Week 5 Reflections

Instructional Leadership
Week 5 Assignment
Course Reflections

Question 1
What outcomes had you envisioned for this course? Did you achieve those outcomes? Did the actual course outcomes align with those that you envisioned?
Looking back, when I first enrolled in this course, I expected that Instructional Leadership would deal with using my personal experiences and being exposed to the latest educational research to be better prepared to guide teachers in applying best practices and teaching methods to improve the academic achievement of their students. After reading the course syllabus, I found that the class would focus more on the application of technology in the classroom. Although, based on research referenced in this class, the use of technology is one of the up and coming best practices. I feel this class focused solely on the use of technology as an instructional tool, and other instructional practices may have been overlooked or only minimally explored. The title of the course may have been misleading, but after reviewing the performance outcomes, I do feel that the course did provide activities to ensure that the participants had experience with various forms of technology that can be used to enhance learning in the classroom. The use of blogs, and other telecommunications systems was used to apply and report data from a variety of sources. Perhaps the results from this course that had the greatest impact included the actual creation of a personal blog, a tool I had never before used, and the identification of a variety of data sources such as the Texas STaR chart, the NET*S technology evaluation criteria and the Vision 2020: Long-Range Plan for Technology 2006-2020. Even though my original vision and expectations for this course were slightly different from the professors’ vision, overall, I would say this was a valuable learning experience.

Question 2
To the extent that you achieved the outcomes, are they still relevant to the work that you do in your school? Why or why not?
The outcomes suggest that participants in the class will be able to use data to make informed decisions, recognize the digital needs of students and campuses, help to meet technology goals, and identify social, legal and ethical use of technology. Additionally, participants would analyze current research in technology, use technology to monitor and evaluate the changing needs of schools, and use technology and telecommunications systems to enhance teaching and learning. All of these goals are very relevant to my current position and the future positions that I hope to be better prepared for through the completion of this program. This course has helped me to better understand the principal’s role in providing the necessary technology for teachers to be successful in the implementation of technology in the classroom, but more importantly, it has helped me to recognize the changing needs of students and how the teacher and administration must work together to provide a curriculum and experiences that best meet the needs of those students and their academic achievement.

Question 3
What outcomes did you not achieve? What prevented you from achieving them?
Two the course outcomes dealt directly with promoting the success of students, by “advocating, nurturing and sustaining a campus culture . . . through leadership, and management of the organization, operations and resources. . . .” As a participant in this class, I was exposed to the importance of fulfilling this obligation; however, I do not feel that I ever actually had a chance to make a lasting difference on my campus. We have learned that lasting change on a campus is a slow process, and this is no different. With the short duration of this course, no lasting change can truly be evaluated, but the experiences in this course have prepared me to seek out ways that our campus could benefit from greater application of technology in the classroom. I hope to take these experiences and not only apply them in my classroom, but to share my uses of technology with others so that they too may incorporate a greater use of technology. I am not currently in a position where I can mandate the use of technology, but I can serve as an advocate and through modeling the use of technology, I may be able to impact how other teachers on my campus use technology in their classroom.

Question 4
Were you successful in carrying out the course assignments? If not, what prevented or discouraged you?
Based on my grades from the first three weeks of the course, I was successful in completing all of the course assignments. I have received 100% credit for each of those assignments. I have not received grades for Week 4 or Week 5 (obviously) yet, so I am not sure how successful I will be on those assignments. I believe that if I am not successful on any of the weekly assignments, it will be the Week 4 assignment. I was very confused on what the exact requirements for the Week 4 Technology Plan. I did not feel that the directions were explicit enough; a specific format would have been helpful. The professors may have purposely been ambiguous with the directions for this assignment to allow students to express their own creativity, but many of the directions were so convoluted with educational jargon that I, along with many of my colleagues were unclear on exactly what the professors wanted and what needed to be included in the Technology Plan. After reviewing many of the Technology Plans created by my colleagues, I am not sure if the assignment I turned in was appropriate or not. I do think that my work fulfilled all of the requirements set forth in the rubric. Many of my colleagues used varying degrees of depth to cover each of the requirements, and I feel that my work falls squarely in the middle of the efforts put forth my colleagues. I think that overall, I will find myself successful on this project, but with more explicit directions, I could be more certain.




