Goal+6+Learning+Community+-+Tracie

Goal Six: Learning Community


Tracie Weisz EDET698 Portfolio Goal Six: Learning Community

One of the goals of the Alaska Toolkit is that more teachers will have the opportunity to become more comfortable and more proficient with technology integration. The hope is that as teachers build comfort levels and familiarity with technologies, they will be more inclined to take more risks and try new things in their classrooms. It is also our hope that as teachers continue this development, it will have several transformative effects on practice as they begin to see how teaching and learning transforms in their own classrooms.

A teacher who is a novice with technology should notice immediately that student engagement increases when educational technologies are integrated into instruction. Creating engaging and meaningful ways to learn content and skills is a magic bullet that most teachers spend a lot of thought and effort to include, and it becomes obvious immediately that technology is integral to that engagement. Teachers who can see this firsthand after using the assistance of the Toolkit should be motivated to dive deeper into the tools.

Another transformation that teachers notice after they begin to integrate technology is the ability to be able to individualize and personalize instruction for their students. It becomes much easier to manage varying readiness and ability levels within the larger group. It also makes it much easier for students to pursue content based on what aspects are of interest to them (which leads to more engagement). Use of technology enables authentic and purposeful collaboration to happen naturally When a teacher realizes through observation and assessment that not only has initial engagement increased, but students' ability to pursue their learning in their own way (and speed), and to collaborate with others is enabled easily through technology, it becomes a motivator to continue.

With continued trial and experience, a teacher begins to collect a repertoire of management strategies, instructional strategies, and student experiences. These are essentially what will be the motivators for transformation of their classroom. Teachers who begin to experience the transformations of their students in this new learning environment find themselves less focused on the group as a whole, and more focused on each individual student. There becomes more of a willingness to allow students to express themselves, their learning, and their interests through project-based learning, and to allow students to work in collaborative groups of their choosing. The environment of the classroom begins to change to reflect a space that is supported and safe, yet free for meaningful exploration. This tends to also be reflected physically, in a more flexible layout scheme which allows students freedom of movement for collaboration and self-paced project work.

Classrooms like this become models of transformative learning within their schools. A teacher who has opened themselves up to the possibility of a more open classroom through the possibilities of technology also opens themselves up to more opportunities for professional collaborations.

Those of us who have experienced the transformative power of technology integration in our classrooms know that this is what happens. The Alaska Toolkit has the potential to bring that possibility to more teachers by meeting them at their readiness level with tools and strategies aligned to the standards that are already proven to be effective in classrooms. This supported building of resources can help teachers to grow these types of classrooms.

__**ARTIFACTS**__ Click here for my paper on media literacy in classrooms as a means to build communication skills, creativity, self-efficacy, and to challenge learners from EDET 673 - Ethics in Educational Technology. Building media literacy is an obvious byproduct of the Alaska Toolkit, and this paper discusses the importance of integrating the teaching of these skills (for both teachers and students).

Click here for my paper which discusses elements of digital citizenship in classrooms and schools from EDET 673 - Ethics in Educational Technology. These concepts are a part of many of the performance assessments found in the Alaska Toolkit. Many collaborative activities and strategies, and those that involve working on collaborative platforms have these concepts incorporated in.

Download my post on PLC's from EDET 670 - Planning for Educational Technology, in which I discuss the importance of PLC's and how teachers can begin to engage in professional learning through focused collaborative groups. . It is our hope that the use of the Alaska Toolkit can serve as a catalyst for professional discussions and planning with PLC's.

Click here for my post on PLN's and MOOCs, in which I explain how I have used technology to build my own personal learning network, and how I (and other teachers) could move this forward through participation in a massive open online course.

In the video below, I explain how I use the cloud in my classroom for classroom management and to support independent learning for my students. Teachers who become proficient users with the help of the Alaska Toolkit are encouraged through the tools and supports to move toward this type of blended learning classroom management model. media type="custom" key="25584686"

Click here for a link to a workshop I presented for ASDN in the spring of 2012. Although this was not a part of my graduate work, I believe it is a good representation of my thoughts and work with building effective classroom environments with technology. The link includes a slideshow and the script of my presentation, titled "Fostering Collaborative Classrooms". Many of the specific ideas presented here are also found as resources in the Alaska Toolkit.

Click here for a link to a presentation I did at ASTE in the spring of 2013, titled "Blended Learning Anywhere". Although not part of my graduate work, it contains essential ideas and practices I have developed for classroom management that address differentiation, autonomy, and assessments. This was shared with approximately sixty educators in attendance at my session. Many of the specific ideas presented here are also found as resources in the Alaska Toolkit.

Click here for a link to a post I wrote for EDET 673 Differentiating Instruction Through Technology in which I describe how I use programming and gaming in my classroom to promote engagement, and authentic collaboration and self-assessment. Some resources for gaming and programming are found in the advanced user strands of the Alaska Toolkit.