Harelson

At this point I am trying to just increase technology involvement. I went to our PTO and student council to try and get funding for a SMARTboard for one of our computer labs. Both agreed to help with funding, however, it is a slow process. We ordered two boards at the beginning of the year and they are still not installed. I went to the last technology committee meeting (I'm on leadership committee and another teacher runs the tech committee) and we decided to set some ground rules for getting a SMARTboard. We also set some new rules for the new computer lab. In the past only 5th and 6th grade teachers had their students sign on to the server in the labs. Now we are requiring all students 1st through 6th to use their account. I have started making note cards with all the kids user name and id which will be placed in the lab by grade level/teacher. We also ran technology standards and are putting them in a book to leave in the lab. There will be a sign in sheet for teachers to highlight what standard they are teaching and a "share" space to state what they did. (This is not created yet...time.) I did set up share files with the fourth and sixth grade. They were the only two that wanted them. My scheduled meeting to present Essential Smart tools was revised last minute....Andy changed it to an all curriculum mapping day....so I invited interested teachers to come to an informal presentation. Only two people showed up....Tina Edgin and Susie Herman, both 6th grade.
 * 1st Semester Report

2nd Semester This semester went by so quickly, but I felt like Harelson made some strides. //Implementing your Technology Professional Development Plan//** Did I accomplish my goal? Yes and no. After trying to get everyone together formally, I asked Andy if I could just take the last 20-30 minutes of a couple of staff meetings. The first one was to show all of the teachers how they could use SMART Board lessons in the computer lab even though we don't have SB. With my group, I developed a Harelson Delicious account and added many sites with SMART lessons as well as 21st Century skill based lessons. I identified each per grade level. The second meeting I took the teachers through the process of IDEAL and showed them how to use Thinkfinity. There were three teachers that later asked for more individualized help. That was exciting. So, although, I did not meet my goal....I made gains. Impact?? It was mixed. I definitely made an impact with some teachers and with more support next year, I think we have several teachers on board for more learning. The modeling and examples of what is being done in classrooms in our district is so powerful, especially to those "on the fence" teachers.

//Building Capacity?// - I haven't been as successful as I hoped. We do have four grade levels using share folders...and one is a primary grade. Yippee!! Although I have had teachers using the Delicious account, and the majority of teachers are using their IDEAL accounts now to access United Streaming. We talked about getting a sign in book for the lab to share lessons in the last technology committee meeting....but that never happened. I only went to one technology committee meeting, because I am also on the leadership committee and they often met at the same time. As for Harelson's technology use...Okay...I'm chaning my answer. After comparing this years use to last year I am pleasantly surprised. Only a few more teachers are having their students use the computer for word processing or to produce products, quite a few moved from once a moth to 2-4 times and weekly. Somewhat confusing was the change in demonstrating ethical behavior in the use of technology. Last year we had 17 doing it weekly and we're now down to 10. This could be due to a better understanding of what those standards look like and that this has to be taught. We went from showing ethical behavior daily - 4 people last year to about 6 this year. Inspiration/concept mapping went down significantly, which is very surprising considering the program runs much smoother this year since we have our new lab. Last year it was very difficult using that program. A very low score in using telecommunications wasn't surprising since the school doesn't use this type of communicaiton. We still have our daily announcements copied and sent back to the class with our attendance runner. I'm not sure how many teachers know what a blog or wikki is. One area that came down was the use of technology for problem solving. Again, due to a better awareness of 21st Century Skills...(problem solving, real world problems, collaboration...) maybe that contributed to the shift in teachers thinking. We also lost two teachers who were experts and used technology with there students weekly in all of these areas. Overall, I am pleased with the peaked interest and willingness to try new things by some of the verteran teachers. It was wonderful working with a few new teachers as well.....they are so willing and open minded.

21st Century Skills My class - *First off, I started the year with a mini unit that taught children all about Bloom's Taxonomy and we used this information in all subject matters. I would often ask kids..."what level of thinking is......." "Can you come up with a higher level thinking questions that......"

To be honest, I don't know what the strengths are at Harelson with 21st Century Skills. When we had our inservice there was a bit of confusing with a few teachers thinking this is one more thing we have to do. The idea that this is a shift in the way we teach, practice and evaluate our students wasn't grasped completely. At the same time, through many of the clubs and activities so many classes are involved in I think there is a lot of these skills already being used. That is one thing that makes Harelson so special in my opinion.
 * In addition, this year I have used 3 different webquests which incorporate 21st Century Skills. I did not measure the collaboration or process, however, I did use the rubric sent to us last month for my last lesson where the kids were solving problems in groups for a lesson on bias. (not easy)
 * We are in the process of finishing up Monster Exchange and downloading the pictures...not higher level thinking, but the kids are learning how to send their stories through email or saving them to a disc.
 * They are also learning how to download pictures onto their computer. All year we have been working on literary terms such as personification, similes, hyperboles, etc. Each student picked a literary term and made a Notebook presentation to teach the class. The had to have a slide with two definitions....the dictionary and a kid definition. The next slide gave examples from our reading and writing from the year. Next, a practice page using the Beta Tools was created for the class. The last assigned slide had to show how or why this Literary term helps us as readers or writers. Most kids made an "ending" page...they loved the hang man kind of page.

Evaluating Effectiveness Impact on student achievement.... We cluster for REACH and Spec. Ed. I have the Spec. Ed class. This particular class I have two students identified on the autistic spectrum, one student who squeeked in...his IQ scores were very, very low and four other students who have difficulty with the comprehension and especially the higher level thinking. It was very, very challenging. I teach science to the REACH class and my class. I often questioned my effectiveness. I felt so much more successful with that higher class, but I kept up with my class. Surprisingly, I had many of my students make great gains on the reading MAP test. I haven't haven't tested them in writing, but feel most kids made at least a year's growth.
 * I have more boys than girls and they are definitely interpersonal learners. I learned quickly that collaboration, was needed in every lesson. I had to be creative in how I used their talking for learning.
 * Mid way through the year it was apparent that our 5th grade needed to do something different in writing, because we were not meeting the needs of individual writers. So, we grouped the kids and switched classes twice a week. Our resource teacher took about 9 kids and the the three teachers split the rest of the kids. We based the classes on data from writing samples and language usage. I think it was so successful...especially for those high kids.
 * My spelling program is completely individualized.
 * Science is so hands on that differentiation was as simple as giving some kids word lists for tests and study guides and providing notes for some students. I would take my Notebook presentation and delete key words so that the students would have to fill in some blanks. But they did not have to worry about writing so many notes. I did encourage them to rewrite the notes and in parenthesis make a connection to their learning. (What would help them to remember this skill...word...etc.)

Specific indicators of success.... Thank you's, comments like.."I am so excited..", "That wasn't so bad..", were indicators to me. Teachers asking for help, responding to emails and signing up for classes were positives to me. The fact that our second grade, fourth, fifth and sixth grade are using share files and those same grade levels plus kinder are using and adding to the Delicious account. One third grade teacher, who I thought was one of the hardest sells is going part time next year with an enthusiastic teacher said to me that she is excited about learning new strategies and ways of teaching. She wants to become more proficient in new learning areas. It was the best moment for me...the fact that she feels that way and wanted to share it with me. As for my kids...I ask the kids to make some reflections at the end of the year much like this. I am anxious to see how they feel about their learning. I know many students are very proud of their growth with the testing. The only comment that comes to mind was when one student thanked me for having a homework club. He said, "I don't know what I would do if you didn't do that for us." It is just a time for students to work in my room quietly after school. Hopefully I will have more evidence after their reflections.