Blog Reflection 2

-

Positive/Negative 

During this experience it has opened my eyes to how important it is to get your ideas to the table sooner than later. For example, most schools have their budgets laid out for years to
Photo Credit 
come because they have been talking about it for awhile. If I have an idea it is important to state it right away. Also, not being a part of the technology team and asking for funding was a challenge. I felt like I was intruding on their jobs and they were hard to get in contact with at first. One thing that drove me to this project was asking our staff what they hope to have in the building when thinking about technology and also talking to the technology director in my building for ideas. He expressed his ideas for 1:1 and how him and other building directors have talked about it so I thought it would be a good idea to present. Throughout this experience I have also learned that one type of technology may not be appropriate for all grades. I think the most important thing I learned is talking to the teachers about our ideas before we make big purchasing since they know their students better than the guys sitting in an office all day. 

Excitement

Photo Credit 
I am still excited for my 1:1 proposal because the district is heading in this direction. I am excited that I have the background knowledge and statistics to encourage other teachers to use it if they are hesitant. I loved seeing other schools already using it and giving my advice on how we should reach out to them and do more research before we jump into it at our school. What I am most excited for is learning better ways to use the material with our diverse learners and seeing how we can prepare or students for the future. 


Take Aways and Next Steps 

After completing this course, it has helped me realize that a Technology Leader is not just about ordering material. There needs to be research completed, communication between departments and organizational skill are needed. I never thought how a Technology Leader would need to hire new team members or have excellent communication skills to bring a plan to the board and get it approved. When I was completing my detailed steps the amount of material I needed to order and bar code was over whelming. This is definitely a job for someone who has patience and flexibility. In order to get my Technology Specialist Endorsement I need to take a few more classes. I plan on taking a couple courses here and there in order to complete it. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Triple E is Me!

-
Image
Technology in Education Photo Credit When I was student teaching I had a SMART board in my classroom and soon came to love everything about the board. All the different features, how you can easily change images from big to small to show congruent shapes, how the students can physically interact with it, blew my mind! My students loved it and I realized that I could probably never teach without the board again. I then entered into my current position where I did not have a SMART board and came to realize I still need to find a way to make students engaged. I needed colorful anchor charts, pictures, videos that could be display on an over head. It was much more time consuming, but the students were still engaged. After some  I noticed that my students needed me to keep adding more and more to my lessons to keep them engaged so to me that meant creating and creating.  Triple E The Triple E framework allows me to keep the students engaged by involving tec...
Read more

"Final Step: Bringing About Change"

-
Image
Technology Leader Throughout these first four weeks, I have learned a lot about what makes a great leader a leader. A leader must have great communication skills as they will be talking to many different departments within the district. They also need to be organized. They need to be Photo Credit  organized because they will be placing orders for very expensive equipment, collecting data to ensure programs are working and figuring out the best way to store technology on a day to day basis. A leader also needs to be patient, lead by example and build relationships. When I think about myself as a leader, I think I will be a great one, but I did not think about all the responsibility that would come with it. Such as the hiring and ordering sections. The one video I listened to described how when someone is selling you a product they are only going to tell you all the great things about their product. It is up to me to do the research and ask those hard questions that might...
Read more

Statistics

-
Image
Research As educators we are told to follow best practices based on statistics and research. After reading through many of the articles, there was one article that stuck out to me. The article was called Social Media Fact Sheet completed by Pew Research Center. The center began tracking many things about social media, such as how often, age, race , gender and which account gets used the most. This article contains information is mostly relevant to me.  The chart below shows the age ranges that use some form of social media. Something that does not shock me is that the top line represents ages 18-29 and the bottom line is 65 and older. It is obviously clear without this graph who uses social media the most and who doesn't. I would have liked to see the ages of 10-18 though. I feel like this is the age that most teens start using social media and I would be interested to see is they use it the most.  Photo Credit Another statistic that stood out to me would be ...
Read more