My Final Reflection

Project:  This summer, I created a Wiki to use as a course management system.  I have one Wiki for all of my classes, but I have only really worked on my first semester courses.  While the project is really centered around "learning environments," building my curriculum for new courses focused on exercising my "digital backpack."  Outside of the general content that I have posted, I think the coolest part of my digital backpack will be student Evernotes.  I'm excited to create and share student notebooks for assignments.  I think this will fix a lot of issues with email overload and student responsibility.  I guess we'll see.  It's always an experiment.

Goal Achievement:  I did not accomplish all of my goals, but I did complete a Wiki and begin developing some cool PBL content.  My goals were really focused on the content that I had been covering for three years.  Because of my change to the high school, much of my development centered around creating online curriculum for my classes.  In summary, I'm pretty content with my project.

Influence:  Duane influenced a lot of my work.  We were able to really discuss and improve projects for each other.

Feedback:  Lisette's postings about quad blogging really helped confirm my desire to implement it into my class.

Wiki Effect:  I think viewing student use of the Wiki will help determine if it is aiding in their learning.  Basically, if it is cumbersome and confusing, I will make the changes to help facilitate student learning.

Starting Over:  I think I would continue making my Wiki the way it is.  So far, I'm pretty content with its design and content.

Better than Before:  I won't really know if this is better than before...because everything is new.  I could have my Physical Science students compare things to last year's format, though...that would probably provide some useful feedback in terms of fluid design.

Colleague Support:  I would like to look at common EL assessments to compare project implementation in the classroom.  But, I can also use the help of other teachers to give better/new ideas for things that clearly aren't working.

Engage in Professional Growth and Leadership

My professional growth for the summer really revolved around this class.  In addition to the class, I use Twitter, teachers and online resources to learn new content and creation ideas.  Having the class was nice, to keep me on my toes and cultivate development over the course of the summer. 

In terms of leadership, I think that will continue into the school year.  I hope to engage in valuable PLCs to look at how we collect and interpret student data.  All too often, kids take a test and we move on.  I'm hoping to incorporate more tests and quizzes (online of course) into my content, but to use these as mile markers, allowing me to judge student growth from the PBL activities that I have provided.  Basically, I'm using the ELs to formulate online tests and quizzes, assigning PBL projects, and looking at how the projects actually compliment the ELs.  Are there missing gaps?  Are students learning the ELs?  Then, I hope to share these strategies with others. 

Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility

This is a tough standard to simplify into a blog post, mainly because it is ongoing and difficult to pinpoint into one activity.  I would say, this summer, that I have "modeled" this by being involved in this class.  I have been able to use and experience a variety of tools for expressing my own thoughts, and discussing the thoughts of others.  If I was to describe this with one event related to students, it would probably be quad blogging.

I signed up for a quad blogging group at the start of the summer, and have done some reading and research on its benefits.  Primarily, I'm excited for a more genuine, less contrived, blogging experience.  It's pretty cool to write and post your ideas on the web for people to peruse.  It's really cool to have students discuss these ideas on blogs or in a Facebook group.  But, it's ridiculously cool to have students discussing their thoughts and ideas with people from all over the world....and truthfully, that is what blogging is really about. 

I also plan to use my blog and their blogs for my own comment and discussion posts.  I think I've lost that connection with blogging in the past.  It's nice to see a post from your friend and classmate, but it's pretty cool to see a personalized post from your teacher.  Posting on their blog also allows a great avenue for modeling proper discussions...so that students keep from writing posts like, "cool!"  Instead, taking more time to describe what is cool, why it's cool and what they don't understand or agree with.

Finally, I have a poster activity that allows students to model online discussions.  I have students create a poster from a lab report.  Then, they view each poster and write sticky note comments about their thoughts.  I found that this was a fun way to introduce digital citizenship in online discussions at the beginning of the year.  It also allowed me the time to walk around and discuss sticky notes that lacked content.

5 Moments of Beauty: Modeling digital-age work and learning

I have spent time building my Wiki over the course of this summer. I see this as a concrete place to communicate about curriculum and materials with students. While I can change and update my teaching, it can be a solid point of focus that carries on from year to year. I have also created blogs for each of my classes. I intend to use these blogs for personal reflection and discussion with students. I see this as achieving the NETS standard, Model Digital-Age Work and Learning. I use a personal blog to discuss my experiences with racing, etc.  But, I intend to use my class blogs to reflect on student achievement and effort on assignments, as well as what works and what doesn't.  I think reflecting on my teaching is an important model for students, to show them that in the "real world" people need to evaluate the job that they are doing.  After all, I intend for students to reflect on their learning using their personal blogs.

I also intend to model an assignment for Environmental Science on my personal blog.  I was inspired while completing my first solo ascent of a 13er.  I did some Google Earth research on the map, before starting my journey, and I virtually hiked the trial before my trip.  I took a few pictures of the most beautiful moments, and figured that I would blog about it...since that fits into the scope of my personal blog.  On the descent, I thought that would be a great Environmental Science project, after introducing John Muir's vision of the Forest Service.  I figured that I would record my virtual hike on Google Earth, posting that to my blog with a description of my experience, including pictures of moments of beauty.  I intend to show this entry to my students, and have them complete the same assignment...creating a virtual hike or field trip for others.  This, hopefully, can become a quad blogging project, thus being shared with people in other parts of the globe.  This, to me, is a genuine example of modeling digital-age work and learning.