May+2011

With TAKS testing and the level of stress around the school I thought this week I'd dedicate to something less intrusive and perhaps more meaningful to both students and teachers alike. Next month we celebrate Internet Safety Month however we don't attend school in the month of June. First I'd like to start off by saying that I always thought that topics like cyberbullying were usually blown out of proportion and not really an issue. After working in a computer lab and having access to classroom management software, I can tell you personally that it is huge problem, more that I ever imagined. As educators, especially those with a frequent access to computers and technology, we must make it a priority to discuss these type of topics and train our students to stray away from danger. In order to promote Internet Safety Month (June), I provided CTE lab teachers Jessica Lopez and David Gonzalez a vast amount of articles and web resources for these two topics. I provided articles mainly from EDLD 5306 and a list of online sources to print handouts for student use. The topics for discussion for our student included cyberbullying, online predators, copyright infringement and fair use. The emphasis was mainly cyberbullying since our students are at the target age of cyberbullying. I also added several YouTube videos to our Educational Video Library that dealt with these topics. The topic of cyberbullying is such an issue that ABC studios is releasing a television film next month titled //Cyberbully// in collaboration with //Seventeen//magazine. My students were very naive and don't actually think that it is a problem. I don't blame them because I thought the exact same thing before. Once they were exposed to the articles and viewed the dramatic videos, I had many of my students posting their personal experiences and opinions on the classroom blog. Other teachers, Mr. Gonzalez and Ms. Lopez reported similar results. Some of the articles from EDLD 5306 included What Every School Should Know About Intellectual Property, Discussing Cyber Ethics with Students Is Critical, Cyberbullies, Online Predators, and What to Do About Them, Keeping Safe in Cyberspace. I believe that his activity was related to and helped me master the following standards/indicators: TF-VI.A.I. / TF-VI.A.2. / TF-VI.D.1. During this activity I helped teachers in selecting and applying appropriate technology resources to promote safe and healthy use of technology and provided quick professional development at the classroom level for teaching the social, ethical, and legal issues and responsible use of technology.
 * Week 1: 5/1/2011 - 5/7/2011: Cyberethics and Online Safety Week**

Sources: Adelman, H. (2004). Teaching online safety. //Voices From The Middle, 11(3)//, 17-22.

Hitchcock, J. A. (2007). Cyberbullies, online predators, and what to do about them. //Multimedia & Internet @ Schools, 14(3)//, 13-15.

Joseph, L. C. (2007). Keeping safe in cyberspace. //Multimedia & Internet @ Schools, 14(1)//, 17-20.

Kruger, R. (2003). Discussing cyber ethics with students is critical. //Social Studies, 94(4)//, 188-189.

Stroder, R.S. (2006). What every school should know about intellectual property. //Educational Digest, 71(6)//, 35-41.

Williamson, J., & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE's technology facilitation and leadership standards: what every K-12 leader should know and be able to do//. Eugene,OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

As the year winds down, I have to prepare for a technology integration specialist pilot program paid for by the ACE program. Next month I am scheduled to pilot a new program where I assist a group of educators in integrating technology in a summer enrichment program. I will be serving the secondary (3 teachers) as well the elementary (3 teachers) with technology. In order to prepare for this I attended the technology conference in a span of two days. I also attended mini-sessions and visited vendor booths to acquaint myself with emerging classroom technology. Since this conference is not as big as the one in Austin, I decided to focus my energy on attending as many mini session as possible. I attended the following 45 minute sessions over the span of two days: //"Internet Safety & Web 2.0, 101 Apps and Tools for Your Teacher Toolbox, Collaboration in a Global Community, Kick It Up with Ning, Actively Engaging 21st Century Communities, Using Video Technology to Boost Classrooms, No Graphics Design, Web Design or Coding Skills!, No Problem,// and //Collaborative Storytelling"//. Some of the mini sessions were not very good however I did learn more about technology web resources and tools attending the 101 Apps session. I like to have a list of resources and then going on my own to explore their usefulness. I have approximately three weeks to prepare for a technology presentation with the ACE program and choose which technology tools I will use with the teachers I get assigned to for the summer ACE pilot program. I believe that his activity was related to and helped me master the following standards/indicators: TF-V.A.1. / TF-VII.B.1. The conference most closely resembles the task of identifying resources and participated in professional development activities and professional technology organizations to support my ongoing professional growth related to technology.
 * Week 2: 5/8/2011 - 5/14/2011: ESC1 Technology Conference at South Padre Island**

Sources: Williamson, J., & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE's technology facilitation and leadership standards: what every K-12 leader should know and be able to do//. Eugene,OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

