Professional Learning Plan
Summary My initial learning plan had two main part: Personal Growth Plan (shortterm) and Foundations for the Next Three to Five Years. These sections were followed up by a technology plan. I will first address the goals that I selected in each piece, respectively, and then comment on the technology plan. Each section will be addressed on a different page in this pamphlet. I will also include a final page that will outline my professional goals for the coming year and beyond. Finally, I will make a closing comments on a final reflection. Since this professional learning plan is entirely about my goals as an individual, I thought it would be best served by using only information and images that were mine. Therefore, all of the images contained within this pamphlet were taken by me. This pamphlet was created in Microsoft Publisher, converted to a PDF file and uploaded to www.issuu.com where it was converted into a pageturning pamphlet.
Part One of my Initial Personal Growth Plan (short-term) 1. Experience I plan to experience all of the different choices in technology and sample their possibilities. I plan to broaden my horizons and makes some of my own choices in what I decide to learn. I plan to relearn to play with new software just for the sake of doing it.
I don’t believe that I was able to experience “all” of the different choices in technology, however, I was able to sample many that I never would have outside of this series of courses. I have been able to decide which of these technologies I truly liked and I have been able to put the others in my mind for future reference in case there is a good application for them in the future. For example, I am still not a big Twitter fan nor am I a fan of podcasting. Both of these are powerful technologies. However, Twitter is blocked in my district and since I do not own or want to own a smart phone, it is just not feasible for me personally. Podcasting I found to be useful, but limiting.
I know for certain that I was able to broaden my horizons and I definitely made some choices on the software that I wanted to learn. I was quite specific and limiting in my choices. The one piece of software that I immediately identified as most useful was Jing. I spend lots of extra time playing with Jing and creating different (unposted) projects with it. I used it to create a tutorial for my SIG website that will benefit others and plan to create many more for that site. I also talked with the tech staff in my district about loading it on all of the machines. Due to budget cuts, the tech staff is going to use Jing to create self-help guides for the staff to be able to solve some of their own technology issues as we are understaffed for the coming school year. This will save the tech staff time and create opportunities and the option for staff to teach themselves. Ironically, the first tutorial we are creating is how to use Jing in your classroom. I also got extensively involved with Weebly. I truly believe that using websites for creating and sharing information is powerful and necessary. I have already contacted the tech staff and we are going to roll out a wiki server this school year so that our staff and students can have all of the benefits of creating their own wiki websites without having to worry about exposing our students to the perils of the Internet. All of our pages will be hosted internally, but look, feel and function like they were on the Internet. Being exposed to so many different types of technology software made the courses fun. I am glad that I decided to focus on a few. This will allow me the ability to not only share the technology with my peers, but truly exhibit knowledge and leadership in its use and functionality.
Part two of my Initial Personal Growth Plan (short-term) 2. Collaborate I plan to join at least two different collaboration communities. One for professional development and one for personal development. I plan to fully participate in at least one of these communities by posting to their site and contributing to their discussions by the end of the in class time and the other by the end of July. I plan to establish a personal learning network that better reflects my needs as an educator rather than as a tech support resources. I plan to include all of the students in our class as part of my personal learning network before the end of our in class time.
This is probably the area that I have least been able to achieve in. I have not been able to complete any of the goals that I set in this area. One reason is time. I have been so busy with all of the activities of the summer that I have not chosen to invest any time in finding collaborative communities either for personal or professional development. I have decided on a few things. First, there are several people within this course that I plan to maintain professional and personal relationships with. I think that this will eventually grow to be a collaborative community. Second, I have been able to maintain the use of the RSS feeds that we established at the beginning of the course. I enjoy getting news on what is happening in the technology world. This keeps me up to date on new happenings and developments. Also, I plan to start a Facebook page that relates to teaching. I like the versatility it offers and the ability to chat with the members of your group. I think this will be a great tool, but I need to decide on the format and the construct of the page to be sure it is beneficial. Finally, I know that I want to join a personal learning network that deals specifically with digital photography. I want to be able to continue to improve in this specific area of technology.
The only other goal in this area that has not been addressed is including my students in my personal learning network. This will have to wait for school to begin. I am planning on using a blog to engage them in my personal learning network where I can post information and interesting tech tools and articles.
Part Three of my Initial Personal Growth Plan (short-term) 3. Pedagogy I plan to read more about becoming a better educator I plan to start developing ideas about how best to use this course information this coming school year. I plan to start thinking about one area to begin retooling to better reflect the TPACK approach in my computer courses this coming school year.
I believe that this is one area that all beginning teachers are deficient in. We get so wrapped up in developing teaching the content that we forget about the importance of delivering the content. I have been guilty of this. I have written down several names of authors that have come out of the videos and readings who I want to get their books. I believe that learning about TPACK and the methods used within it to identify and develop solid instructional uses for incorporating technology into lessons has been of great value. I believe that this will change the way that I plan lessons and the way I view their outcomes. I have already begun to develop the best uses of this course information for the next school year. I will be using TPACK, creating and internal wiki server for hosting student and staff wiki web pages, training other teachers and staff in the use of Jing (and other programs) and I plan to help my students develop their own technology plans. I have already started retooling my lessons, using the TPACK model, to ensure that I have incorporated the most appropriate technological resources available. Using new technologies in my lessons will help ensure that I am developing 21st Century learners and not just teaching software.
