Leadership Action Plan- November 5
Professional Development in the Building
I truly believe that I have become a better teacher because I take a professional development classes. I do have to say that my classes have not been in my building, except just lately with my ESL endorsement. This district is moving toward more in building professional development because Mrs. Shaw, my principal, stated in the last BLT meeting that we would be having this once a month in the future. She asked for ideas of what we thought was needed.
Now my opinion would take this idea a step farther. A class is a good thing, but I think one on one is the magic number for enhancing a teacher’s toolbox. I would begin with a classroom schedule for each one with a yearlong plan. Then use the Ed Tech to make up a list of resources that could be brought into the curriculums. For example, with writing, the district is awesome that Utahwrite and Myaccess are offered. Inside of these programs are multitudes of great ways to help students. Utahwrite has videos with practice time, while on the other hand, Myaccess has all the tools like a thesaurus to help students with wording, if you know it is there. Offering to teach 10-minute mini class to the students would really be a model for the teacher to later on do herself could be one idea. A list of ideas for each area, plus time the tech has available would be the best resource.
Types of Professional Development I can Lead
Technology reminds me of a kaleidoscope, always brilliant but always changing. My bottom line is that what I used in my classroom as “so cool” yesterday, might be outclassed with a new idea tomorrow. The trick is to keep learning and trying out ideas with students. If they like it, they gravitate towards it on their own. I feel like my responsibility is to keep adding ideas to their choices. When a project needs technology, they have more than one way to address the need.
That being said, here is a good beginning of ideas I have worked with. Some are ideas I came up with today, some I use year after year, and some are on the back burner.
1. Teaching Teachers to Use the Ipad as a Textbook
2. Applications that Work Well in the classroom
3. Lesson Plans that lend themselves to Technology
4. Technology Success Stories
5. Putting Technology into Reading Street
6. Flipping the Classroom
7. Increasing Fluency using Garageband
8. Award Winning iMovies for Contests
9. How to Write a High Scoring Essay- Think like a Computer
10. Storybird, A writing tool for students who finish early with their work
11. How to Run a Technology Club after School
a. A yearlong club adjenda
b. How not to make it boring
12. Applications I could teach
a. Imovie
b. Garageband
c. Ebooks
d. Word- Microsoft tools- I think these tools are valuable to the student because they are always going to be around as tools- and they offer so much now than the older versions.
e. Comic Life
f. Photobooth-Animation
g. Stellarium (Stars-6th grade core)
h. iDVD
i. Sketchup (a little- my tech kids love it)
j. Pages
k. Pixelmator (a little- my teenage loves it- its like Photobooth)
l. Illustrator (haha- the older version)
13. Online Tools
a. Gmail- many tools are in this email application
b. Weebly- Website
c. VoiceThread
d. iUniversity
e. Apps and how they can help
f. Twitter – learning and reinactment
g. Dropbox
h. Blogs
i. Wordle
j. Google+
This list is good for today, but tomorrow it could be outdated.
Areas I Need Help
I struggled with some tools during this class because they required a time commitment to learn. This is a trick question because if I was asked to teach any tool I would be ready to do it. It is important to feel like you need help, because teachers will come to you with that feeling, and you must not downplay that emotion. You must be warm and willing to spend time. I see when the application or toy is more important to the teacher than the learner and then a decision needs to be made. How important is it to learn. That is why we do a variety of options when we teach, like bring a “paper” handout so they feel like they have an anchor to something they are used to. Then bring them into the 21st century with links to find it again.
Areas:
1. GPS (This is one area I would have liked simple paper instructions.)
2. Copyright- I spent a long time reading about it this summer…still nervous
3. Creative Commons
Informal Professional Development
Teachers feel overloaded but they love learning new things. Another idea would be transition time videos. It would be a great tool to teach students new information that is available. Many times, we lose time in the day when we move from subject to subject. Teachers do not need or want more work for them, but giving students more ideas and tools always helps the teacher. When the student is engaged, the teacher feels good about their teaching. It could be as simple as making the required words in Reading Street or the math book into a transition video. Then as they move subjects, it could play. It would be like going to the movies and waiting for it to start. I have all the questions and answers memorized by the time the previews start. Coming up with ways to integrate into their already busy life without stress would be the ideal.
Continued Professional Learning and Lifelong Learning
MY FAVORITE thing I did this summer was Twitter. I learned more from following the #ISTE12 online and made a page on my Weebly. http://mcshinsky.weebly.com/iste12.html It took me three times being taught in the Ed Tech Endorsement program before I got how valuable a tool Twitter is. Love it! Not only do I read about what others think is important in education but follow people and see how their mind ticks.
My plan is to keep listening, learning, recording, and most of all sharing what I find. My students are always happy for Wednesday when I come and share what I have learned. You keep professional by having the next generation become professional. Knowing more than someone else is not my plan of happiness, sharing what I know is how I’m content.