I can smell the summer break coming but before we can say goodbye to another wonderful school year, there is some housekeeping duties to take care of. As a technology coordinator there are many duties involved that require timing and precision at the end of every school year. This is the last CTC meeting of the school year and some very important topics were on the agenda. We discussed and reflected on last weeks Region 1 technology conference. We all shared our experiences and stories on todaysmeet.com. Some of the CTC's were complaining about the poor quality of the trainings at this conference. They all felt that the presenters were ill prepared and as a result, many of the mini workshops were redundant and pointless. I have to agree to some extent, however I think that they underestimate the power of the tools and ideas from these workshops in the classroom. Perhaps some of the tools may be useful to some while not useful at all to others. We have to keep an open mind when in it comes to technology. In this meeting we also discussed a possibility of summer trainings, campus desktop and notebook summer refresh, campus technology inventory checklist and return procedures. As you can guess, most of the meeting consisted of the topics of campus technology inventory/return procedures and the imaging of all campus computers. In an effort to increase network speed, remove viruses, and keep computers running above par, it is a district policy that every computer in the district gets a refresh (update if needed). This tends to be problem every year for administrator, teachers and other staff that keep all their documents and other important information on the computer. The only way to combat this is by sending district wide emails and reminders that the refresh will occur and that all files and data needs to be backed up immediately. To help remedy this, the CTC's have decided to help others backup their data. We offer our services and recommend that they back up their data to a physical hard drive or USB. For others, we recommend they use cloud storage options like Dropbox.com. I believe that his activity was related to and helped me master the following standards/indicators: TF-VII-A.3. / TF-VII-A.8. / TF-VII.B.3. / TF-VII.B.4. / TF-VII-B.5. / TF-VIII-D.7. / TF-VI.E.1. I'd have to say that these meeting in general help me master Standard VII because it involves a high deal of planning for infrastructure, hardware, software, updating policies, procedures involving district and campus technology needs that affect the classrooms and the front lines of our schools.
 * Week 3: 5/15/2011 - 5/21/2011: EOY CTC Meeting**

Sources: Williamson, J., & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE's technology facilitation and leadership standards: what every K-12 leader should know and be able to do//. Eugene,OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

Countless hours of preparation and rehearsing went into this one hour presentation. This was the ultimate opportunity to show other fellow educators from various campuses that I know what I'm talking about and I am here to help. I was approached earlier this year by respected Dr. Cynthia Galvan to lead a pilot technology program in which I would be a technology instructional leader and facilitator. I immediately accepted and decided to get to work on how I was going to sell my expertise to these teachers. My chance to shine was during this presentation. I sat down and reviewed a ton of Web 2.0 tools and resources to show off during this presentation and I had to make it all work smoothly and with no glitches. Wow was I in for a big surprise and nothing ever goes to plan with technology, I should know better. Nonetheless, I got everything I needed ready for this presentation. I decided to use my MacBook since I was most comfortable with my computer for a presentation. Before this presentation I met the three elementary teachers who I was going to work with and considered their needs and ideas for the summer activities. In this presentation, I was given much leeway by Dr. Galvan and decided to make use of technology as much as possible including my audience. I demonstrated the use of Prezi zoom presentation tool, PollEverywhere Audience Response System, Museum Box and What2Learn.com game creator to a group of early childhood to sixth grade teachers. I interacted with the audience and received immediate feedback by modeling the PollEverywhere Audience Response System by allowing the audience to use their mobile device or laptop to answer questions, review and submit their own questions in real time. Initially, I thought this was going to be the longest hour of my life, turns out it went by so fast. The teachers' eyes were lit up immediately with all the media they saw, they asked an overwhelming amount of questions, and they even asked to subscribe to my list of Google Bookmarks. I could see the excitement in their faces and it made me so happy to see them excited about teaching with technology. I believe that his activity was related to and helped me master the following standards/indicators: TF-I.A.1. / TF-I.A.2. / TF-I.B.1. / TF-II.F.1. / TF-III.A.2. / TF-III.A.7. / TF-III.E.2. In this activity I provided teachers with assistance to identifying technology resources and services to meet their specific learning needs for the summer pilot program. Since most of the programs I chose to use with these teachers involve web based tools I believe that they received a modeled approach to using methods for teaching concepts and skills relating to the use of web-based authoring tools.
 * Week 4: 5/22/2011 - 5/28/2011: Saturday ACE Technology Presentation**

Sources: Williamson, J., & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE's technology facilitation and leadership standards: what every K-12 leader should know and be able to do//. Eugene,OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

No activity
 * Week 5: 5/29/2011 - 5/31/2011**