What I have learned so far.....Week 5 EDLd 5352

Sometimes I cannot believe how much I have learned so far in these Master Classes.  The feeling of accomplishment is so good at times that it scares me.  My fear of technology had kept me from learning for myself for so long that I did not know if I would be able to catch up.  Just this right here, Blogging, I could not see myself doing.  I can now do it and see how it could be beneficial in my life and career.  The ability to communicate to others all over the world is at our fingertips, but only if you know how to use the tools.  I know I still have much to learn but I feel I am into the journey and the road is not as rocky as I had thought it would be.
One of the best tools I learned about was the use of Google Docs, I feel this could be used by teachers to work on projects, lesson plans, parent information, the list is endless.  Administrators could use this tool with other administrators, their teachers,  and parents.  The ability to collaborate on a document at the same time is incredible and could be a huge benefit to team work.  But the advantage of working at separate times on the same document is also a huge benefit for those who have different schedules.  Students could use this for group projects, just like we did and the teacher would be able to see who did what using the different colors, just as we did.
The flip classroom was something new that I learned and can really see the benefit to this concept.  To have the time in the classroom to work with students and not have the lecture the whole time would be a bonus in actual teacher working with student time.  The use of technology has made this technique possible. 
Other tools I have learned about are Twitter, Youtube, Wiki, Educlipper, wetpaint.com and many others.  These Web tools can be used for collaboration, by teachers and students.  The Internet offers teachers and students a great tool to explore, find, share and contribute to educational content.  By using these tools educators and students can find, share and create the best educational content on the web.  The list is endless as to where you want to go and what you want to learn.  I feel I have made a huge leap in the right direction of better use of technology.
In the last class I was in we had to update our logs for Course Embedded hours and Campus Supervised hours and I was amazed at how many hours I have already logged.  The year has gone by so fast and I remember in the beginning that I was afraid that I could not find 150 hours at my campus to log.  Well much to my surprise I have surpassed that mark and even gone over.  I see now how I have let fear control parts of my life and kept me from accomplishing my dreams.  Has some of this been hard?  Yes but I have pushed through I have got out of my comfort zone and realized I am not as dumb as I thought it was.  I will not lie though I am ready to finish with my classes and move on to the next step in my career.  I am looking forward to the future in administration and will savory this hopefully last year in the classroom.

"The Plan"

Action Planning Template
Goal: Improve Communication to teachers and parents.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Survey teachers on what forms of communication are most preferred to receive information from administration.	Myself	11-5-12/11-12-12	Survey Monkey	Data received from survey
Survey parents on what forms of communication they most prefer to receive information from the school.	Myself	11-12-12/11-19-12	Survey Monkey	Data received from survey
Propose changes to principal where needed to improve communication to all groups	Myself, Mrs. McBride	11-19-12/ unknown	Data from surveys	Do all groups feel more informed?

Week 2 what I have learned.

I have learned that I have always been an action research kind of person and just didn't know it.  I have always like to look at how we could make things run better, be better or fix an issue but I just didn't know it was called action research.  Really I just thought it was common sense and trying to make things work better.  I have learned that there are better approaches to figuring out how to fix or gain the knowledge  on how to fix the problem or issue.  Some issues have a cut and dry outcome, while others may have some grey area and these differences my cause some difficulty is reaching information or the outcome desired.  I have learned that I have so much to learn. :)

How educational leaders can use blogs

Educational leaders could use blogs to share their ideas and also seek solutions to issues they are having at their school.  They could also share with parents ideas and insights of how to better help their students deal with anything from homework to social issues.  Communication between teachers and administrators, district to district, the uses of blogs are endless.

What I have Learned of Action Research

As educators we are continually striving to teach our students how to be problem solvers, yet we sometimes do not give them a good example of what one looks like.  Life is always full of roadblocks and issues that try and keep us from reaching our goals, but if we are wise we try and figure out ways to overcome those roadblocks.  Action research is just a deliberate way of addressing the problem or issue and seek ways of improving or solving the problem.  It is using the resources that are available on a campus or school district, the resources being people, data, equipment or time.  To often administrators isolate their self with issues that are a problem for fear that it will be a bad reflection on their leadership abilities.  When we get to the place were we can be comfortable as seeing our self as a lifetime learner and that we do not know everything, growth is possible.  Our goal in life should be to learn as much as possible and to show that example to our students and college's.  Always giving the example of "Do as I do, as well as I say" and to "practice what we preach".  We teach problem solving skills in math and reading but they can be applied to all areas of life.  Action research is basically looking at the facts and wondering how we can adjust, tweak or completely change things to produce the outcome that we desire. The education field offers many opportunities to use action research because it always changing with new technology, budget constrants, new and harder testing requirements. As an administrator we would hope that one day all problems would be fixed, but as real people we know that  will never happen.