EEND 676 Reflection

I feel that I have a better understanding for collaboration after this course. I always thought have students work together is just good for their socialization, but there is so much more to it when you consider the direction our world is moving. We live a changing world of collaboration in the workplace and our students need to be prepared for such jobs. Gone is the teacher directed classroom and problem solving and collaboration is a trend that is here to stay. The higher order thinking that takes place when students are left to figure things out with each other cannot be replaced by a teacher’s lecture.

I plan on making sure that I have a collaborative component to every activity and students understand that their contribution matters and it’s not just group work where everyone gets the same grade. All voices matter! I will be using the collaborative web tool shared activity to be a resource guide for future application considerations.

As a teacher leader, I will not hold onto this information for myself, but I will speak for its importance during planning meetings. I plan to share a majority of assignments with my colleagues and even several articles that I think can help my coworkers understand the power of collaboration better.

EEND 680 Reflection

The module on learning walks was particularly memorable for me. We have learning walks in our building where teachers are always a little nervous and jazz up their instruction on those days for fear of being evaluated. The district has never come out and told us we are not being evaluated, nor have they shared any tools they use to go through the walkthroughs. I think several of the articles in this module opened my eyes to what the district is doing when they do these walks. I plan on sharing this information with my colleagues and if I am given the opportunity I would like to share those resources with administration.

I enjoyed the discussions around challenges we are facing. It’s so important for us as educators to put to words what is frustrating us and find people to help us get through those struggles. I was thankful for peers that can relate or offer their insight to help get through this obstacles.

This course has helped me feel more comfortable in my leadership role. This course has helped reassure that I am doing what is best for staff I work with even if they push back and are resistant to my suggestions or helpful information. I have two classes left and the test to become a certified technology specialist. I’m looking forward to continuing my coaching and to use that title to advance my career.

EEND 680: Module 7 - My ISTE Conference Share Out

I was lucky enough to attend ISTE last week and choosing to write my discussion on some great tips and tricks I picked up! One of my favorite tips was about google drive. It can certainly be difficult to find things on google drive and time consuming to create and sort information in folders. Just label your docs to the units your working on. For example. If you are teaching a social studies class with 10 units, label your activities "SSUnit1 - activity name" this way when you want to find an activity you just need to look up "SSUnit1" and everything will be listed.

The highlight for many at ISTE were the google sessions.  On day one I didn’t really know what I was doing and I thought I could walk into any session that was available.  I learned that the google sessions were rather difficult to get into so I made sure to get in line extra early for the new updates session they offered.  I’m excited to say, if you have not heard, you can now select ‘lock screen’ on a google form quiz! If students are using a chromebook to take a google form quiz that has lock screen enabled, the form will go into full screen and students cannot access anything else!  Mind. Blown. Another great update is in google classroom. Google classroom can get very overwhelming so they have added a ‘classwork’ tab at the top where you can better organize and assign class assignments.

Google Docs also has an add-on audioforslides.com which will allow you to add audio to your slides!

Lastly, for those sneaky children who close out tabs really quickly when you come around: CTRL+Shift+T reopens recently closed tabs!