Techie by Nature

          Whether in person or online, professional development has to take place. How do we promote engagement with learners? When considering the instructional design process, one must consider their learners first. It is important to determine WHO you will be teaching and then move into WHAT you’ll be teaching. After determining your WHO and WHAT , we then move on to the HOW . The HOW is where a training can be made or broken.  According to The Essentials of Instructional Design: Connecting Fundamental Principles with Process and Practice, “the content and instructional activities used to convey that content can be organized into a curriculum” (Brown & Green, 2020). Once we have established the content of the curriculum, presenters can then organize instructional activities for the participants.  There are many tools available to presenters when it comes to delivering content. Two tools that I have found to be the most effective and bene...

               While taking ED 677, we were tasked with creating and maintaining a Twitter account to expand our professional learning community. This helped us to engage with and build a community of likeminded professionals that we could use to help better our understanding of using social media as professional development.       Early on in the course, we were asked to create an annotated bibliography for a topic that we were assigned. My topic was “Social Media as Professional Development”. There was so much that I wanted to say regarding this topic, but found that the research regarding the platforms that I wanted to explore does not exist yet. For example, I wanted to explore the impact that TikTok has had on educational professional development, but was unable to find any sort of articles or research pertaining to the platform. I believe that this is because the platform is still developing and not much research has...

According to Standard 3 of the Alabama Educator Code of Ethics , it states that an educator must abide with local, state, and federal mandates. When completing the SchoolSims simulation Social Media: Integrity in Community , I couldn’t help but see this scenario as a very real possibility for school administrators. According to Digital Leadership: Changing Paradigms for Changing Times , “ It is apparent that the majority of our students, stakeholders, teachers, and administrators are engaged in online spaces and have ample means to access the internet. Within this space, they are creating, communicating, collaborating, and discussing. This is occurring on and across a variety of sites and through the use of both mainstream and emerging tools” (Sheninger, 2019).  While I   completed the simulation, I looked at it with a dual lens, one of an administrator and one as a student’s parent. As the administrator during this simulation, you are tasked with making tough choices concern...

When it comes to choosing the right tech for your situation, it’s important to consider exactly what you want the outcome of the implementation to be. According to Education Elements,  the biggest takeaway is this: "When selecting the right device for your district, assess key areas such as student population (and staff population) served, implementation challenges, and software availability before making the hardware decision. " When deciding on the proper equipment for the task, this can be summarized as considering the “who, what, and how” of device implementation. Firstly, administrators need to consider WHO will b e u s ing the technology. This is very important to consider because the “who” determines how you will roll out the equipment. For example, if the district is buying newer, more sustainable laptops for teachers and staff, their professional development will consist of care, use, and instructional implementation.  If the new tech roll out is for students, a tech...

  When IT professionals begin to create a successful educational tech plan, they must take into consideration many different philosophies, steps, and procedures when beginning to create it. According to The Technology Coordinator’s Handbook , there are approximately five key points to think about when it comes to an educational technology plan.  1. Vision Creation and Stakeholder Input     In order to captain a ship, you need a map. Creating an effective technology plan is no different. You need a vision of where you want to go with your technology. To help ascertain the direction, ask for input from pertinent stakeholders. What technology do teachers, administrators, and other staff need to be successful? What types of technology are available? These are all driving questions that help to establish a quality technology plan.  2. Gather Data and Review Research     When creating an effective technology plan, the creator must consider what has...

Administrators play a pivotal role when implementing educational technologies. Whether it’s a new LMS (learning management system) or actual hardware, administrators need to familiarize themselves with whatever technology is being addressed. I believe that it is imperative that administrators need to know the essential functions of the tech and what best teaching practices it will help support. In order for instructional leaders to accomplish this gigantic undertaking, we must look at the most current EdTech models and learn to diffuse this information to our staff.  According to The Technology Coordinator’s Handbook, as an administrator considers the technology available, they must also consider four key factors when making a decision to implement a particular technology. These components are vision and planning, budgeting, infrastructure, and professional development/diffusion. These essential considerations help create a positive and open environment in which to implement techno...

When I began thinking about becoming a teacher, one idea that always stood out in my mind was that I wanted to give students the access and opportunities that I was afforded during my school career. I did not attend a well to do school, nor did I live in a well to do district, but rather attended a lower income school in the district. This was during the 90s, but my classmates and I were afforded and given many opportunities to excel and succeed because my teachers believed that we deserved it. I look back on my elementary education with fondness and a sense of joy because I attended a school where I knew that I was loved and cared for. When I speak to my former grade school teachers, they say that that old elementary school was an “island”. One teacher went on to explain that the administration was very supportive of teachers wanting to begin extracurricular clubs or activities and that the families, students, faculty, and staff there felt like a family.  Fast forward to 2022, and...