School Evaluation Summary

The last couple of weeks has been a very informative one for me. Using the Maturity Benchmark Rubric to evaluate not only the resources and infrastructure, but the behavior towards technology and it's integration into educational activities. The Maturity Benchmark Rubric is separated in several key areas, Administration, Curricular, Support, Connectivity and Innovation.

I discovered with the help from colleagues that our school at the time being is overall an Islands school, but working towards an Integrated score within the next 3 years. Our school has put into place a detailed action plan, for the integration and training of technology into the district. We have finally put into place this year a Technology Committee made up of one teacher from each department, an administrator, guidance counselor, and district board member. The hopes of this committee is to find ways to fund and train new, innovated technology into every classroom, not just the technology class and S.T.E.M/S.T.E.A.M

School Evaluation Summary
School Evaluation Survey

Digital Inequality

The last couples weeks has focused on the concepts of Digital Divide and Digital Inequality.  I chose to focus more on the Inequality concept because it seemed to relate more to my school district.  A little background information of the school is that it is a rural county school with many students living on high acreage farm land. Due to that simple fact internet access is limited to mainly satellite internet which  prohibits the streaming of videos and uploading or downloading files.  As a school district we have had 15 new teachers introduced in the last 2 years myself included. Other than about 10 teachers that have been around for ten plus years everyone else is just starting their 4-6th year in the district.

Throughout the week I learned that there are several factors that affect the inequality of technology.  The three that I focused on was location or family life of the students, the teachers, and  I looked at our training or professional developments. I found that over half of the district is on free or reduced lunch, have limited access to the internet at home, and about one fourth of the student body lives with their grandparents. Investigating fellow teachers I was caught by surprise.  I may have stereotyped that older teachers would be unwilling, out-dated with current technology, or refuse to change their teaching strategies.  What I actually learned was that it was more or less departmental than age that affected technology use.  For instance, Mathematics, science, and vocational departments are continually testing new technologies to implement into the classroom.  One that my chemistry, communication technology colleagues and myself started experimenting with is called Aurasma.  The application allows the user to upload an image to the website. Additionally, a video or other digital content can be added to that particular image. Placing that image anywhere and someone with Aurasma on their phone or tablet, following you, can then hold the camera over the image and receive the digital content you added.  It's a new fun way to help students who are scared to ask for help.  By placing different images on worksheets they can scan those images and receive a video of a quick review over that specific topic or a receive a quick tip to solve problems. It's a fun way to engage the students and interact with them.  The other side of the coin is the English, humanities departments are set in their teaching strategies.  Some seem to be willing to incorporate the technology as long as they don't have to do anything out of the ordinary.  They don't like to change their lesson plans around.

Finally, there is the need for training. If we were to incorporate new technology into the classroom we need to utilize the technology committee.  This committee has to be proactive in finding new technologies that are engaging and easy to use. They need to hold a training session and be available throughout the day to answer questions about the technology. I've found that teachers will implement technology as long as some one is around that can help them get use to the new platform. People tend to give up when they are frustrated that something isn't going the way they expected it too.

If you're interested in more information or a video walkthrough of Aurasma just let me know and I'll gladly add a video.

Below is my presentation.

Tech Trends

The last couple weeks, I've researched several growing technology trends in education. These trends varied from implementing social media websites, 3D printing, using mobile apps to conduct research, etc.  For me I've always been interested in 3D printing and wanting to implement that technology in my classroom.  The world of 3D printing opens up a world of engagement to students. Not only does it allow students to create tangible objects, but it takes mathematical equations and applies them in an interactive environment.  The following paper and soon to come presentation is ways that 3D printing can be incorporated into many core curriculum areas.  I plan to take this information before the school board and technology team to request funding to incorporate this trend into the STEM and chemistry departments in the school district.

Edtech Technology Trend

EDTECH Research

Doing research for this assignment, I discovered several articles pushing project-based learning and 3 dimensional learning environments. This was a very helpful activity that I learned a great deal from doing. The Google Scholar tool and the Albertson Library was very useful and easily navigated from page to page.

I focused my investigation towards the development of a 3 dimensional learning environment for engineering classes.  I wanted to research how to implement the use of 3 dimensional printers to enhance math and science education. I found several articles that helped the argument for project based learning. Then I found articles that helped show the benefits of 3D learning for students.  I'm excited to finally be able to incorporate 3D printers in my classroom next year. It's exciting and the students are excited.

Annotated Bibliography.

RSS in Education

This weeks assignment was to learn about what RSS is and how to use it in education.  RSS is simply known as Really Simple Syndication. Most websites that have frequent updates or entries have an RSS feed. These feeds can be accessed through RSS readers, for instance, Feedly.  Which I have a video tutorial below on how Feedly can be used.  

I have recently found out that using Feedly or other RSS readers can be very beneficial in the educational field. It's nice to be able to search a topic and find what seems to be limitless blogs, news articles, scholarly journals, FAQ's forums, etc. The school district I work for has recently solved an issue that occurred when we updated to Office 365 that for some reason made the Autodesk softwares to suddenly stop working. By using Feedly I was able to see an article that identified the problem and gave a solution. This took about 15 minutes compared to what could be hours of talking on the phone to a technician or filtering through information on their own website. RSS readers allow you to set up filters to where you only see the information that you deem interesting.

I showed my high school Principles of Engineering class Feedly and the Feedly app last week. This week they came back excited. They where able to use the app to research topics in the History classes, along with improve their writings using blogs over writing for English. For me, I'm still attempting to find a way to have the discussion forum from Canvas to be picked up in Feedly so that the students can run the discussions from their devices and see what others students are asking about or struggling with. I can see the benefit of RSS in education with the help of researching topics, keeping discussions alive, and developing onto the student's technological skills. 

Elements of Educational Technology

Elements of Educational Technology

This week's assignment to read and write about the elements of the definition of educational technology was challenging.  It was not because of writers block, but more that there are so many vital elements that make up the definition.  This assignment however, opened my eyes to my own approach to implementing technology. I've become more aware of the facilitating element and how I can't just focus on the use of one tool. It's vital to me and my students to always be looking for more technological tools to incorporate, if not at least practice. Technology is always changing and therefore it's essential to adapt along with it.

Welcome!

Welcome to my learning log. The purpose of this blog is to reflect my journey as a student in Boise State's Educational Technology Graduate Program. I am eager to begin this adventure with all of you. 

I'm going to be honest; I'm not a fan of video recording myself and always feel out of place when doing so. I also don't like watching myself talk for some reason, maybe because I'm overly critical of myself. 

Anyways, I am a third year STEM teacher for the Anderson County Public Schools. I work with freshmen to seniors.The district is strongly pushing to implement a K-12 STEM curriculum. Currently we are pushing the Gateway to Technology and the Project Lead the Way Engineering curriculum along with the Mars Rover Design Competition in the elementary schools. Besides being a teacher, I'm the robotics coach and co-coach to the STLP organization, and part of the District STEM committee.

Though there are several nights that I have to bring work home, my family is always number one to me. I have two boys ages 4 years and 8 months. We enjoy playing outside in the warm sun with our puppy Misty.  My wife has the unbelievable pleasure of staying at home with the boys and watching them grow up and playing together. 

I hope this as given a small glance into my life and my personality. I'm eager to get to know each of you as we move forth into the semester.