mjswiger.weebly.commjswiger.weebly.com/uploads/5/1/5/8/51585951/capston…  · Web view2019. 9. 10. · and support was the Unify platform, Edmodo, Accelerated Reader, ScootPad,

Running head: CAPSTONE REPORT

Making Timely Tech Connections: Capstone Report Part B (1, 2 and 3)

Mary Jo Swiger

Dr. Julia Fuller

Summer 2015

Kennesaw State University

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Making Timely Tech Connections: Capstone Report

The Making Timely Tech Connections project took place at Altama Elementary School

which is located in Glynn County, Georgia. Altama opened its doors on February 1, 1965 and

has been an integral part of the community ever since. The school population consists of 557

students and 61 staff members. Altama is a Title 1 school, and the student population includes

African American 69%, Hispanic 14%, Caucasian 9.1%, Asian 2.6% and Indian .5%. Utilizing

the School’s Strategic Plan and the proposed professional learning sessions, the administrative

team was provided the opportunity to examine and schedule technology sessions for teachers.

The Process and the Plan

Grounded in collaborative meetings, and one to one discussions, the decision was made

to provide personalized technology learning sessions over an extended time period to offer

continued support for technology integration and acquiring technology skills. A meeting was

held in September 2015 with the school’s administrators, media specialist and instructional

coach (the candidate). A plan was constructed to create a needs assessment (Appendix A) and

use the results from the survey (Appendix B) to design professional learning sessions. In

addition, there were required District technology initiatives to be placed on the schedule of

sessions. The result was 8 sessions delivered on a timeline from October to May (Appendix C).

In conjunction with the formal sessions, optional follow-up sessions were provided for individual

or small groups of teachers based on needs. Although optional follow-up sessions were

scheduled, there were numerous unscheduled individual sessions to support teachers and help

troubleshoot specific needs. After the sessions were determined and scheduled, individual

teachers were chosen to assist with the delivery of the sessions to highlight and share their

expertise. According to the needs assessment, the major areas of focus for technology integration

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and support was the Unify platform, Edmodo, Accelerated Reader, ScootPad, Destiny, Google

tools, Online Data Management, Twitter, Classroom Response systems, and using an Active

Slate. Advance scheduling of technology sessions was a new concept for the teachers, and the

instructional coach knew it was necessary to coach and support teachers formally and informally.

The scheduled sessions were held in the school’s global computer lab during the time allotted

after-school for professional learning. Teachers were asked to provide feedback via an online

survey (Appendix D) after each session.

The first technology session took place in the month of October, and the goal was to

provide professional learning to navigate the Unify Platform and LiveBinders. The needs

assessment indicated that 7% of the 28 teachers responding to the survey did not feel

comfortable with the Unify Platform. The LiveBinder session was an add-on session based on

the District Math Coordinator requesting a quick overview of math resources available. The

Unify session was led by the candidate and the assistant principal. Participants were shown how

to locate and login in to the platform and access student assessment data. In addition, participants

learned how to generate graphs and email links to grade level team members with explicit data

for viewing. The LiveBinder session was led by a Kindergarten teacher with support from the

candidate. Participants were shown specific math resources to support instruction. Specific

participant feedback includes, “I learned how to navigate the Unify platform, and sort test scores

into subgroups”, “I like the idea of creating assessments in Unify, and feel like I need more

training”, “Unify looks tough”, “and “LiveBinders is awesome”.

The second technology session was conducted by the candidate and the school’s media

specialist during the month of January. The school’s media specialist was new to the school in

the 2015-2016 school year, and was very comfortable assisting with the Accelerated Reader

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Program, ScootPad software and Destiny, due to previous experience with these programs. The

needs assessment indicated that 25% of the 28 teachers responding to the survey felt comfortable

with Accelerated Reader and Destiny, while 17.9% felt comfortable with ScootPad. The

candidate and media specialist met the participants in the computer lab and assisted each

participant with login information, and navigation of the site. The media specialist pointed out

the new updates in Accelerated Reader and described the awards students would receive after

completion of levels. The candidate assisted teachers with finding e-books within Destiny, and

provided a tutorial for accessing and assigning student levels in ScootPad. The overall feedback

from this session was positive. Participants seemed excited about generating new reports in

Accelerated Reader and using ScootPad as part of Response to Intervention data collection.

The scheduled Curriculum Planning days during the month of February allowed for

professional learning sessions to support the use of Edmodo as a blogging platform to document

grade level data meetings. The candidate placed Edmodo on the agenda for each grade level

meeting. Participants were assisted with creating accounts, navigating the platform, and practiced

blogging and uploading photos. The response to using a blog to document team meetings was in

favor of this method, and participants were able to glean information from other grade levels.

The District Testing Coordinator was very impressed that our teachers were blogging about data.

