Week 5 Assignment

When I started out on this course I truely did not know if I would be able to finish this course. I had no vision other than just wanting to get through with it. I have achieved much more than I expected and have a new vision as far as becoming an administrator. Technology has always been my weak point, and I'm still pretty poor compared to the average person in my opinion.
This course taught me some really neat things as for as blogs. I have never opened a blog before or created a powerpoint presentation. As I veiw the others in this class I see I still have a long way to go, but this course has help me build some confidence in this area. This course far out seeded my expectations and help me overcome some fears in this field.

My work right now consist of being a physical education coach for a charter school that is also public education. I have been brought in to learn how this charter runs in the preparation of taken over a campus of my own as an administrator. This school has just started this year and it is really neat to see how a school can be formed from the ground up. Technology is the biggest part of the school and we are trying to be a 21st century learning environment. All that I have learned in these past 5 weeks have been relevant to my new situation and will continue to remain that way as far as I can tell.In the very near future I will be the leader who must assist my staff in helping our students become technology advanced.

I did not acheive the conference meetings while in this course. I do not have some of the equipment that is needed as far as a camera on my computer. Like I have said before technology is a poor area for me and I felt a little overwhelmed with the disscussion boards and readings. This course has taken much of my time and I'm extremely excited to see it going away for the time being. It was very informative but very difficult for a person like me trapped in the 90's I guess. I really enjoyed seeing all the other students working so hard to achieve their goals in this course and I'm sure I wasn't alone in my feelings. There are some very talented leaders in this class.

I feel I was successful in carrying out the assignments of this course once I got comfortable after week one. Week one was very difficult for me because I have never dealt with a blog or powerpoint before. The excessive amount of post on the disscussion boards are a little extreme, but I was able to achieve the goals set forth there too. I had a hard time figuring out how to post my assignment from the Brighten software to my blog. This was prety frustrating but it is just like anything else if you calm down and read you can overcome the obstical. I don't believe I will use some of this technology for a while, but I do see wher I will need it for the years to come. I would not make this course one of the first assignments for your students because some may leave the program quickly.

The main thing I learned from this course is that my technology abilities are even lower than what I expected them to be. I learned a lot of new things such as powerpoint, blogs, video conferences, and how district and campus improvement plans are written and used. I learned that the people I work with are willing to help me in accomplishing this task I have undertaken. It helps to have a team of administrators who are willing to help. My greatest leadership abilities come with dealing with people face to face and handling discipline issues that may arise in and out of the class room. I'm a very fair leader who doesn't put emotion ahead of facts; people know really fast where they stand with me and how I will be stern but fair in my rulings.

Blogging is going to become more and more important to our school systems as the years come to past. It is easy to set up it is easy for anyone with a computer to find and it is an easy way to supply a vast amount of information to our learners. We can set up discussion boards for all of our students and parents to give feed back on a number of topics that interest them. As a counslor we can let our students know about several due dates as well as college information for requirements and up coming entrence exams. We can set up science projects or math boards for extra credit as well as a after school help board for students that need extra tutoring. The 21st century learner will be coming across so much information that it will be up to us as leaders to help them be able to keep all the information straight.

Some of the strenghts of blogging are also some of the weaknesses of blogging as well. The blog site will help give out information, but if the wrong people are veiwing the information then they could corrupt the information and post untrue facts. As we go farther into the technology generation we will still have to deal with the low character of few. The only way to off set this is to set up passwords and to check the site on a daily basis. Learning is becoming more and more set up as a group project. There isn't any way to stop people from using others ideas for there own. Students will be able to do their work at home and get the correct answer from others but there is no fooling on test that are not put on computers unless they are able to take the test later. Corruption will always be a problem as long as humans are around.

Our stakeholders are in need of all the information we can provide them. This works to the schools advantage in two ways. One our parents will be more informed about upcoming events and schedules for our students. Two it will allow our stakeholders to contact us as a school district with important information that will help us raise funds for items we may need. Blogging is an ongoing site that will only help us as a school keep everybody up to date on special events as well as show off or students achievements and their work without all of the paper trail. It allows our parents to see what is assigned on a daily basis to their students and stay on top of the issues that concern them. I see it a s a win-win situation.

Star Chart Findings

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Star Chart Findings

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Week 2 Assignment

Star Chart Opinion

The second key area of Preparation and Development will be my focus in this assignment. This area to me is described as a continual learning environment for the educator. Just as all of us are doing with this course; our colleagues need to do with their selected field of choice and that is to grow. Our local findings show a very inconsistance among our teacher over the past three years. We are on the way back up of teachers going back and studying for the betterment of our students. Our district is in the advanced tech area for the time being. This is not going along with national and state reports. It shows that 74% of the state is still in developmental stages of this area. The trend for the state appears to move in the direction of: Use of technology is for administrative tasks and classroom management. There is use of online resources. Forty % of educators meet SEBC standards. Administrtors expect teachers to use technology. six - twenty four % of technology budget is allocated for professional development. For our district the lowest areas are our Capabilities of Educators and Professional Development for Online Learning. Our biggest strenght is that we have access to professional development. This tells me that the teachers are not using the resources that are being provided to them. A lot of this has to do with our district employing so many uncertified teachers and not staying on them to finish their degrees. We must as educators stay up with the times or our schools will parish by the waste side along with the future leaders we are trying to educate.

Grade Cluster: 6-8

Technology Application Strand
Strand Description
Summary of TEKS #1
Summary of TEKS #2
Foundations

The student demonstrates knowledge and appropriate use of hardware components, software programs, and their connections
Compare and contrast LANs, WANs, internet and Intranet
Explain the differences between analog and digital
Information Acquisition

Student uses a variety of strategies to find electronic sources to better understand
Use on-line help and other documentations
Determine and employ methods to finding electronic information
Problem Solving

Students use appropriate computer-based productivity tools to create and modify solutions
Plan create and plan data bases
Create a document using word and other spreadsheets to gather information
Communication

Student learn how to use a variety of media with appropriate supervision
Evaluate the relevance of the assignments
Publish assignments in a variety of different ways

week 1 assignments 5352

My Technology Applications Inventory has left me knowing I need a lot of work in technology. In Fondations I answered yes to 7 of the 18 questions. In Informative Acquisition I was 5 yes and 5 no; which was my strongest area based off of percent. In Solving Problems with Technology Tools my yes was 6 and my no was 12. In Communication I fell the shortest as only 2 yes and 10 no. My strenghts are very basic; I can do email and a blog now, work on excel and some different spreadsheets, but that is about it. Powerpoint, copyright laws, vertor graph guides and group software are just a few of my shortcomings. I'm not real good at communicating over a screen, but I'm pretty good at communicating in person and dealing with people.

SETDA Teacher Survey
This assessment was really eye opening for me to see that the school I'm at right now is pretty good on technology and it is technology driven. I personally don't use the technology very much in Physical Education classes, but I do give assignments that students can use a computer to research the information needed.