EDLD 5363: Week 3 Web Conference (November 29, 2011)

On Tuesday, November 29, 2011 I attended a very small web conference. There might have been 10 students in attendance. I don’t think this was a scheduled conference, but since there were connection problems the night before, Dr. Abernathy decided to squeeze this one in. I really like the web conferences with smaller attendance. There is more room for individualized questions and instruction. This is a lot like my classes. I find that if I have 24 students in a classroom, it is harder on instruction time and classroom management versus having 12 to 15 in a classroom.

Dr. Abernathy was still in New Orleans at a conference. She went back through an explained the assignment for weeks 3-5 and clarified questions. She stressed that we needed to be working collaboratively with all people in our groups. She also suggested using GoogleDocs with different colors to identify each person and their contributions. Since we did have a small group, we were able to ask and answer questions among ourselves. I like being able to help fellow classmates and actually knew the answers to some of the questions.

Unfortunately about 20 minutes into the conference, Dr. Abernathy had to take a phone call. During the phone call she lost her connection and never returned to the conference. The rest of us hung out for about 10 minutes talking and helping each other, but once we decided that Dr. Abernathy wasn’t going to be able to return, we decided as a class to end the session.

EDLD 5363: Week 2: Web conference

Week 2 web conference went a little better than week 1. Week 1 there were a lot of participants and it was difficult to keep up with all the conversations and questions. There were fewer participants this time so it was easier for me to keep up.  There still seems to be a bandwidth problem either on Dr. Abernathy’s end or mine. For at least half of the web conference, the audio was stuttering and breaking up. This makes it very difficult to understand and follow what is being said when I am only getting half of the information. Some others commented on the stuttering also, so I wonder if the problem is really with my Internet connection and bandwidth.

Dr. Abernathy clarified several questions concerning Week 1 and 2 assignments. I’m glad I am not the only one that didn’t understand all the instructions given in the homework assignment. Sometimes there is so much information given in the assignments that it becomes overwhelming. Also, I think the assignments sometimes assume that we already know how to use some of this technology when we really don’t know how. I am not the kind of person that can be given something and told, “Here go play with this and learn.” I am the kind of person that needs instructions to know what to do.

I am enjoying the web conferences more and I participate in them. I still can’t get my lighting right, so most of the time I do not use my cam. I also find that if I try to use my microphone, everything has a tendency to freeze. I guess I need to fork out the money and buy some better equipment.

EDLD 5363: Digital Story: A Girl and Her Daddy

I am now in EDLD 5363: Multimedia and Video Technology, which is my fifth class at Lamar University. For our week 1 assignment we had to create a digital story. This is another first for something I have never done. Basically after reading the weekly assignments, I figured out we were suppose to create a digital story using still photos to tell a story. How appropriately named: a digital story. Anyway, I began thinking about what kind of story I wanted to tell. Would it be funny, sad, romantic, or devastating? I thought about telling a story about old houses. If they could talk, what stories would they tell? I thought about my dad who passed away very unexpectedly a little over a year ago. Maybe I should tell a story in his honor for my family to remember him by. I knew that I would have to use pictures that I already possessed since I didn’t have time to go around taking pictures or searching for them on the Internet. I began looking through my files of pictures and realized I really began starting pictures about five years ago when my daughter was born. So from that point, I knew the story would be about my daughter. I quickly began uploading funny pictures to a file since my daughter has turned out to be quite the little comedian. When I was finished uploading, I realized my story was over ten minutes long. Whew!! I love my daughter. Since my story could only be two minutes, I realized I needed to cut out a lot, but deciding what to remove was harder than I imagined. When I began looking at the pictures, I started seeing something a lot of the photos had in common. There were pictures of my daughter and my husband. I thought about the special bond I had with my dad and soon realized there’s no greater relationship than the one that exists between a girl and her daddy. So all of a sudden I have a title for my story, “A Girl and Her Daddy.”

I used Photo Story 3, which was another first, to create my video. I worked for several hours deciding on photos and getting them in the right order. Then I decided instead of me narrating the story I would have my daughter do it. I think it adds a little extra sincerity. We went through the script one picture at a time and she loved it. She kept asking if we could do them over even though the narration sounded great. I think she liked having the headset with microphone on. In completing my story, I decided to add music. Once the project was complete, I had to upload it to a public free video hosting site. I have a little bit of a problem with this since it has private photos of my family, so I plan to either make it private or delete it once I am finished with my degree. I decided to use Teacher Tube. I set up my account but when I uploaded the video I kept receiving a message that said, “generic failure.” For 45 minutes I tried to upload my video and couldn’t get it to work. I got frustrated with Teacher Tube and decided to move on over to You Tube. I created an account on there and uploaded the digital story. This one work, but when I went back to search on the title and key words, I couldn’t find it. I included the URL on my homework assignment and when you click on the URL the video comes up. I don’t understand that one either.

