For the publishing leadership project in week 4 of MAC I presented my project to four of my peers: Michael George, Virginia Holm, Michael Hood, and Dennis Woodward. We facilitated this presentation using this Google Document and iChat. We met at 7:30PM on May 26th, 2011 and each shared the links to our presentations. After reviewing each presentation we met in an Audio iChat and shared for 5-7 minutes about our work. We each took notes about the others' project and then shared our comments in the Google Document.
Click here to see a copy of my Publishing/Leadership Presentation.
See below for the comments my peers had about my presentation.
Michael George says: David you did a very complete job with this project. Your district is fortunate to have you as a resource to help integrate new technology into the classroom. So often, districts purchase technology and have no training plan for the staff and the technology just collects dusts. It is great that you used chunking or segmenting to construct your lessons. This is the best way to teach both adults and kids in my experience. I am also glad to see that you have taken the next step and organized your training material into Schoology where teachers can enroll in your course and learn how to use the system using a ramp-up method for complexity of task. It is unfortunate that you were not able to get more staff participation and I believe that if you pushed harder to get the staff the PD (professional development) points that you would have a higher number of participants. Also, I would encourage you to think about expanding your scope to either your entire district or even start a YouTube channel. What you have is good and can be used for the benefit of anyone with a SRS system.
Virginia Holm says: David, you can tell that this was a project that you felt strongly about. Your research and re-evaluation show that you took to heart what created problems for teachers in successfully using the SRS. Your final comments about frequent practice of learning new tools really says it all. Too often we are introduced to new methods and technology that leave us excited only to lose interest due to lack of time and commitment.
I think the success in the video versus the live presentation and Schoology is that it allows teachers to learn at their own pace and convenience. Attending training sessions is part of the job, but often leads to resentment due to time taken away for the classroom, paperwork and student follow-up. I am glad you found success in that most teachers plan to use Promethean again. Do you plan to follow up somehow with the ones that have said they would use it?
Your presentation overall was positive and clear. Your PowerPoint laid out well and easy to read. It highlighted points that you further discussed in your presentation. On the Student Response Systems page however, I would flow the sentence under the bullet and out of the graphic. It could be difficult to read from the back of the room.
Dennis Woodward says: I love the enthusiasm you have for integrating technology not only in your school but also in your spearheading efforts to have your entire school district adopt student response systems. Your well though out plan has proven that you will achieve this goal.
Students love handheld games, phones, music players and all kind of other gadgets at their disposal. The SRS clickers are just a natural way to engage today’s students. I can picture the kids in your class hanging on every word of your lecture waiting for the next prompt so they can enter the correct answer with the clicker. What an brilliant way of keeping the students focused!
Not only do I hope that your enthusiasm is contagious, but I hope that when you present at VTEA, you get many more people sign up for your canned clicker course that you created in Schoology. This is a valuable resource that teachers will be able to rely on when they hopefully decide to ask their administration for an SRS for their classroom.
Your passion for the Promethean system warrants some dialog between you and Promethean itself. Teachers who get this fired up over a product need to spread the word. Promethean may be able to fuel your fire as you obviously love the product and great ideas of how to use it. Teachers love learning from teachers who can tell them real classroom scenarios.
Michael Hood says: David your research reinforces a lot of what I found, specifically resistance of teachers to learn a new way of doing things. I know in my district there was a program to introduce “clickers” into the classroom. This was before the introduction of smartboards in every classroom, and the procedure to get them for use in the classroom involved scheduling, checking out the equipment, modifying the program for your specific application, using it and then returning it to repeat the process the next time.
You’ve nailed the requirements for really effective use. Classroom sets that stay with the teacher, the proper programs and time to develop the skills necessary to use it easily. With these requirements in place, even the most reluctant teachers would come to the realization that this is a great tool to increase student engagement.
Keep up the good work, I think you are on the right track and I think that as more teachers adopt this technology and it continues to improve, that this will be a tool that teachers grow to see as an indispensable part of classroom practices.
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