EDU772 Reflective Blog Post

As I finish my last course, EDU772: Coding II: Introduction to Robotics and Microcontrollers, to earn my Masters of Ed with a Tech Specialist Endorsement, it's nice to reflect on all of the new skills I am walking away with. Before I started this program with Dominican, I was interested in technology in education, but I only had surface level knowledge from the mindset of a math teacher. Two years later, I know how to find great tech resources, network with other technology advocates, how to ethically and legally run a technology department, as well as ideas for teaching coding and robotics courses. I was nervous about doing my grad school through an entirely online platform, but I'm happy to say I learned a lot.

One thing that I learned from EDU772 is that teaching robotics and computer science to students sounds a lot more challenging than it really is. After getting just two courses worth of exposure to coding and robotics, I feel much more confident that I could figure out how to teach a class if I spent more time planning. There is already a robotics class at my school that students take as an elective for one quarter, and I doubt they get too much more in-depth than what we covered in this course since it's only nine weeks. The key to learning and gaining confidence in robotics/programming is exposure and experience. The more you do it, things start to click, and then you can keep building your tool box from there. I feel like I've always been willing to try out technology in my classroom, and now I'm interested to see how I can incorporate programming into my math curriculum.

Given the fact that my school already has a robotics course and several robotics clubs, I feel like what I could do most to implement what I've learned in this class is to work with those robotics teachers to find ways to relate it to those students' math curriculum. There is a lot of math involved in programming, such as angles of rotation or other geometric transformations, and I'd be interested to see if the computer science teachers could sit down with the math teachers to figure out how to connect the two courses. One day this year I walked into a robotics class and they were using proportions. Students are always asking why they need to learn the math they are being taught, so it is really helpful to make these connections to other things they are interested in as much as possible. I am really fortunate to work in a STEM focused school that encourages us to get creative in incorporating STEM into our curriculum. Next year will be my second year at the school, and I'm excited to start the year with all of this new knowledge to bring into my classroom.

"Final Step: Bringing About Change"...or at least trying!

Last week we wrapped up our pilot project experience in EDU781: Technology for Leaders, and I have a lot to say about my experience. 

1. How has the process been? Most positive aspect; the most negative/challenging (if any)?

The process of trying to run my pilot was very eye-opening. This is my first year in my new school and district, and it is much larger than my old district. My old district was made up of eight schools, and I was a member of the technology department which only consisted of four school Tech Coordinators, three IT specialists, one Tech Director, and the Assistant Superintendent. When we needed to make decisions, it was a swift process and we were able to give information to teachers promptly. My new district has over 50 schools in it, and the technology department seems to be very disconnected from the day-to-day workings inside the school buildings. After receiving some positive feedback about the possibilities of piloting GoGuardian for my project, my requests to set up a trial account for the site were sent around to eight different people before I was eventually told I couldn’t do the project due to a lack of funding for the district to actually pay for GoGuardian ($300,000/year!). A positive aspect of the project was that I was able to make connections with technology leaders throughout the district, so when I do want to make changes, or eventually be a leader in my building, I will have names that I know can move the process along quickly.

2. Are you still excited about your topic and believe in its potential? 

I am still passionate about needing a tool like GoGuardian to manage student browsing in the classroom. Since I used Hapara for this at my old school, I know the value of having this ability in my classroom and the positive impacts it can have on student learning. I use technology daily in my class, and I know that a lot of students are not getting the most out of it due playing games and engaging in other off-task behaviors every time I look away.

3.  How has the pilot experience enhanced your growth as a future Technology Leader/Change Agent? 

This experience has enhanced my growth as a change agent because I’ve learned that if I’m going to request a product that will have such a large financial impact on the district, then I will need a ton of support from people in the schools, but more importantly from people making decisions. I’ve also learned that if I want to make change in my individual school, I would have a lot better luck finding a project that can be funded through grants or donations.

4.  Now that you have completed or almost completed your Technology Specialist Endorsement program journey, what do you believe is your next step(s)?

