According to everything the class taught us, data analysis and the subsequent action plan take up the majority of the time in the project.  We, the students, had three weeks to collect data and one week to analyze and conclude.  I am not complaining, I get it.  I get that this was an introduction to the process and now we can implement this practice with our districts, but I really go into it.  I am disappointed that I could not possibly put all of that data into a coherent form in just a few days.  I can’t believe it, but I am disappointed that I didn’t have time to write a bigger, better paper.  Looking at my schedule, odds are I will not get back to it for quite sometime. 

 That said, here is a small piece and please save your comments about my awful APA citation for an argument with a college professor :     (FYI: InfoSource is an internet based content delivery system that we are using to update MS Office skills)

            Question two will unfortunately remain unanswered until further research is conducted.  It is my opinion that offering online, on demand personal development is a more effective delivery method; however, the data collected from InfoSource (Pearce, 2007) proves the contrary.  A yearly assessment report showed over 300 failures, 54 incomplete tests, and only 45 passing scores in 2006-2007.  A quick look at the time spent showed that the average participant is spending less than 30 minutes on each quiz and often logging off after less than 10 minutes because of a failure of the pretest.

This is the only online assessment tool that we have, but it is my belief that it is not an accurate reflection of the medium.  In my personal experience InfoSource is tedious and difficult, offering material as drill and skill rather than exploration and reflection.  I point to the short amounts of time spent and the staggering amount of failures as proof of this.  As a side note, I am also taking issue with InfoSource’s overall data reporting.   To my knowledge, the system provides only one report listing access times and success or failures.  There is no way to filter, import, or export data making assessment beyond pass/fail difficult.  Chalmers and Keown (2006) suggested that the success of any program is equal to the amount of support provided.  Infosource is a stand alone quiz machine and, in my opinion, is proving to be an expensive experiment with very little reward.  

Although not addressing professional development on a mass scale, another popular method of teacher development is the conference.  With the assistance of the district office, I was able to access and manually record conference request data for the years of 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 (D.A.S.D., Appendix A).  For the last two school years there were 1086 individual requests filed.  Not having other data from other schools makes conclusions difficult, but cross checking the requests with the given rationale yielded some interesting trends.   Less than half of the requests appeared to be related to pedagogy.  Only 79 of the requests involved educational technology, while 364 requests were related to the administration and guidance departments.  The question that needs explored now is why teachers do not seek out more opportunities within their content area?     

An important realization for me relates to daily objectives.  I can put part of the blame on pre-service, but my objectives have largely been content or outcome based.  I focus too much on the product at the expense of the process.  I see now that teaching to a content goal is actually a more difficult method to cover material.  With content there are different interpretations, pov’s, tools, basically a thousand ways to cover content, whereas a focus on thinking skills, such as drawing inferences, lets the learner create there own understanding of the content.

Heady stuff for most of us.

I see so many connections in what we have accomplished over the last four days and what I have explored this summer.  It echoes that change is needed in instructional delivery and not in the student’s attitude toward education.  It is a move to get teachers to teach the thinking and processing skills that will benefit students throughout their lives.  Finally, and if you buy into connectivism most importantly, the group made excellent connections to one another, to the information, and to the world of education.  The next logical step is to connect to and share this with the students. 

I am excited to see the potential of this cohort realized.  I believe it will be a positive change for all parties involved. 

Interactive Small Group vs. Co-op Group

Interactive small group gives a teacher the ability to pull a small group from the larger class and focus on their specific need.  The teacher may be stretching an advanced group or monitoring and catching-up students in need of help.  Using the previous comprehension strategies of making connections, asking questions, visualization, drawing inferences, determining important ideas and synthesizing information, interactive small group has three key elements:  Introduce Text, Reading Text, and Discussion of Text.         

ISM

Flexible

Based on need

Multiple issues can be addresses

Can be advancing or remedial

Teacher involvement or lead

Discussion/Reflection afterward

Co-op

Students driven

Usually single issue

Teachers give all groups equal attention

The word differnetiation is bantered about often, but you get a real sense of how these strategies help a teacher plan for that more effectively.  We all know that you cannot possibly be prepared for everything, but maybe by having tools like this in the bag, one could be comfortable with the unknown.

