During this week’s web conference, Ms. Borel discussed the assignment for Week 5. She also reviewed TK20 and explained that several documents needed to be uploaded to that account by September 30, 2011. She also went over the to-do list for the internship requirements. We were told to go ahead and purchase our textbooks for the next course. She would be getting our final grade to us within two weeks of completing this course. There were not as many technological difficulties as the other times for me, and I think it may be from not having as many people on the conference this week. It seems when there are more attendees, I have a harder time hearing Ms. Borel and the other students. Questions about the Internship Plan and Principal Competencies Chart were discussed and we were told we could choose activities for the Principal Competencies directly from the book. The conference lasted about an hour with a question and answer session.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Friday, September 23, 2011
Week 5 Part 2: Course Reflections
The outcomes I envisioned for this course were to complete all assignments as an accomplished student while learning the basics of technology and administration. I believe I have come a long way with my writing since week one. It has been hard for me to accept some of my grades as I am an English teacher and I’m not exactly sure what grammatical errors I seem to be making, but I have tried to correct where I thought I may have been having the problems. I was also struggling with citations as I was used to the MLA style, not the APA. I also struggled with working my way around the system. There was a lot of information in many different places, and it didn’t always match up. So with all the assignments and trying to maneuver around an imperfect system, the course was somewhat overwhelming. I do have a better understanding of school leadership and am getting more comfortable with using technology and moving around the different web tools.
The digital tools that were presented in this course were some I had never used before. The RSS feeds, wikis, and blogs were new to me. I actually used Wikipedia with my students in the past, but never knew that a collaboration of people from all over the world created and maintained the site. Since this class started, I’ve had my technology coordinator create accounts for my third grade students on my web page. They are working through our district intranet and are secure on our server with aliases. My students blogged for the first time last week. I have a multimedia blog on my webpage. I ask a question regarding the project of the week and they answer the question by blogging. When they submit, it doesn’t automatically show. I have to go in and accept or decline their entry. This course helped me to teach my students something I never would have known how to do before. My students are excited about learning while technology is being integrated into my lessons.
I will continue to work diligently on my writing and references. When confronted with a challenge, I will not give up until I succeed. I always thought of myself as a writer, but this course has given me a reality check. I do wish the course outline was not so scattered. Looking at the rubrics, the course syllabus, the week overviews, and the to-do lists, with them all having different or not the same detailed instructions, makes the course overwhelming. The course is a lot of work and research, and to have to struggle to figure out exactly what is expected of the students is confusing. Revamping the course to allow for students to not have to search several places for Lamar’s expectations, will allow all students to be successful without becoming overwhelmed and frustrated. There is so much wonderful information in this course, and some students may miss some of that just trying to get around the website and through all the information.
I was able to turn in all course assignments without too much trouble. Our Instructional Associate was a wonderful resource and very understanding and patient with questions I had. I was very overwhelmed with some of the assignments, especially the ones I had never heard of, like E-Rate and RSS feeds. I was able to get through them and continue carrying on. Again, I think the course set-up was so overwhelming at times; it made it more difficult than it should have been. The assignments are certainly Master’s Degree assignments. There really is no need to make the system difficult to maneuver around as well. Some of the uploading I made to my wiki changed my alignments and fonts. Also, when I created my power point by slideboom and transferred it over, some of my necessary information was deleted. This information was needed for the assignment to be complete. My Instructional Associate was wonderful and allowed me to screenshot my information that was deleted, which allowed me to receive the credit for the weekly course assignment.
I have learned so much during these five weeks. I have learned more about technology, which I love. I want to be the best teacher I can for my students and I know learning technology will help me to do that. I learned that I can handle situations that I didn’t think I could. I am much stronger than I gave myself credit for. I now have a goal, not to just graduate with my Master’s Degree, because I will do that, but to become a better, more advanced writer, teacher, and leader. I have learned that my principal wears many hats and there is much more happening on my campus than I ever imagined. I definitely lived in my classroom and grade level. I am so excited that I am finding out how schools really work, from the inside out. I have always considered myself a leader, and I feel like this program will help me to become the best leader I can be in whatever position I may choose.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Web Conference Summary 9/14/11
Web Conference 9/14/11
In the September 14, 2011 technology web conference, items discussed were Internship Requirements, Power point Presentations, wiki site invitations, APA citing, discussion posts for this week, which should include 4 with those being the reading quote, technology book summary, and comments on two classmates’ reading quotes. TK20 was reviewed by Ms. Borel about who to reach, Rozella Offord, and how we would be adding many more items to this professional, information holding forum. Week 4 assignment was discussed and we should have our book summary posted in our wiki, along with a created wordle cloud document formed from the summary, which is also to be posted on the wiki. Our professional Vita should be created and posted to the wiki and we should comment on at least 3 other students’ Vita to assist with helping them edit their Vita. Our own Vita should be updated as we review comments from the others. We also have a technology report due in our assignment this week. We went over the Internship Plan including the templates, the monthly reports, the summary reports and validation, and the Field-based activities requirement activities document. We discussed the 150 field based hours and the 150 course embedded hours. Ms. Borel reassured us that next week’s activities would not be overwhelming as long as we didn’t make it too hard on ourselves. She gave us a pep talk we desperately needed and overall, in my opinion, was the most productive web conference to date.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Week 3 Web Conference 9/7/11
In this week’s web conference, items discussed were the youtube videos that are no longer viewable and the conference URL from the August 30th web conference. Ms. Borel gave us another URL for us to view that conference and several students said it worked for them. We were asked to go to the youtube search and type in embedding videos for posting to blogs and wikis. Our Internship hours and requirements were discussed and I took note that the hours have increased from 100 hours of activities to 150 hours of activities for the Internship. The Internship was discussed, but again, I was having audio problems and heard bits of what was required. Comments in grades were discussed and Ms. Borel reiterated that we should go to the details next to our grade to receive our comments from Sarah. We were told Sarah would allow for resubmissions to increase our points if we emailed her and asked her to allow us to resubmit.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
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