I recently received confirmation of my attendance to a summer institute on 21st century learners. My district is also offering a summer class on digital story telling in the classroom which I plan to attend in August. I am looking forward to continuing my progress on learning technologies place in my classroom.
I have learned that students need an audience to present their work and receive feedback. The internet and tools such as digital storytelling and voice threading are a great way for students to share their work without infringing on privacy policies. Also, this opens the door for collaboration amongst students and responding to feedback.
My plan has been adjusted due to privacy policies as well as school politics that I need to work around. The technology specialist has been little help and has turned to avoiding me to get out of answering my questions or helping with the progress. That has made me turn to outside resources. I am also currently in the process of applying for a grant to open a computer lab in my school that is not used for instruction so would be available for student use any time of day. I will keep you posted on the progress being made.
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Hi Courtney!
ReplyDeleteI give you credit for sticking with it when so many things seem to be going against you. It is great that you have the opportunity to attend both those workshops over the summer. It is interesting that your district sees the value in offering them, but then your technology specialist won't even help you.
You said you had to adjust your plan due to your districts privacy policies. Are they very strict or was it just the specific plan you had that went against them?
Good luck! Let us know how it works out.
Alison D.
Courtney,
ReplyDeleteI am also interested to know how strict your school is on their privacy issues. When you had to change your ideas to meet the policies, did it alter your assignment in a lot of ways or was it a smooth transition?
Katherine
Alison and Katherine,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your encouragement and interest. I wish I had the same support here. The privacy policy that I am mostly up against is the do not photograph list or ability to publish images of students on-line. This has adjusted my plan by changing from podcasting to voicethreads with digital storybooks. The classes I am taking this summer are actually through another school district. I feel that since getting a SMARTBoard in my classroom 2 years ago I have been motivated to use it to its full potential.
Catherine,
ReplyDeleteIt is great that you have continued to seek answers to put your plan in affect. Hopefully your training this summer between the school program and the other helps answer a lot of your questions. It is too bad that you technology specialist isn't much of a help. They should be willing and eager to help out in any way.
Good luck.
Kate
HS Spanish
Courtney,
ReplyDeleteSounds like you have a lot planned for this summer to prepare you for next year and to go along with your game plan. I think these workshops sound great and will have a positive effect on your teaching. Keep up the good work!