Description:

Provides tools to examine and reflect on alternative ways to plan, organize, and implement classroom instruction integrating technology into the K-12 curriculum based on curriculum and learning theory research. Letter grade only.

Competencies:

Standard 3: Digital-Age Learning Environments Technology coaches create and support effective digital-age learning environments to maximize the learning of all students.

Being a Digital-Age Technology Coach means that I lead by example showing other teachers how to utilize technology in the classroom in group projects that allow students to work independently on topics that interest them. At the same time, I am always available to my students as a resource as they learn to work independently on their projects.

In the Media Technology program at Newark High School, the 3 classes I teach use a constructivist methodology with students working in groups. In the first class, Intro to Digital Video, the students work hands-on with professional video cameras and editing software to produce a variety of projects. The project teams consist of 2 or 3 students and the assignments provide technical guidelines with the student picking the specific subject of their project. An example might be to create a 30 second Public Service Announcement for a local non-profit. The students pick a non-profit, for example the Humane Society, and make contact with a subject matter expert to get information and schedule a time to shoot. The finished videos are posted on line and run on our cable TV channel.

In the second class, students learn about studio production and work as a team to produce a live newscast and other programs targeted towards our students. They rotate through the various positions on the crew each day to learn all of the skills involved. Students utilize a green screen environment along with computer generated virtual sets to allow each of our shows to have a different look. Finished newscasts run on the school's internal TV system during the lunch periods and are posted on-line.

The 3rd year class, utilizes what they have learned in the previous cases to create programs that run on the district's cable TV station and on-line. They work in groups to produce individual news stories then combine the stories to create a full news magazine about the district targeted towards our parents and the community as a whole.

By using these techniques, I believe I have created an effective learning environment for students to learn digital video and TV production. We work with a wide variety of digital tools ranging from professional digital camcorders, to Mac workstations with Final Cut Pro X, to a studio complete with green screen and NewTek TriCaster digital effects computer, then publish to our web site, social media, and cable TV channel.

This mix of hardware, software, and on-line resources support my efforts as a Digital-Age Learning Environments digital technology coach to demonstrate to my students how to complete an end to end project and publish it.

Standard 4: Professional Development & Program Evaluation

Technology coaches conduct needs assessments, develop technology-related professional learning programs, and evaluate the impact on instructional practice and student learning.

Professional Development and Evaluation is the process of providing training to staff on a skill they might need and evaluating if that training was effective.

In my previous position in another school district, I worked as a system administrator. In that capacity I frequently had to conduct needs assessments on technology for the district such as wireless networking, computer workstation specifications for specific courses, etc., and in some cases develop training for staff on the new technology.

In one case, I needed to rebuild the control room for the performing arts department in our multipurpose space. After rebuilding the area, I had to create training materials for staff members and student operators. I created a series of training videos and posted them to YouTube.

Using video allowed the training to be available whenever the learner had the opportunity to view it and it also allowed them to review the material as needed. This was important because in some cases the staff member or student operator might only use this equipment a couple of times a year for specific events.

Prior to providing staff members with their own key to access the facility, I would meet with them in the control room and have them demonstrate some basic equipment operation procedures to make sure they were comfortable using the equipment.

Of course, not every issue requires a training video. In some cases a written instruction sheet or a web posting will suffice. Evaluations of the program can be done through performance, as was the case with the control room, or written material such as a survey or in some cases a test. On-line tools such as Blackboard or Moodle might also be used. There are a wide variety of resources available for professional development, the selection should be based on the topic.

Reflection:

Technology Integration:

The best example of how this course covered Technology Integration was probably presented in Module 5 where we had to use multiple Web 2.0 and Social Media tools together, then create a web page reporting on what we had found and our plans to use them.

In my report, I described how we currently used YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook together by configuring YouTube to be able to send Tweets and Twitter to be able to post to Facebook. This strategy increases our views on YouTube by notifying our followers on the other sites whenever a new video is posted. This is the perfect example of integrating multiple Web 2.0 sites.

I also looked at Vimeo as a possible new resource, but discovered in testing that there were limitations which made it problematic as a solution for our program.

Organizational Change, Leadership, and Project Management:

The best example of Organizational Change, Leadership, and Project Management was probably presented in Module 4 where we completed a needs assessment and designed a training program.

In this assignment we served as agents of organizational change by implementing a training program after assessing the staff needs. This whole process would meet the technical description of a project as defined by PMI which in effect makes us Project Managers. In serving as the Project Managers for this technology training project, we would have to take a leadership role in coordinating with a variety of stakeholders from the teaching staff and the technology department to put together this program.

The Most Challenging Assignment

Probably the most challenging assignment for me was from Module 2 where we were working with the APA standards. Taking the APA quiz and trying to remember the specific formats was a challenge. This is the first college course I've taking in several years, so it has been a long time since I've had to write a formal paper. After taking the quiz, I promptly ordered the APA Publication Manual!