1.4 Diffusion of Innovations & Change
Candidates research, recommend, and implement strategies for initiating and sustaining technology innovations and for managing the change process in schools. (PSC 1.4/ISTE 1d)
Artifact: individual teacher technology assessment
Refection: One of my most enjoyable parts of the Instructional Technology Specialist Program was individual coaching. A survey was sent out to the staff asking questions about technology and asking peers if they would like me to assist them in the area of technology. It wasn’t difficult to narrow it down between two teachers, but I choose the fourth-grade teacher because I usually work with intermediate grades and didn’t know much about first grade. The coaching part was enjoyable.
The Individual Teacher Technology Assessment was developed to improve the technology situation for a group of teachers or an individual teacher. A survey was created using Microsoft Forms and sent to the staff at Poole Elementary. The purpose of the survey was to gauge technology use in our school and how technology was utilized. The survey confirmed what I always assumed, that technology was utilized mostly for drill and practice, and for completing county-wide web 2.0 tools such as Moby Max and Compass Learning. From the survey, I narrowed my coaching mentee down to one teacher. After meeting with her, she shared with me that she wants to introduce an electronic portfolio for her students so they can share their work with parents. After conducting research, I recommended two different apps and websites for electronic portfolio use for elementary school students, seesaw and class dojo.
The school already used class dojo, so I introduced the portfolio part of class dojo. We also explored seesaw to see which one would work best for her class. She wanted to make sure she was implementing the best option for her students and chose the class dojo portfolio to have her students share their work. Since this change was in the middle of the school year, and parents were linked to their children’s’ class dojo, we felt that class dojo would work best. However, she liked the features seesaw offered and would have preferred to use seesaw. According to her, she will use seesaw and the start of the following school year.
While researching electronic portfolios, I learned not to be biased. I am an avid class dojo user, so I am very familiar with how it works. I did not investigate seesaw as well as I should have. I never used it with my students, which was something I feel should have been done in order to really see how things work and how to get parents involved.
Using electronic portfolios improves school improvement because students are showcasing their hard work and accomplishments to an electronic platform. One way this can be assessed is that parents, administrators, and teachers can observe student work and make comments about what is posted.
The Individual Teacher Technology Assessment was developed to improve the technology situation for a group of teachers or an individual teacher. A survey was created using Microsoft Forms and sent to the staff at Poole Elementary. The purpose of the survey was to gauge technology use in our school and how technology was utilized. The survey confirmed what I always assumed, that technology was utilized mostly for drill and practice, and for completing county-wide web 2.0 tools such as Moby Max and Compass Learning. From the survey, I narrowed my coaching mentee down to one teacher. After meeting with her, she shared with me that she wants to introduce an electronic portfolio for her students so they can share their work with parents. After conducting research, I recommended two different apps and websites for electronic portfolio use for elementary school students, seesaw and class dojo.
The school already used class dojo, so I introduced the portfolio part of class dojo. We also explored seesaw to see which one would work best for her class. She wanted to make sure she was implementing the best option for her students and chose the class dojo portfolio to have her students share their work. Since this change was in the middle of the school year, and parents were linked to their children’s’ class dojo, we felt that class dojo would work best. However, she liked the features seesaw offered and would have preferred to use seesaw. According to her, she will use seesaw and the start of the following school year.
While researching electronic portfolios, I learned not to be biased. I am an avid class dojo user, so I am very familiar with how it works. I did not investigate seesaw as well as I should have. I never used it with my students, which was something I feel should have been done in order to really see how things work and how to get parents involved.
Using electronic portfolios improves school improvement because students are showcasing their hard work and accomplishments to an electronic platform. One way this can be assessed is that parents, administrators, and teachers can observe student work and make comments about what is posted.