Reflection on the past few weeks:

In the past few weeks, we have been finishing up our Leading Edge portfolios and getting them ready for evaluations. As part of the certificate program I have created a mini-unit on Native Americans and Explorers, an online syllabus for a 5th grade math course which is accessible to text readers, and finally a reflection of my course work and how it relates to the iNACOL Standards for Online Teaching.

What has been fantastic about the certification process, is that I am creating assignments that can, and have been, implemented in my classroom immediately. I loaded up Google Classroom with the four assignments I created (3 formative and 1 summative assessment), carved out an hour and twenty minutes in my afternoons for the week and basically told my class of 5th graders to follow the directions and take the assignments in order of #1-4. I transformed a traditionally face-to-face unit into a a self-paced blended unit.

This was a huge learning experience for myself. I got to see how the students budgeted their time–for the most part very good, helped each other out–a nice surprise!, and how the assignments worked with our aging technology (iPad 2s)–Drawing and Docs doesn’t play nice with image sizing, Slides works best. The built-in checking for understandings showed me students were learning, having fun with the different content, and enjoying taking the content on their own learning schedule.

Reflecting on my readiness for an online/blended environment has shown that I need to create more space to build community with our iPads and access to the internet. I am planning to create a Google+ community where students can ask questions about content, discuss content, and even work together on problems of the week. With this community, it would be a great opportunity to teach and practice digital citizenship which I also do not really talk about with my class in a structured way.

I also feel like I have learned so much not only through this Leading Edge process, but also the IEC as a whole, that my head is spinning with ideas. As I implement new ideas, I need to continue to reflect on what has been successful and what needs tweaking. Too often I am looking for fast results and run to the next idea, but real sustained success with teaching and student learning takes time. It is a marathon–not a sprint. I need to be patient with myself and take it day by day. I truly feel that I have jumped a huge hurdle: I have 1:1 technology and I am focusing on good pedagogy. The baseline has been built, now all I need to do is tweak here and there and oil the hinges when they get squeaky.

Google+:

Through my participation in our Google+ community I learned about an awesome Twitter Chat aptly titled #CUEIEC! The amazing Lisa Nowakowski has started it. She and I were the first, and only, participants in the first ever chat. I see it growing as it continues and I look forward to participating in more chats. We discussed what makes a blended classroom and what tools we have found that has worked well for us. What made the chat better is that we are both 5th grade teachers in California. I shared my Native American/Explorer project with her and she shared her ideas about having student create maps through Google Maps to record learning.

I also posted my Project to Google+ and have received positive feedback. It sounds like I am on the right track. As much as I want it to be at 1,000 followers and annual events, I need to remind myself that this will take time as well. I need to keep it updated and modify it to fit the needs of its users as it goes forward.

Project Status:

I’ve been utilizing my avenues of communication that I’ve created with the Kings County Educators’ Collective to spread awareness of cool local professional development and networking opportunities. What will take this project global is creating a template/battle plan for others to follow if they wish to replicate it in their own counties/districts/states.

Elective Status:

I’m waiting until after Mobile Technologies to finish my final two electives: Web 2.0 and Cloud Computing.