Michael C. Warren

Today I had the oppertunity to work with a fellow instructor in beginning to use a document camera to help with his classroom teaching. I walked him through the process of how the computer, document camera, and projector interact and need to be connected. In addition I showed him how he can switch between document camera and projecting his computer. He has the oppertunity to project his computer in mirrored screen and extended desktop.

The teacher is excitied about using the new technologies as it will allow him to show multiple students in a more precise manner than he has in the past when trying to describe Microsoft office functions and how documents should look.

My first real attempt at doing some field projects for my Masters has not been very successful. My first tutorial was to cover Google Docs, and my second tutorial is to cover Google Sites. Both of these are geared to show teachers how they can use these tools to engage students and increase productivity.

The first tutorial I had no one show up, however the tutorial will be offered again and be placed on my classroom website.  The second tutorial has to be rescheduled because of a required TAKS training that has taken precendence.

 

Over the course of this first month after receiving information regarding what is required for the Internship I have begun to realize some things are already being set into motion. I also know there are many other things that I could place into my logs if I go back and look at what I have been doing since the beginning of this program. One of these items that have been in motion for a while is our continuing development of our web site. Since I redesigned the web site two years ago, it has continued to expand and we are offering new opportunities for teachers to create their own pages using Adobe Contribute. I have been focusing on training staff at the elementary and intermediate schools, while cohort Karen James has been offering training at the high school level. This month I provided some basic training as well as support for some issues were having with their software. In addition to helping teachers with Adobe Contribute I have put together some ideas to offer staff development training to teachers who would like to learn about Google Docs, Google Sites, and Survey Monkey and how they can be used in their classrooms.

Besides work that has already been in development I have started to work on offering students an opportunity to take the Microsoft Certified Application Specialist for Microsoft Word. This is something we are hoping to grow over the next few years by offering more and more certification options for students. This year we only have 5, but I am hoping in the future we can offer the test as part of the curriculum.

This month was pretty light as a week was spent at the TCEA conference in Austin.  There was a small amount of time in which I helped a user solve some problems with their laptop, and also helped solve some web editing problems that users were having at the Intermediate Campus.  Still can’t encourage the administration office to make their own changes to the website, so I still receive updates from them.

This month’s biggest problem occurred when we came back from Christmas holiday to find out that our hosting provider moved servers on us. None of our Adobe Contribute keys functioned so they had to be reissued for ever user in the district.  There were certain items missing from the web site that had been placed within the past two month.  Because of this I had to find out the new connection information, working with the provider to set up ftp.maypearlisd.org instead of an IP address so that if further server changes ever occurred, it would not disrupt our process, and keys would not have to be made again.  I am still having issues with administration not wanting to post their own work and the current scenario is that I am still updating certain non-teacher related information on the Secondary campus site.  If we could focus attention for some of the staff to learn the new system it would be much more efficient for me during the time I teach.  I did spend some time helping the IT department troubleshoot a failed hard drive. During this time I researched the error code and contacted the manufacturer to see if there was an alternative to replacing the drive. In essence checking for a system check.

With the Holiday this month was a little slower than the past months. I spent some time making changes to the web site, as well as help Ms. Day, our principle, begin working with contribute.  With the permission of Ms. Day I began testing the concept of using FaceBook and Twitter to get information to students about their classes that I teach. Initially the idea went well with students when I mentioned it to them, but the overall interest amounted to about 4 students following my class, with another 4 students who already graduated observing as well.

http://bookbuilder.cast.org/view.php?op=view&book=22207&page=1
The Book builder tool was pretty cool. I liked that it showed the way for what to do. I don’t know if all students will use the coaches but I think they are an a unique tool.  I found that there a few times when the application would not save some of my data. I would have to attempt several times to save information specifically with the use of the coaches. I think it is a nice tool because it will read the text for the students, it allows for audio to be added that might relate to the book. It may also help with keeping students interested because of the characters.

As part of my assignment for week 3 of EDLD 5364 I had to use the CAST Lesson Builder to create a lesson that allows for universal learning. My experience with the site was very disappointing. The information about Universal Design for Learning that they provided on their web site was limited and somewhat difficult to take in. While I understand they are trying to provide multiple ways for people to learn, the site could have been organized a little better. The lesson planning tool for me was not very helpful. It seemed as if they were simply providing a basic template. Maybe because I was not developing a lesson in a core curriculum. When I choose to create my lesson plan, all it gave me was a blank template. Each section did provide a little help box. I have used other sites that provide a little more assistance with developing a lesson plan.

Additions were made early on to the district website, including adding video for the first time to our home page.  This month I provided training to the Intermediate campus in order to get them setting up their own web pages.  As part of their training I set up their website folders and sent Adobe Contribute keys.  I set up the pages for the cross country team.