Evaluation of Action Research Class

When I look back on this course, I realize I have learned a lot about action research.  Before this course began, I had never really heard of action research.  Due to the assignments, lectures, readings, electronic searches, discussion boards, and blogs, I have walked away feeling pretty confident in action research.

Although I found a lot of things useful in this course, I would have to say the most useful highlight had to be the discussion boards.  Unlike the previous course, the discussion board was not just a place to post answers.  The discussion boards allowed you to see what other people were attempting, and it was very motivating to encourage them as they were encouraging you.  After reading the posts, I found myself walking away refreshed and ready to keep pushing on through the planning of the action research.

Even though the videos were definitely scripted, I found myself enjoying the videos during this class.  I found the advice of Dr. Arterbury and Dr. Jenkins very useful in this class.  I specifically enjoyed listening to Johnny Briseno and Dr. Lewis.  They both had wonderful examples of how action research had worked in their schools.  Without this application of how we would use this as an administrator, I am not sure how many of the class would have bought into action research.  The videos that were provided in this class were very beneficial to me.

The electronic searches I did on Lamar’s web-site was probably my least favorite portion of this class.  I found the system to be a bit slow and not as user friendly as I would have liked.  After I had completed my searches, I found myself preferring to go to Google Scholar and finding my professional articles there.  This I understand has no reflection on the teachers of this class or the class that was provided.  I think the web-site just needs to be modified and more user friendly.  I also found the TK20 to also not be as user friendly as I would prefer.  I was given very quick replies to all of my questions, but the handout did not resemble the TK20 screens and I found this to be cumbersome.  Because of these issues, the electronic searches and user friendliness of both Lamar’s library and the TK20 program, I did not enjoy that portion of the class.

Because I felt I was a bit pessimistic in the last paragraph, I wanted to end my reflection with a positive aspect of the course, that positive of course being the blogs.  I hadn’t used a blog in quite a while, but I found myself checking my blog responses frequently and examining the blogs of the people who had posted on my blog.  Although this was a relatively simple task of the class, I found it to be very important in stimulating my thoughts on the class.  For example, Suzanne Steckly asked me questions about possible solutions to videos we upload (Steckly, 2011).  These questions reinforced my beliefs that numerous schools are trying to incorporate technology into their curriculums and that training our teachers is vital.  I found myself again being refreshed just as I had with the discussion boards.  However, unlike the discussion boards, I can look back on my blog well after the course is over and read about where I was at the beginning of this action research journey.

This course has taught me a lot of wonderful ideas and has prepared me in many ways for the future of my career.  There have been numerous enjoyable aspects of this class, and there have been a lot of inspirational moments of seeing your classmates delve into their own research with inspiration from others.  I have a fundamental understanding of the tools it takes to be successful with action research, and I have the support of classmates to put those tools into action.

Reference

Steckly, S. (2011).  Scott Hagedorn Blog.  Retrieved from

 http://shagedorn.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-action-research-plan.html - comments

Peer Suggestions and Revisions from Week 4

    This week I received a little more feedback than I did last week on my action research plan.  Matthew Reyes said, "Planning time to meet and discuss your action research project with teachers will be tough. If you plan well it will be easier to help your participating teacher keep up with the technology aspect of your project and goals for the research."  I will say that Matthew is very correct that meeting the teachers is tough.  I spent over three hours coming up with a plan that would allow me to meet all the teachers at all four campuses at least once a week.  It is tough, and I am extremely tired at the end of the day, but I think that the amount of feedback I have received from the teachers, and the amount of projects we have already created has made the faculty, vice-superintendent, and each principal very pleased with the progress we have made so early in the year.  I think our staff has also been excited to implement the technology into their curriculum.  I enjoyed that Matthew noticed the amount of time it takes to meet and discuss everything with the teachers.  I was very pleased that I was able to get this schedule down.  I really should attach my schedule so you can see how crazy it looks.

