Brittany+Burns'+NLI11+Teacher+Leadership+Plan



Brittany Burns ECI 509 Instructional Technology Implementation Plan Education should be a lifelong adventure. As a teacher, I want to spread my educational experiences and knowledge to others. With this in mind, I have recently become fascinated with Instructional Technology and the possibilities tied to this new movement in education. I have been in love with the concept of Project Based Inquiry before I even knew it was a concept! During my student teaching, my students did nothing but create this type of analytical technology-based projects. I enjoyed seeing them actively learn as well as create sure amazing productions. I am not currently working in a school now, but I hope to one day truly present this Instructional Technology presentation. It is my hope that I would have a couple hours or a series of sessions to really teach this material to teachers and ensure their ability to utilize different sites as well as consider different teaching methods. My idea would be to hold a free Instructional Technology session at different libraries, including but not limiting to those in schools with computer labs and open them to students and other faculty of the school system. If it is ok with the library, I think free donuts and coffee/ tea for a morning session would be a wonderful way to entice teachers.

Opening: To get teachers interested, I would play this video I created on Animoto: [|Tech Video]

Foundation of Instructional Technology: After the video has completed, I would then head an open lecture starting with Blooms Taxonomy. I would review (or more likely ask the audience if they can recall) the principle as well as different levels. And begin discussing how technology programs allow students to reach further into the deeper levels of the as they Inquire, Collaborate and Create using digital technology. These programs have been known to more effectively motivate students as well as create an atmosphere in which they can learn at their own pace, searching out greater understanding of a difficult concept in ways not possible with a textbook. If a student didn’t understand information from a book, they would have to either search out another book or a knowledgeable adult to learn the concept. The internet allows students to move quickly through information they know, study the information they don’t in their own way, and dive deeper into the information that interests them. With this in mind, teachers can create projects utilizing technology and the internet that bring students through the levels of Blooms Taxonomy. A little creative designing on the teacher’s part is essential here. So what makes a good digital project? Let’s take a deeper look. First assign students a problem to solve or question to answer. This should be an open-ended question or problem that would require reflection and study in order to answer. Students would then have to use 21st century skills to search out and recognize valid websites and information. Once they have collected enough information, they must decide what to put into their final project by analyzing what they know and what is important in the information. This stages move students through the remembering, understanding stage. To creatively design a project that displays their work, students would need to fully analyze the problem or question they are trying to answer, which requires applying, analyzing, evaluating, and finally creating new material. This process of learning will hopefully generate new questions in students as they studies and evaluated information that would allow the process to begin over again. When students have to transfer information from various sources into their own words and projects, they must do more than simply read. Project-Based Inquiry is designed to encourage students to study and evaluate information and learn actively with the plan to create a project that displays their deep understanding.

Website Tutorials: After completing the lecture and answering questions, I would then give tutorials on four major websites that are useful in the classroom: GlogsterEdu, VoiceThread, Prezi, and Xtranormal(if the school has paid for the service, if not: Google Tools). I would give an interactive session, much like the CoolTools sessions at NLI, with the hopes that teachers brought their labtops with them. I would first encourage teachers to follow along in the tutorial making their own projects as we go through the different sites. For each website, I would then go over the major features of each website and show some examples of the finished project. To finalize the session, I would give teachers 10-15 minutes to play on each website and ask any questions. Then, I would open the floor for discussion asking how each teacher would use the website in their classroom in order to get teachers thinking about practical information. For a couple of responsive teachers, I would ask how they would put Project-Based Inquiry into action using this particular site.. Once we complete a session on each site, I would allow teachers to share their thoughts on what they learned and how they would use each site, as well as supply a list of different websites with potential to classroom use with concise explanations of major features.

Closing Discussion: In conclusion, I would show the teachers the Khan’s video from TedTV called “Flip this Classroom” to show teachers an alternative method of teaching instructional technology brings to the classroom, as well as give them the website for Khan Academy, where there are thousands of educational tutoring videos for teachers to assign for homework in Science, Math, and History. For English, I would discuss how assigning students reading is already a form of flipping the classroom, for students are learning new material at home, and going into greater detail at school. To incorporate instructional technology, I would talk about how many websites that are used in schools provide free tutorial videos and suggest the idea of assigning these videos for homework before assigning the project topic. Students then can watch the videos and learn how to use the website at their own pace, and even allows practice time if the student needs it. Also, if teachers allow students to choose the vessel website to displaying their work in, then students can take time to analyze different website’s features and abilities to decide which website would best fit their project plan and vision. This would also allow for scaffolding of different abilities. Then I would open the floor for thoughts

.