Anyway, all in all I am pleased with the video. Even though it was more time consuming than I thought it would be I am proud of it. It might not be perfect, but my husband likes it and my daughter had a blast helping me make it. I have included the URL to YouTube for your enjoyment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh2lWKGJ2l4&feature=youtu.be

Action Plan - Teacher Training

I can’t believe that we have been in school for two weeks. Time flies when you are having fun, or in my case when you are so snowed under by classroom teaching, Science lab preparations, faculty meetings, Lamar classes and homework, family, and anything else that might come along. I can’t breath because I haven’t set aside specific times for breathing. I think I should do that right now, and schedule bathroom breaks. Those are pretty important too. (lol) Anyhow, I like so many of my classmates, are barely treading and keeping my head above water. All I can do is follows Dori’s lead and say, “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.” This is a reference from Finding Nemo for those of you who don’t have kids, and I know that’s not the correct APA format but it’s my blog.

One of the MANY projects I have to work on for my Lamar degree is an Action Research Plan. My plan questions if using Explore Learning Gizmos in 7th grade Science increases motivation and desire to perform Science lab activities. To get this party started, I and the other junior high science teachers talked with our principal and curriculum director about Explore Learning Gizmos since it is a subscription based website. They were delighted with the idea and believed the interactive online learning environment would captivate the kids and reinforce Science concepts. This will be used as a trail period for Science since there are also Gizmos for Math. If all goes well, the Math department might begin using them also.

Once we received the okay, the subscription was paid and we were off and running. There are three teachers who teach 7th grade Science, so the curriculum director had to request three logins and passwords. Since this is a project of mine, I took my information and figured out how to use the Explore Learning website. I created my profile, and watched the tutorials on the website. I wanted to discover as much about the site that I could so I could train the other two teachers during in-service. As in-service rolled around, my principal scheduled time for a subject based meeting among the 7th grade Science teachers. I used this time to introduce the other teachers to Gizmos and as a demonstration period. I showed the teachers how to access the site and create the profile pages. I then instructed them on how to set up individual classes with student rosters for each class. Once the rosters were created, student login and passwords were assigned. We decided that the student logins and passwords would be given to the students to be placed in the front of their Science journals.

Once the rosters were created, it was time to explore the Gizmos and start playing around. I showed the teachers how to search for specific Gizmos including but not limited to heredity, photosynthesis, renewable/nonrenewable resources, solar system, food chains/webs, lunar phases, rock cycle, and force/motion. They were amazed at how many different Gizmos there were pertaining to our curriculum. Once they were comfortable with searching for Gizmos, I demonstrated how the students and teachers would download and access the Gizmos. Along with each Gizmo there is also a teacher guide, vocabulary, student evaluation, and answer key. As the other teachers read some of the questions on the Gizmo, they were amazed as what higher level of thinking skills the students were going to have to use to perform the different activities and answer the questions. I reminded the teachers that the online learning activities created an atmosphere that we could only recreate if we had unlimited funds and equipment. The Gizmos will be used as excellent representations for labs that we are not able to create on small or nonexistent budgets such as ours.

At this point, it seemed as though everyone had a pretty good idea of how to get started using the Gizmos. I answered any final questions and we adjourned the meeting. I will continue to remain in contact with the teachers to answer any questions they have or help them work through any problems they make incur. The next step is to conduct a pre-survey with the 7th grade students to find out prior knowledge and the level of use of Gizmos. I am excited. I just hope the kids enjoy doing the activities as much as I have.

EDLD 5301: Research: Reflection

When I first began this class, EDLD 5301 Research, I had no idea what action research or action inquiry was. “Simply stated, administrator inquiry refers to the process of a principal engaging in systematic, intentional study of his/her own administrative practice and taking action for change based on what he/she learns as a result of the inquiry” (Dana, 2009). I have been one who has sat for long hours in a library sorting through mountains of data in order to perform research and write a research paper. I had never though of developing an action plan from a question or wondering happening within my work area. The need for inquiry is an essential component in order to establish a firm foundation for school improvement. During this class, it was our objective to learn about and develop an action inquiry to implement over the course of our program.

Understanding what action inquiry is was my first obstacle. “Inquiring professionals seek out change and reflect on their practice by posting questions or “wonderings,” collecting data to gain insights into their wonderings, analyzing the data along with reading relevant literature, making changes in practice based on new understandings developed inquiry, and sharing findings with others” (Dana, 2009). Once I understood the purpose, I had to begin thinking of action topics that would eventually develop into my wondering. Being a new teacher, I don’t have any experience to bring to the table. I was able to think of a few wonderings I would have liked to explore, but they all had to do with administration. Since I am a technology student, my question had to be technology related. I began thinking about technology and how it is used in my classroom. We are participating in a pilot program to implement Explore Learning Gizmos into our Science curriculum. Since I teach Science, I thought this would be an excellent time to see if Gizmos increased student’s motivation in Science.

