Innovator Artifact

For this assignment, we were asked to reflect on the following questions:

• How might an innovation benefit you, your students, and/or parents?

• What do students, parents, teachers really need?

• What do you feel passionate about changing?

The information below is the result of my research into what my school district needs.

Challenge Question:

How can we introduce teachers to new technology that enhances student engagement and creativity in a way that benefits both teachers and students; without overwhelming the teachers or taking too much time?

Grade-level Recommendation:

Kindergarten through Eighth Grade – in our district this is our “elementary” school

Desired Outcomes:

· Collaboration between all teachers

· Ability for new tech programs to be used by more teachers effectively in the classroom

· A training system that works for all teacher’s schedules

· Training new teacher-leaders in order to create a “teach the teacher” program for sharing information.

Description of the Artifact:

For this project, my artifact is a new website. Please browse through all the links to find the information needed to complete this assignment.

This website will be made available to all teachers within our school district to house the information for our new program. The newly created program will be a resource portal for teachers to gain additional knowledge on the use of technology programs in their classrooms. The website is set up to share information between the new teacher-leaders that will be the focus of this solution. Additionally, as part of the solution problem, there is also a page to house resources where teachers can go to see tutorials and reviews on programs that are available, without spending hours searching online and reading reviews. Finally, the website also contains a calendar that will list the dates and times of the PD meetings we will hold that any teacher can attend – either a Lunch-&-Learn session, a quarterly in-person training session, or the weekly recorded video tutorials that will be recorded during live PD sessions. Eventually, I would like to set up a Facebook group, or other social media PLN site that will be connected to the website.

Reflection:

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “exalt” as: “hold (someone or something) in very high regard; or raise to a higher rank or a position of greater power.” The name of my program is EXALT, which in this case stands for EXceed At Learning Technology. I believe this is exactly what my vison of this new program is set to accomplish. My goal is to create new tech-savvy teacher-leaders to help other teachers in the field of technology. These teacher-leaders will not be held in higher-regard, but the information they will share with other teachers will raise the importance of learning and incorporating new technology into their lessons to a higher position. As my mother always used to say, “many hands make light work”. By working collaboratively, each teacher will not need to spend hours researching, reviewing, and testing new programs. This program will be especially helpful to our teachers who live in the very rural parts of our district, hours away from our other schools, where traveling to PD sessions was rarely an option. Teachers now have an avenue where they can work together with other teachers to create lesson plans and share ideas about how to use new programs in their curriculum. One of the challenges I face in this scenario, is getting all teachers onboard, especially the teachers who “fear” new technology and seem perfectly happy to continue teaching without it. I believe that my approach of taking small steps will be beneficial in this case. Teachers will not be required to attend all the meetings. The Lunch-&-Learn programs are there is they have time to attend; if not, they can always view the recording of it at a later time. Also, the teacher-leaders will only be teaching the school staff during one meeting a month. Rather than teaching several programs all in one day, the teacher-leaders will become well-versed in one new program a month and then take that information back to share with other teachers during the staff meeting. This “small bites” approach will give the teachers time to test-drive the new program before being asked to learn another one next month. Finally, I believe this solution will work in our district because we already have a similar one. We have a group of teacher-leaders that help lead by example in our curriculum planning. The program has been running for just over two years and had become very well received by all teachers and principals. I anticipate this new program will also receive similar reviews.

Artifact Elements:

Included in this website are several features. As mentioned above, the website includes a calendar of upcoming events, a resource library, a tutorial library, a page to share feedback, reflections, and questions with other teachers (this will eventually be changed to a social media link), and a overview of the program and its solutions. Also included is a section where the new teacher-leaders will be able to share information and collaborate with each other on best practices of helping teachers learn new programs to incorporate into their lessons.

Direct Links:

Here are direct links within the website to the following items:

• Challenge Question, Description, and Recommended Solutions

• Desired Outcome(s)

• Embedded Content