://www.theedublogger.com/2017/01/20/copyright-fair-use-and-creative-commons/

ISTE Standard 3 -- Modeling and Faciliating the Incorporation of Current and Emerging Digitals Tools into the Classroom.

Modeling and Facilitating the Incorporation of Current and Emerging Digital Tools into the Classroom to Prepare Students for the Future

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ISTE Standard 3

Triggering Question:  Since we live in a global and digital society, how can I model and facilitate the incorporation of current and emerging digital tools into our social studies curriculum?

I picked this question because in our school district our social studies department is often asked to try out digital tools in our classes.  This practice began because social studies is the only department that doesn’t have state testing scores directly attached to teachers, therefore we had more flexibility in how we presented the material.  Also, since all students take a social studies class it provides an opportunity for all students to learn and use digital tools that are available.   

Another reason, this question came to my mind is due to our upcoming research project in 7th grade social studies and I am a digital immigrant.  This is a new research project for all of us and we are providing choices.  One of the choices is how the final project will be presented.  Student will be given the choice of using technology or with paper or pencil.  This has caused us to research digital tools that are available for our students to use and how we are going to model this tools since some are new to us as well.

Exploration

As I was reading through the assigned articles, I couldn’t help but think that they were geared more toward digital natives and I am a digital immigrant.  I also realized how many digital tools I do use in my daily life in the classroom and it is much more than what I do in my personal life which is the opposite of what it said about digital native teachers.

The article “Cross-Reference of Online Teaching”  confirmed the belief of why we teach digital tools is to help our students  “become more marketable for the careers they will be competing of in the future, many of which are yet to be created”(p. 22).  In social studies our main goal is to teach our students how to research, evaluate resources, and draw conclusions, not necessarily the content, so they can transfer those skills to what they will be doing in the future. So by incorporating the teaching of current and emerging tools, we are also providing opportunities for them to learn digital tools that hopefully they will be able to use in their future learning and careers.

As I looked for articles to help me incorporate digital tools into my classroom,  I found an article entitled “Five Tips for Incorporating New Technology in the Classroom” which provided discussed using our  best teaching practices when teaching other educators about using technology.  I believe we can use those same best practices to teach students how to use technology.  For example, we need to remember that our students come with different backgrounds and knowledge in regard to technology, so having them work with a group of mixed abilities is good for all students.  Those who need extra help can get it readily from those in the group and those who provide the help deepen their knowledge.  We also need to provide ongoing opportunities for students to use the digital tools we have taught so they can deepen their learning and see how their learning can be transferred to other subjects and therefore to their future choices.  And, most importantly, we need to provide a culture in our classrooms where it is okay to take risks and make mistakes, since we learn from these experiences.

Although I liked the checklist provided in the chapter entitled “Explorating the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Elementary and Secondary Teachers” provided, it made me wonder what does this look like and sound like in the classroom.   While looking for my answer I found another article called, “Know the ISTE Standards . T3: Model Digital Age Learning”.  I thought it did a good job of giving concrete examples of how technology can be used to teach students digital tools and citizenship while aligning with the standards.  The chart below shows how we can apply this in our upcoming unit on SE Asian cultures as we model looking for images that show events or innovations that affected the way people lived the students culture of choice:

ITSE STANDARD	How it will be modeled by teachers
Model digital age work and learning. Teachers exhibit knowledge, skills and work processes representative of an innovative professional in a global and digital society.	The teacher models a presentation and annotated time line that shows the how life was affected in Imperial China by events and innovations.  Next, the teacher models a web search to select an image, then demonstrates how to use a digital drawing program to practice layering and overlay. Students conduct their own web searches to select a series of images, then use the digital tool to create one image from the series of layered images.  The students then post the images for their culture onto their presentation or annotated timeline
A. Demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current knowledge to new technologies and situations.	The teacher provides examples of digital artwork and shows how it can replicated in their presentation or annotated timeline
b. Collaborate with students, peers, parents and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.	The students share their work by pasting a URL into a google doc for peer sharing and critiquing.
C.  Communicate relevant information and ideas effectively to students, parents and peers using a variety of digital age media and formats.	Both the teacher and the students use google classroom and google docs  to communicate and share.
D.  Model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate and use information resources to support research and learning.	The teacher models appropriate web searching skills and proper use of copyrighted imagery/information.  Teachers will be providing an ongoing bibliography.  Students are required to provide a bibliography and will be working on this as they research their culture of choice.

The article that Erin Cook shared, “What Digital Literacy Looks Like in Classroom”, also gave some resources to teach digital citizenship that I look forward to incorporating more as I model how to appropriately use and cite resources with my students during this project.   Although, I teach a digital citizenship at the beginning of the year, this article along with the one I found reminded me how important just like with other things we teach that we need to continue to provide this education throughout the year.

REFLECTION

Although, I have gathered resources to facilitating and model the incorporation of digital tools into our social studies curriculum, I need to continue to gather digital tools to be used in the classroom.  Some of the new tools I have heard about through discussions in our class  and the edcamp conference this weekend that I want to learn more about and hopefully incorporate are padlet.com, book creator, menti.com, and google addons.  I also plan on looking on freetech4teachers website that Professor Wicks referenced in the hangout this week.  My exploration also has reminded me that my goal as a teacher is to give my students the tools they need to be future ready and successful in their future.

References

Crowley, B. (2016, April 29). What digital literacy looks like in a classroom. Retrieved November 05,

2017, from https://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2014/10/29/ctq_crowley_digitalliteracy.html

Crompton, H. (n.d.). Know the ISTE standards•T 3: Model digital age learning. Retrieved November
05, 2017, from https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=109

Kennadee, K. (n.d.). Cross-Reference of online teaching. In Distance Learning (2nd ed., Vol. 7, pp.

21-28).

Stanfield, S. (2013). Five tips for incorporating new technology in the classroom. Learning & Leading

With Technology, 41(4), 34-35.

Wen, J., & Shih, W. (n.d.). Explorating the information literacy competency standards for elementary

and secondary teachers. In Computers and Education (pp. 787 - 806).