Michael C. Warren

As part of our ongoing effort to get users to be more involved with information to their web pages, and because our web hosting service was changing to an Internet Provider only service we decided to switch our web hosting to eChalk. This was approved by School Board last month, and transition to the new service started this month.  We began talking about images for a head banner, and also a design for district branding, which had not been done before.  Scheduled date for training the trainers is for early August.

This week I have really been able to break down my key project. I truly wish that this course would have been the second or third course in my masters instead of my 2nd to last as it would have been very useful to know much of the research based process going through my internship.  However my project to implement a web based staff development program will be able to be implemented by September. I believe I can have a full study by the time I am done with my internship and hope that I will have implemented a successful solution to web based staff development for our school. If we can be successful with online staff development, I also hope that in the long-run we can implement more web based curriculum for students.

Action Research Project

Process Overview

Web Based Staff Development

How does the process of web based online staff development help teachers continue to learn and grow, and in what role can the technology leaders play a role in facilitating this process.

GOAL: Implements and test the use of online based staff development

1. SETTING THE FOUNDATION – With the new implementation of eChalk, a web hosting solution, the idea of expanding staff development to include alternative options than staff meetings should be considered.  This can increase staff development and include alternative and open scheduled training instead of mandatory in person staff meetings in which all teachers are unable to attend.
2. ANALYZING DATA – Using Internet based research, observations, interviews with individuals from other districts I hope to find and implement best practice ideas for staff development from a web interface.
3. DEVELOPING DEEPER UNDERSTANDING – During this process I will interview individuals taking part in the initial testing process and individuals from other districts who use online staff development options.  In addition I will research online schools and topics covering online staff development.
4. ENGAGE IN SELF_REFLECTION – Based on interviews, research and observation I will take time to reflect on the benefits and disadvantages of web based staff development and look at possible changes that might need to be added to the project.  Possible questions for reflection might be:
   1. Do we have all the available resources with eChalk to do an online staff development system?
   2. Will there be enough of a benefit to a majority of the staff and administration to have an online option for staff development.
   3. Can the administration successfully complete training documentation or will other staff have to create the training documentation.
5. EXPLORING PROGRAMMATIC PATTERNS – Throughout the project I will continue to interview individuals who are involved in the project to gain an understanding of problems that may arise and what possible solutions could be put into place.
6. DETERMINING DIRECTION – The Project will begin after August 5^th, once eChalk is put into place. This will enable me to create a training program to have ready by mid August that will allow me to train administration and staff to use the new site, and to offer a training course for administration to create a staff development lesson for the teachers to access. I will assist administration in their creating their staff training information and work with teachers to help them use what content was created.  Interviews will take place throughout the project.  A final open discuss will be used to help decide the continuation of a staff development process like this.
7. TAKING ACTION FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT – Those involved in the project will be part of the committee to help develop online staff development for the school. After the initial testing with the group a larger or school wide group may be tested. Those on the committee will work with individuals and observe how the concept takes place.  Meeting every 3 months we will discuss observation and go over notes that we share via online groups that are developed in the new web system.
8. SUSTAIN IMPROVEMENT – Upon conclusion of the project, information will be shared with staff and administrators on the results of how the training system was put into place. Such information may include number of online staff training documents accessed, videos available and watched, and quizzes taken.

During Week two I have decided that I will narrow my focus down a bit more from just implementing a better website that will improve student, staff and community involvement. I am going to focus on an initial effort that I believe I can achieve before completing my master in December. We have already decided to with eChalk and we are in the initial stages of putting our new service in place. Training on the new system will be on August 4th and 5th. With this new system in place I want to help administration provide alternatives to staff development that is more than just attending staff meetings every month or two. My action research project is to answer the following question:

How does the process of web based online staff development help teachers continue to learn and grow, and in what role can the technology leaders play a role in facilitating this process.

Administrator and school officials can use both public and secured blogs to help share their reflections regarding action research. By using blogs ideas can be shared, thoughts can be logged, and eventually reviewed for reflection. Multiple individuals can supply input to the same blog and feedback can be given.

Action research or administrator inquiry is a systematic approach to reviewing data, recognizing a problem, implementing a change based on research, and reflecting on the change that has been made. It is a way for those affected by the problem to be involved and responsible in the changes that are implemented. While it may be easy to see a problem and buy a solution it is harder and more involved to be part of the researching and implementing the solution. By being part of the research you take responsibility on the implementation, you interact with those who are affected and you bond with those who are involved. The problem and solution becomes part of you.
At Maypearl ISD we have been hosting and running our own web site for the past 3 years. While a simplistic HTML template based site, it has grown to over 300 pages and consists of all forms of media. This year our Internet Service Provider stated they would no longer provide e-mail or web hosting, but only provide Internet connection services. This has placed us in a bind in which we have had to research new forms of hosting for our web page and e-mail. Using Action research we will work to migrate from our current hosting service to an improved solution to provide additional learning tools for our district.

EDLD_5301_Week01_Assignment

June was a month in which I focused some attention on personal needs. I did not do much in terms of focusing on projects this month. I will be dedicating July and August back to school based projects that will include developing and creating training sessions for our new Content Management System eChalk so that teachers may began to use it during the new school year as both a way to inform parents and utilize the tools as a training system. In addition I will be working with other departments to use the same technology for staff development resources.