   The second comment I received this week was from Michael Richardson.  I agreed with about 90% of what his comment said, but I disagreed with his comment that said, "The great part about students these days is that most of them have grown up in a world of technology and can perform most tasks better than many adults."  I replied on the Epic Player, but for those of you who aren't on there, I replied with, "... a good chunk of our students understand the use of technology, but not on how to apply it to education. For example, they might know how to do research on the internet, but not very good research. I think there is a lot of things that our students are oblivious to, and part of that goes back to the training. I have been meeting with teachers for the last three weeks, and some of our teachers (even though it is supposed to be met in their TEKS) have no clue what Boolean logic even is. A good chunk of the people didn't even know Google Scholar existed or what it was until last week. I think we overestimate what our students know a good chunk of the time, and really have no clue where some other states are."  I went into more detail on that site, but I will give a short explanation of my thoughts.  Just because our students have grown up with technology, does not mean that they have any more clue on how to use it for educational purposes than our teachers.  When we were kids how often did we sit around and think up ways to improve our education?  Did we skip out on hanging out with friends to create a better graphing calculator, or did we go the library and develop a better searching technique?  I know for certain that when I was not in school, unless I was doing homework, I was not using technology for any school purpose.  I knew a lot more about computers than my teachers, but I never learned anything about the educational applications of technology until I was in college and started applying my programming classes into my educational research.  How many people realize that you can type site: into Google and pull up only certain web-sites?  How many people actually use the asterisk in search engines as a fill in the blank?  Of the people that actually do that, how many of those people are teachers, and of that group, how many of their students have learned those skills?  We can't just hope our students understand technology just because they have a computer in front of them.  It is almost as silly as us thinking our kids can learn differential equations because they possess a math book.  Those are my thoughts though.  Anyway, those were the comments on my page, and as of right now I'm leaving my action research project the same.  All of the comments were very supportive of what I was doing so far, so hopefully that continues!

My Action Research Plan

The steps to follow the action plan are vital for the plan to work.  I have used the blueprint suggested and have filled out the explanation below.

1.     Examining the work: Setting the Foundation

Since we are trying to improve our technology TEKS scores, we will integrate technology into all of the core curriculums.  We want to ensure proper training and uses of technology for educational purposes for the teachers, and we want to make sure our students have a proper understanding of not only how to use technology, but how we can use it for educational purposes. In the past, our students have been able to use technology, but the application of technology for educational purposes leaves a lot to be desired. We will address this through meetings with each of the teachers on our list, principals, the superintendant, and the technology committee.  We will also look at articles for other possible ideas to integrate technology into the core curriculum.

2.     Analyzing data

We will have meetings with the teachers to monitor their progress.  We will also use a variety of data gathering such as electronic searches to discover new ways of integrating technology into the core curriculum.  We will also examine other district policies on “Bringing Their Own Technology”  and look at solutions that use iPads/iPods/laptop computers / smart phones to improve classroom instruction without being a hindrance to the teacher.

3.     Developing deeper understanding

Our main fear is how do our students compare with students who are from states that have a 1-1 ratio of computers to students. We are worried about having a large gap between our students and those students. This leads us to ask how we might clear the gap between students who have used computers since kindergarten on a daily basis?  We would also like to see the district have multiple teachers have all lessons recorded on a daily basis and placed on the Internet for student viewing. This leads us to ask which type of software or hardware would be the best for each topic?  We would like to see our students have more support and resources available to them at home if they need it. This also leads us to ask which format would be the best for video files to be viewed at home?  If we saved our files as quicktime files, this would allow us to see the video clearly, but it would slow the uploading down.  If we saved the video as a .mp4 or .mkv file, we could have faster uploading and they could put it on their iPod/iPad, but viewing it on a computer might not be as optimal as possible.  Should we start uploading to SchoolTube?  If we do that, we limit the number of students who can actually watch the videos we create on the school bus.

4.     Engaging in Self-Reflection

·       Do we possess the proper training needed for our teachers to successfully integrate technology into their curriculum?

·       Does our school possess the proper bandwidth for our “Bring Your Own Technology” to be effectively used in the classroom?

·       Will our network plan of kicking students off of our network who are abusing the policy be effective?

·       Will we have enough time to properly train our teachers how to help their plans of integration be possible?

·       Will all of my staff be able to have follow-up meetings with the teachers as planned?

·       Will we have the proper trainers we need for the professional development?