Responses from teachers can be found in Appendix E.

An optional session that was placed on the schedule for the month of February focused

on using Google documents, navigating Outlook email, and updating teacher websites. These

topics were based on teacher needs, and 21% of the teachers responding to the survey indicated

more support was needed for Google documents. The candidate led this session and provided

Google tutorials that were created in Jing by the candidate. Participants embraced Google

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documents and expressed the desire to learn more about Google Forms, Spreadsheets and Slides.

One particular response indicated, “I learned how to put Google documents in a folder, and to

upload Word documents to my Google Drive”. Google support continued throughout the school

on an individual basis.

The fifth session was held in March and scheduled based on a District directive to train

Early Intervention Teachers on the use of an Online Data Management System aligned with the

Fountas and Pinnell program. In addition to the 5 Early Intervention teachers attending training,

the school’s principal, assistant principal and intervention teacher specialist attended. The first

part of the session included a webinar presented by Fountas and Pinnell, followed by the

candidate distributing account usernames and passwords. The EIP teachers were able to begin

building rosters and adding data to the system during the training. Adding data to this

management system made it possible to access student data across the District when students

transferred to a new school (Appendix F).

Working collaboratively with the Speech Pathologist/Assistive Technology Team Leader,

the next session, which was held in March and focused on creating a Personal Network using

Twitter. The candidate was asked to create a Twitter hashtag for the District and provide a

professional learning session for all instructional coaches in the District. Because of the interest

in Twitter, a session was added in March for the school. The AT Team Leader is a strong

advocate for instructional technology and professional growth for educators. The agenda

(Appendix G) was designed with a work at your own pace mindset. As participants worked

through the agenda, support was provided by the candidate and the AT Team Leader. Although

many teachers were positive and committed to sending Tweets to the newly created school

hashtag (Appendix H), the follow-through was very limited.

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The session in April was an optional session to allow teachers to attend a session and

receive assistance in any area where they might need additional support. Only three teachers

attended, and their questions focused on using Google documents and Google Spreadsheets. Two

of the attendees, EIP teachers, were interested in keeping Fountas and Pinnell student reading

levels on a spreadsheet to share with homeroom teachers. Another participant wanted assistance

with converting Microsoft Word documents to Google documents. One out of the three

participants completed the exit survey (Appendix I).

The last session, a demonstration of using the Classroom Response Systems and Active

Slate was held in May. The demonstration was a quick 30 minute session led by the Media

Specialist, a third grade teacher and the candidate. According to the needs assessment, 21% of

the teachers responding indicated that they were comfortable with using Classroom Response

systems. This session was changed to later in the year due to problems with the technology

department updating software and completing an inventory for Responders and Active Slates. As

of May 2016, only three teachers reported using the Responders and two teachers using an

Active Slate. The third grade teacher demonstrated using the Active Slate for math lessons, and

the media specialist and candidate modeled how to use Responders for formative assessments. A

group discussion was held at the end of the session and feedback consisted of requesting support

at the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year.

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Technology Facilitation and Leadership

Technology facilitation in a school setting requires a collective responsibility of all

participants, and an established partnership between leaders and instructional coaches. Although

a needs assessment was completed at the beginning of the year and used for planning technology

sessions based on individual teacher needs, if the roles and responsibilities of the facilitators are

not clearly established and expectations set, then the project can easily become the responsibility

of one person. In addition to consulting the school’s improvement plan, and professional learning

plan, a facilitator must look at the backgrounds, level of interest and formulate a plan to garner

adoption of the new skill or strategy. Basically, the project looked great on paper, but a missing

piece was building the relationships with teachers to get an understanding of the reality of where

each person was in terms of technological skills and dispositions. The needs assessment

identified the needs and helped to structure the session content, and could have possibly been

better designed to elicit more feedback and commentary to learn more about each individual. The

facilitator of this project was often viewed as the expert, and this is not conducive for

participants taking ownership for the learning. In hindsight, time would have been well spent if

conversations would have taken place to empower the classroom teachers and media specialist in

their concerted efforts to be part of this project. According to Danielson (2006), “It is well

recognized, but little acted upon, that the greatest professional resource available to every school

is the expertise of its teachers” (p.998). As a leader, the lesson learned is to emphasis engaging as

many teachers as possible, identifying the niche where each person’s skill, talent, or passion can

be tapped (Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2009, p. 473). A major barrier of this project was actually

providing the timely tech connections and support. Due to the number of required instructional

initiatives in the District, creating a timeline for the mandated professional learning sessions in

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literacy and math seemed to create a mindset of technology as time consuming and an after-

thought or add-on. Also, (Dempster & Farris, 1990; Willingham, 2002) note, “In a phenomenon

known as the spacing effect, research has shown distributing the time needed to study over

several sessions, results in increased retention knowledge” (as cited in Pierson, 2004, 82). The

plan was to spread out the technology sessions over several months to maintain ongoing support

and to lower the level of anxiety for teachers, and although this helped with planning, the in-

depth support for all teachers was not possible. In addition, planning the project seemed ideal

and the consensuses was that many teachers would be positively impacted and leave the sessions

with new skills, knowledge and dispositions. There was documented professional growth, but the

level of sustainability is questionable. Some teachers still believed using technology to support

instruction required too much time to prepare and master.