Professional Development in the Building
I truly believe that I have become a better teacher because I take a professional development classes. I do have to say that my classes have not been in my building, except just lately with my ESL endorsement. This district is moving toward more in building professional development because Mrs. Shaw, my principal, stated in the last BLT meeting that we would be having this once a month in the future. She asked for ideas of what we thought was needed.
Now my opinion would take this idea a step farther. A class is a good thing, but I think one on one is the magic number for enhancing a teacher’s toolbox. I would begin with a classroom schedule for each one with a yearlong plan. Then use the Ed Tech to make up a list of resources that could be brought into the curriculums. For example, with writing, the district is awesome that Utahwrite and Myaccess are offered. Inside of these programs are multitudes of great ways to help students. Utahwrite has videos with practice time, while on the other hand, Myaccess has all the tools like a thesaurus to help students with wording, if you know it is there. Offering to teach 10-minute mini class to the students would really be a model for the teacher to later on do herself could be one idea. A list of ideas for each area, plus time the tech has available would be the best resource.
Types of Professional Development I can Lead
Technology reminds me of a kaleidoscope, always brilliant but always changing. My bottom line is that what I used in my classroom as “so cool” yesterday, might be outclassed with a new idea tomorrow. The trick is to keep learning and trying out ideas with students. If they like it, they gravitate towards it on their own. I feel like my responsibility is to keep adding ideas to their choices. When a project needs technology, they have more than one way to address the need.
That being said, here is a good beginning of ideas I have worked with. Some are ideas I came up with today, some I use year after year, and some are on the back burner.
1. Teaching Teachers to Use the Ipad as a Textbook
2. Applications that Work Well in the classroom
3. Lesson Plans that lend themselves to Technology
4. Technology Success Stories
5. Putting Technology into Reading Street
6. Flipping the Classroom
7. Increasing Fluency using Garageband
8. Award Winning iMovies for Contests
9. How to Write a High Scoring Essay- Think like a Computer
10. Storybird, A writing tool for students who finish early with their work
11. How to Run a Technology Club after School
a. A yearlong club adjenda
b. How not to make it boring
12. Applications I could teach
a. Imovie
b. Garageband
c. Ebooks
d. Word- Microsoft tools- I think these tools are valuable to the student because they are always going to be around as tools- and they offer so much now than the older versions.
e. Comic Life
f. Photobooth-Animation
g. Stellarium (Stars-6th grade core)
h. iDVD
i. Sketchup (a little- my tech kids love it)
j. Pages
k. Pixelmator (a little- my teenage loves it- its like Photobooth)
l. Illustrator (haha- the older version)
13. Online Tools
a. Gmail- many tools are in this email application
b. Weebly- Website
c. VoiceThread
d. iUniversity
e. Apps and how they can help
f. Twitter – learning and reinactment
g. Dropbox
h. Blogs
i. Wordle
j. Google+
This list is good for today, but tomorrow it could be outdated.
Areas I Need Help
I struggled with some tools during this class because they required a time commitment to learn. This is a trick question because if I was asked to teach any tool I would be ready to do it. It is important to feel like you need help, because teachers will come to you with that feeling, and you must not downplay that emotion. You must be warm and willing to spend time. I see when the application or toy is more important to the teacher than the learner and then a decision needs to be made. How important is it to learn. That is why we do a variety of options when we teach, like bring a “paper” handout so they feel like they have an anchor to something they are used to. Then bring them into the 21st century with links to find it again.
Areas:
1. GPS (This is one area I would have liked simple paper instructions.)
2. Copyright- I spent a long time reading about it this summer…still nervous
3. Creative Commons
Informal Professional Development
Teachers feel overloaded but they love learning new things. Another idea would be transition time videos. It would be a great tool to teach students new information that is available. Many times, we lose time in the day when we move from subject to subject. Teachers do not need or want more work for them, but giving students more ideas and tools always helps the teacher. When the student is engaged, the teacher feels good about their teaching. It could be as simple as making the required words in Reading Street or the math book into a transition video. Then as they move subjects, it could play. It would be like going to the movies and waiting for it to start. I have all the questions and answers memorized by the time the previews start. Coming up with ways to integrate into their already busy life without stress would be the ideal.
Continued Professional Learning and Lifelong Learning
MY FAVORITE thing I did this summer was Twitter. I learned more from following the #ISTE12 online and made a page on my Weebly. http://mcshinsky.weebly.com/iste12.html It took me three times being taught in the Ed Tech Endorsement program before I got how valuable a tool Twitter is. Love it! Not only do I read about what others think is important in education but follow people and see how their mind ticks.
My plan is to keep listening, learning, recording, and most of all sharing what I find. My students are always happy for Wednesday when I come and share what I have learned. You keep professional by having the next generation become professional. Knowing more than someone else is not my plan of happiness, sharing what I know is how I’m content.
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