5.     Exploring Programmatic Patterns

This includes asking the appropriate questions, identifying data patterns and gaps, and learning to address equity issues

After talking to the administration and my technology team, we have reviewed some of the above questions listed in #4.  We believe that if I am able to meet with our teachers once a week, and my team meet with our teachers twice a week, we should have the ability to be successful in integrating technology into their curriculum.  We believe we should have the proper training to help all of our teachers, and if we stick to our schedule, we should also have enough time to train them to be successful at how to teach using the technology in our school. 

One of our big fears is the bandwidth needed for our technology to be used effectively.  We have addressed this issue by partitioning the bandwidth of our district.  Eighty percent of our internet speed will be reserved for teacher computers and lab computers.  The other twenty percent of the bandwidth will be allowed for students who are using the “Bring Your Own Technology”.  We also will put parameters in our policy that allows us to kick off the MAC address of the devices who have abused the policy.  We also are requiring all of the students who want to participate in our policy to register their device.  Hopefully, by the end of the month we will kick off all devices who have not been registered to allow an optimal speed.

We also looked at the follow-up meeting schedules.  Currently they have not had a set schedule, so I have asked them to create their own schedule and to send me a copy of when they can meet with the teachers, and what plan period of the teacher will be used for the meetings.

When it comes to the training, we spent a lot of time on Friday, September 9, 2011 to discuss if we felt we had adequate trainers in the district.  We want our teachers to do as much of the training as possible, but if no one in our district can adequately train teachers on the proposed topics, we will try to bring in outside trainers.  We also want to teach at three levels for most of our classes, and the teachers will be required to go to eight of these trainings.  The proposed training classes were below as followed with the topic in bold, and the basic things to cover underneath:

Blogging in the classroom

Marketed for English/Social Studies, What is a blog?, How to blog, Blogging sites, Why blog?, personal vs. professional, bloggers to follow specific curriculum

WebPage Training:  School Center

Basic:

How to add a page, contact form, how to add images, page types & templates, and basic navigation

Intermediate:

Links, video, calendar, RSS feed, podcast and attachments

Advanced:

Quizzes, blog, forums, application of page types, advanced visual techniques, how to link to other sites

iMovie

Marketed for K-12/AS

Beginner:

How iMovie Works, importing clips, basic text, basic transitions, adding sound, and how to record video off your computer

Intermediate:

How to export a video, file types and size management, how to replace sound, Ken Burns effect/cropping, legality of music you can use, ducking, changing video appearance, and cutting unwanted video from original

Advanced:

Advanced Tools (green screen and picture in picture), movie setting options, file settings (filter settings, video size, chapter markers, multipass/single pass, HD/Standard Def), sharing to secondary places such as iTunes, iDVD,

iCal (1 Level)

How to add an event, various looks of the calendar, adding second calendar / syncing with other calendars, syncing with secondary devices, syncing with address book, subscribing to additional calendars, and printing

iPhoto

Beginner

Layout, how to add a photo - from folders / cameras / etc., and changing individual photos and event names

Intermediate

Editing photos, restoring to original photos, creating albums, slide show, basic secondary printing places (books, calendars, cards, etc.) and basic printing

Advanced

How to move pdf files to itunes and send it to mobile devices, places, batch change, book feature, books to pdf, sending to secondary places (facebook, mobileme, flicker, etc.), and advanced printing

Wolfram Alpha (1 Level)

What is Wolfram Alpha?, How to use Wolfram Alpha in the classroom, and advantages of searching with Wolfram Alpha

Google in the Classroom

K-12, AS, show examples of each level of teaching

Beginner:

Basic Search Bar, Images (saving the right size), Videos, Google Maps, iGoogle, YouTube

Intermediate:

Google Translate, Google Books - how to look up old magazines, Google Scholar, Documents, Street View in the classroom, Google Earth, and Boolean Logic - Intermediate

Advanced

Google Squared, Advanced searching in Google News, Image Swirl, Picasa, Google Mars & Moon, Google Body, Boolean Logic – Advanced, and Google Voice

Numbers

Target Group - All campus staff - office staff included

Basic - Basic functions- set up spreadsheet –Inspector- Save as template, Basic Graphs

            Can be used for class list, information recording, and templates for information

Intermediate - Graphs, Basic formulas, orientation

            Student produced materials and graphs for math and science

Advanced - Advanced formulas and graphs, multi media applications, math type

            Teacher and student produced materials and multi media presentations, cell

            referencing between pages

Mobi  / Clickers

Target Group - Classroom teaches with this equipment.

