Paige and I decided to choose an Information Literacy standard that also supported our personal desires to see technology integrated into the curriculum. We felt like this is best reflected in Standard 3 and this has been our focus for the past year.
Paige and I feel like we could categorize the various responsibilities that we have into four groups. We have a responsibility to support SLMP and the initiative to develop PLCs around the new standards. We have a responsibility to our school and their focus for all staff to prepare and submit Professional Development Plans. We have a personal responsibility to grow as professionals and lastly, we have a responsibility to take care of ourselves and nurture our own creative passions.SLMP—the PLC was school-based and with the core consisting of the 2LMS + SDT. (Wikis was the foundation)—Show wiki of Paige, Ilyssa & Me and how the PLC was developed. 7:58 minutes long.School—Same. Show video of Sheri, Student and me one of our student projects. 4:25 minutes long.Personal PD—Grounded in our PDP. Also, training and conferences were focused on Web 2.0 & Professional Development. Connect to our Professional Organizations through Twitter, Facebook, Nings, Blogs…Webinars. Show my Ning to TL. Also, I am in a graduate certification, so for my internship; I used SLMP! Show book discussion…Personal Interests—Technology to connect with family & friends. We blog. Genealogy. Digital Scrapbooking. iPhone Gadgets. David Warlick talks about how blogs are personal and how they are ways for individuals to express personal beliefs with a certain amount of personality. Although I have just come to realize it recently, my genealogy blog that I started two years ago, August, started me on the path to reflection and introspection. How do I want people to perceive me, how do I want to represent myself and how can I connect to other people out there to help me grow. Passion: Paige and I chose to overlay our four responsibilities on top of a large square that touches upon all four. This square represents Passion. While I didn’t do it for professional reasons, but I would have to say it is the one thing I have done that I can point to say it was the beginning of developing my PLN and finding a passion that has grown exponentially. Quote on passion: In his book, The Element, Sir Ken Robinson says, “Finding your passion changes everything.” “The Web can do amazing things, but it can’t provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals—people just like you who have passion about something.” ~Seth Godin in Tribes“Many people are starting to realize that they work a lot and that working on stuff they believe in (and making things happen) is much more satisfying than just getting a paycheck and waiting to get fired (or die).” ~Seth Godin in Tribes
We developed this Wiki for our staff, but there is nothing on this that students couldn’t use.With each training, a new page was created. The front page is a Glogster. We always try to model what it is that we are teaching. We wanted a repository for our handouts, useful links, screen shots. It was not utilized to it’s fullest degree, but it is there and will be expanded upon next year.
Personally, Google leads the way as an application that is used by our PLC. As Will Richardson says,
Currently, Wikis are the most popular application that teachers are using with their students. No one used Animoto or PhotoPeach this year.
Wikis won out as the application that they are interested in using with students. The next category is PhotoStory, PhotoPeach & Animoto, all three quick, easy and free ways to create Digital Stories.
Definitely the voluntary training was the highlight. This was selected by half of the people taking the survey.
These are just three of the many comments we received. They show the importance of feeling safe in the learning environment, the desire to integrate technology into the curriculum and the importance of collaboration with content-alike teams. All three of these requests can be accomplished through the formation of PLCs.
To demonstrate some of the ways our teachers used their new Web 2.0 knowledge, we will share with you some of their students’ work.