Knowledge, Skills and Dispositions

A primary goal of this project was to demonstrate the knowledge, skills and dispositions

to inspire and lead the development and implementation of a shared vision for the effective use

of technology to promote excellence and support transformational change throughout the

organization (PSC 1.1). Facilitating this project increased my professional growth as leader

through the effective planning with the administrative team and aligning the project with the

school’s improvement plan and professional learning plan. Collaborating and communicating

within the professional learning sessions and communities fostered the development of the

necessary skills to effectively meet the need of the participants. A strong personal reflection of

disposition as it relates to the outcome of the project confirms that attitude, beliefs and

enthusiasm can be shifted based on a clear understanding of the school’s vision and mission

statements. Another goal was to regularly evaluate and reflect on professional practice and

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dispositions to improve and strengthen the ability to effectively model and facilitate technology-

enhanced learning experiences (PSC 6.2). Believing in the power of reflection and self-

assessment is an important part of affecting change or maintaining a process that is deemed

successful. Acquiring the skills to evaluate and reflect on practice and dispositions is part of my

repertoire of strategies. Completing a self-reflection checklist or notes sheet after session would

have helped me to possibly revisit the timeline and revise the project. Collaborating with

school’s media specialist, and administrative team to prepare a schedule, allocate resource

support and promote the project schoolwide aligned with (PSC 4.1) Model and promote

strategies for achieving equitable access to digital tools and resources and technology-related

best practices for all students and teachers. My positive disposition and belief in the effectiveness

of student achievement based on technology integration was a well-known fact among the staff.

Because of my ability to model, write grants for technology integration, and advocate for

equitable access many participants were excited to become part of that enthusiasm and

professional growth. After reflecting, it may not have been ideal to tackle so many topics to

effectively research and document growth. The numerous topics were born out of the massive

list of needs, and District requirements. Trying to be a supportive coach and help all teachers is

important, but scaling back to help teachers make the connections between effective technology

integration and student growth will need to be revisited for further planning. A suggested follow

up may consist of surveying teachers to find out the amount of time spent on each topic to further

their knowledge, skills and dispositions. Also, it was apparent that many teachers became excited

and embraced ideas during the professional learning, but without the in-depth follow up and

accountability, the excitement can dwindle due to the everyday demands of time and system

expectations. Finally, the capstone experience facilitator will need to make the correlation

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between aligning the school’s vision, mission, and strategic plan to create a more effective

action-plan timeline. This includes inviting additional stakeholders to the planning table in the

future.

Recommendations

A recommendation for future technology projects is to think about the project as a natural

support to the teaching and learning process. For example, although the goal was to personalize

technology to individual teacher needs, go deeper and help guide teachers towards the

connections and impact on student learning with follow-up sessions and data. Purposefully plan

to observe the newly acquired skills in action in the classroom and provide explicit feedback.

Overall, technology allows us to do what we do better while accomplishing the same

goals. As important as technology is to digital leadership, human interaction remains the key

component of changing education now and in the future. Place an emphasis on relationship

building through interactions, as well as needed changes and your leadership will move from

vision to reality (Sheninger, 2014).

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References

Danielson, C. (2006) Teacher leadership that strengthens professional practice. Alexandria, VA:

ASCD

Katzenmeyer, M. & Moller, G. (2009). Awakening the sleeping giant. Thousand Oaks, CA:

Corwin

Pierson, M. (2004). Extended time and progressive vision for the development of technology

using teachers. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 4(1)81-88.

Sheninger, E. (2014) Digital Leadership: Changing paradigms for changing paradigms for

changing times. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

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Appendix A

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Appendix B

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Appendix C

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Appendix D

Schedule of Technology Professional Learning SessionsDate Sessions

October 2015 Unify Platform and Live Binders

January 2016 Accelerated Reader, ScootPad, and Destiny

February 2016

Introduction to Edmodo for Data Team Meetings

February 2016

Optional Tech PL to provide support in needed areas. (Google, email, teacher websites)

March 2016 Online Data Management System for Early Intervention Teachers

March 2016 Twitter Professional Learning

April 2016 Optional Tech PL to provide support in needed areas. (Google, email, teacher websites)

May 2016 Classroom Response System and Active Slate

Appendix E

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Appendix F

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Appendix G

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Appendix H

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Appendix I

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