Basic - How to set up, trouble shoot, basic functions can be used for all subjects to test and record student responses. Can also be used for instruction.

Intermediate - How to set up, trouble shoot, basic functions, CPS software templates, Study Island in the classroom can be used for all subjects to test and record student responses. Can also be used for instruction. Tutorials Study Island.

Advanced - Advanced test creation using the CPS software (Game Show & Exams) or             Qwizdom,Test, exams, grade import

Computer Operations

Target Group - Everyone who uses a Mac in the District

Can be used to optimize teacher time management and ease of use of the computer.

Basic - Start up, shut down, log-in, beginning programs, proper closing programs, Dock, Saving and H-Drive, connecting to server, screen shot, quick view

Intermediate - Expose, Spaces, Saving to the H-Drive, photo size, shortcuts, adding a             printer, display settings (how to extend the desktop), hooking up to projector,             projector settings, blue tooth devices, preview basics

Advanced - System Preferences, Display, Disk Utility, Advanced programs, shortcuts,             screen share

Things on your Mac

Target Group - Everyone who uses a Mac in the District

Can be used for basic program use for classroom support.

Basic - Stickies, iCal, iChat, & Photo Booth, Image Capture, preview (resize)

Intermediate - How to copy a CD/DVD, Dashboard

Advanced - Grapher, Disk Utility (partitioning), Time Machine

Podcast/Garage Band

Target Group - Classroom teachers

Can be used in classrooms to provide a means of sharing information and document             classroom activities.

Basic - Podcast, basic creation iMovie, saving (sharing), ducking

Intermediate - Podcast adding graphics and movies, basic Garage Band, ducking

Advanced - Advanced use of Garage Band to enhance podcasts. Format size, sharing on iTunes, setting up to share

Prezi (1 Level)

Target Group - Classroom teachers

Basic - Account set up, basic presentation, sharing

Intermediate - Intermediate tools and adding multi media, templates

Advanced - Complex design and advanced presentation creation, website tutorials

iTunes - Relevance to classroom

            -music for videos, podcasts, etc

            -videos relevant to subject area

            -information/books for subject area/research

iTunes - Beginner

            how to set up an account

            iTunes store

            how to add music - CD/purchase

            how library works/playlists

            how to download books/podcasts           

iTunesU - Intermediate

            how to access

            search features

            downloading lectures/books

           

iTunesU - Advanced

            register to add your course content

            how to add content

           

Google Docs - Relevance to classroom

            -ease of collaboration

            -surveys

            -tests graded online

            -sharing of calendar/documents

Google Docs - Beginner

            setting up accounts

            overview of docs

            calendar

            iGoogle

Google Docs - Intermediate

            forms

            templates

            more in depth of docs

            sharing

            chat

Google Docs - Advanced

            student sharing/collaborating

            Gmail

            creating quizzes/tests

            grading scripts

           

Partitioning the drive/backups/time machine  - Relevance to classroom

            -protection of classroom documents and projects

Partitioning the drive/backups/time machine - Beginner

            how to partition the hard drive

            how to backup

            purpose of time machine

           

Glogster - Relevance to classroom

            -new technology tool for poster creating

            -more creativity

            -topic collaboration

Glogster - Beginner

            What’s a glog?

            create account

            use template to create glog

            add music, photos, text, website, etc

****Search edu account for the district

Museum Box - Relevance to classroom

            -cross-curriculum project integration for any topic

Museum Box - beginner

            What is museum box?

            create an account

            set up classes

            teach cube concept

Museum Box - intermediate

            define topics

            research topic

            begin putting cube together

Animoto - Relevance to classroom

            -field trip videos

            -ease of use to upload to school web site

            -class presentations/announcements

Animoto - Beginner

            What is Animoto?