Looking back at the posts involved in this discussion I realize how difficult it must be to get a good grasp on 3 or 4 days worth of information.  I would be happy to continue the discussion and share what I’ve learned.  Feel free to leave a comment or your email.  If I don’t know the answer, I am sure I can connect you with someone who does.

Still keeping an open mind.

Check back, I’ll post. 

Here is how it went down.  After some back forth between the director, I, and a well intentioned technician, the conversation changed from what could go wrong to whose responsibility is it when something does go wrong. Each side had valid points.  The techs feel they need to protect both the system and the students, while I see internet use on company time as an adult decision.  The sticking point was really a common argument; if something goes wrong who is responsible, the user or the provider.  There was a real worry that if a large problem was revealed that the “well they let me” defense could be invoked. 

In the end there seemed to be a small, albeit contentious, agreement.  Decision: Teachers (I say professionals) are capable of making decisions regarding what resources are necessary to effectively teach.  The caveat is that if they find evidence of misuse, they reserve the right to lock it back down.  Frankly, I am okay with that if it is done the right way.  I hope the right way goes something like this: run the reports, collect evidence, and provide a warning.  If the violation is recorded again then the person needs to be taken through the proper discipline channels. 

We all agreed that violations are things like gambling, eBay shopping, or fantasy sports.  What the majority of us call complete stupidity if you are supposed to be at work.  (Unfortunately also a reality) 

It’s a start and we’ll see how it goes, but I think this may be a move that will be looked upon as positive for all parties.  The teachers are treated like capable, professional adults, the administration shows trust in the staff, and the students have a chance to learn from up-to-the-minute material located on the web.       

Or did I just give myself a whole lot o’ rope?      

Here are some interesting responses from real teachers across the US. 

1.  If we could select ourselves what areas we believe would help us in doing a better job on a day to day basis. While I always like to learn, at times, some of the programs we must attend are not able to be used in a day to day basis. If could have a “salad bar” of PD would be nice.

2.  Direct relevance to the field of online learning. Opportunities to share as well as learn. Doing more than sitting there and listen to/watch someone present something.

3.  If it were differentiated and ongoing. Too much “spray and pray” happens in districts–I give you a too much info in one sitting and pray you implement it

4.  I would like to be offered more choices. Also, when we receive training, that is as far as it goes. There is no opportunity later to discuss what we learned or how we are using it. If something I learned fails, I have no chance of receiving insight from others as to what might have happened or what might make it work in the future. Therefore, I am more likely to try it and give up than I would be if I had an opportunity to discuss it.

5.  If there were more options and not everyone had to attend the same PD opportunities within the school district. For example, I may feel that I need to learn more about behavior management so I could choose that and another person might choose reading, and another person might choose technology in the classroom. Outside of school there are many PD opportunities and it is nice that the school district often helps with or covers the cost of these opportunities.

6.  Having release time after a PD session to reflect on and build the new learning into the classroom programme. Too often we attend PD but then get sucked up into the business of our class to be able to properly internalise the PD experience.

Bonus: To provide balance 1.  I don’t know

Honestly the last answer is one of the best.  Jim Gates brought up an excellent point when we discussed the fact that 50% of the participants said they were happy with the PD provided them.  Jim said, people are happy because they are unaware of what is possible.  How can we expect folks to want change who don’t know it exists?  Needless to say I felt like I was pushed all the way back to go.

Thus far, and I am far from finished, I find that there is a need to begin breaking PD up into smaller and smaller groups.  I like the conference approach to summer PD where a teacher/staffer can choose from a list, but how does that work during the year.  There is a need for ongoing PD, but will the current system of both school and union make it difficult for teachers to progress.  As one person said, “PROGRESS!!!..being allowed to progress and affect the changes that need to be made.” 

Will the majority of our efforts be blocked by business as usual?

(Note: I made no attempt to correct or alter any of the responses except “Progress”.  They are word for word.)

