Narrative Question 5

5. How have you used technology to enhance your productivity and professional practice, your reflection as an educator, and your leadership and collaborative skills?

The courses I had to take for my Educational Technology degree helped me to enhance my productivity and professional practice, while allowing me to reflect on myself as educator and improve my leadership and collaborative skills. All the courses in this program are able to be considered professional development for myself and worked towards showing me how to use technology not only with the students, but also to improve my teaching and professionalism. Throughout the program, I was asked to create programs that enhance my productivity. I was also introduced to methods and concepts that enhance my professional practice and that allow for self-reflection. I was asked to create projects that would help me to become a leader in technology application in schools while allowing me to work with fellow classmates on projects that improved my collaborative skills. The set-up of the program, by all my classes being online, showed me how technology can be used to work collaboratively with others while making me more productive.

I have used technology to improve my productivity and professional practice in many ways. Through the use of Excel, I created a grade book that keeps track of all the students’ grades in the various subjects. The program averages all the scores for me and makes it easy for me to see how my students are progressing and who needs extra help in each subject (See Appendix M). I also use the website, http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php, to create all my rubrics. This web site allows me to create a rubric, with all the necessary criteria for any subject, in a quick and easy manner (See Appendix J). I have used Word to create tests for my students and letters to be sent home to the parents/guardians. PowerPoint has also been used to create various activities and programs that help to teach concepts to my students in a more interesting and fun manner. Some of the PowerPoint programs help to teach the students a new concept, while allowing them to try the new concept taught. Other PowerPoint programs I have helped to create also allow students to review concepts they have already learned individually during centers, or as a whole class activity.

Also, to enhance my professional practice and productivity, I have researched and looked for information on topics of importance to my teaching. In EDU 555, Education and Society, I was asked to write a paper on a diverse population. I choose to write a paper on students with Asperger’s Disorder, due to teaching one at the time. Through writing the paper, I learned strategies to help me more productively teach my student. It improved my professional practice through making me seek out information on the disorder and showing me new strategies to improve my teaching towards this diverse population (See Appendix N). In EDU 553, Computers in the Classroom and the Curriculum, I created a software review of ten programs I currently use in my teaching. The software review made me reflect upon whether the programs I was using were productive for the purpose they were being used. It helped me to look into my professional practice with technology and its programs, while showing me if the programs were enhancing my students’ learning (See Appendix G).

Good leadership is built from positive relationships and helping others develop and reach goals. To be a leader, one needs to help others identify strategies to reach their goals (Mitchell & Tucker, 1992). Technology has been used to enhance my leadership and collaborative skills. I use the Internet and email to correspond with fellow colleagues in my teaching environment and in other teaching environments. While student teaching, I would email my cooperating teacher lessons I had created, so she could approve them and provide me with any useful feedback. I used discussion boards and email, throughout the Educational Technology program, to work with fellow classmates and teachers to discuss important topics and to create various projects. I have also become one of the people that many of my current co-workers ask for help when it comes to technology. I have shown some of my co-workers how to effectively use Excel and Word and have helped them learn how to fix minor problems they have been facing with the computer and its various programs.

Throughout my Master’s Program, I have been asked to work collaboratively with fellow classmates. In EDU 545, Curriculum Development and Evaluation, I created an authoring cycle with one of my classmates. We worked together to create a unit with lessons, standards, projects, and field trips. The unit focused on a key concept, Colonial America, taught in my partner’s fifth grade class. Through working together, we were able to create lessons and projects for the students that may have been otherwise missed if it was not for the combination of our ideas (See Appendix F). In EDU 553, I created a Culture Quest Unit on Mexico in a small group. We worked together to create the unit by each taking an aspect of the culture and then combining our lessons and activities on to one website. We asked each other’s advice and created a unit in a couple months that would have taken much longer to do on our own (See Appendix D). For both of these projects, email and the discussion board were the two main mechanisms we used to communicate.

Leadership is a way of thinking and feeling about oneself, about his/her job, and about the nature of the educational process (Mitchell & Tucker, 1992). I have created plans for technology and committees that show my commitment to trying to be a technology leader in the school. In EDU 620, Technology Planning and Evaluation, I created a plan on how a technology committee should be created in the school and its district. The plan outlined who should be included and the most effective way to work together, so the school and district could successfully integrate technology. The committee should break into sub-committees according to grade and school and meet together regularly to report how each group is progressing. It promotes communication with meetings and email, while showing how everyone can work together to create a successful technology plan (See Appendix O). In EDU 577, Educational Computing – Theory and Practice, I created a technology plan that outlined where each school and classroom should be in five years when it comes to the technology use in the classroom and professional development for teachers (See Appendix P).

I also created a PowerPoint presentation on the innovative classroom for EDU 580, Productivity Tools and Application. I will use the PowerPoint presentation to show teachers in my teaching environment other inventive ways to allow students to investigate the world around them and learn from other cultures. The PowerPoint provides five projects teachers can do with their class to improve their students’ learning and understanding through the use of various technology and programs (See Appendix Q).

Students view the value of education reform based on how it affects the teacher’s behavior, which in turn aids students learning. Good teaching is important because it makes students learn something (Corbett & Wilson, 2002). As an educator, to do this, I need to be willing to reflect on my teaching and lessons. While student teaching, not only did my cooperating teacher evaluate me, but she made me reflect on how I felt a lesson went and areas in which I can improve. I was able to compare her evaluations with my evaluations of my teaching and effectiveness of lessons to truly understand areas that are my strengths and my weaknesses. My cooperating teacher also videotaped my teaching for a couple days, so I could watch myself and truly see how I was teaching the lesson and how the students were interacting. The videotape helped me to improve my body language and ways I explained certain topics. The daily reflection helped me grow as an educator and I have continued with it in my current educational environment.

In many of my courses throughout the Master’s program, I was asked to write a disposition paper. The paper made me analyze how I interact with others in the class, including the teacher, and the amount I participated in class. These reflections helped me to realize where I need to improve upon for future classes and professional development workshops (See Appendix R).

Environment and instruction work together to invite, inspire, and sustain student learning; together they make content important (Tomlinson, 2002). For this reason teachers need to be willing to reflect on their teaching and enhance their professionalism and productivity. The use of technology can help a teacher with this in many ways. Through the use of the Internet, teachers can research programs, find resources on a variety of topics, allow teachers to participate in continuing education classes, and communicate and share ideas with fellow educators. Email and discussion boards provide effective ways for teachers to work collaboratively and help each other when needed. The variety of programs used with technology allows teachers to work more productively and to produce professional activities and resources for their students and fellow classmates. When teachers work together and reflect upon their teaching, the students are the ones who are rewarded.