Since this is my first year in a new school and I’ve put in a lot of work this year, I’d like to continue teaching math for at least the foreseeable future. My current technology coach will be retiring in three years, so I could see myself going for that position when the time comes. She also teaches two technology classes during the day, which means I’d still get to interact with students while also being a coach. That sounds like an ideal situation to me.

Updated perceptions of being a technology leader & Implementation of a new pilot experience

In the past two years, my roles and experiences have changed dramatically, which have majorly shaped my perception of being a technology specialist. I went from being a veteran “teacher-leader” when it came to technology in my old school, leading me to become the Technology Instruction Coordinator last year. Now after moving to a new state I am back to being a new teacher trying to learn the system and make it work for me. Based on my experience as a technology leader, and how I’ve perceived my other technology leaders, I think the most challenging aspect is finding ways to spend your time that will create the biggest positive impact on your building.

When I was the leader, I was given the task by admin to find a way for students to make the most out of study hall, and my idea was to have them practice math on Khan Academy two days a week. Although I had confidence this was a beneficial plan, and my admin supported me after I showed them data proving my own personal successes with the tool, in the end I’m not sure it made an overall positive impact on the school. I can think of a number of reasons that made it unsuccessful. In the book Switch by Chip and Dan Heath, we have learned that to be an effective change agent you need to “Direct the rider, motivate the elephant, and shape the path.” I focused a lot of time and energy on trying to do these things, but I know that I could have been more efficient with each. For example, I tried really hard to motivate the students in the study halls to see the value in practicing math with Khan Academy. But I was not their math teacher, and they were receiving mixed messages from the person responsible for their math learning about whether the site was useful or not. I had been rejected by teachers for years when I tried to support them with using the site with their students, showing them that it’s good extra practice beyond what they are doing in class. Nonetheless, teachers were still giving homework on paper and on various websites, and they told the students that they could ignore our expectations and just do their paper homework instead. I did spend time teaching the math department about our new system and why we were doing it, but probably not enough. If I would have invested more time training the math teachers on how to use Khan Academy, showing them my own personal success stories and how I used the site to motivate students, perhaps there would have been a more consistent message and the students wouldn’t have pushed back as much. If this program would have been successful in the beginning, I would have had more time to spend on helping other areas of the school, which would have made the most positive impact in the building. 

Now that I’m back in the role of being a teacher and looking to my own technology leader for support, I see how each scenario can limit what you’re able to focus on as a leader. My current leader has to teach three different technology classes throughout the day, as well as finding time to support teachers. Due to this, she is mainly supporting the teachers that need it the most and seek her out. The school also just recently switched to 1:1, so there are many issues that I dealt with previously that are just now on the radar of my new school.

This leads me to my pilot experience I’ve begun implementing this week, which is to use the site GoGuardian to manage student devices while utilizing them in my classroom. I was used to using Hapara to “focus browsing” at my old school, limiting students to only the sites that I wanted them to use while in my classroom. When I didn’t have this tool for the first time, I immediately noticed how hard it was to keep all of my students on task when asking them to use their computers, as I’ve grown to accept that it’s pretty much inevitable I will have to warn a new student each day to stop playing games. My immediate impression of planning and implementation was how much more difficult it is to do something like this working in a big district. My school district consists of nearly 50 schools and serves around 40,000 students, so the technology department is spread out pretty thin to make sure everyone’s needs are being met. The decisions that they make have a major impact on the community and need to be well thought-out. I’ve reached out to several leaders on whether they knew anything about the district’s vision for this issue, and my email has been forwarded to several different people with nobody being able to give me a clear answer. Eventually I was told that we are leaning towards getting GoGuardian, but nothing has been finalized yet. I still am waiting for more information, but I reached out to GoGuardian myself and think I’ll be able to get the pilot off the ground. I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what I’d like my implementation to look like, but it is difficult when I have to wait to hear back from everyone on the chain of command. My co-workers have been asking for guidance on what we can do to prevent misuse of technology during class, so I’m excited to try out the site, collect data, and hopefully show the district that we are ready for a tool like this.