            create account

            use template

            drop photos

            add music/text

Edmodo - Relevance to classroom

            -safe, secure area to collaborate with students

            -assignments online

            -alerts sent to students of upcoming events

            -class calendar

            -polls generated

            -collaboration with other schools/teachers/parents

Edmodo - Beginner

            What is Edmodo?

            create an account

            set up profile

            upload picture

            complete “About” section

            posts

Edmodo - Intermediate

            connect with other teachers

            favorites

            set up classes

            calendar

            grades

            library, polls

6.     Determining direction

A.    Are you clear on what you are attempting to solve (your research questions)?  Yes, I believe I am clear on what I am attempting to solve.  In what ways will integrating the technology Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) into all subjects K-12 help increase technology performance in HJISD?  There are also several follow up questions that need to be addressed.  We will also need to answer, “Are our teachers being given adequate training to be successful” and “Do we possess the appropriate trainers to help our teachers integrate technology into their curriculum?”

B.    Have you adequately addressed the skills and resources questions?

Yes, I think we have created quite a few plans to address the skills and questions.  We have established a pretty robust training schedule, and we have also created plans where we can meet with all of our teachers multiple times a week.  We have also looked at what our teachers are trying to accomplish, and we have made orders to buy certain hardware within our budget.

C.    Have you established a collaborative approach to the issue?

Yes, I have talked to all of the campus principals, I have discussed the core TEKS we are trying to meet as well as going over the technology TEKS we are trying to cover as well.  I have had numerous meetings with teachers and my technology staff as well.

D.     Are your timelines realistic?

Yes and no.  I think our training timelines are realistic, and I think the training we have to offer is realistic.  I also think the amount of time we have allotted for students to achieve these projects is realistic.  However, there are two teachers who want to try their first project next week, and at this point, I am skeptical to whether or not they have the proper understanding to be successful.  I made a screen recording of how to do what they were wanting and gave it to the teacher.  She was to review it this weekend, and I think on Monday I’ll have a better idea of if she is ready to move forward on the project.

E.     Do you have a reasonable plan to monitor the project?

It might be my naivety, but I think our plan is reasonable.  We have several pairs of eyes on the teacher, and we are definitely keeping them up to date.  Ultimately, our test scores are going to be the main factor, but we definitely are keeping better track of the technology TEKS being taught than last year.

F.     Do you have a reasonable plan for determining the level of success – how do you evaluate if the plan is effective?

The plan is reasonable to determine the level of success inside our district.  However, ultimately we want to compare our students to students like those in Maine who have had the 1-1 ratio of computers for lengthy periods of time.  We are scouring the internet looking for some of the projects they have turned in, and looking to see examples of their work, but the main concern is the actual testing of those students and finding a test that is similar that both groups have taken.

G.    How will you revise and improve the plan based on monitoring and evaluation?

I think the main thing we will try to improve is the levels of training our teachers have.  Ultimately, if the teachers are unable to understand how to integrate the technology into their curriculum, our students will not have a higher success.  We will see how successful are teachers are with their lessons, and we will help them become more successful.  We will also continue to monitor current technology trends and make sure we are adapting with those changes.

7.     Taking action for school improvement

I will have several committees who will also monitor the results.  First of all, I will have my team monitoring the teacher progress on a daily basis.  We will also have the technology committee evaluating the likes and dislikes of our new program.  I also have meetings with the principals to discuss the way things are going and improvements they would like to see.  I also am meeting with the vice-superintendant on a weekly basis to give updates to.  There will also be a formal report given to the administration at the end of the year describing all of the projects we have implemented and how these projects were aligned with both the TEKS in the core classes as well as those of the technology courses.

8.     Sustaining improvement

I will be sharing these results both on the blog and with Region 5 technology conferences.  There are a lot of people in this area who we have had contact with and who are interested in our success.  We will be sharing these findings with them as well.

What I learned from Week 2

This week I learned of one great idea of how to "prep" teachers for the incoming class.  Instead of just looking at the test scores and having some brief conversations about the kids coming into your class, we might try having an actual meeting with the teachers who had the students all year.  We could discuss what types of learning styles the students possess, and the issues the students are facing at home.  By figuring out what we have tried with the students, and having a greater insight into problems that our students are going through, we are more likely to actually improve our students education.