I took this idea to my site supervisor who is also my principal and asked her opinion. She agreed that studying the use of technology in the classroom was too broad of a topic. When she learned about my question involving the Gizmos, she became excited. She too, wondered if the students enjoyed using the Gizmos since it is a subscription based program. With the school district having to cut the budget, stakeholders wonder if the added expense of Gizmos is worth the money. Together, we decided to make Explore Learning Gizmos the focus of my action inquiry. So, my action question was formed. “Does using Explore Learning Gizmos for 7th grade Science students increase motivation and desire to perform Science lab activities?”

Once my action question was established, the next step was to develop the action plan. With the guidance of my site mentor, I created a template of activities and a timeline in order to implement my plan. During this process, I was also blogging and posting discussions on the discussion board to express concerns and developments along the way. Fellow classmates commented on my blog and discussion posts and remained encouraging as I developed my plan. Within my action plan, I arranged for teacher and student training of the Gizmos. I will also continue training and hold monthly teacher meetings in case any problems or questions arise. Data collection is important in order to support the findings. “Using multiple sources of data can enhance your inquiry as you gain different perspectives from different strategies” (Dana, 2009) In order to use multiple collection strategies, I plan to use a pre and post survey at the beginning and end of school, reflective journaling, random interviews, collect student work samples, and perform literature reviews. With my tentative action plan complete, I posted it to my blog and awaited comments from my classmates. The comments I received were very supportive in that the plan looks very efficient and the action research sounds very exciting. With this information in hand, I once again met with my site supervisor to reach a final consensus on my plan. With both of us agreeing on my question and plan, I posted my final SIP plan to my blog.

I have to admit, I am nervous about being able to complete this action plan. I know that I can become a better teacher if I continually reflect on how I am teaching in order to better benefit the students. “A major benefit inherent in the process is the improvement of teaching when focusing on improving student achievement” (Ringler, 2007). Between still being a new teacher, attending classes for my master’s degree, and being a wife and mother, I have a lot of demands upon me. I also have two other projects from my previous class, Principal Competencies and the Internship Plan; I will be responsible for completing within the next year. I will really have to use good time management and remember to blog weekly on the progress of my action plan. I want to be the best teacher I can possibly be to help better my students, and action inquiry can make that happen. “When we improve schools, we improve the lives of our students, and thus, we improve the future for all of us” (Harris, Edmonson, & Combs, 2010).


Dana, N. (2009). Leading with passion and knowledge: The principal as action researcher. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Harris, S. Edmonson, S. & Combs, J. (2010). Examining what we do to improve our schools: 8 steps from analysis to action. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education.

Ringler, M. (2007). Action research and effective instructional leadership skill for future public school leaders. AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, 4(1), 27-42.

SIP Action Plan

EDLD 5301: Week 4: Questions and Revisions

During this week, I met with my site supervisor to once again discuss my action research plan. She still thinks I’m crazy. I am starting my second year of teaching and I have taken on a master’s degree program. Occasionally she looks at me and laughs. We have to keep our humor in this or else I’m liable to have a nervous breakdown. I am really nervous about how I am going to accomplish everything I have on my plate within the next year. Already I have an Internship Plan, activities in Principal Competencies, and now I am adding an action research plan. I wish we could start and finish everything within a class in the five weeks rather than having something to finish once the class has ended. How am I going to remember to blog weekly on my action plan and respond to other people’s blogs? I am sure I’m going to have so much going on with being a wife and mother, teaching 6th and 7th grade Science, performing the action plan, internship plan, and principal competencies, continuing with the classes in the program, and anything else that might come along. Oh my goodness…just thinking about it scares me and makes me nervous. I am definitely going to have to create a schedule of some sort or learn how to use the calendar and alert features on my phone. :)

As I met with my site supervisor, she once again commented on how wonderful and thought out my plan was. Since I don’t have a lot of experience in education, I was worried and still am that I really don’t know what I’m doing. To receive her respect and praise on a job well done makes me feel wonderful. As she looked over my plan she commented that it seem to be well developed. She liked the fact that I was willing to continue any type of training or help the teachers after the initial training. We all know how it feels to learn something new and then we told to go and use the new information and never receive another ounce of support. Talk about feeling like one if thrown to the dogs. The one suggestion she did make was to have sporadic meetings to check with the teachers to make sure there are no lingering questions or problems that need to be handled. So, with this in mind, I revised my action plan and added monthly meetings with teachers. Other than the one suggestion, we both agreed that the plan was on the right track.

On a personal note, I am really scared and nervous about being able to do everything that will be required personally and professionally. I believe I am very good with time management, but there is only a certain number of hours in the day. I know I will do my best, but how to keep my sanity and not drive my husband and daughter crazy will be the question. :)