With time comes experience and refinement. Over my career as a teacher, I have developed interests in particular fields such as increased student choice, engagement, collaboration, and progress monitoring. Through my role as an Instructional Technologist, I am able to share my experience, resources, and recommendations with campus staff to increase their familiarity and confidence in these areas to hopefully make them more wide-spead in our school community. Below are resources or training materials that I have created to support teachers and their students which also reinforce district initiatives.
Embedded Files
Learning Management System (LMS): Canvas
Learning Management System (LMS): Canvas
Canvas is the primary learning management system for Secondary teachers grades 6-12 with it being an optional LMS for elementary teachers in grades 2-5.
This Canvas Resources Site is an all inclusive, one-stop-shop for Canvas support. It contains both NISD-created content and redirects to Canvas-housed resources for commonly asked questions. I aimed to merge my organizational and creative skills with making it user-friendly and eye-catching all while keeping in mind the needs of the teacher and how to best communicate that information to staff of varying levels of Canvas expertise.
Preparing content between auto-rostered courses at each term-to-term transition requires differentiated instruction based on the course type and user need. The above resource is something that a teammate and I colloborated on to design take this complex set of instrcuctions into a user-friendly self-paced resource.
Beyond having instructional experience with the front end of Canvas, I am also a Canvas Admin to support the back-end of Canvas with experience in Admin Settings, integrations, terms, subaccounts, account- and course-level permissions, and SIS IDs.
New Hire Support & Technology Integration
New Hire Support & Technology Integration
With Northwest ISD being a 1:1 district for grades K-12, it is critical that Instructional Technology not just arm teachers and students with devices without also providing appropriate training for how these can best be utilized for student success. To streamline instructional tech content that new teachers see, I am responsible for co-leading NISD's New Hire Orientation as well am the main project lead on the district's two required Technology Proficencies: Foundations of Technology and Technology Integration Academy. This is important because NISD educators are expected to design, implement, and assess learning experiences to engage students and prepare them to be competitive and successful in a global market place.
New Hire Orientation can be overwhelming with the amount of content provided. This digital checklist combines the action tasks to support completion. Reference materials are also includued such as having each department's presentation linked to their section title, and the correct contact identified as questions arise.
Explore this presentation from TCEA 2023 which highlights how NISD supports staff onboarding and elevating technology integration.
ePortfolios
ePortfolios
Students are much more than letter grades and test scores. An ePortfolio can showcase the whole child, including their academic skills, certifications, interests, and experiences. As Instructional Technologists in Northwest ISD, we have collaborated with district leaders and educators to help K-12 students showcase their future-ready skills through personalized ePortfolios that target their individual purpose and audience. Below are resources that I have created to facilitate this process.
In order for kids to buy into the ePortfolio process, they must understand their personal "why." I created this video to help explain the data, as well as personal and professional reasons an ePortfolio can be beneficial when targeting a specific audience and purpose.
ePortfolio creation and development occurred in CTE classrooms during the 17-18 school year. To facilitate the conversation about best practices, required elements, and general "how-to's," this resource was created and provided to serve as a tool for students to be self-led throughout the process with multiple embedded examples, including my own ePortfolio. It also is a valuable resource for teachers to have common terminology and streamlined processes to ensure high-quality examples are produced no matter what teacher/program it was originally created with.
5 Easy Steps to Improve Your ePortfolio.pdfAfter meeting with various students and providing feedback for improvement, I noticed the same errors being repeated across multiple portfolios. This resource was developed to address those commonly seen errors or areas of suggested improvement.
Having a "complete" ePortfolio is not the finish line - rather, it is the starting line. An ePortfolio is a personal branding tool that only 7% of job applicants currently have, according to Forbes. After students create their ePortfolio, they must share it in multiple capacities to maximize their opportunity for a competitive advantage and ability to establish credibility amongst a larger audience. I developed the above two resources to help students understand the multiple sharing opportunities they can consider utilizing and provide the instructions for how to do so.
Google Suite
Google Suite
The longer that Google Apps are incorporated into NISD classrooms, the need for moving beyond the basics is necessary. This training is designed to introduce highly effective "betcha-didn't-know-about" tools for 10 of the most popular Google Apps for Education. Additionally, is a hyperslide with a "choice board" which allows the instruction to be self-paced and differentiated based on participant want/need.
Google Forms are quite common in classrooms for collecting formative and summative data, but Google Sheets is a lesser known tool due to the inexperience many people have with its features; thus, this presentation focuses on content manipulation to inform data-driven decisions. I have co-presented this at TCEA 2018, NISD Engage 2017, and North Texas Visioning Consortium 2017.
Google Drawings and Google Sites are amazing GAFE tools that allow teachers and students to create visually appealing content that is personally created. Additionally, since each are part of the Google Suite, they have the same collaborative, real-time abilities as all other Google tools. This has been co-presented at NISD Engage 2017 and 2018.
Pear Deck
Pear Deck
Pear Deck is a total game changer when it comes to lesson delivery, student engagement, and formative assessment! With upgraded Premium accounts accessible for the 17-18 and 18-19 school years, I had to spread the word about Pear Deck to get as many people trying (and loving!) this tool as possible. Access this self-paced Pear Deck session that I used in multiple PD sessions at the secondary level to expose teachers to the expansive variety of Pear Deck's question types and facilitate instruction for creating their own Pear Decks.
Sporting my Pear Deck swag while presenting
Report abuse