CEDO 599 Week 4

My site is done!  Well, at least it's done enough for my project.  I'll continue adding to it as I get more questions.  The toughest part for me was thinking of the questions to post.  I get a lot of questions on a daily basis at school but most of them are much too specific to post on the site because they would only apply to about 2 people.

I started to use Evernote to keep track of the questions I thought of so I wouldn't forget them by the time I was working on my site.

All in all, I'm happy I completed the project and I'm very glad I could find something that fit my graduate program as well as be very practical for my school.

CEDO 599 Week 3

This week I added several more videos to the site.  I used a program called ScreenFlow to make the videos.  ScreenFlow is a pretty awesome program and it has lots of bells and whistles I didn't even get into yet.  It will let you record the video from your computer screen as well as the video and audio from your webcam.  Then it lets you create picture in picture tutorials so people can see and hear you talking as well as what you're doing on the screen.  You can zoom in, highlight the cursor, blur the background, add music and transitions, etc. I highly recommend it!

CEDO 599 Week 2

This week, I added links to tutorial pages for several applications that we use at school.  I also added Google Analytics to the site to monitor the level of traffic, though I'm not totally sure that's working properly yet.  There are also a couple simple questions that I answered.  During the next week I plan to add more videos that are specific to our school and network.

CEDO 599 Week 1

My proposal for my culminating experience is to create a website for the teachers and students at my school that includes help information for our network and video tutorials answering common questions.  This website will serve as a first line of defense for technology related questions at our school.  The site will also include a form to submit questions for consideration to be added to the site so it can continue to grow as our school progresses into the future.  I also plan to include a page hit counter or Google Analytics account so I can monitor how often people are actually using the site.

Some issues I already see include making or finding the initial crop of videos and educating the teachers and students to check this page first before coming to me for their questions.

CEDO 565 Week 6

My definition of leadership wasn't really changed as a result of this class.  We talk a lot about leadership at our school as our school mission statement is to "prepare Christian LEADERS--one student at a time."

I'd never really thought about "teacher leadership" as a separate category before.  As I understand it, we are all called to be leaders in different areas of our life whether that's in our job, family, friendships, etc.  So my view of teacher leadership is similar to my leadership in my family, etc.  It's just with a different group of people.

My opinion of my leadership potential hasn't changed either.  But I will say that in the past 5 years or so I have matured quite a bit in my view of leadership and the responsibility that I have to be a leader in different situations.

I definitely agree with our textbook's assertion about "improving education from within."  The teachers have to be the ones to make change.  They have to see the value of the students entrusted to them, the effects that our current educational scheme has had on students, and how positive change can be made in that area.

CEDO 565 Week 5

This week we talked more about the Plan Do Check Act model.  While this model isn't exactly what we follow at my school, I still think there are some beneficial things to be learned from it.  Our school is so small that we probably spend the same amount of time and money to make a school wide change as other schools/districts spend just on the Plan and Do phases.  The model makes a lot of sense but it's just hard to scale down far enough to be useful for a school my size in every situation, especially for technology changes.

CEDO 565 Week 4

This week we finished up our change simulation.  It was an interesting experience.  I have a really hard time wrapping my head around how much red tape and "back and forth" is needed to make change in a public school district.  My school is pretty small so if we want to implement something the process is pretty simple.  If I want to try something in the area of technology, as long as I have money in my budget I can pretty much do it.  My administrators trust our teachers and we are in contact with our administrators and each other constantly.  So seeing all of the hoops that the simulation presents as necessary would just frustrate me.

Our homework this week asked us to look at important topics such as morale and climate in our schools.  I'm very blessed in both of these areas.  My school isn't perfect but we work together well and we support each other.