Question 5
What did you learn from this course…about yourself, your technology and leadership skills, and your attitudes?

This class has forced me to analyze my own views of technology and its applications in the classroom. I have come to the conclusion that I am probably slightly ahead of most of my colleagues in the use of technology in the classroom, but I still have a long way to go. I still feel that good old fashioned teaching methods have an important place in the classroom, but this course has helped me to understand that the integration of technology can support those classical teaching methods to better impact student learning. I have worked this year to integrate technology more regularly in my classroom. With the implementation of the new English TEKS, which include specific research skills that students are required to master, I have chosen to incorporate a year-long research project. Since modern research is so heavily based in technology, I have been able to utilize the schools technology on a more regular basis. I have learned that many of my students who think they are very proficient on in the use of technology, are not quite as savvy as they claim. Time in my classroom has been spent explaining the different types of resources available on the internet such as databases. Students are fairly proficient in using search engines, but I have found that many of them never look any further into the results than the first available site. When they do look at multiple sites, they have difficulty deciding which sites are the most reliable. As I have identified these problems, I have created lessons, much of which are based on information from this class, to help students evaluate the reliability of web sites. As with any new lesson that I am having success with, I have shared this lesson with those around me, and in turn, they have used my experience in this course to impact the learning of their students. I think having impact outside of those with whom you have direct contact is a sign of a good leader.

Question 6
What is the educational value of blogs and blogging to the 21st century learner?

Blogging was a fairly new experience for me when I started this class. I had participated in blogging only once before, and the experience was not exactly pleasant. Blogging in this class was a much more valuable experience. As we blogged in this class, I found many valuable ways that blogs could be used in education. One activity in which blogging would be valuable, would be to create a class blog in which students could post questions and responses to a piece of literature that the class is studying. This way, they have a 24 hour “help line” available when they are having difficulty in understanding the material. Blogs can also be a useful tool in research. Students could use blogs to seek out and pose questions to professionals in a variety of subject matter that they may be researching. Additionally, a blog would be a great alternative to student journals used by many teachers as a class entry or exit activity. Teachers too can use blogs to supplement their educational experiences. Teachers can blog with one another to gain insight into activities that have been proven successful in getting students to understand a specific concept, or to gain insight from professionals on any subject a class may be studying.

Question 7

What are the concerns of blogs and blogging in education?

The major concern with blogs, as with any form of technology in education, is security. With most blogs being open forums, anyone can become a follower and post any comment they want on a blog. This can be avoided, or at least regulated, by using private blogging services or school regulated intranet blogs. A second concern with using blogs comes from reliability. Since anyone can start a blog on any subject, if students use a blog as a resource, its reliability has to be called into question. Students need to address the authority of the blog to see if the blogger has enough background in the subject to be able to provide reliable information. A final concern about using blogs as a classroom tool is access. We have seen that not all students have access to the Internet at home, and of course there are always inconsistencies in internet service providers (which students are quick to exploit). If students are asked to post to blogs as part of an assignment, many students may not be able to have easy access to the Internet to be able to make their posts. This could be avoided if all posts are completed during class time, or if students have adequate access to school computer labs. Teachers must be careful that if they require any technology based assignment, that they also provide adequate access and time for students to complete the assignment.

Question 8

How can you use blogging to communicate with school stakeholders?
Blogging can be a useful tool for both teachers and administrators in communicating with students and parents. Teachers can use blogs to communicate with students by posting assignments and answering questions online. Parental support can also be bolstered by creating a parent blog where teachers can inform parents of class activities. Parents too could communicate via the blog to express concerns about assignments or to offer their expertise in material that is being covered in classes. The administration can use blogs to communicate with parents about activities in the school or to promote the school’s successes. By interacting online, students, parents, teachers, administrators and other stakeholders have access to communication at their convenience. This form of communication also reduces instances of miscommunication among stakeholders or the complete breakdown of communication when students fail to deliver important messages to their parents. By using a blog, all stakeholders have access to identical information and no stakeholders have a reason to claim that they were not privy to information distributed by the school.