May was a slow month, yet a busy month. It was slow in the sense that I did not get as much as I wanted to do with my filed projects only because I was finishing up with finals at Navarro College and finishing projects with students at Maypearl ISD. The work that was done this month was researching and attending meetings in regards to a new web hosting service. It appears that after years of hosting our website through our Internet Service Provider, the provider has decided to just focus on internet access. This has put us into a quick research and review of some alternative hosting services. We researched two options that included eChalk and School Fusion. While both had their merits, they key is that we want web hosting, email, a basic learning management system, and storage for students. For me, School Fusion was a “shinier” product, but it lacked an email solution.

The last I heard the district was looking into the pricing of eChalk and how that pricing may go if we purchase their complete package. As the current web developer, I am excited about moving to a content management system because it will be managed by an outside organization, leaving more free time for our technology department to focus on other issues. In addition it will be database driven allowing for better control of the structure and layout. Additional features will also be added that are beyond my current scope, and will allow me to return my focus to teaching courses.

When educators really begin to consider online learning they may have many doubts that it is a reliable form of education. In many instances this is a case of teachers who have not experienced an online learning system.  Over time more and more teachers will at some point be involved in an online learning environment, either as a student or as an instructor.  I feel that once involved in online learning and understanding how to develop an online course they will understand many of the benefits it has to offer.  I believe they will see that once the course is created it is easy to reuse it over and over and make modifications to it as time goes on. In addition multiple teachers can add to the same course, allowing a broader educational experience for the student.  If online learning systems continue to progress, more and more information will be integrated, such as email, TEKS information, lessons from other educators from around the world, and an increased ability for parents, students, and educators to increase communication.

The online course that I developed for the Instructional Design course using the online learning system Schoology will be utilized at the beginning part of my Web Mastering course next year.  Since our school is currently in the process of moving from a large static web site to a content management based system that will also in some ways act as our learning management system, I will be looking at how I can introduce it into that system or keep it with Schoology or even integrate it into a product I use from my own server called Moodle.  In any case I will be integrating online learning in more depth in the 2010-2011 school year.

As part of my action plan I will be rewriting my curriculum for my technology application courses and will be moving much of it to one of these online systems. In the past I have found it is very useful because it can save me time on grading, provide a location for students to turn in work and even keep their work in a location that is hard to lose, unlike a flash drive or even paper.

My plan to Integrate online learning at our school is twofold,  I will start by converting my courses over to an online learning system over the summer.  This will integrate approximately a fourth of the school student population into using an online learning system.  Since my courses cover grades 9-12, it will offer a chance for students to have time to integrate with online learning by the type they graduate.

The second part of my plan is to begin integrating staff development through the online learning system. This will begin to require teachers to have to interact with the online learning system as well.  If our new web site / content management systems offers a built in course management system it will offer an additional incentive for our teachers to begin migrating to an online system in which I will be one of the staff that leads the staff development of the program.

As the course comes to an end, I take into consideration my experience with online learning in while I do not have any questions on the topic, because I feel it is going to be a growing development in our educational and professional environments, I do feel I have gained much more information to support my stance on how this is a growing part of the educations system. Will it take the place of formal education? No, but it will offer an opportunity for a better education for a broader range of the population; from those in our towns who can’t make it to the school, to those around the world that may not have the opportunity to good local education, or to help people expand their knowledge base from just a local environment and into a global learning environment.

My goal has been to “teach technology”, but as I progress in these courses I see that it is becoming where I want to “teach technology in order to advance others”.  Technology has long been a passion of mine, and after years of tech support, and then migrating to the field of education, I only see that this is the path I am to be on at this point in my life.  I plan to integrate what I can into our school district by opening up new forms of learning opportunities whether it be a tool that a teacher uses or a new piece a software that a student has never thought he would ever learn.

While last month I started developing my action plan, this month many things started getting put into action. I researched some topics that I thought might be of interest for teachers, such as using Google docs, Google sites, and Survey Monkey. Survey Monkey got the most interest from teachers and they have already started to find ways to use it for their classes. Our Microsoft Certification program was having some problems I worked to get things up from the last part of last month. As a contact person between our IT department and Certiport I eventually worked to help get a solution so that students could run the software over the network. The problem was our firewall, as well as restrictions on the student’s accounts. We created a new account just for the Lab use that goes around the firewall issue, and gives students more access for the application on the workstations.

Our current web hosting service that also provides our broadband connectivity has told us that they will not be offering web and mail hosting for us next year, so we are in the process of starting to look for a new hosting provider. As part of our search we have a meeting planned in May with eChalk, but I have started to research what services eChalk provides. From what I see so far they have been around for a while, and offer a number of good services. In early may we will have a teleconference and I hope it answers some of the questions I have regarding technical offerings and specific web manipulation. If we go with one of these new services I am hoping we can also use it as an online learning management solution as well. I have talked to our counselor and she is interested in offering additional staff development for things like TAKS in an online environment to help teachers make sure they do the allotted training required.