Foundation for the next 3 to 5 years The certification courses that I am taking now are the foundation for my future personal growth. I plan to continue on in the program and complete the masters. I hold that my biggest weakness professionally is that I have not truly made a complete transition from tech support to educator. I need to find ways to put some separation between what my district demands I be and what my students need me to be. This will prove to be a challenge as there is a need for me to be both. I can improve my personal and professional growth by solidifying my participation in social networks that provide a connection to the education community. Choosing to get started in these communities is only a start. I want to be able to say that I fully participate in multiple, collaborative sites. I also want to be able to have an established, multi-faceted, fully-functional website of my own that links the community to my district and provides greater support for students by getting community members actively engaged in the schools. I then want to find a way, through a club or organization, to link my community group to a student group. I want to use digital photography as my platform and eventually add HD video.
I plan to complete this program and gain a masters.
All of these goals above still apply. I need to find a way to balance my tech support background with my teaching profession. I need to become more actively involved in goal setting and participation in professional learning communities. I plan to keep my SIG website going in order to engage other teachers in using digital technology as well as engage my students, peers and community in the schools.
I am going to have to give the next 3 to 5 years more serious thought than a few hours of reflection. I know that there are going to be times of great change in education and I want to be able to have a plan that is flexible enough to remain relevant and vital.
Personal Technology Play Vision: Create an environment for students to become 21st Century learners. Goal: Use websites to create a student produced, visual demonstration of student progress and learning. Objectives: 1. Use Weebly to create student websites. 2. Use blogging to create reflective space for students to self-evaluate their performance and to comment on assignments and projects. This will enable me to get feedback on these areas an make changes that may improve the overall effectiveness of my work. 3. Use the ability to embed information into the web to post their content throughout the year 4. Develop different pages for different classes so that they can do the same thing for their other classes. 5. Basically use websites as a tool to create a active, ongoing student portfolio.
This entire technology plan has already been put into motion. I cannot say that I have accomplished any of it, but the planning and implementation has already begun. I will be working with the tech staff to create our own district wiki server . Students and staff will be able to create wiki web pages by the end of the calendar year. I will be modifying my tech plan to include developing student digital portfolios. Several of the high school teachers that I have talked to on Facebook have shown interest in having the students maintain their websites into high school where they will be added onto in their classes. Creative Commons will also be an addition. In reflecting on the courses, I believe that this will be a great benefit to our high school art, music and English classes. Each of these departments posts student works on the Internet through our district Facebook page. Having the teachers and the student understand copyright and what Creative Commons can do for them and the benefits of using it will be a great asset to them. Personally, I have been looking for a way to display some of my photography on the Internet. Using Flickr, I intend to post many of the photographs I have taken and use the built in Creative Commons copyright feature. This will allow me, personally, to be able to share my creative works with others. In addition to these changes, I will be presenting Jing as a district tool at one of our first staff meetings. I hope that through introducing my peers to this powerful program, our staff will be able to use it personally as well as encourage our students to create projects using it. I have been involved with the district Technology Committee since my first year of teaching, but I have never had a technology plan of my own. In reflection, I don’t know how I intended to get along without one. As part of this reflection, I plan to post my technology plan in my classroom as a reminder to myself and as an educational example to my students that everyone needs to set goals for themselves personally and professionally.
Final Reflection I believe that I have laid out a good professional learning plan that contains many achievable goals, some extremely lofty. I spent a great deal of time thinking about my personal and professional goals when I developed the initial plan. Many if not all of them are still relevant. I have already begun acting on many for the coming school year and by this time next summer hope to say that those goals have moved off my list to make way for others. Personally, I need to have more time to reflect on where I want to specifically develop. This is something that I have already put reminder prompts in my calendar for. Professionally, I need to make a more complete transition from tech support to educator. 1.I specifically want to be able to have read at least 5 books on pedagogy and the art of teaching by next summer. I want to choose at least one author from our readings and videos to read their work. 2 I want to help my district develop effective uses for the tools that I have learned and apply those tools to their classrooms. 3. By next summer I want to have presented at least twice at staff meetings on technology tools/software to my peers. I want to be able to keep my Snapshots for Learning website current, maintained and viable. I want to be able to have others use it and find it valuable. 4. I want to enroll in the master’s program for Educational Technology. 5. I want to be a better portrait photographer. This course has taught me that there are technology tools for almost every need and simply learning to use the tools is not enough. I need to be able to effectively incorporate those tools into my pedagogy to get the most effective learning of the content. I then need to be a technology leaders who helps other teachers develop their skill set in the use of technology and learning. These two things are important to me personally and professionally. I want to continue to develop my teaching skills and help others grow as well. Great care and thought should go into the planning and use of technology. How we use technology to engage our students will eventually determine how they look at it. Setting a strong example in how we use technology will help them develop the skills and attitudes in their own application of it. Teachers shape the future and we shaping the 21st century learner.