I am surprised that this ground-breaking moment in both politics and media passed with so little talk about its implications.  Say what you will about CNN, but did Ted Turner just usher in a new media era?  Has there been another convergence like this besides, “head over to our website and answer a few questions…”  Granted, I know very little about how the questions were selected for the televised debate, but from I my point of view the candidates we asked and “mostly” answered some interesting questions. 

Check the recap here.

For us eduphiles the candidates were asked if they would scrap or change NCLB.

I have not made my own decision, but I hope Gov. Bill Richardson gets a fair shake by the educational community. Great answer. The other candidates leave a great deal of room for in-action.

What do you think? What legitimacy, if any, does this bring to YouTube as a media outlet?  Like it or not it is time to start paying attention so that we can make an educated decision come Nov 08′

The republican debate is on Sept. 17. Submit your questions now!

Eliciting participation is the key to a having a reliable network.  Without participation you have a stagnate web space full of old pictures and fragmented comments.  My question is how do you gain prolonged interest and participation without constantly going to hot button issues?  I believe anyone can gain a spark of interest by publishing an angry rant about teacher salaries, or internet nerds killingAmerica, but what keeps an individual engaged and willing to spend time deep in conversation with others?

Over the past few weeks I have been actively engaged in action research.  My subject is professional development.  I see a huge contradiction in the way we are asked to teach (MI) and they way we are taught (in-service).  I envision a future of on-demand PD that is available to the teacher when they need it, at the time of their choosing, but I digress.  It is summer and in order to gather necessary data I needed a different approach.  I called upon my network.  I have access to 1000’s of teachers across the country.  Granted the majority of them are tech savvy, progressive, educators, but I thought that I could gain a relatively large and diverse sample for the simple needs of my paper.  I was wrong.

This is in no way intended to be mean or angry and I want to thank, from the bottom of my heart those of you that have helped me.    It simply raises a point that I am sure others have toyed with before.  How is it possible that one person posts a picture of an airport and receives 30 comments while another asks a serious academic question and receives 4?  I blame it on blog ADD.  Very few stick to one topic (including me) and explore it in the depth that it deserves.  Or could it be that the 3% (on a good day) of people that are willing to participate force us to change topics on a weekly basis just to gain interest?  I don’t know.   

I have to think seriously about these matters because I am introducing a professional network to my teachers in August.  And while the initial excitement will prove fruitful how will we manage to prolong serious discussion over a period of time?  Projects?  Action research?  Do I have to constantly have something prepared to make sure everyone is participating? 

I am sorry if this has offended anyone, but I get a real sense of a hierarchical structure to edublogging and it is off putting.  I do want to take time to thank my personal network that I now believe only consists of a few handfuls of people but those people are amazing.  You folks truly inspire me and always make me feel welcome.  I suppose it’s my fault for drastically over estimating the size of the network, but optimism got the best of me.  I urge you all to take the time and go answer a question.  After all there are no stupid ones, right?

Okay, back to the paper.  I will fill you in on the data when it is complete.  I believe you will find it interesting.

The data will be used in a graduate research paper for Walden University.

Click Here to take survey

I would love to hear any thoughts and feelings you all have reguarding professional development and they way it is provided in your district.

Please provide me with name, experience (yrs), and location. 

Here is my problem statement:

Educators in the DuBois area school district need to provide a relevant education to their students.  Currently, few teachers are demonstrating 21^st century applications or skills in their classroom.  We believe that this is a result of inconsistent professional development and a lack of technical support.

Therefore, we will make a concerted effort to provide quality in-service training that is relevant to the educator’s aptitude and follow up with consistent skill reinforcement.  Furthermore we will make a concerted effort to provide adequate resources to educators whenever and where ever they choose to use the new knowledge or skill they have acquired.  

Research Questions:

1.  What are the 21^st century skills we want our teachers to model?

2.  How can we provide consistent and relevant training to 200 teachers?

3.  Will adequate resources encourage teachers to integrate technology into their curriculum?

I believe that feelings are relevant to atmosphere or environment so I encourage you to let it out.  If you would like to keep anything private, please note it so that I do not publish the comment or include you name on the paper. 

Thank you network.

Take Care.